Fear.

I sent a letter to President Barack Obama yesterday.

I'm not usually one to write to the president. I mean, how many letters does that man get, anyway? Who am I to comment and have him actually read it? But I had a good idea.

What would happen if we all came forward and got to know each other? Not just to make friends, but to really be one community, one family? What would happen if we not only had a plan to meet up with friends and family in case of emergency, but if an entire city had a plan to find each other when the lights go out?

Do you know where your neighbors are? It's eight o'clock, and the lights are out because someone, someone far away, wants to make you suffer. Your community is without power, there's no Internet, no radio (unless you've got batteries), no grocery store, no transactions with credit and debit cards, no washing machine --

no oven.

How do you survive? What if it's more than three days? What if the National Guard can't get there because there are just too many places in the same situation? What if an entire state, an entire country or an entire electrical grid goes down and you're not in the right place at the right time?

(I'm referecing an ice storm that practially stoned Quebec many years ago. Most of the lower end of the province was without power for over a week. People had to take in their neighbors. My friend was in this, and her family was taken in. The ice was so thick that the entire power grid went down, towers and all. The hydro (power) company took in workers from the United States. But what would happen if the power grid was down everywhere?)

Think about it. We're afraid to get to know our neighbors. (I keep typing the "u" and I know the brits and aussies would forgive me, but according to my statcounter, most of my readers are in the good ole US of A.) I know my neighbors, even if I don't know their names. I walk by them and can tell by the flowers on the porch who lives there. We smile and say hi, but we don't bring over cakes. It's not the 50's, I tell myself, so who cares if I bring something over and say hello?

What happened to the good old days when people formed a community, when children played in the street with each other? Fast moves, frequent change of address due to changing economic circumstance, CNN articles on kidnappings, video games and lack of empathy.

Where are we? Are we on the right road? What happens when we know each other's names? Everyone has one, according to the Registrar General (or whatever that is in this country.) What happens when we come together and prepare for disaster in a way that only individuals can muster. What happens when we figure out that we can pull up our own bootstraps and save ourselves? Maybe the National Guard needs to be someplace and they don't have enough people to serve us all. If we're not on fire, we need to start our own.

President Obama knows the big lessons history gives us. We need to learn to make do with what we have. We are the most resourceful people on the planet, so we tell ourselves, but while I'm using all the electricity I want to stay warm, listen to music, and type, some fool in Africa is using our leftover pop cans to build a roof to shade from the sun. It's hot out there, people.

Gotta find some shade.

Come together, everyone. It's time to learn how to make ourselves one. Especially in the most divided city in the middle of Michigan. We are one Saginaw.

--Naomi

Pimp my ride.

Well, people, I'm entirely too predictable. Sorry about that. See, when you're attempting to prank the Universe, I mean, what do you give to the deity who has everything? So hard to shop when all the stores are open and everything is on clearance when it's the on season.

I saw these lyrics a few months ago, and they didn't agree with me. Then I met the devil one day (seriously, I don't really think he's all that bad. What is profound spiritual growth but suffering?) and he showed me a different way to look at things. What if (she asks no one in particular), we played a little game of opposites? What if this song is precisely the opposite of what you think it means, but you have to be on the in-side to get it?

I don't like being rushed. Getting out of the house with three kids is like escaping the black hole of Calcutta. (I realize that's cliched, but what can you do? (she shrugs, Jewish-style.)

(I'll have a hot glass of water with a slice of lemon, please.)

Read the following song in two ways, and you'll see my dilemma. First, read it as if every line were the opposite, considering that death is an illusion and suffering is based on our level of personal enjoyment (it's not as cruel as it sounds.) Then, read it as if it's a dialogue -- what if the song is a conversation with someone who does exist? (I've, um, included some friends in this, so sorry if I missed you.)

Xtc — Dear God lyrics

Dear God, hope you got the letter, and...I pray you can make it better down here. (That was me, at the beginning.)

I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer (This is God's sense of humour.)

But all the people that you made in your image, see
Them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get (This is the USM and Meghan)

Enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you (This is still me to some extent.)

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard (This is from Rob and Jennifer.)

Loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears (This is from President Obama)

And all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
In the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God, (God knows this.)

