This month’s bonus post is the bookend to one I sent to you in May of this year. Like that spring-time post, this one will not be made available to everyone.

I wrote the above not knowing what the following three months would bring, not knowing that I would find myself writing to you in my own house. I only knew that in August, wh…

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There’s still a few weeks left in Summer, and I hope some of this music helps makes it “more-than.”

Each album recommendation below, is titled with a suggested Summer “feel”

The More I Move My Hips, The Happier I Am

América! - Orquesta Akokán

This album took me by surprise; a rare media recommendation that fit. If you’ve caught me cooking a big meal, you’ve caught me shaking my hips to Orquesta Akokán. This album is so rich with sound and flavor; from deep jazz vocals, to percussion lines that go beyond unconscious foot tapping, to improv dancing with a stranger. As a beloved said, “This album makes me want to take dance classes.”

I Really just want to stay in my Cocoon

You Say I Romanticize - Sweeping Promises

If you are like me, and a few beautiful friends of mine, Summer is both a time of joy, and a time where motivation is out of reach. The responsibilities feel harder to get to, and even making it to the event where fun could be had, is suddenly harder than normal. Its a teenager’s last summer on repeat, and Sweeping Promises’s Summer release, “You Say I Romanticize,” feels symbolic of my inner teenager’s un-logical angst at the sun.

If I don’t Move My Hips, then I have to Think

MADMADMAD

The latest EP, “Overload,” from MADMADMAD is the type of dance music that is hard to quantify. Its not house, its not “electronic,” its something unique that feels meant to heard in the dark, with sweaty collarbones and sore feet. The lover of LCD Soundsystem in me, thinks James Murphy was right when he said, “I’m losing my edge.”

Out of all of MADMADMAD’s music, Overload makes me grateful I know this creative band. They're winding samples, live instruments, goofy beats, and a the right post-social media confusion of “I want to have more fun,” and “is this what they meant by fun?” I couldn’t tell you how many chores have seemingly disappeared, while I freak danced to this EP

You’ll only get MADMADMAD if you know how to dance like no one is watching.

I only know its Summer, because the Trees told me so

Croz Boyce - Croz Boyce (Avey Tare | Geologist)

The only album listed here truly without lyrics, and the album I’ve listened to most while writing. Croz Boyce would make the list of an Animal Collective fan, but this isn’t the kind of music the full Animal Collective has made in a long time, if ever. There are some true gems on this record; soundscapes that can conjurer visuals and emotions in a way I can only describe as magic.

That magic? Somehow bringing me to a feeling like being in Nature.

Being the Key that Fits the Door

Liquid Form - The Alchemist [EXPLICIT]

Every summer The Alchemist releases multiple great albums, usually featuring a variety of rap and hip hop artists. He is almost too prolific as a producer to keep up with, but occasionally one of his works breaks through to become a regular listen for me. Liquid Form has been that this summer; just enough edge to sand away the roughness from a work week or a new cycle.

If I was told to give a reason these four raps and beats made it on rs list it's that the energy feels universal. There is an open processing in this rap, a type of sincerity that comes with freestyle; a look into a mind without time to filter.

These aren’t Protests, They’re Just Songs- that I’m laughing to

Freedom of Speech - Afroman [EXPLICIT]

Warning - this album is meant to be so explicit, it makes fun of itself.

This is the last album, but honestly, I’ve listened to a few earworms on it more than any other songs this summer. It’s hard not to appreciate the underdog story that is Afroman’s life the past few years. Its a story too long for this space, but lets just say he fought the machine that tried to discriminate against him- and he Won!

If you enjoyed this side quest, you may, or may not, enjoy the rest of my writing, subscribe to find out.

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The Right Kidney

The lone kidney has been working double shifts for well over a decade. To be more fair though, the right kidney picked up the slack for it’s twin for the first thirteen years of their lives too; the left being born with a defect. The left used to get all the attention because of it, the pain cycles, the surgery, the ghost pains later. The only good thing about losing his twin, was the new attention that it received.

Now, the right kidney’s purpose was known by the whole community, both functionally, and energetically. That small silver lining has dulled in brilliance to just a nice patina though; a welcome recognition, but not a highlight.

What the right kidney really wants is for the community to remember where the seed money for this house came from; the overpayment by the insurance company. The right kidney knows this was a rounding error to the corporation, but critical for where the community is today.

The right kidney wants the inner community to remember their agreement; that the seed money was the price for its twin’s life.

The right kidney would also appreciate less caffeine intake; its been 10 months since we got back from Italy; we can’t drink espresso like this forever.

The Olive Grower

For hours each week, the olive grower occupies the driver’s seat; turning on an audiobook to pacify some of the inner community. How are they spending the inner community’s time? By watching their new olive tree grow.

Others in the car are eager to tend to the raspberries and blueberries; to get the ones in pots in the ground, to mulch the others. No, the olive grower, so completely captivated, can’t let go of the wheel.

The tree is older than it looks by height; the soft, slightly oily branches have been pruned for who knows how long; the fruit swell unevenly - with no discernable patterns detected by the botanist in the car.

Many at the passenger windows are just as captivated. the Animist understands this means they are finally meeting a “new” plant ally, one that has helped him since birth; the descendent understands his ancestors relationship to it; the family man imagines the harvest party they one day will enjoy; the fighter’s knuckles simply caress the fruit, as if the cheek of a lover.

The Family Man

There are a few inner community members who are, in fact, made up of their own inner community. It is obvious really, a fractal as is seen elsewhere in nature; a tribe of people, is comprised of individuals with an inner tribe, and an inner tribe member has their own inner family. This couldn’t be more true, than with the family man.

Within him are some obvious labels, the husband, the son and grandson, the nephew, the cousin, and even brother and uncle (in-law). These different labels are an easy way to refer to the his inner community, as they are ultimately the titles the family man tireless strives to be best at.

There have been times when the family man has been torn; the inner husband’s needs, look different than the inner son’s. They’ve been torn like an invasive vine from the ground; with mess, effort, and lots of cleanup. The bark of that tree showed the wounds of that vine. Those who watched the family man, watched as he struggled to heal, struggled to be so geographically distant from family. After the tear, there were the days of “alone together,” and then just the twice a year trip. Those wounds were covered up, and over half a decade traveled by.

When the inner community decided to move “home,” it was obviously a very momentous day for the Family man. For the first time, in a long time, The family man’s inner family would soon be overlapping regularly; the son, the husband, the nephew…

In a moment of worry, he went to the tree, to the wounds, to where the tear had been. As he cleared the trunk of brush, he found, with heart warm, the wound had healed.

The Birthday Boy

Birthdays weren’t always the best for the inner community. Maybe it began as a symptom of being born at the tail end of summer, when most friends were on family vacations; and not during the school year, when peers would learn to remember. It could just be that the inner family is an only child, and that creates an expectation of being particularly the centerpiece one day a yesr, when you already are that, everyday.

Maybe it was hard, simply because of the self-reflective nature of the inner family; the questions they’d ask during his one day of the year; what did we accomplish?

The birthday boy used to act out; like twenty one when he ran away from his family, leaving his girlfriend alone with them at an Italian restaurant; then wandered the hot city alone at night for a few hours. Something changed though, the day the birthday boy spent his his one day a year in a hospital conference room. It wasn’t that his importance changed, its that what was important to him did.

That was a long time ago; like the voodoo donuts from that day, a baker’s dozen; thirteen rings around the sun. The Birthday boy has anticipated this next one for some time; something about thirty five meant more than thirty.

This year, the inner-family is too distracted to ask, what did we accomplish? The abundance of that answer has been keeping them busy.

The Lover of Small Things

The number of bees found on the purple flowered bush feels like a miracle to the lover of small things. They pull weeds from the mulched bed, examining the clumps of soil and cedar chips that cling to their roots.

