The boy in the blue hoodie is my son. In high school he created an open source telephony platform that four years later has its very own conference. This picture was taken today at AdhearsionConf 2010 in San Francisco.

I’ve been following the live feed on UStream. It does a mother good to see and hear her child at such a considerable distance. I’m in southeast Texas; he’s in northern California.

The highlight of today’s event was a presentation by a Canadian programmer who described how Adhearsion allowed his team to create an interactive art project for Montreal’s 2010 Music and Technology Festival.  The goal of the Mutek project was to use social media to create good vibrations to help heal the earth and its people.

Passersby called into a number posted on a building and were told how to generate the digital music that can be seen streaming across the side of the building. It’s a beautiful example of collective, harmonic music-making by strangers on a street.

Pretty impressive, I’d say. Way to go, Jay!

Imagine this. . .

You walk into a nice restaurant and hear Paul McCartney singing, only it isn’t Paul McCartney, it’s someone who sounds exactly like him. You are entranced by this young musician. When he takes a break, you go over and speak to him. There is an immediate spark, a connection. A romance blooms. You start going with him to the recording studio where he is making a demo tape. The two of you become lovers.

Flash forward 36 years. . .

You are sitting at your computer, reading articles on your Google Reader, when you see this former lover’s name. You Google his name and discover that he is now an accomplished filmmaker with several documentaries under his belt and an enormous following on Facebook. You write to him and he writes back.

A correspondence ensues. . .

You read things in his emails that fill you with nostalgia and longing. You allow these feelings to swell up inside you and be felt. You have seldom experienced emotions so intense.

You spend your time watching his films online. He appears in them much like Carl Sagan did, seated and calmly speaking his truth into a camera. He still looks and sounds good. You begin to imagine a reunion.

You view a premiere that was recorded at the same theater where the Emmys are announced. You hear a Hollywood notable introduce him as the most important documentary filmmaker of our time.

You know this person. . .

You realize that his talent and his celebrity, combined with the memories of your time with him, are causing you to feel something you have never felt before. It is a huge feeling.

You get an email from him that contains lyrics to a song he says he wrote about you 36 years ago. He says he will bring his guitar with him and sing this song to you someday.

Southern Lady

As I strolled across a country bridge in New Orleans,

While the Moon was shining a silvery light.

I met a silky haired blue-eyed Southern Lady

I knew right then I had to make things right.

It all started by the way she dressed, the way she combed her hair.

I’m glad I made her mine, my Southern Lady.

I took her down to Ruby’s, we had a drink.

We must have stayed up and danced all night long.

It all started by the way she dressed, the way she combed her hair.

I’m glad I made her mine, my Southern Lady.

- - musical solo - -

As we stroll across that country bridge in New Orleans,

While the Moon shines its silvery light away,

It seems so funny now we’re old and gray,

We live our lives just day to day.

I’m glad I made you mine,

I’ve loved you all the time,

It’s just you and me, my Southern Lady…

Mmmm - mmmm - yeah

It’s just you and me, my Southern Lady.

You read these words and your heart turns into something almost too big to bear. You realize that you have just been gobsmacked by the power and allure of romantic love. What a precious gift when you can get it. –

Question: What she did to me was pure evil. Why is there so much evil in the world?

Answer: There is no such thing as evil. There is only the absence of spirit.

The duality that you sense in yourself, the one and the other, is proof of an intact spirit. As long as you can sense this otherness in yourself, you are healthy. All spirits support life and well-being; they cannot do otherwise because they are attached to Source. There are no evil spirits.  There are younger spirits and older spirits but not evil spirits.

Your spirit animates you because the mechanistic mind is little more than an organ formed of soft tissue whose function is similar to that of a computer software program. Because it is capable of generating electrical impulses through its own biological processes, you think it is more powerful than it is.

Attempts to create life without spirit have yielded fish, insects, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and spiders. These groups are know as fibars. Fibars are the oldest creatures on earth for a reason. They were originally cast as toys for spirits and Source to play with.

Is it evil when the lizard reaches out its tongue and catches a fly? Is it evil when the bird swoops down upon the grasshopper? No. It is the means by which these gadgets sustain themselves. No spirits are lost in these transactions. Spirits are never lost.

Source is called the Creator for a reason. When Source accomplishes one thing, it creates another thing. Next to the earth itself, spirit-filled animals are Source’s greatest creations.

In addition to playing with fibars, spirits, who are the offspring of Source, wanted playthings they could ride. They wanted vehicles. Thus, Source created the mammal group to allow spirits young and old this great joy ride.

You are fortunate to be among this most excellent and exciting group.

The mechanistic mind in humans is a marvel of Creation. It can at times come so close to autonomous function that one would hardly recognize the presence of spirit. However, a mind without spirit to operate it is little more than a fibars. Such waste is seldom allowed by Source.

Remember, spirit’s interest in incarnation revolves around its ability to enjoy food and sex. These two great pleasures are a spirit’s only motivation for manifesting in the flesh. Enjoyment is the natural state of all spirits, embodied or not.

