A very real light [shines] through a very fictional display.

Jeffrey J. Kripal, Changed in a Flash

Since the start of this year, after thirteen years of subbing, I’ve decided to work toward a teaching credential. I had pushed it away for a long time, even resented the idea of ending up a teacher; but what this direction has enabled me to see is how the rest of my life and other works are fitting in. They are not separate, black and white things—either I’m doing this or that. They are meant to work together. Keeping my brain focused on studying math for instance, is opening up more creativity over yonder. I don’t know yet how everything fits in, but it feels like a puzzle. When I get inspired to write a little something over here, all I have to do is plug that in without knowing how the rest of the picture is going to look. Every time a piece presents itself, I just have to keep plugging it in. Perhaps on a corner of the puzzle a picture will appear and that will feel like a fulfillment or a resolution of sorts, but it’s by no means a complete thing, just a corner of a much larger piece. Teaching full time might be one of those corners or an interesting pattern somewhere in the picture that’s affecting the mood, lighting and actions in the rest of the scenario. 

            What I really want is to know the light, but I also want to enjoy what it’s displaying and play with that. Maybe that’s the Magician part (in Tarot). The Fool is the light and the Magician is the projector that shows you whatever movie you wish. The movies that I enjoy are the fictions—career, writing, music, relationships, houses, travel. But the resting place, the one where I go to for comfort, for rest, for reassurance, for a break is the light. 

            So, yes, near-death experiences that I have been so fascinated with lately are fictions/more movies, but the light is also directly known. The near-death experiencers cannot merge with the light without completely dying. The light tells them, “It’s not your time yet. Your mission is not done.” It is, YOU, as person are not done. Maybe it’s for more lessons. But all lessons lead to knowing the light and eventually merging with the light. How many more rounds one needs on the merry-go-round is up to the true desire of the soul. I don’t think anyone chooses their true desire. It’s whatever we’re drawn to, that can’t seem to let go until it’s been completed. When that thing is no longer drawing you, then it’s done. But we can’t force it. We have to go for it completely with all our being until we’ve exhausted it.

Hence, Jed McKenna’s parachute metaphor: You’re floundering around, not knowing what it is you want exactly, but when the ground becomes clearer or the end more detrimental, suddenly you start to see the spot where you supposed to land. I feel that for me it’s been self-actualizing my career. Yes, the interest in the light is always there. It’s titillating and I keep scratching that itch, but my overall interest (what draws not only my attention, but action) is getting situated financially, in a career, in a home. Not so much family. If a family were to happen, then I would fit it in, the way one does when a relative arrives unexpectedly, staying at your place, and now you have to feed them and show them around. You fit them in, but they’re not the main event. If having a child was the main event, then I would constantly be putting my eagle eye on it. It would keep nagging at me the way career/my purpose/my work on this earth has been nagging at me pretty much since childhood. I have been looking for my work. 

            I’m starting to see how work is shaping up. It’s comprised of many different elements. It’s not one thing. Everything I’m doing has a role to play, has a place. A steady job keeps me focused, gets me paid, and gets me to focus on other people besides myself. Music gives me a disciplined practice, gets creative juices flowing, helps with cooperation, and again, gets me to connect with others. Writing/reading gels everything together. It gives me purpose in between purpose, but it also explains the purpose itself. It gets me to connect with the light and so does everything else I suppose. It connects me to the larger self, to the larger mind (other worlds, middle-earth stuff, breaks through space/time). I can also use writing to leave something of what I’ve learned, experienced, understood. Pass it on. Do for others what it has done for me. 

I’m passing this post onto you.