They find a worm, come here little buddy, you can stay; the worm is placed back, as if his own child.

The lover of small things has counted six cats that sleep and play in the yard, four have names so far.

They love the skunk that visits most nights, checking her perimeter, she’s named too.

There are two squirrels, one steals the other’s buried nuts; the two squirrels are loved differently.

The lover of small things talks to the crows in the morning while he loves the smell and warmth of his coffee. They love the hummingbird, the pigeons, that little yellow bird they’ve never seen before; the bats at night; the praying mantis in the sun.

Loving the small things is easy for the lover; the small things make up the big.

Once they learned, and then accepted, they too are just a small thing, making up something bigger; the cup the lover held, wouldn’t stop overflowing.

This writing is part of Inner Magic’s 2026 Summer Double Feature, which wraps up two series in one weekend; two series that have been released over this past summer. The Second Feature, the finale to a series of stories about my (near) death and recovery. The other piece of writing starts with the story, “The Olive Oil”

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Olive Oil

One of my first really grounded, and fully lucid memories after my near death experience, is my mother telling me that my knuckles look healthy. More specifically that the scars on my knuckles were healing nicely. I had no idea what they must have looked like before, as I gazed down at the unfamiliar swollen red scars; many still scabbed and dry. She was rubbing oil on them, probably something like vitamin E, but in my memory of that moment, it is olive oil. It is that moment that the answers to many questions are finally remembered; that I had lost organs and part of a rib, I had broken bones beyond regular repair, and that I had been in a coma.

I was told how little I was allowed to be touched, but that my mother was given permission to rub oil onto the wounds on my hands.

I write this to you today, looking down at hands, and can’t find what were the scars of a fighter.

Getting out

In some ways, the hardest part of my intensive care unit (ICU) stay was being weened off of dilaudid, the potent morphine analog. There was a few intravenous opiate cocktails used in my step down, until it was a drug I actually knew the name of; oxycodone.

As the battle with opiate addiction was won, a whole new set of battles reclaiming my body began in earnest. I was taught to speak again, chew food and swallow; taught how to do math and spell; eventually how to put my own shirt on; and in the distance, be taught to take my first steps. It was a long journey, and the longer it went on, the greater desire I had to “get home.” My summer in hibernation was over, I was ready to be with people again; to be part of the world.

The first step was getting out of the ICU, and then to be discharged from the cardiac floor to inpatient rehabilitation. This final step, discharge, would require two things: no intravenous medication (ahem, oxycodone), and no more feeding tube.

Yes, a feeding tube, possibly the next worst thing besides opiate addiction. It would disconnect at night and cover me in goop, and it was kind of hard, compared to other tubes. Worse, it ruined my appetite; in order to get the tube out, I had to consume more calories by mouth that I had in weeks.

Getting out of the (first) hospital took a lot of effort. Some thirteen years later, its clear the two most challenging parts, are common challenges outside of an ICU: getting over an addiction, and eating properly.

A Birthday

I will forever be grateful for the inpatient rehabilitation center that aided in my recovery. It was filled with medical staff with patience and compassion enough to make a monk blush. It was also where I celebrated walking to the end of the hallway with my walker, and where I tried to hide sheets I had wet in the night. It is where I met the Ghost of Rick Freeman, and where I celebrated my twenty second birthday.

The hospital allowed us to use a conference room with an incredible, and unique view of the city. People gathered, parents of course, local family, my best friend, and by circumstances beyond my control, many women who at one time were, or could have been, lovers; including two exes. Whenever I hear the Father John Misty lyric, “…with every girl I’ve ever loved, ride around the wreckage…” I think of that conference room.

There were regular birthday accoutrements, brightly decorated packages, pink boxes filled with deserts, and then came the giant, thin crust (Escape from) New York pizzas. As the room filled, the sound of overlapping conversations began to escalate; and the number of faces seeking my attention seemed to increase as well.

I had, at most, had two or four visitors at a time, and now a small party assembled. It tested my new mono-hearing; all of the sounds seemed to all originate from besides me. I’d hear my name at the conference table and it would take a while before I could identify who had said it.

I got dizzy, possibly from just sitting up for too long. My tail between my legs, my birthday candles not blown out, I retreated to my hospital bed.

Laying there alone for some time, I remembered being put in a time out as a child, at a party at our house; I remember it being embarrassing - and I felt that again.

Slowly, one or two at a time, my guests came to visit me. They arrived as all my guests had for the past weeks of my life; they came and sat, so we could see each other.

It has taken a long time to understand, along time to accept, that I was given the gift of mono-hearing. One or two at a time, isn’t just what’s best for me to hear, its what best for us to see each other.

The Left Kidney

After being home for about a month, a month where I was forbidden to put weight on my left leg, I had my final surgery. Another six weeks later, I was finally able to take a medical boot off my foot, and place my bare foot on the ground.

It was after this point that I went back to the intersection I was hit, my father with me. I’m sure we both wanted to hold each other’s hands, as we approached the highway. We went back together for a few reasons, although only one was actually spoken aloud. It was to see if by standing there, I would better remember the circumstances that led up to the collision; to see if there was a known liable party. That was the reason spoken aloud anyway. I am sure my father has his own reasons to return there with me, maybe to look for any mala beads he had missed previously.

For me, I largely wanted to return to say goodbye to the organs I had lost that day. It wasn’t on the side of the road that they left my body; a kidney and my spleen, but it was at that intersection when they became damaged beyond repair.

For me, I returned to that intersection to mourn, so that I could reach the next phase of my grief, acceptance.

As I write this, I hear my inner community members who still deeply miss my spleen, and my left kidney.

As I write this, it feels like its time to return to those five busy lanes again, and to feel the presence of my missing organs. It isn’t just “me” who misses them, there is a whole body that once had two more friends; two other family members.

This writing is part of Inner Magic’s 2026 Summer Double Feature, which wraps up two series in one weekend; two series that have been released over this past summer. The Second Feature, the finale to An Inner Community Buys a House, starts with the story, “The Right Kidney”

That second post is out now for my paid subscribers, and out tomorrow for everyone else.

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The Path within the River

The path has led to you,
For as long as time can remember.
They have gathered to you,
And their eyes share a smile with mine.
Trust has been put in you,
To assist in many rituals.
Many return to you,
To assist in the final one.
And since coming to you,
I know what has evolved in me.
And since being in you,
I know there's more to being,
Than "Me"

The Immortal

Wandering like a yogi
To seek out the mountain cave
Finding immortality or the true self
Does not hold a candle
To the devotion of being in service
Giving what you have to others,
Finding that the only cave you need
Is in your heart.

Be the yogi who finds immortality
In the hearts and eyes of those you help
Who finds the true self
Is waiting in the open arms
Of those you love with your full heart

Here, Tonight

Surya sinks below the horizon,
But his light still fills the sky,
And watching birds return,
Something has stirred inside,
A thousand lives before or after?
Or maybe they’re all here tonight,

Windows open to let in the air,
Blue smoke drifts through the stones,
The evening filled with sounds of prayer
A tiny temple in each home,
A thousand times before and after,
And maybe the gods Are here tonight.

Burnt Hands

Will you burn your hands
Holding on?
Will you let it go
When it's perfect?

The Bare Feet

It has been many years since the bare feet have experienced so much freedom. Some time ago, when the feet were younger, but were already fully grown, they experienced summers full of fields and sand; full of the fun of dance and the heat of hot asphalt. Then came a summer where the bare feet barely touched the earth; months in sterile smelling rooms and inside a sweaty medical boot.

