Friday, August 1, 2008

Vacation Stream of Consciousness

I'll write more later, and will respond to comments as well, but I'm very tired from the vacation. I have some things to say about what I experienced, about people and what they do on long train rides, a dream I had about shopping in a magazine aisle while hiding from a man because I was only in my pajamas, my life-changing experience reading Meher Baba's _Life at it's Best_ and my new search for a Perfect Master, my experience with seeing the most beautiful and complete rainbows I have ever seen, my learning about Micro Bursts and bear grass, seeing a bear and other animals. There is a lot for me to say, but I'm too tired to say it all right now. I will probably come online after I sleep for a while to write about everything.


Here is just a taste of things to come:

A double rainbow. (Taken from inside the train as it was leaving to head home.)

A rainbow halo in the clouds on the flight home. (Can you see it?) I'd love it if someone could explain this phenomenon to me.

This last photo was taken as I was saying goodbye to the lodge we stayed in. It's the most beautiful and complete rainbow I've ever seen, and it perfectly arcs above the lodge.

29 comments:

Alexander M Zoltai said...

Welcome home, traveller!

Rainbows are caused by light going through water droplets at certain angles. Even a clear sky has very small water droplets and clouds have lots of them.

~ Alex

Sophia said...

Hi Alex,

I knew a little bit about rainbows as seen from ground level, but I didn't have a clue about them as seen from above the clouds. What I was so amazed about is that the rainbow I saw from the plane was perfectly round like a circle. I took more photos of it; if I find one that shows the entire halo better I'll post it. I've heard of halos that form around the sun, but never above the clouds.

I saw a lot of mountains on my trip. On the flight to Chicago, though, I saw the most beautiful billowy clouds from above. They were like pillars. I think of them as mountains of clouds. I wish I had taken photographs of them.

Thanks for responding and offering your explaination.

Alexander M Zoltai said...

My most amazing cloud experience was at 14,000 feet in the Rockies looking *down* on a line of storm clouds!

Totally mystical!!!

~ Alex

Sophia said...

That would truly be a memorable experience!

I am always awed by atmospheric phenomena.

Wednesday night, the 30th of July, I sat looking out the train window watching lightening all across the sky for a couple hours at night. I even got to watch it while eating at a table in the dining car.

I'm easily mesmerized by such things.

Astronomy's phenomena amaze me quite a bit, but there is quite a lot of beauty to be found close to home, right here on planet earth.

My husband laughs about it, but I tend to attach personal or even mystical meaning to rainbows.

Jim said...

Whether you notice or not, you are involved. Say hello to the hub for me. Most interesting post, firefox to the rescue, lol!

Sophia said...

You mean I'm being more involved in life? Activities?

Jim said...

No, but yes to Life too, but really I was talking, I think, about rainbows, in hebrew, qoshet, the thing with Noah and the flood, remember. It is a sign of an envelope within which we exist, After noah got into that place, this place, the lifespans changed from very long to much shorter, but still it was an improvement because life in this envelope is supposedly less problematic as it was in the former one. Just stuff about rainbows and the spectrum.

Fire, light and water, air and such, dust. stuff like that.

Sophia said...

I always wondered why people lived so long in the Bible. As you remember I went out and bought the Tanach a couple years ago while you were teaching me some things about it. I don't think we ever touched upon lifespans. I used to think that years in the Bible were actually just shorter time periods back then, as opposed to 365 days.

So you think that rainbows are a sign of good things to come?

Jim said...

In my thinking, rainbows have several spiritual connotations, like the indicator/sign of a living womb surrounding us, out of which we will be born into greater spaces. Stuff like that Sophia.

Life being a Spiritual Fire, the bow is like seeing that fire as a promise of Life being more than otherwise.

Sophia said...

I always thought of rainbows as signs of promises. Although lately - and this might sound kind of vain - I imagined that God was showing me rainbows to signify or remind me that I was getting closer to Him.

This womb that you speak of... is it the physical dimension, the dimension of gross human bodies, and when we're born out of it, is this physical death but birth into a new state, like the soul's freedom from the physical body? I hope I'm making sense.

I get the feeling it's like escaping the physical realm permanently into the astral plane.

Jim said...

Spiritually deep stuff Sophia, I agree with the sign being of getting closer to the Spirit of G-d/God.

For me, to express it I would say that the place comes to us, we don't really go to it, like the rainbow coming to you, so to speak, only it is more than we are ready to admit, we are sort of being engulfed in the Spirit of the place thru the recognition of it. So while death seems like a leaving, it is more like a rising out of this place-consciousness and into, without going anywhere, another place-consciousness which is an envelope itself, in each or any, you do have a 'body', you always have a 'body' in whatever consciousness you enter.

Something like that. Astral plane is a kind of talk that refers to the same general idea, but people tend to separate it from place and bodies.

Sophia said...

Do you think we'll have our memories? For instance, who I am is a collection of memories and impressions from my past. Do you think those memories and impressions will still be there? Because I don't seem to remember anything from previous lives.