Think of the games you play. Rock’em Sock’em robots. Remember that one? The red robot is not injured when its head is knocked off by the blue robot. Similarly, the spirit within you is never injured. It is your mechanistic mind that conjures up images of pain, defeat, humiliation. Spirit has no capacity for such things. If spirit inhabited the robot instead of you, do you think it would be injured by a hit to the head? It would not.

What you call evil is merely a word to spirit. Spirit knows it is invincible and that knowledge can make it appear foolhardy. Spirit will sometimes let go of the reins, or retreat, in order to see what mind will do. It is similar to the thrill of riding a roller coaster with your hands in the air or driving a car with your hands in your lap. Crashes can occur.

Understanding the gamesmanship engaged in by spirits is something beyond your ken.

Humans are not at fault for what may appear to be evil acts. A human mind does not a human make. You cannot be held responsible for your innate insufficiencies. When spirits relinquish control, things can and do go awry, but that is not your fault. Spirits are wholly in charge of human well-being.

Spirits retreat because they can. They exit the body or stay because they want to.

A spirit is as playful as a child. That is precisely why children are so playful. Children are fully operated by spirit.

Question: Okay, but I am no child. What about my problem?

Answer:  If you think there is a problem, an evil, it is your mechanistic mind deceiving you. All you need to understand is that you are more spirit than flesh, and spirit has no problems.

Question: Why am I feeling so crazy? I can’t sleep, I’m nervous, cranky, I can’t seem to settle down.

Answer: It is not your fault. You are suffering from the heat.

Unborn energies hover around those in heat, the biochemical kind of heat that all animals have. While hovering, they generate a lot of actual heat. This heat affects your body’s energy system, causing you to feel restless. That is why arousal is called heat.

Unborn entities are attracted to your energy much like bees are attracted to nectar. These spirits are made of ether, yet they have form and energy. What they want is incarnation. They want their shot at being human because human food and human sex are highly sought after. They are, in fact, two of the best things in the universe.

Earth is like Costa Rica or Tahiti for some spirits. It’s a highly prized vacation spot that will give them decades of delight. A human lifetime can be seen as a mini-vacation from timelessness. A spirit’s vacation time is dependent on the human’s lifespan. Some spirits vacation for longer periods than others. Of course, the spirit animates the human so they are one and the same.

As for reproductive matters, it is not just estrogen and testosterone and dopamines and all the other words humans use to describe mating conditions that cause those in heat to feel and act strangely crazy. That is part of it, but the preponderance of eager spirits surrounding healthy, fertile humans is what causes all the commotion. These vying spirits stir up a lot of energy, jousting for position to be first to incarnate. They are similar to sperm in this regard, only they carry no gender. Gender is a choice they make. It is much like choosing a hotel.

This is why young people especially seem to have so much “drama” in their lives. Spirits, like humans, value physical beauty, and youth is almost always beautiful. Younger spirits are attracted to younger humans. The process of attaching spirit to DNA is a great thrill ride with many passengers, all of whom want the coveted spot. This process of being bombarded by eager spirits can literally cause a person to lose control. Losing control is what precedes habitation by spirit.

The actual act of spiritual impregnation begins with sexual orgasm. Here in the mad reach of sperm to egg, spirit experiences that which is denied it in timelessness — the ahhhh moment, the shiver of bliss, the great joining of male and female. All spirits gain entry through the stillness of this great bliss.

Sometimes they change their minds or chicken out just as humans seem to do. This is when miscarriages and abortions occur. Humans are in no way at fault for these losses once spirit has attached itself to life. Spirit is the one who forgoes the intent to grow up as human.

Older spirits may choose to incarnate as what may appear to be damaged humans, children with birth defects and genetic anomalies. They do this mainly because they can; it is part novelty on their part and part intention to share valuable lessons. These spirits are just as rare as the lives they inhabit. Often they forfeit good sex in these roles in exchange for special care. They have been here before.

Animals nursed by mothers are spirit-filled as well. Birds, fish, and insects are not. These groups are akin to what might be called robots. It is not within human ken to understand the properties animating those who emerge from eggs.

Aging and dying are similar to a once pristine hotel room that has been altered by extended occupancy. The ends of human DNA strands begin to unravel as spirit prepares to leave the room. It is messy. That is why you see the elderly less animated. This unraveling can be prevented, of course, but spirits have little interest in remaining in the same body forever. There is so much more to explore.

Accidental deaths, suicides, and fatal conditions are similar to miscarriages and abortions. Spirits frequently find reasons and ways to exit a body with intact DNA. Such behavior on their part is wholly benign. Death of any kind does not diminish spirit. Spirit can only enlarge itself.

The process used to animate birds, fish, and insects can be applied to humans as well, but there is little interest in this field.

Question: Okay, so do you have any advice for me?