There was that one year, when the bare feet became something like an article of faith. That was an interesting year in India for the bare feet; for the first time, outside of a swimming pool, they were required. That was also the year they were practically broken, from taking a fall.

It has been many years, but lately, the bare feet rarely know the smell of shoes. The sharp rocks and occasional thorns stopped being noticed after the first two weeks, and the floor is still warm, with plenty of time before the cold of approaching autumn months.

The bare feet are grateful for the hugs from mother earth.

The bare feet are grateful to feel the world like palms.

The bare feet are grateful the shower water is always black with soil.

The Renter

Patterns of grief started for the renter when they first got the news; they weren’t going to be needed soon. There was denial for a long time, and certainly negotiation with the rest of the community; there was some anger and sorrow as well, but the main experience was a trance of unworthiness. What would the renter’s value be to the inner community if it bought a home? This felt even more true as the renter watched many of it's belongings be piled into a free pile on the curb; being returning to the rotating stack of giveaway furniture found on street corners; temporary furniture for temporary homes.

There was a session held of sorts. The community climbed the sacred mountain, and consulted with the elephant there. The renter was placed on his back, while the community waited for the two to return. The elephant questioned how they had come to the conclusion they would no longer be valuable, and the renter responded with how it was obvious, he was becoming obsolete.

The elephant asked if they had asked, or if they just used negative fortune telling. The renter was quiet, feeling the large elephant’s safety as they made a path through the thick jungle of feelings. No, the renter admitted, he had never asked.

They made there way back to the community, still waiting for their return from the heart cave. An answer to the renter’s question was given by many,

Your experience living with less, has helped us appreciate what we’ve worked for.

Besides, if we ever chase that dream of relocating to Italy, you’ll be required for years!

The Proud New Owner of a Wheelbarrow

Often within the inner community, new members are born. This is often discovered later, after the fact; they are almost always seen as immaculate conceptions until the circumstances of parentage are discovered. Rarely is it so obvious, that a new member is here, as it was with the Wheelbarrow owner. There was a something like a lightning storm across his skin as he maneuvered the one wheeled vehicle around the aisles of the hardware store, to finish the shopping trip; even loading it into the back of the car was exciting.

The whole drive home, the wheelbarrow owner was distracted by dreaming of hauling the ugly concrete chunks up a ramp, and into a dump trailer; and dreams of bringing down loads of fresh compost from that place his aunt, the master gardener, had mentioned, Dean Innovations. The wheelbarrow owner danced around the back yard with it for the wife, proudly sent pictures to family with the caption “Big Day!”

The rest of the inner community smiled, quietly joking with each other, at least we know which one of us is motivated to start sweating next week.

The Renunciate

A house and a mortgage was not what the renunciate signed up for, no, but they had long abandoned their attachments to things; things like where they would take their next breath, or drink away their next thirst. They weren’t going to start clinging to their opinions regarding the source of suffering; that would just cause more. They weren’t going to assess new responsibilities as weights, no.

It did of course bring about new challenges for them; all change creates challenges; all challenges contain opportunities.

The renunciate had watched the elephant and the renter closely as they returned from the heart cave, and understood a whole new set of circumstances would be arriving, and a whole new field of unseen attachments would soon surface like locust. This became obvious as they watched how something as simple as being a renter, still carried traces of identity and label.

Even more, the opportunities for the renunciate came into focus, the first time lentils boiled over onto the new stovetop; one that had just been cleaned yesterday.

The final part of this series will be published by the end of Summer; in all honesty, it is a series still be written by his-story and mys-story.

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I realized this morning as I began to formulate what today’s post would entail, that I only explained why I am writing about time with a single sentence:

People often fear a lack of time.

This can be unpacked using two examples, one micro, one macro. The first is something we experience when we have a really good vacation or trip somewhere, and we don’t want to leave. There can be a blues that sets in on the last day, an understanding that the trip will end, and a premature grieving arrives. This fear of limited time, is limited in scope by circumstance.

The second example is the macro, the fear of not enough time alive; IE. the fear of death. This fear has led philosophers and psychologists over millennia to draw large, epistemological conclusions. Our mortality drives behaviors; which, and to what extent, I’ll let you decide. When our life becomes defined by how much time we have, we are signing up to experience deficit.

Like other paradoxes, when we stop worrying about how little time we have, we find how much there is.

The following are three examples of advanced methods to create more time; they aren’t necessarily for everyone who reads this, but if you’re like me, they serve as inspiration for creating my own magic. All magic requires giving up something, in the case of these advanced techniques, quite a lot is given up in order to create more time.

I’m Only Sleeping

The first advanced technique in creating more time is Lucid Dreaming. This isn’t an easy thing to master for most of us; it took me a year of dream journaling before I began to lucid dream. For myself, I also found that over the following year, when being lucid became common, my brain wasn’t resting while I slept. The experiences I had while sleeping didn’t really contain the rules of time. Although I never had an experience that felt longer than a few hours, I do believe that most of my dreams occurred in mere moments before waking.

The most admirable use of Lucid Dreaming to create time, in my opinion, is Buddhist Monks who train themselves to meditate while they sleep. In other words, they learn how to be lucid during sleep, in order to continue their practice; their intention.

I’m not sure what you might need the hours of sleep to complete mentally; it will take a serious commitment to reach that stage; a lot of attention and intention. It is possible, although to what consequence I cannot say, maybe the goal is to choose to use the time one sleeps, for whatever they need.

Inside the Head of a Performer

The name of this article came out of a conversation with my wife regarding the experience of watching yourself perform, while you perform; Double Presence.

For me, this experience tends to occur when I am presenting (communicating) something important in work, in volunteering, or some serious into-me-see with loved ones. I hear myself saying words within a secondary mental space. In that second space there is cognition available to ask questions like, “was that the right thing to say?” or “I wonder if that smile is agreement, or “who’s talking right now, if I’m thinking this.”

My wife immediately expressed she has the same experience when she performs music. I’ve experienced this during something rehearsed, like a song, a maneuver as a team, or even an important slide deck. A sense of two presences, a splitting of cognition, and a doubling of the experience.

I’m still learning how to expand this experience when I desire, and when to collapse it back into a single perception. I’m still uncovering if its possible to perceive a single moment with multiple streams of thought.

It’s just an Illusion, man

My last advanced technique circles back to my first passage; and is only advanced because it is a practice that occurs over a lifetime. There is only a deficit of time if we perceive it as a deficit. Put differently, the only time you’ve lost, is the time you say you’ve lost.

Cool, fancy philosophy, but what does it mean for daily life?

Lets flip the sentiment, Time is only in abundance, when we perceive it as abundant.

We are creatures of habits and patterns. What we practice, we get better at. Ill show, not tell; I’ll leave us with the first two examples, in deficit and in abundance.

The end of the vacation is arriving, and it feels as though there wasn’t enough time to see all the things, to taste all the special dishes, or to fully rest. As the feeling arrives, the hours left look limited, the experiences are shrinking; what is left looks small; looks like deficit.

The end of the vacation is arriving, and it feels as though there is just enough time to settle and enjoy all that has occurred, to stay up late giggling about new memories, and to maybe squeak one more in. As the feeling arrives, the hours left are welcomed, the experiences left to have are exclamation marks; what is left looks like dessert; looks like abundance.

The end of life is arriving, and it feels as though there wasn’t enough time to see all the things, to taste all the special dishes, or to fully enjoy what was had. As the feeling arrives, the days left look limited, the experiences are shrinking; and what is left looks small; looks like deficit.

The end of life is arriving, and it feels as though there is just enough time to settle and enjoy all that has occurred, to stay awake giggling about old memories, and to maybe squeak one more in. As the feeling arrives, the days left are welcomed, the experiences left to have are exclamation marks; what is left looks like dessert; looks like abundance.