I can't believe in you (so say we all at some point.)

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? (This is from Seth)

Did you make
Mankind after we made you? (This is from Bruce. Freudian, my tuchas.)

And the devil too! (This is from my inner child. Hey Mikey, want some cereal?)

Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on
A lot of quotes in this book, (This is from the Rebbe, and Heidi -- but it's a message for me as well.)

and us crazy humans wrote it, you (This is directly from me to you all)

Should take a look, and all the people that you made (Hi, Sascha and GooseBreeder.)

in your
Image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and
So do you, dear God, I can't believe in I don't believe (This is from the Chicken-Fried Ass.)

in (This is me and a Small Town OK Girl.)

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always (This is me and all of my people.)

Letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you (This is my anger.)

Drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same (This is my fear.)

the Whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'd perceive that (This is Steven James)

my heart's here upon
My sleeve.
If there's one thing I don't believe in it's you.... (as you are, not you as you can be. That's from God. Go figure.)

I'm not trying to offend -- but Stumble this and see what happens. It's a random kind of day today, being the least day of the week. Strange how I come up with these ideas in the middle of the things* (I want this quote, hang on while I look for it):

couldn't find it because it's too dark, just like the funniest part (read inside) of a cow. So I looked for another book, being the random person that I am, and came across this quote:

"It makes sense that the wavelength of the wave associated with this lightest particle with nonzero extra-dimensional momentum would be about the same as the extra dimension's size." (Um, yea, I'll have fries with that shake.) **

*Recommended reading for said life experience:

A Wind in the Door
by Madeleine L'Engle
See Blajeny: The Teacher who brings Proginoskes to Meg and sends them on their journey to save Charles Wallace

** Warped Passages, page 356. Get it and read it if you can. If not, makes a great doorstop or paperweight or sleeping pill for the perplexed.

Have a nice day. Beware of Romulans bearing gifts. Don't let the back door slam on your tuchas as you're walking out, and I can't wait to see the back of you.

Love, Naomi

What if Godot never comes?

I've been thinking about a play (get this) that I read in high school. It's called, "Waiting for Godot." For those not in the know, it's about two men (sad clowns, really) who are waiting for a friend near a tree. They console, they whine, they entertain themselves with silly things but in the end it's a play in two parts about absolutely nothing but waiting for an ending that never arrives.

Or does it?

It's such a deep play that I studied it again in university (that's the way Canadians used to say it) in French (joke was on me -- I only got it when I saw it as performed in a theatre. Trust this bilingual chick to only understand French through body language.)

So I went back in time, today, my own personal wormhole via Wikipedia and read the summary (the Cole's/Cliff's Notes version of the 21st century) once more and found much more than I anticipated.

I was going to write about waiting for something to happen. What happens if nothing does? But the play is far deeper than that and I, as a mere 40 year old, am humbled by the brilliance and underlying themes that I never anticipated as a young-yet-brilliant 18-year-old.

What if time is just a repeating loop and the more we look at it the more we learn? What if it's not the endings that matter but the deeper introspection into the second round?

What if, (she asks to absolutely no one in particular) we just waste our time waiting but in the end the wasting is the point?

I ask this because, if you don't know, I really don't plan these in advance. I get an idea and sometimes I look for a quote but today it hit me over the head (no, really) and I just had to see what happens when I play with an idea.

I play with ideas and I play with time. Some people call it wasting. I used to call it that until I woke up one day and realized I already had everything I needed. So what else could I do with myself now that, according to all Newfoundlanders, all the trees were cut down and sent off and the fish were harvested (that's a Canuck bitter-sweet joke).

I'm left with my own feelings about things, and honestly I'd rather drive off into the sunset than deal with them. Thinking is hard for me -- so hard to aim my thoughts at the intended idea rather than just let them swirl in a fog of Christmas prep.

I dance in my kitchen and attempt to juggle the universe. I keep waiting for something to just park in my lap and deliver my destiny but apparently I have to go out and get it. I don't relish the thought of doing my own shopping for myself. I actually hate to have to select just about anything -- I dither and dally in stores looking for just the right thing. The thing is, I know it when I see it.