Answer: Sure. If you want the hovering spirits to leave, you must calm yourself. Sit quietly, breathe fully, lower your vibration, and they will leave.

The summer before my son entered high school, I packed up my little family and moved us to Houston, where I had accepted a teaching job. Six weeks into the school year, I packed us up again and moved back to Beaumont.

On the drive back from my mother’s house last week, my daughter asked me why we left Houston. The story that I heard emerging from my mouth was both sad and hilarious. It’s also a good example of how to know whether you’re on your right path or not. Life will certainly give you clear indicators when you’re not where you’re supposed to be, and my signs couldn’t have been any clearer.

It went something like this.

Rats

They weren’t really rats. They were field mice that had occupied those environs long before houses were built. New construction in the area was driving them out of their habitat. But to me they were rats and they were scary. I found their tiny entry points in my kitchen cabinets and taped them up with whatever I could find, but they chewed right through all of it. At night I would sometimes see them scurrying across the kitchen floor, and I would lie awake worrying about what to do. I’d never lived with rats. Rat poison seemed my only choice. . . .

Air conditioner

We moved in August. Houston is HOT in August. My air conditioner went out, and that’s when you could smell them — dead rats. I called the air conditioner repair people. They charged me $500 to fix the a/c. A week later it went out again. The smell was worse than the heat. I gave them another $500. A week later it went out again. We were dying in the August heat with the smell of dead rats all around us. The air would go out again. . . .

Washer/dryer

The dryer worked but I was missing something I needed to hook up the washer. It was one of those things I would get to eventually, but in the meantime the laundry piled up, which meant frequent trips to the laundromat, which took a couple of valuable hours out of a day. Toting baskets of wet laundry home to dry was too hard, so I sat at the laundry and dried them and folded them and carted them home and upstairs and it was exhausting. It was so hot. . . .

Telephone

The phone worked fine for a while, then it quit. Someone, probably one of the many children who were in and out of the house, decided that it would be funny to turn the batteries around in my single cordless phone (cell phones weren’t out yet). I didn’t know what the problem was at first, and for quite a while we were without a phone, which made it impossible to call repair people or locate missing children. . . .

Car

One morning I got up to go to work and my car wouldn’t start. That had never happened before. Someone from the school picked me up, and I called a tow truck to pick up my car. For several days we were stranded in Houston without a vehicle, which is quite unsettling, especially when your air conditioning and telephone don’t work and you can smell dead rats. The repair bill was equally unsettling. . . .

Smoking

I’ve been an on-again, off-again smoker much of my adult life. I had promised the kids that I wouldn’t smoke in the new house, which meant going outside in the heat to smoke. Quitting smoking during a particularly stressful point in your life is not a great idea. I wasted a lot of time sitting on the patio with a cigarette when I could have been unpacking boxes or mopping floors. But my nerves were starting to fray. . . .

Job

A new job in a new city is always stressful, but this job was killing me. I had 150 7th graders, and I’d never taught 7th grade. The woman who hired me knowing this thought it would be a good idea to give me morning cafeteria duty, which meant I had no time to set up or prepare for the day. When the bell rang for first period, I left the cafeteria with the students. Add to this my total inability to use the schools computerized attendance and grade reporting systems. One of the chief reasons I left my former teaching job was my district’s refusal to invest in computers. I wanted a computer in my classroom, and when I got one, I didn’t know how to use it. . . .

13-year-old daughter

Jill still seldom meets a stranger. She entered 8th grade at the new school with her typical enthusiasm and made friends easily. The only problem with that is that her friends were 8th graders too, and some of their siblings were much older. There was a constant influx of teenagers early on, and somewhere in that mix my phone batteries got turned around. On the second Saturday after school started, Jay and I were sitting up at midnight waiting phonelessly for Jill to show up when the doorbell rang. It was a police officer, asking me to follow him. Well, let’s just say that Jill had gotten herself into a little trouble with some older teenagers whose parents were out of town. . . .

It’s Time to Go

There was no single precipitating event that caused me to write my letter of resignation that Friday afternoon at the end of the first six weeks. Or maybe there was. Maybe my principal’s voice on the intercom reminding me that everyone had turned in their grades but me and that she needed mine NOW is what did it. I recall the total calm that overcame me as I scratched out a handwritten note to the personnel director.

It absolutely was the right thing to do. I had no doubt. I might never teach again for breaking a contract, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to go home and sit in the red porch swing my husband had built. I wanted to look at the beautiful landscape I had created with my own hands over the course of many years. I wanted to talk to my neighbor. I wanted my life back.

The kids were furious, of course. Jay loved the international flavor of Dulles High School. Jill loved all the new friends she had made. I ignored their protestations and returned us to the place from which we had come.

Driving back from Louisiana, hearing Jill’s laughter at the sheer absurdity of this story, I realized for the first time why I had to leave Houston. She was asleep in the car seat behind me. I had to go home to get her.

Jill, Brooke, and me at Mom’s house in Louisiana

Baby Brooke started holding her head up this week.