I will be linking this Summer’s Full Length Posts together here. In each post, the concept of Creating Time is being explored differently.

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The second sun fell behind the horizon, and Ravi wondered, as she had a hundred times; what did the skies of earth look like, now? She was child sitting for her most recent grandchild, and likely her last. The youngster bounced between a rain barrel, and small flowering creatures emerging from cracks in the patio. The night, the longest of the orbit, would be upon them. They would stay inside together, safe from the growing cold.

Its time to go inside, Jiva.

Five more minutes grandma, there is still light in the sky!

So she waited, allowing him to finish watering what most would discard; watering plants, she didn’t have the heart to tell him, would likely freeze by morning.

Lets go, Jiva, it's time for our game, and for the longest night of the year, you get an extra question!

He had always been a child brimming over with curiosity, and to protect her own sanity, she had created a game; only three questions per visit.

His head rested on her lap, his legs, which seemed to grow at each visit, stretched out on the sofa. Ravi pet his hair, knowing it was only a matter of time before her caress would lead to his slumber.

I’m ready, what’s your first question?

Last time you told me how old you were, which only got me a single word response. So. this time I know better than to ask how many grandchildren you have.

Ravi chuckled; just how quickly can these youngsters learn?

So instead I’ll ask, what is it like to have so many grandchildren?

Its as wonderful, as it is hard, Jiva. For each of you, I open my heart, show you my love, give you a piece of me. It is gift you also give yourself, when you are generous; remember that.

When we open our hearts to love, we are also opening our hearts to loss. So many of them have died, and their parent’s too, particularly in the beginning. Its hard to lose someone, a piece of you feels like it’s gone; it takes time to heal.

Is that why you decided to stop doing Regenex?

No, and that’s the answer to your second question.

No fair Gramma!

Tsk tsk, we wrote these rules together; plenty fair. You get an extra question tonight though. Think of it as an extra lesson learned; you already know better than to ask yes or no questions.

Ravi knew what question was coming before it arrived.

Why are you stopping Regenex? Aren’t you going to die?

Ravi ignored the error of asking two questions at once, but let a pregnant pause form so Jiva would understand it was important. She suspected this conversation was on the monitors, and would be wiped, but she answered his question anyway.

I’m not choosing to die because I don’t want to spend more time with you, or because it is hard to lose the ones we love again and again. I’m not choosing to leave you, I’m making the choice for me. There is something missing, something I’ve seen while I sat besides the beds of friends and family as they took their last breath. Something I feel I’m meant to do; that I’ve been meant to do for a long time. I don’t think humans are meant to live this long, Jiva. I’m ready to die.

There was a pause

And you know what, Jiva, I miss Bapu, and I wonder if he’s waiting for me, wherever that is.

I miss him too grandma.

The pause that followed wasn’t uncomfortable for Ravi; she pet Jiva’s head, and could only tell he was still awake, still thinking, by the way his fingers played at his shirt’s hem. In the silence, she thought about his future more than her own. She hoped his parents would stay together after their Regenex, but knew it was unlikely. It had been a century or more since spouses regularly stayed together after being given a fresh, new, young body.

As Ravi nearly fell asleep herself, a voice came from her lap.

I have one more question left gramma.

You do! What is it, Jiva?

Promise not to laugh, Lucky laughed when I asked.

Don’t mind Lakhan. That boy lives in laughter, what is your question?

Can plants talk?

Ravi couldn’t help herself, she tried to stifle a giggle, but the boy’s head bounced on her lap.

Hey!

She burst out, her voice loud. Jiva sat up, mostly from the rolling of Ravi’s belly.

Gramma!

It’s a brilliant question,

Still gathering herself, her knuckles briefly covering her mouth , then she looked at Jiva squarely.

But, you asked another yes or no question, Jiva.

Come on gramma, tell me. I talk to them, and I swear they talk back sometimes.

Why do you need an answer from me then?

Epilogue

This is an experimentation. I’m world building and character developing out in the open, for a project I’ve been dreaming of for sometime. I will link the next one here when it is born. One day it will get a name.

Here is a link to more short stories if you enjoyed this one.

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While metaphysics and new perspectives are helpful; this post is more focused on the more practical.

While creating time across moon cycles or longer periods is beneficial; this post is about the time that passes each week, and each day.

The Weekly Rhythm

For many, a weekly rhythm emerges out of obligations; the work week, the weekend; school and shift schedules; trash day; the post office’s hours; on and on. The emergence of a predictable schedule within this feels natural; Natural, as in, it feels in line with what being alive means. When we know the beat, we know where our feet will go next, and when; we know the song, we know how to pace ourselves to the end.

The following of the weekly rhythm creates a groove; a sense of continuation that can smear the lines of each measure; a groove that is carved deeper into the soft clay of the mind each time. Dancing to the same beat for too long creates the potential for two things; a stiffness in the ability to move to a new rhythm, and the speeding up of time.

One way of creating time across a week is by “simply” giving up the predictability and comfort of the same rhythm. This isn’t all or nothing, or a black and white suggestion. There will still be work schedules, and art lessons; community meetings and plants to water. The suggestion is not to abandon dancing across the week; the suggestion is to keep finding new rhythms.

Recommended place to start: Observe the weekly rhythm you are currently dancing to, consciously or not. Observe when time moves faster than you’d like. Create a commitment to change something about the beat during that time. Repeat.

Tomorrow is a New Day

A quick aside regarding the clock-based time. Fill a container of water to a line, and let it pass through a small opening, and viola- you’ve invented the water clock. This early tool can be transported, shared and reproduced until a standard hour is agreed on. This early invention would enable many systems we still live with today; logical and universal systems. Systems that benefit and organize us, but also can erode the capacity to experience time; something much more personal, and far from universal or logical.

Everything said about a week can also be said about the passing of time in each day; one can develop a pattern that will speed time along. This can be welcome during a day job grind, but can also make leisure time vanish; it is also where time likes to hide the most.

Having a rigid structure to each day, creates conditions for the mind to focus more on what is next, rather than what is at hand. A schedule doesn’t inherently create incentive for being present in the moment, but with some massaging, it can. The nuance is in how to utilize a schedule once created, and how to continually evolve it.

When every day’s schedule is organized and to be the most productive, a lot gets done and time tends to move more quickly. What if the day’s schedule was organized to feel “new?” When we say, “tomorrow is a new day,” do we actually go about creating something new to enjoy?

A similar letting go of what is known is required here; there may benefit in the confidence of a known schedule, but do we know what is given up for that? Looking at tomorrow as a new day, is finding the time hidden between meetings or sessions of flow. When the next task is started immediately after the last, there is no opportunity to check in with the self; no opportunity to experience the life we are living; even the mundane moments.

Recommended place to start: Add buffer somewhere in your day; maybe just one day to start, if life feels particularly full. I’m not talking about a nice long siesta. A stop at a park on the commute home, just to watch the clouds; a few minutes of stretches between tasks; a few breaths with the eyes closed between calls. The buffer is no-thing time; no-thing to accomplish. The buffer may not look productive, but it is exactly where you intend to be; to be with the precious resource, time. With practice, one will find there is buffer between every action in life, there is no-thing between every-thing; even between each inhale and exhale.

Penny Savers

The Manifest Checklist - There is a decent book about surgery checklists, titled “Manifests Checklist” (By Atul Gawande). So titled by the list of things that have to carried out correctly in order for surgeries to be performed safely and correctly. For some, this checklist is the (nearly) the same every day, but for many like me, it is an evolving orchestration of activities.

At the end of each work day, I create a list of things that have to be completed the next day; not the things it would be nice to get done. I do not write a prescribed order to these tasks, rather I estimate the amount of time each will take. Nothing is less than fifteen minutes, and no task is more than two hours. In the end, I have the list of what I’m obligated to do, in sessions that protect how much time I devote to them.