I'm too visual and visceral and it's a lethal combination. You know, I do try and stay normal through all of this, although I've discovered several new addictions, including talking to the universe, learning to heal people (although not myself, that's too profound a punishment to give up lightly) and making my way toward several new careers, even though the least of them leaves me with the strongest opinion and would take the most work.

So what happens when you're left in the middle? Godot may have come (and it's not God, it's not revelation, but maybe it was a true friend that in the end had too much faith in him and was merely testing the others into insisting that he come. Maybe they didn't know the rule, and never thought about it because they really wanted to see this poor sop and never knew that he might be somewhere else.)

What happens when the universe lies? Is it really truth-in-waiting or maybe some other title before the aristocracy falls?

I'm impatient -- and this may be yet my longest blog. You might find it worthwhile to pour yourself something while I pour out my angst. It's hot and black and goes well with biscuits. I find two bags of it quite enough after I wash out my own pot.

So hard to decide when Godot really does show up and you don't realize it because it's not a person or a box in brown paper. So hard to understand that Godot may be just the sparks inside others and the words we hear in our lover's lips are from somewhen else.

I worry that these blogs will be deleted accidentally if I pause, but then I realized, they're already saved. What if we are too? Not in the traditional salvation way, but what if time and destiny are already here? What if that's what Godot is -- just time? If we're swimming in an ocean of it, how can we wait for the tide? It's far more subtle underwater.

I've got ghosties chatting with me on all sides -- you would not believe what the Otherworld has to say these days. Apparently my life is in question -- so much gossip. You'd think they'd clean my house, although they have said they would if they could.

So trembling are my insides when I think that you might actually publish this in its entirety, Naomi. I cannot believe that after all this time you finally realize that it's the hardest thing to listen adn not be able to respond. I wish I could get a word in edgewise, and look, here I am.

Please do tell me your thoughts but you'd better be willing to publish this. There's this guy waiting here, he took time off work to show you himself and you keep syaing it's not good enough but what if it is God, and he took time off creating the universe to tell you his thoughts? what if he's really waiting for you to type I submit again and again and again you say well guess what what if it's never enough? What if you insist and you don't get what you want? That is a good question -- I see that what you do is make educated guesses on what gets the best outcome. That's interesting. I need you to talk and say how you feel.

See, that's the thing. I submit -- such a Christian term for a nice Jewish (read rebellious) girl who grew up knowing only that she had to claw her way on her own. I didn't know any such rules. I don't like them. I'm a non-conformist to the core (except when it suits me) and I think of it as losing not only face but identity to admit (see, that's the right word) what really matters to me.

I disagree with the Universe. I keep saying that the destiny I want is what I expect, and lo and behold, I get an opinion from the great beyond saying that if that does not happen, what do I do when I get the unexpected?

What matters to me is love. Not just love but reciprocal love that doesn't require anyone to bow. Jews don't bow. They only prostrate themselves before God.

But, Jews do bend. They bend again and again and sometimes they just don't realize that other people play by different rules. Even the Otherworld doesn't understand that what I wanted was something to bend with me, not play on me and prey on me. I get angry just thinking about all this bending, but I do it in my own way.

In the end, what I reach for continuously is self-acceptance. What I wait for is destiny, and I do realize that I'm too passive about it. But I'm also someone who understands that things come in stages (that's the least of my lessons, these days) and that a year without myself probably isn't enough. Even a year within is never enough.

So to the ghosts that haunt me, here is your legal tablet in the form of 21st century communication. I submit to the following -- that I am stubborn. That I am fundamentally changed by my experiences. That I am persistent and worthy and intelligent and creative and loving. That I am angry. I submit that I am not ready to make certain choices and only wanted to form my opinions in my own way. This has been denied, because, well, destiny intervened or God or the baby crying -- any way you slice it I live my life interrupted.

When life denies, I just keep moving. I look for acceptance elsewhere. I do give it a good go. I think I'm one of the best, most persistent people I know. I also think that in the end, for some, it's just not good enough because what some people call submission is really revenge. And in the end, (and just ask the Otherworld), all we have is love. Revenge is empty. Vengeance is useless. I'd rather pour a pot full of sparkles on my enemies than have them pay.

Here are your sparkles. They're inside all of us and someday you might realize, my darling ghosties, that what you're searching for has already arrived.