Jim said...

Sophia, to me, the place you will meet, the place coming to you, will be you future but will be the present, as it is now, you are your past future now. As to memories from past lives, you are because of all that you have been, so now encapsulates those past lives. Memory is not necessary in an abstract sense, for it is presently with you.

Make sense?

Sophia said...

I guess the whole search comes down to my wanting to know if my identity is going to cease to exist. I don't want to come to an end.

Jim said...

Sophia, one view is this, Spirit is a giant field of life, LIFE. It is Spirit, and nothing of it can possibly get lost in it.

That field, as in a field of mind or consciousness, has areas that are specific forms of that whole Spirit field, and they stay in that field.

Some parts of this field become angelic forms which control their areas of that field, they have bodies and heads and they know their business.

In some areas it was decided in Spirit to create a type of form never before existing in that field. Humans were created thru form transformations, transfigurations from forms that did and were currently existing, so the human came to have its own place and it was populated by angels who were part of the forms of the humans. In time this area fell into a gradually degrading state, wherein the forms became less and less able to hold together, we currently are at the bottom of that downward plummet. But even with that, the Spirit is still the whole field, all is still in it, and all stays in it.

Something like that. Since the human is a higher form creature of Spirit, the human can only go in that plane of the field and have a being, you would be one of those, this is all very sketchy, but it is an idea.

I can't prove to you anything, you just have to keep at it till you decide inside.

Sophia said...

Angels can be disguised as humans?

Jim said...

Maybe like this, angels and you.

Humans are part angels, in the sense that angels are part human, ie, the life that is inside an angel, comes out to be a human. That is, the life that animates an angel, is human. Out of the angel comes the human to be above the angel, so the angel was made to support the human.

The human was created. Made and created are two different things.
So too, are angels and humans. Angels are like your body and its things, you are the life that lives in it and animates it and knows yourself separate from it. The angel does not die, it can change forms and does, but the human never changes except in relation to the angels.

Something like that.

All that was made by God, was called angels, the man, the animal, etc.

Then into that was put life of a special kind, a greater self-consciousness, one that could know others as oneself, have compassion and empathy, nothing else does.

Sophia said...

I'm a little confused.

Are angels the same things as spirit guides?

Do we each have our own angel? Just one or more than one?

Jim said...

And maybe a little more. Angels are systemic in sense. They are limited to their system functions. They have love, but it is a love within a systemic function, like pure functions being practised.

Human is love, not has love, is love, love that reaches out and goes to and around and in other beings and even the world. That is unlimited reach of love, while angels are limited in their love, it stays within functional systems involved in their consciousness.

Expansion of consciousness is perhaps, the separation of the two without actually losing either.

Humans are supposed to use the functional love of angels, but the problem arises when the angelic nature, their limited functional consciousness, limits the human. Then the human loses his reach outward and stays inside the angelic form that he/she inhabits.

Jim said...

BTW, I have been meaning to complement you, Sophia, on your pictures posted, very fine indeed, the clouds are really sensational!

Jim said...

Do not worry with it, trust and relax, the dawning will arrive. don't ask me when, for even I, as long and as advantaged as I think I am, am confused when trying to say it, even when trying to say it to myself, my conscious understanding of it is confused to this day.

I use the Hebrew and go by that, what I say and see is not wrong, but may not be full, or may be leaning this way or that way. The problem will be resolved, trust in yourself, in that solution to come, and relax today in your quest, all progress is progress.

Sophia said...

When people talk about angels, spirit guides, guardian angels and higher selves... is that all the same?

Sophia said...

Sorry about that... I posted that last comment before I saw the third one from you.

Have you ever read Meher Baba?

Jim said...

Early 70's, or mid 70s, I knew a group who were into him, he was good for them, I think it was him.

What ever resonates with your need, that is your place, no matter how long the union lasts, it is good and serves. Get into him and take what you need from him, worship no one.

Jim said...

Worship life itself, for that is God.

My thoughts anyway.

Sophia said...

There are a lot of different viewpoints that resonate with me. I'm frustrated because lately I think I've been intellectualizing God. I want to experience.

I won't worship anyone, don't worry.

Jim said...

Sophia, I CARE, but I don't worry.

Get into those which seem to resonate, seem to have something to them for you, no matter how many, that is right, for you guide yourself without a map, and you can trust that. Long as you recognize when you are being dupped. Even then, if you get dupped, you have to depend on help, be careful while you walk the road, but walk the road.

Sophia said...

I trust others too easily, so it's very difficult for me to tell if I'm being duped or not. Lately I've been paranoid that I have been duped, but then part of me says I haven't been duped. I don't know what to believe. I really have a deep trust for you, though. You haven't faltered once in the more than three years that I've known you.

Anyway, I seem to have hit a bit of a high today and have managed to "talk" so much that now I'm tired.

Thanks, Jim, for always being around when I need you. Goodnight.

Jim said...

Love to you Girl, Sophia, goodnight.