The Refinement - As the next day arrives, and tasks are chosen from the list to complete, an observation occurs. There is the useful tracking of how long tasks actually take, but there is also the experience of working on what, when. If there is resistance in the morning to something, can it be moved to the afternoon next time? If there isn’t that flexibility, what can be changed internally, so that morning task can be more appreciated?

As patterns emerge, and efficiencies are created, time will be found, and buffers will form. Something that takes 15 minutes may later take 12; how will you fill those three minutes next week? A softness in time passing emerges out of recognizing it’s abundance. Intending to refine our schedules for the present moment, and for the experience of life, rather than productivity, is a precious gift to give oneself.

The Reflecting - As a week ends, and the next is seen on the horizon; there can be a cadence of reflection, rather than just a next week outlook. It is tempting to throw the last week away as the weekend arrives. These finish lines are also opportune moments to look back on where we found time, and where we lost it. What wasn’t accomplished? What took longer than expected? What did we learn? Where did we create joy? Where did we find appreciation? Where will we look to change the rhythm next week? If the tasks are exactly the same next week, how will I choose to experience life?

I will be linking this Summer’s Full Length Posts together here, in each post, the concept of Creating Time is being explored differently.

The Botanist

There was a little strip of sunbaked, cracked earth in the apartment complex courtyard where the Botanist desired. Some weeds struggled along the margin of a the patio concrete slab, hiding from central valley summer heat to the smallest of shadows. The Botanist was shy for a year or so, there was a global pandemic, and the only landscaper that visited the property, was the elderly owner of the building, sometimes dressed in her Sunday best, arriving after church. The Botanist recognized another human passionate about plants.

Later, after the elder had passed, and the property was inherited by her son, two new landscapers emerged. One, The Botanist, and two, hired labor; a man who was trigger happy with the herbicide; a man who loved to mow grass that had long since desiccated to pale tan in triple digit weeks.

The Botanist persisted under these odds, finding free plants in the neighborhood, asking for cuttings from his neighbors, and occasionally, spending some limited resources on native plants and bags of compost. Little by little, the Botanist turned the patch of dusty dry earth, into a garden. The bees began to visit the blue sage (Salvia pachyphylla) flowers; and a hummingbird began to mark the fuscia's (Epilobium canum) as part of her territory.

When it became clear the Botanist would leave this apartment, one of his greatest concerns was who would take care of the aloe, the pole cactus (Lophocereus), the food for the pollinators? He found himself distracted, thinking about the landscaper’s herbicide, and the jalapeno (Capsicum annuum) plant that had lived for at least eight years somehow in the alley; he was worried someone would mistake the Cale Lilly (Zantedeschia aethiopica) in the winter as a weed, or forget to water the Rosaceae in the alley.

The week came before his departure to house hunt, and he found himself worried he would not see his garden flower again.

The day before his departure, as if to say farewell, the smallest of buds appeared over night, showing the smallest dots of color.

The Botanist knew it was okay; he had done his work; he had left it better than he found it. His babies were going to be fine, they’re sun-eaters after all.

The Millennial

The Millennial didn’t have high hopes of ever purchasing a home. It was a piece of the American Dream that felt out of reach without an inheritance, lottery level happenstance, or possibly a selling oneself to a job that didn’t fit. The Millennial didn’t really believe it when he boarded the flight, landed in his home town, or arrived at the first house to be seen in the journey.

It wasn’t just disbelief, or a perception encouraged by social media, it was also a trance of unworthiness. The Millennial found himself thinking about how another buyer might be better suited for a house he liked; he found moments wondering about if the seller would be okay with an offer; he found himself not thinking about what he wanted.

Yet something changed when he first walked the floors of a house he would love his life to unfold in. Particularly when dragging his feet led to an offer being placed before he had a chance. It wouldn’t happen again.

As the list shrank to a few options, so did The Millennial’s self doubt. By the time he was negotiating with the seller, he wasn’t worried; it was his family that shared concerns he had pushed his bargaining too far; that another dream home would get away.

He told his uncle, on a call about an hour before he would get the news on his counter offer:

“I’m playing the game, it’s the experience; if I get the house great, if not, the disappointment is also what I’ve signed up for. I get this radical chance… I get to advocate for myself, and I want to play this game.”

The Animist

The objects spread around the apartment have been spoken to, they understand the animist’s goal, and he whispers his intent without words. The animist expresses his recent journey to the piece of slate from Machu Picchu, to the silver mother Mary from Firenze, to the small bottle glass of campfire ash, to the all objects that will listen.

He tells them about how upon his first return, to a favorite wooded park, he found a Robin’s egg, one of his first allies. He had kept the small egg, a creature’s first home, in the car he used to look at houses. He told them how the down payment for the home was in some ways a gift from his left kidney, his spleen, and the twenty one year old that bled out on the highway. He told them he found rosemary at every house that made the short list. He told them how at the very last moment, just as he was returning to the airport, he received the call that the house would be his.

He told them tales such as these, while he placed each object carefully in a box; or several. Once they were packed away, he told similar stories to the furniture as he dismantled each. Once set into piles, he told similar stories while he cleaned; to the stove top that cooked his meals for six years; to the toilet mirror where he trimmed his beard; to the floor boards as he mopped.

The apartment in boxes, stacks formed; some are heavy, filled with rocks and stones from four continents and countless countries. Some are labeled fragile, with contents such as a ornate glass vial, filled with honey once fed to the Animist on his wedding day. Some boxes are light, impossibly so, unless one knew they were feathers.

Many boxed are labeled the same way, with a large white label. A blue sharpie marks each with the word “Treasure.”

Later, the animist would overhear family, while helping him move boxes, “It’s where he keeps his gold.”

Then a smile, little do they know, the contents are more valuable than any gold or gems.

This limited series will be released over the remainder of the summer; the end of the story being told here, is still in the future. I have to give credit of the subtitle of this piece to a colleague who makes me laugh (almost) every time we talk.

Is the universe finite, or infinite?

Do enlightened beings exist?

What do you do for a living?

Is the soul the same as the body?

What kind of music do you listen to?

Does the soul exist after death?

Who's on first?

What am I?

What is your opinion of AI?

What shall I be in the future?

What was it that existed in the past?

Are you on social media?

Largely Inspired by McSweeney

The Highschool Sweetheart

For several days after I woke from my coma, my lungs were still being supported by a ventilator; I did not breathe through my mouth or nose, but rather through a tachometry tube passing through the front of my throat. This period of time is largely a series of “wake ups.” My communication was limited to hand gestures - including asking a nurse for a cigarette with two fingers, and giving the surgeon that saved my life the middle finger.

When it was time to take me off the ventilator, I felt like I was suffocating; even with a supplementary oxygen mask; I was learning to take (new) first breaths. It was the first moment, of countless moments, of learning to live again. It took time, but I stabilized, and was a then ble to croak my first words. To this day, what I asked for still surprises me, I said the name of my Highschool sweetheart, a woman whose heart I had broken.

We once promised each other, likely in the throws of young romance, “if you ever need someone, call on me.” She arrived the next day.

Being Visited at the Dentist

I was visited by many, while I lay in my coma, but I was not a pleasant sight to see. My body had swollen like the Michelin tire man, and my body was poka dotted with tubes, monitors, and wires. Some going in, some draining out. Many more visitors came to see me once I awoke.

For me, many of these visits did not occur in a hospital room, but rather elsewhere. I would be in my ICU bed, but it would be elsewhere. In one occasion, this was in the rear of an airplane. In my recollection of this moment, I can still look out the small passenger windows at the tarmac and airport terminal.