I expect you to publish this in some way just like you did with the previous channel and that this message is intended to inspire people to take action in some way and live their lives to the fullest and that I want you to also know that maybe the spelling errors are intended so that people think you're not perfect even tough you knhow you really are. Love, the Omiscience presence throughout the universe.

--Naomi


*Waiting for Godot (pronounced /ˈɡɒdoʊ/) is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait for someone named Godot. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's premiere.

Sweet dreams.

I am falling down the stairs
I am skipping on the sidewalk
I am thrown against the sky
I am raining down in pieces
I am scattering like light

--Small Blue Thing, Suzanne Vega

My daughter had the most interesting dream the other night. Something about needing to move the sun. She pulled it through space until it met Jupiter. It was a disturbing dream -- it displaced the earth, and according to her, everyone died.

She didn't seem upset. Possibly because she's 10 and sees it as just another nightmare along the way to adolescence.

Some people use their nightmares as opportunities. Being the journalist I am, I interviewed her in a casual way and discovered that she pulled the sun, rather than waiting for it to move on its own. She found her own u-haul and towed that star all the way out to the middle of the solar system. Never mind that the lesser planets had a mind of their own.

She's still going on about it, and we've been trying to discover whether the dream will lead to a practical science-fair project or a short story or just something she'll remember as she grows up -- a small spark inside her memory to inspire her to reach for other things.

I used to have just one dream -- a very scary one. When I was about seven, I had a dream that I alone faced an evil villain. I dressed in my best sparkly gold bathing suit, rode on my bike and put toothpaste in his eyes. Just the solution any resourceful child would think of to defeat those who were chasing her.

But the most interesting thing about my daughter is that in her dream she pulled the energy along with her --while I confronted with a small instrument of torture. Which dream is more effective inspiration? Moving the mountain that is our star or riding a small craft on the wind in search of an arrow?

Maybe I need to hitch a tow on my bike and take that star with me when I ride. It might weigh me down -- or maybe I could use it to superpower the wheels and push the arrows that are my children further into the future.

Sweet dreams.

--Naomi

Queen of Chaos

I've been wondering what would happen if Lilith wrote a blog.

Um, I'm not talking about the nice lady (and I do mean that in the nicest possible way) who married Frasier on Cheers.

I'm talking about Adam's first wife.

Once upon a time, when the world was new, God created Adam and saw that he was lonely. So he made Lilith.

Lilith wasn't a typical Eve. In fact, she was nothing like Eve.

Lilith talked back.

Lilith wouldn't sit down and take it.

Lilith was a separate person. She had her own ideas and her own desires and since she wasn't directly taken from Adam's rib, Adam didn't quite think she fit.

This isn't about Adam. But what happened to Lilith, according to Jewish mythology and my own personal view, is that she was discarded. There aren't a lot of nice references -- except for this feminist magazine I used to read back in Toronto.

I always find the story kind of ironic -- a sideways smile on ancient history. Some brilliant woman stood up for herself and got the shaft. Okay, so she wasn't the nicest person. She probably had a big mouth, fiery red hair and the greenest tinge of jealousy when Adam spent time naming the animals.

But she also made the sun rise and the moon set and I bet she was the one who helped name the stars.

So if Lilith had a blog today, what would she write about? What's it like to have your own opinion and stand up for yourself? What happened to Lilith, anyway, after she was sent away? Did she insist on being returned, or did she just pack her bags and take her ego trip to the Underworld?

What would Lilith think of today's world -- I bet she'd like it better than ancient times when women weren't quite considered owners of their own destiny. I bet she'd be thrilled at equal partnerships and voting rights and the ability to own property. I think she'd probably write about her journeys down south (so to speak) and what happened when she came back to see what a mess we thought we'd made.

But I also think Lilith is the queen of chaos (lower case, no official title) so she'd be happy to see such promise in the spills and stains.

--Naomi

Letter to my inner teenager.

Dear Naomi:

You are one of many.
I loved you well.
I became someone more.
I keep you in my heart
but I need this life.
I love my children and they are ours.
I see my eyes and your smile and I see
who you became.

You danced in the driveway
and I dance in my room.
You smiled at the air
and I smile at my children.
You sang to the trees and the sun on
the leaves and
I give to people and
I left you behind.

I reclaim you -- I redeem you.
I take you in.

You are my hope and my dreams
and I deny you no longer.
I love you now as I did then
but I forgot
how to find you
in the rush to begin.

You are the nest under my feathers.
My colors, your branches.
I need you to hold me
I fly without wings.

I am Naomi.
I am several but I am one.
I am love and compassion and
flight
and laughter
and song.
Isn't it possible for one person to hold many attributes?
How can love and laughter be from different parts
when all we are
builds wings inside?


Don't you all want to write one now? Let's begin.

--Naomi

On purpose.

I had a strange dream early this morning. About purpose, and how it affects us, and how we affect and effect ourselves.

A feeling came over me. I'm such an intuitive person -- it's not always images that I dream of, but emotions that take over my body in shudders and sighs. I feel, and I make myself feel.

I'm sitting here typing, and telling you a story. This is purposeful.

Before this, I sat and meditated (which for me means sitting and trying not to think anything in particular while thinking lots of things in general.)

Think that's without purpose?

Think again.

I realized that all the rushing around, the making and the doing, is not just purpose. It's a way to de-purpose as well.

Shakespeare once said that all the rushing is just sound and fury, signifying nothing. (I'm paraphrasing.)

When we move, we use energy. When we think, we also use energy. Not just the energy from the food we eat, or the water (or in my case Diet Coke) we drink, but the energy within ourselves as well.

What we do when we move around, when we cook and clean and take in information, is normally referred to as having purpose. I used to (and still argue with myself) think that this is what must be accomplished. That I must be busy. I'm very much a person of my body -- I like to be in motion. My fingers are almost always doing something, even if it's just doodling on a scrap of paper or flicking the pages of a book.

But, what happens when we sit still is NOT that we cease motion. It's just a cessation of outer motion in order to bring movement inside.

Sitting still and contemplating is also a purposeful (and beautiful thing.) When we finish the motions of the body, we purpose all the stillness inside.

This is also called learning.

In the thick of it all, I thought it best to keep moving. I thought that if only I kept going through the motions, I'd feel the emotions. But what I did was bring all the stillness I felt inside to the outer edges of my body.

And in the stillness, I thought my dark fall would be the end of all motion.

But then the light turned on inside.

And I realized, that with all my outer motion, that tires my body and soothes my restlessness, I'd been recharging my inner battery. I took all the motion on the outside and brought it in.

You have no idea how strong the wind can be on the inside when it must rail against our own bodies. I thought I'd shake myself apart.

You also have no idea (or maybe you do) how strong the light can be when you've been sitting in your own inner darkness.

It's so bright it's blinding, and I've had to feel my way around just as if it was the middle of the dawn, when the eyes are used to night and the sudden rush of day comes over the horizon and makes it difficult to adjust.

How do you use the inner battery to power the the light of the soul and find your way home?

--Naomi

Make new friends...

Okay, I'm an idiot savant.

(The idiot was implied.)

Seriously, an idiot. And unfortunately, I didn't realize it until after the very incident occurred.

I tell myself lies. Everyone does, but this is an important one. I tell myself I'm like Abraham -- that I keep my tent open to receive visitors.

I'm the biggest liar of them all.

My tent is so closed up that I cannot begin to imagine letting new people in. It's hard, because I'm hard. The problem is that people think I'm hard like glass.

But I'm really hard like that chocolate dip you get when you order ice cream at the drive-in off that back road somewhere in the summer.

One bite and I'm just all cracked.

I got an invitation from someone I did not know on Facebook. I did go into this person's profile to see how he knew me -- a friend of a friend. I hadn't spoken to this friend in a while --she's very different and we've become distant.

To make a long story short, I ignored this person's request.

It bugs me.

I didn't feel bad at the time -- something just felt off. I also thought that if I ignored this person's request that I'd be able to go back into it at another time. But unfortunately, that's not how it works on Facebook (FB execs, take note -- this should happen, it's an inutitive reaction. Change your program.)