On another visit, my hospital bed was situated where the receptionist desk was, in my childhood dentist’s office. It was around the time in my recovery that I began to understand the gravity of what had occurred, when I was still half paralyzed, and when I was speaking suicide ideation aloud. The couple that came to visit me were abundantly positive. They spoke to me like I still had a great summer ahead, that a beautiful life was just around the corner.

They spoke to me like the only thing wrong, was a cavity that needed to be filled.

The Vampire Soldier

Nights in the ICU were particularly hard for me. I had a feeding tube that often would come undone, spilling slimy sweet smelling carbohydrate rich protein slurry all over my bed. When it wasn’t my incontinence, or a tube coming loose, I was being woken by a nurse to check my vitals. Often I'd wake in a delusion. Many mornings I asked a nurse to call my dad; I was ready to go home; he needed to come pick me up. He would get these calls before four in the morning often, and many mornings he would patiently talk to me, and then arrive within the hour to sit by my bed, then help me fall back asleep.

One morning when I woke, something was wrong. There was a stranger sitting in my room in the soft guest chair my father would typically sit. They wore all dark, including a black beret. As my eyes focused, it appeared they were a soldier; their pale skin almost translucent. The Soldier had a proposition for me, he offered to return my healthy body to me. His fangs glistened and without words it was understood that the being in front of me was no longer living; I understood they were a vampire. In return for my body, I would need to carry out a tour as a soldier, and then, would remain forever young.

I resisted, fear struck, heart racing, but the vampire did not appear to be asking. They got up from their seat and grabbed my right wrist. I struggled to free my atrophied arm, and heard their voice saying, “it will only take a second.”

As I cried aloud, reality clicked back into perspective, and all I saw was a nurse drawing blood and taking my vitals.

The Inventors of the Warm Blanket Machine

Anyone who has had a stay in the hospital knows how cold they can be; kept frigid to slow the growth of bacteria. When you're stuck in bed, not moving, this cold creeps in quite quickly. The solution, warm blankets, precious objects that emerge from a special appliance, the warm blanket machine. I would often request them repeatedly; amassing a dozen of them on top of me.

Towards the end of my ICU stay, when I had learned to talk more fluently, I still experienced delusions; often to degrees that I would confuse the medical staff around me. One of my family’s favorite stories of these times was when I convinced the entire floor that I personally knew the family that invented the machine that dispensed the warm blankets. I explained how knew they had created generational wealth with the royalties of the simple machine.

It wasn’t until my parents arrived that day, that anyone on the staff second guessed my lucid claims, and what I thought I knew to be true.

The Hospital Bed at the Concert

I was not allowed flowers as gifts in my room in the ICU, but gifts I still received. One couple brought me an old iPod filled with music, and a speaker that still sits on the desk I’m writing to you on. We shared music interests, and ghey uploaded some that had been released while I was in my coma. One of these was the self titled, “Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros” album. I had seen the band perform twice, and had even been invited on stage when they were barely known.

Nearly before I was transferred to rehabilitation, my uncle in-law came to visit me. He, my dad, and I sat in the healing garden outside, and my uncle asked how my hospital stay had been. I told him it was a lot better recently, and that the staff had even taken me on a field trip to see Edward Sharpe in Eugene. My uncle and my dad exchanged a look I can still recall. I explained that the nurses put my hospital bed in the back of the concert hall, and even checked my vitals during the show.

Months later, at home, this delusion wouldn’t let go. I had been there, I hadn’t seen them perform at that venue, but I had seen other bands there. My curiosity led me to look up the band’s tour schedule.

They had played a show in the exact concert hall, on a night while I was in the ICU.

I choose to believe I was there; with or without the hospital bed, or my body.

The being next to the man looked familiar, in the way that made his brain hurt with the effort of remembrance. That was his first thought after he woke from what he thought must have been a nap. The second thought was that he must still be sleep; another morphine induced dream. Then, came the third thought, one of understanding, and the thought came with vision and sound, he remembered the words “Thank you,” and “Goodbye.”

The man inquired who the being was, and was given what sounded like a riddle in return. “I am the light, that cast the dancing shadow, that you experienced as life.”

The man didn’t quite understand, but that brought no discomfort. The man asked where he knew the being from. “We sat like this at the beginning, and we agreed on what would be experienced.”

Then there was illumination where there wasn’t before. There was the sound of a baby was crying. “Here are your first breaths, and you just took your last.” Then illumination shifted, and what appeared to be the color of sunlight behind his eyelids consumed the man’s experience. “I believe this is your happy place”

The being sat down cross legged, although the man did not know he had been standing before. The being tapped the ground next to him. "Is there something you’d like to review, before we make agreements for the next breath?”

The man again didn’t quite understand, but that brought no fear or shame. He knew what he wanted to review, it was a question he asked himself a lot in his life. He asked if his beliefs mattered; if what he prescribed meaning to, or what he had faith in, had an outcome on what occurred. Was his believing, a form of creating?

The illumination again shifted, and a perspective of the man’s childhood room came into focus. “I’ll answer your question by showing you a familiar story.”

The man watched as the door opened, but instead of a child’s face, the young boy, himself he knew, had the face of a pig. The man looked at the being, feeling bewildered and somehow also fascinated.

“If I showed you exactly how it was, you wouldn’t pay attention to the answer. You’d spend our time assessing yourself. There is no more ‘yourself,’ they are all gone.” While the being spoke the illumination continued.

The pig faced version of the child walked to his dresser and began sweeping the stuffed animals and Legos there to the floor. Then the man knew, it was the day he found out Santa wasn’t real, the day he was made fun of in front of the whole class, the day he had realized he could be lied to, and he could believe that lie to be magic.

The man watched as the little kid, now oinking in rage. The child froze as a pounding started on the bedroom door. A strange voice came, a growl as much as a yell. The pig faced child did not answer, he only cowered in the corner. Then came a wind, so strong the door frame shook violently until it finally came loose from its hinges. Papers and toys filled the air, and the illumination shifted with the chaos.

It settled slowly as if a feather falling from a breeze, into a parking lot. The man recognized it was his second car, and he recognized the parking lot as belonging to an apartment he once lived in. The illumination spun inwards until the perspective showed a pig faced version of man. He wasn’t alone, the pig faced 8 year old sat in the back seat. That was different, but the man sensed he knew what was about to happen. She appeared, and joined the pig face man on the passenger side. I’m not going to keep it, was all she said before the woman got out of the car. The pig’s chin dropped to his chest and a something like a sigh came from it.

The same unusual voice came from behind the car, still unseen. Then the man understood, this was the moment he found a need to believe in magic again. The car rattled as a furious wind first shook, and then blew, the vehicle through the parking lot. The illumination again darkened with the chaos of the maelstrom.

The illumination shifted differently this time, it shrank and condensed, until the light was a camp fire, casting light on the people that surrounded it. There were some dancing near the blaze, others playing drums, others walking and singing. It was a familiar sight, it was where the man had created magic many times. He knew this moment though; all of the figures were dressed in black. He saw himself, again with a pig face, and he knew his wife’s ashes were in the urn he carried.

The man saw that the other two pigs were among the dark cloaked figures, as well as other animal faced people. Then the voice came, and the largest of those moving around the fire came forward. His hood was pulled back and the face of hungry wolf appeared. The others fled, but not the three pigs.

The eldest of them stood in front of the younger, facing the wolf on the opposite side of the fire. They circled it, the pig careful to keep the fire between the wolf and them. The wolf cried in anger and went to stomp the fire out, but it was too hot. He cursed his burnt paw, and announced he would blow the fire out instead.

As the wolf filled his huge breath to blow it out, the three pigs fanned the flames towards the wolf, causing smoke to be sucked in. The wolf began to cough in agony and dismay. The three pigs wasted no time and took the opportunity to flee.