But you know what? What's the worst that could've happened? Maybe this person would've seen something about me. Maybe this person would've gotten to know me. Maybe this person would've stalked me (my biggest fear, that someone would actually come to my house and see my dirty laundry) but honestly, I'm listed in the phone book under a couple of different names. Anyone who wants me can find me with just a bit of effort.

So I went looking, oh, a couple of weeks later, after I felt just a bit bad about being such a hypocrite. I used to be different. I used to be willing to meet new people. As I get older, it's an effort to make new friends. I fight against it. I tell myself I'm stuck and I need to meet new people -- I'm afraid I'll end up with the same 10 friends from high school.

I apologize. I don't know if this person will read this, but this is the most public place I can think to put this. I do remember your name, and I did go looking but I couldn't find you.

I keep thinking that if I could only clear out my closet of old clothes I can make way for new experiences. I toss out sacred cows but I don't make the burgers.

Anyone want to make a new friend?

--Naomi

Random Fact #2

"Roll The Bones" -- Rush

Well, you can stake that claim
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don't take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Why are we here?
Because we're here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones

Random Fact #2: I like to drive. But not too far.

Okay, you're probably wondering where I've been. Truth? Everywhere, nowhere and in between. Mostly carrying the weight of the world inside my head. Sometimes crying (okay, well lots of crying) sometimes agonizing (okay, lots of that too.)

But yesterday, I started laughing.

I finally started to see the funny side of my life. I started writing it out, and I could not stop typing OR laughing. I laughed so hard I almost split my side. Don't worry, it'll be in my memoirs.

I got a job as a part-time reporter (read stringer) for a couple of dailies out here in the River Styx (pun intended, I like my eye coins silver, not copper.) Work finally picked up, my life is starting to calm down and be profoundly misperceived at the same time.

Sometimes I just have to stand on my head and whistle Dixie. It was a custom, when I was about 10 years old, to put a throw pillow on the floor from my mother's over-priced couch, and bang my feet up onto the too-clean wall in my fruitless attempts to become upside down. Unlike the eggs or pineapple surprise,

I never made it.

But I made damn sure I could whistle in the dark.

So now I'm here. And I wonder -- what would happen if we all just accept that this is it? That we're just here. I want so badly to find more out in the world, but no matter how much I drive, I keep coming back to the same place.

At least on the outside.

Sometimes the synapses that connect us on the inside change direction -- electrical flow reverses with the changing of the automatic gears. I drive in one direction, float the energy outward, and then pull a quick U-ie and speed through the leftover stream of thought.

It's a rush.

So enjoy the song above. I like songs about failure. Not because failure is a goal, but sometimes it's the only option and we have to make the best of it. Failure is not about getting less, it's about getting nothing. It happens because it happens.

The trick is seeing the emptiness for what it truly is. There's a passage in the Torah about tohu-vavohu -- chaos in the deep, just in the first paragraph in Genesis. It's about how the world was empty before God filled it.

But what if the emptiness, the failure, is simply the potential to be full?

--Naomi

Random Fact #1

I liked this post so much in another blog (Thoughts of a Small Town Girl) that I thought I'd try it.

Random Fact #1 about Naomi: I AM BLINDED BY SCIENCE.

What the hell does that mean? It means I let concrete information get in the way of a good idea. I've been having a good idea for months, but I let my own superstitions (read five senses) come between my spirituality and myself.

Science is great. I love it. I've been a science and science-fiction fan for almost 35 years. As soon as I could read beyond the little joined words (and, is, the) and got beyond the Cinderella tales, I started on a path toward the future.

I realized I was finally living the dream back in 2001. I stood on a street corner in downtown Chicago one hot summer evening and saw the newspaper box -- the headline read that the human genome had finally been decoded, years earlier than planned.

My heart stopped. The traffic, human and otherwise, swirled around me in a colorful fog that had no meaning and no symbols other than my own destiny.

I'd made it. I'd lived to see the future, and this was it.

Until it wasn't.

At some point, the future we aspire to live in becomes the present tense, and it's up to us to decide if we can accept it and stop waiting. Once you live in the future, you live here.

I keep waiting for more science. It wasn't so long ago that we laughed at Don Adam's shoe phone, and gave our best guess on when we'd finally explore Mars. Both gone and done and part of the lifestyle.

I need to open my eyes. Look beyond the chemistry of my baking mixes and see the destiny beyond the tree branches.

Amazing Grace
how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
but now am found
was blind
but now

I see.

--Naomi

A nice cup of tea.

Look, I may live in a country that swears it won't do something for all the tea in China, and even still dumped all its tea into the Boston harbor over two centuries ago.

But I still love a nice, hot cup of properly brewed tea.

You can only imagine how hard it is to find one, living in the land of coffee and Coke.

Believe it or not, there's a fabulous little coffee shop that makes pots of tea just like I used to have in Canada. It opened last year, with its sage green and putty beige walls, light GenX soft-rock music, pot lighting and expensive paintings hanging on the walls that you too can have if your checkbook is full enough.

So I went there today for a cuppa. Just a nice pot of English Breakfast brewed just right with the tea leaves, NOT THE TEA BAG AND A CUP OF LUKEWARM WATER. (Yankees, take note.) Don't even need sugar or milk when it's served this way.

I lingered over that cup of tea for almost two hours (well, with several boiling-hot water refills in the pot)and found my own inner strength. That and the strength of a long-term friendship.

Maybe the windows weren't steamed-over like the winter walls of my Chinatown hangout back in Toronto. Maybe the signs were all in English, and the people were all from one small area.

But I still felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Felt almost good enough to be a different day of the week -- Saturdays are normally for shopping and wandering about, not sitting in the lap of leisure dripping jokes and light banter with friends while the cloudy day passes.

Highly recommended. Do visit this nice little shop sometime on State St. in Saginaw -- you won't grow a beanstalk to heaven, but you might just find the goose with the golden egg. (The name of the place is the Magic Bean.)

--Naomi

Running on Empty.

Sooooo, in case you haven't yet noticed, I'm linking myself to a new blog.

Let's just say that some of the more interesting stories in my life deserve justification in their own way. Fiction? Yes. But interesting fiction. YES.

I'm still writing for pay -- working on technical stuff, journalism. But everyone needs a hobby.

I set up the blog last night (you'll know it's me) and accidentally confused some people who thought I was legally changing my name. Legally changing my hair color is more like it.

Sometimes I feel like more is happening inside than out. Sometimes it's worth it to get it all on "paper" (digital paper, that is) and express it into (and I mean like a cow) one bottle.

A hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore....

I'm pulling out the stops and checking for messages inside. But the only bottle I have right now is on my kitchen windowsill. It's from Israel -- a Coke bottle with Hebrew script. Why mention it?

If you found a bottle from somewhere else, perhaps somewhen else, wouldn't you rip off the top and read what's inside?

--Naomi

Just Seth?

So sometimes, in the corner of my mind, I come across strange thoughts. I have strange dreams where I'm flying or falling or wandering long halls. And I meet people. Maybe these little visits are just trips into the astral plane.


One of the people I meet in my dreams is called Just Seth. He's been pretty nice. Amazingly, I'm such a good dreamer that I've met several new friends on the edge of sleep. Allison. Rob. Some guy in Virginia. A strange raven. A man who signs. A beautiful blond boy I used to know in high school.


How can you know someone just in a dream? Repeating dreams, repeating daydreams. And one small phrase that can mean something really, really good, or really, really bad.


Yes indeed-y-doooooo.


Why that phrase? Who knows? It sticks with me. My dreams stay with me like cobwebs on a woooden post. I find myself saying things I've only learned in those flights of fancy. I "indeed" myself. I make myself laugh. One of these days, I'll be the old cat lady with 26 cats in the yard, feeding them leftover Alpo and tying the fringes of my apron in knots.


I wish I could find the people I dream about. I see so many -- I give out my phone number in my laughing way, singing it the way I do to my children. Just find the area code and you're done. Then again, I give out my e-mail address, too, and it's strangely quiet on the mid-Western front.


So if anyone sees a guy named Just Seth, let me know. He looks like a curtain of dark red light -- fluttering and waving against a dark, starry sky. I should know -- I look up at the sky and wish sometimes, hoping against hope that the moon will look down on me and wave back.