Then the illumination faded, returning to a neutral nothingness it has originated as, “Then they lived happily ever after.”

There was a pause, a no-thing-ness.

“Are you ready to make agreements on for your next series of breaths?”

This Parable is part of the ongoing series released on Fridays to accompany the Full Posts on Inner Magic. If you enjoyed this content and would like to support the creation of more, subscribe.

Broken Mala Beads

I had been wearing mala beads the day a car hit my bicycle going highway speeds. Beads used by yogis and Buddhists to count mantra, japa; or like a rosary, to count prayers. The violence of the car hitting my body somehow broke these beads, and scattered them in the direction my body was dragged.

At some point during the coma that came after my heart had stopped, my father went to the site of the accident; an intersection leading from one side of a college town into campus; an intersection of a four lane highway. He saw a few small sandalwood beads, about the size of peas, and he knew they were mine; he saw me just the week before wearing them.

Soon he had a small plastic bag filled with what I had once used to pray; beads he would keep on him at all times; beads he used to pray for me.

Later, it became clear I would likely live, but to what degree, was unknown. My parents, being ninety minutes from their lives would occasionally take turns to commute home to take care of things there.

On one such trip home for my dad, that small plastic bag of beads disappeared. In the hours following this discovery, the car cabin was completely emptied, the house was turned over; the parking lots of every location were combed, but the beads were gone. There is no amount of stoicism, to keep a father from feeling what my dad must have.

There is no “end” to my telling of this story. I leave it here, at the moment a father experiences the weight of loss; brought on by something as small, but as meaningful, as sandalwood beads.

Gina is Why I have Long Hair

The medical staff that saved my life became my family in recovery, but when we first met, I didn’t introduce myself; my driver’s license did. It was before noon that I’d arrive at the hospital, and it was well into the next day that a series of non-stop surgeries would end. I was ratcheted open for hours from below my bellybutton, up to my rib cage; I was given countless gallons of blood; and I was touched, poked, stuffed, and cut by dozens of hands within the first twenty four hours. I’ve been told it was the nurses who really saved my life in those first hours; nurses who chose to work doubles to stay with me; to give me a continuation of care.

I’ve had a blood dreadlock before. In fact, it was after my first bicycle accident, when blood from a scalp wound caked into my hair. By the time I was home from the hospital that day, a dreadlock had formed. From what I’ve been told, my entire hair had formed a series of matted dreadlocks during the critical days of keeping me alive. It was not the nurse Gina’s job to spend nearly an entire shift on her feet detangling my hair, and braiding it. It wasn’t certain I would ever wake to appreciate it; but she did.

I’ve also been told when I would finally come to, one of the first things I did was reach up to my head, to see if my hair was still there.

My Personal Book of The Dead

Three years before the collision that nearly took my life, I began probation for having so much fun in college, that the law had to stop me. This is a generous way of saying, I was arrested for possession of controlled fun; I mean, substances. During the first summer of that probation I completed 16 credits of 300 level physics, 120 hours of community service, and held a full time job as a clerk in the Garden Center of a Home Depot. During that summer, I also read a book that changed my life, and the lives of many in my immediate family, “Mink River” by Bryan Doyle.

While I lay in a coma, I was permitted few guests, and my stimuli was vigilantly limited. My brain had swollen, and a slowing of cognitive activity was expected to help me recover. When my aunt would visit, she would read me Mink River for hours, as if I was there to hear it. We had connected deeply over the book and although I wasn’t awake, I know a part of us was connected that day.

In Tibet, the book of the dead is read aloud in the moments leading up to death, and long after the last breath has gone. It is akin to explaining a map to the one making the journey through the bardos, towards their next incarnation. My aunt, in many ways, read to me what would become my own book of the dead during those days.

My aunt gave me more than her time, more than her voice and breath, and prayer. When I woke up, a small Ganesha, the bringer of beginnings, was in my hand to hold. She also had brought me a new sandalwood mala, the one I still wear today.

These stories are a slight diversion from Inner Magic’s focus this summer, Creating Time. There are weeks we never get back, but we can still be present for the meaning of those moments.

On Sunday’s post, I’ll be sharing several short stories of events that occurred while I was (almost) taking a dirt nap.

Thank you for being here,

Thank you for seeing me,

Do Children Grow Up?

Lets take a moment together before anything heady is discussed, before any intent, before any transformation, or seeds are planted. Take a moment and breathe, and feel the hug of Mother Earth from below. When you’re ready-

Imagine yourself as a child again, experiencing something mundane. Let what comes up first, be perfect.

Imagine the moment that surfaces, whether that is at school or at home, with friends, family, or alone. Image the perspective that child has, of the world, of themselves, of something mundane in life.

If this is a challenge, relax, the brain you are using to imagine is different than theirs. Take your time, and when you’re ready-

Imagine how that child experienced time.

What did you uncover? Did time move slower as a child? Did each year of school feel like its own era? Your brain may be different, but it grew from the young mind you can still reach out to, and touch. Imagination can be creation, it can also be the mental bridge to connect us with our inner children.

The community that makes up our wholeness may “grow up,” but the inner children that are a part of it, never do. With a little attention, intention, a lot of gentle care, and a deep well of joy, we can continue to experience time as they did; each year becoming an entire era. The practice starts simply with an invitation, and moments like this article started with.

The Short Life

There is a well documented hypothesis that average species lifespan is largely influenced by the average heart rate of that species. Often rats are used to show this correlation for the fast and short. Their hearts beat 500-600 times per minute, with lives lasting one to two years. On the long and slow, whales are often used as an example; bowheads have a resting heart rate of ten to thirty beats per minute, while living to the age of 200. If you plot these on a chart, and draw a line, most mammals would, including humans, be along it.

There is another, more challenging to prove hypothesis, that the smaller the organism, the more time becomes relatively “faster.” As in, the house fly zipping around the window blinds is experiencing more “moments” per second than we are, and is therefore capable of dodging our attempts at capture. This is relative. The fly isn’t experiencing time as slower; nor are we experiencing it as faster; the fly is simply processing relatively shorter “moments.”

In yogic theories stretching back thousands of years there is a concept called “Chitta,” basically an endless thought generator. Depending on the school of yoga, a goal is to learn to observe Chitta, instead of the thoughts themselves; to observe the generator of thinking, without thinking. Regardless of the school, there is agreement that the pace of the breath changes the pace Chitta generates thoughts. Early pranayama (breath control) practice is largely about observing and slowing the breath; with more advanced practices preparing the yogi to reduce their breathing to less than one inhale per minute. This is the main practice of creating time in yoga, slowing your breath. See Sadhus being buried underground for extreme examples.

These three theories are already potent at the macro scale of multi-cellular organisms. What can they teach us about the experience of our inner community members that only live a few days, our cells? If it is a stretch to imagine individual cells as experiencing time, I assure you, a few hours spent learning about cellular rhythms and the coordination within tissues, will give your skepticism pause. There is an awareness available to the cells that make up who we are. It may not be a dialogue, like with an inner child or elder, but it can be communication.

Some of our cells, like the colon and stomach lining live only a few days. How do these cells experience time? How do the the three theories above look at the cellular level? What do your cells say when you ask these questions? How does our heart rate, our breath, influence how you experience time? Simply by asking, without attachment, you’ll begin a communication.

The Inner Elder Already Knows

Like Inner children, there are many inner elders. Unlike inner children, these are not beings we’ve been, but they’ve all been us. Unlike inner children, which are made numerous by linear time, inner elders are made numerous by nonlinear time. There are many different beings we can become, and we’ve been many different beings along the way to this moment.