--Naomi

Brand New Day

I took this down. I'm republishing it. Why? Because I'm chicken. Because I'm afraid of the woo-woo. The big bad wolf of self-respect. But y'know what? It's a good post. It's honest. It's true to me. And that's what counts. More soon. xoxoxo --Naomi

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams that tied to a horse that will never tire
And near the flames
The shadows play in the shape of the man's desire

This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothings as it seems

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
The rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of hidden hearts and souls
This desert flower
This rare perfurme is the sweet intoxication of love

--Sting

Dear Rabi:

(This is a letter to the ghost I've been channeling. I'm not sure it's his real name, because it's Hebrew and how many people do you meet who have such a beautiful name?)

One of the ghosts, angels or spirits I talk to has been following me for several months. This is my letter to him. Why? Because he's been nudging me to write him, care of all of you, and tell you all what the hell I want to do with my life.

Rabi has been nudging, cajoling, teasing and manipulating me into thinking for myself. I have cried and screamed. I have begged and pleaded. But the thing is, he doesn't go away. He doesn't leave, no matter how far I expel him. (And I am pretty good at expeling.)

Rabi says I discontinue and continue without purpose. That I lack structure, reason and dedication to one specific thing.

He's right.

The one specific thing I lack is purpose for myself. So, Rabi, here's what I want to do.

The skills I've learned through my little (and by that I mean long and involved) conversations with this Otherword mafia king (he's not really, but this will piss him off as I'm sure he's watching while I type) are much different than the skill sets I've been using. He forced me to disclose my intelligence, my perserverence and my dedication to serve and protect others.

I'm way too smart to sit alone and just think all day. I want to help others. I have an enormous gift -- I am a tactical, strategic thinker. I also think on tangents. Think of me as an enormous visual thesaurus. I think of a strategy and work my way outward on different angles. I don't work on a problem directly -- I come and go at will and think of other things.

I think of trees, Rabi. Why? Because a tree is a living being, interconnected both to the ground and itself through a network of trunk, branches and leaves. I am the trunk. I'm a small tree now, but I've grown.

I want to help others develop these psychic abilities. I've been able to measure some of my own and they're pretty strong. (I'm fairly modest, but you can ask me to go on in person.) I want to show other people that it's okay to be psychic. I want to help people develop these possibilities within themselves, because what I've found is that psychic abilitiy is really quantum mechanics -- we're vibrating strings of energy within ourselves and others from a distance through sub-atomic science. Go figure.

Energy can be manipulated with the mind. There are machines currently available to help people with disabilities -- these can be enhanced by people who understand how to use them intuitively. I can also help by showing others how to move outside themselves -- known as remote viewing, to see the world around them in a different way.

I find my way through a series of feelings known as clairsentience. I know how to use a map, but I've got more than a map in my head. I've got feelings and colors and sounds and light that guide me no matter where I am (except Lily Dale, NY, where the compass just spins. Damn ghosts and magnetic field.)

I see and I hear and I feel God. But not just God. I see and hear and feel things that others must feel, even though I've yet to meet them in person.

I want to be part of a community of people, my dear friend, who are like me. I saw a movie when I was but eight years old that had two children, twins, on a journey back to Witch Mountain. They went to find their people. This is what I'm saying.

I've subjected myself to my own pain, through the development of physcial conditions. When you're psychic, your own pain is translated into your body. Ever have a stomach ache because you're stressed? Try killer headaches and chest pain when you're expressing your own dissatisfaction.

I've got a Greek chorus in my head that agrees with me. Apparently, when you're this profound, God shows up with a team of yes-men that say, "That is JUST IT!" whenever you've found your own inner truth.

Below is a message from the ghost who haunts me.

This is the channel. This is the voice of Rabi Ben Hasheveynu. That is indeed how you spell my name. This is what Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn has become. She channels others. She channels others but does not channel herself. I want her to become herself. This is why I contacted her though a variety of entities that I myself chose to emit. I indeed want Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn to become something other than what she is. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn to stop channelling me and find her own voice. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich to write ME a letter, in her own words, that will be published in this blog, about why she needs a new life. I need to understand why Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn does not wish to make this public and why she feels she needs me to channel this mother f*cking blog and to see just how fast she can type as a channel. This is pretty good. These are HER words. These are her words.

Funny. Strange. Invigorating. Inner Truth. These are my words.

--Naomi