Our inner elders know this moment, even if its contrast and sharpness has faded. Our Inner elders know the outcome as skillfully as our imagination can create what-if’s. Our inner elders know what we’re going to have to sacrifice to achieve what we intend, and they know it is all safe, simply by their existence. They also know, more than we could, how quickly time will have moved once we reach their age.

This last subject of creating time is aimed at the intention and attention side of creating magic, of creating time. Creating a relationship with our Inner Elders is a way to be consistently reminded that we can slow down, that what we desire doesn’t need to arrive now.

If you believe there is a higher consciousness available to all in this life, than one of your future selves, already knows what that experience is like.

I will be linking this Summer’s Full Length Posts together here, in each post, the concept of Creating Time is being explored differently.

A sudoku sits next to his coffee, along with a pencil and some rubber number stamps his wife bought him when he first started playing the game. His mind wanders from focusing on the numbers and squares, on counting out, “1, 2, 3, I need a 4, 5, 6…” He lets the mind make its way down a river of thoughts; its part of the process in this ritual. His mind makes it’s way backwards, through ecstatic moments and mundane ones; through forests and deserts, and the cultures of many.

He meanders back to the first time he picked up a Sudoku, an attempt to occupy a busy mind at a critical moment in life. He thinks back to that 30 something self and all of his energy; thinks back to the challenges that lay ahead of him; the people he has yet to know and love; the pain he thinks he’s mastered; the many things he has yet to know gratitude for.

The river slows and he sits here with this younger self; at something like half his age. He imagines what once occupied their brain; knowing there are words typed in binary to find if he wished, but he doesn’t. At his age, he’s learned the lesson many times, mystery is as important history. In his imagination he finds the younger self is looking right at him; not afraid; not upset. He somehow knows I’m looking, and he smiles.

The sudoku came back into focus as if a camera lens was turned. The older man’s heart was filled with so much gratitude his blood thickens to make room for it. He smiles to himself, and tastes another sip of coffee. He wonders how that young man knew he would need a game like this one. A game not to occupy his mind, but to keep it strong. It occurs to the older man that he will never know how many ways his inner children have prepared him for these years, even though he was once them all.

He sees the square that missing 4 belongs in, stamps it, and takes another sip as a reward.

Is it fiction, if it’s a possible future?

For those learning how to create time with me this summer on Inner Magic, I’ve found listening to my Inner Elders, and allowing them to dream, is an important way to understand how quickly this moment will pass.

This piece of Fast Fiction is part of the Friday Series on Inner Magic to accompany the longer, Full Posts shared twice a month. This community supported creative project is made possible by the currency of the internet: attention. Please share this writing if you enjoyed it.

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The following has been declassified for all earth life by proper authorization channels. The collective does not typically condone the use of direct contact or communication between the world collective (The W.C,) and those yet to meet the requirements for proper contact, but this case has been deemed an exception out of respect for the one interrogated, and their impact on other W.C. matters. Note: names, including my own, have been changed to protect all parties.

Sincerely,
Vasily Arkhipov
The World Collective | Jr. Administrator

Planet: AO_5678FF90_AU_3
Observation Number: 2304
Planet Year: 4,500,001,956

In system logs it was Fredrick’s proposal to examine a non-target creature from the surface, but it was Bartholomew who proposed this particular sample.

The specimen behind the glass of the tractor beam receiving cell was much larger than what Fredrick and Bartholomew’s ship had been designed for. The wobble to the antigrav was brief after the beam shut off, but it still caused Fredrick to curse, “Barty, I told you she’s too big! What made you want to bring a -” Fredrick was suddenly interrupted, as a loud guttural sound from the specimen filled the small space craft.

“Was that the human word for Mom, Fred?” Bartholomew exclaimed in delight, moving toward the access door to the cell.

“It stinks Barty, I don’t like it. Start the language analysis, get the probe ready, and lets get this over with. I really wish we would have sampled -” Fredrick was interrupted again, the sound louder and more insistent this time.

“I think its hungry, Fred.” Bartholomew said as he placed his digits on the creatures forehead, and started the two way communication system.

“Look Barty, I know you’re excited, but we’re already negating the original agreement with the surface for this non target collection, we can’t cater to every sample’s -” This time Fredrick was interrupted by a voice that played through the ship’s communication system.

“Moooother F’er, Where did you put my food?” The creature exclaimed, its head cocked, so one eye was glaring at Fredrick, “I give them my milk, and they take away my babies, fine, I’ve grown used to it. But that was the deal, I’d be fed, put in the barn at night, and given a blanket in winter. I give them it all, so things like this don’t happen!”

“Told you she was hungry Fred.” Bartholomew looked from Fredrick back to the creature, “You’re, uh, a she, right?”

“I’m a Mooother!” The creature bellowed, “and I have a young daughter down there who still weening.”

Fredrick and Bartholomew looked at each other, each with a raised eyebrow; this was not how samples typically behaved. “So, you’re not scared?”

“No, I’m mad. You two ain’t nothing compared to the butcher truck.”

Another look was exchanged. Fredrick sighed, “If you’re not scared, then this should be easy, we have a short questionnaire to conduct, and then Barty here is going to take a -”

“I ain’t doing nothing until you get me something to eat.”

“This will only take a minute,” Fred persisted, but the creature first turned her head away, and then turned her whole body in the cramped space so her rear faced Fredtick. She let a small piece of feces fall to the tractor cell’s floor. Fredrick sighed again. “Delightful… We have a true negotiator… Barty! Get miss… what is your name darling?”

She had turned back to face him, “The name’s Bessie.”

“Barty, get miss Bessie here something to eat will you?” And then under his breath, “at least the probing part looks like it will be easy.”

In moments, the tractor beam cell floor was covered in assorted detritus Bartholomew had grav’d up; it looked nothing like food, but Bessie’s mood improved as she ate.

“So, miss Bessie, you’re um… fed. Its time for our questions.”

Bessie puked into her own mouth, and began chewing again, “Shoot.”

“Uhh…”

“Oh Fred, I love her, can we keep her?” Bartholomew exclaimed.

“Barty, just be quiet, you know we can’t. No more distractions” Fred sighed, turning back to Bessie. “Question one, do you view yourself as an intelligent creature?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh, right.” Fred said, glancing at Bartholomew who seemed to want to jump into the enclosure, “Question two, do you view your species as intelligent?”

“Mostly”

“Elaborate”

“The bulls stop being intelligent when they’re all… excited”

Bartholomew laughed, “Fred, Fred, it sounds like just the humans.”

“Barty please, Question three, where do you rank your species in intelligence?” Fredrick looked at Bessie down his, nose with this question.

“If you’re measure intelligence by emotional and ethical qualities, then cows are the most intelligent species I’ve met.”

“Oh?” Fredrick’s one syllable played every note in a chord of condescension.

“Yes, cows.” Bessie said, ignoring the note, “We’re not in control its true, so we haven’t had to prove we could govern earth. But! we have simple needs, and don’t ask for more than that. We’re givers, and the world would be better with givers in charge.”

Bartholomew jumped in before Fredrick could retort, “You’re givers, meaning like,” he struggled for the question, “you’re like the plants you eat?”

“Correct, we do take from the plants, but mostly the ones nothing else can stomach.”

Fredrick glowered at Bartholomew as he cleared his throat, “Question five, the last question in our self assessment intelligence survey, and one you seem to have an opinion of already.” Fredrick was still looking at Bartholomew, “What is the cause of misfortune on your planet?”

Bessie sighed, and seemed to collect her thoughts. “There are two kinds of dogs on the farm, one is good natured, loving, protective, playful. Kind of like Sparky back home.”

“The question was -” Fredrick’s interjection was cut off.

“Mooron, let me finish! Some dogs are good, but the other dogs are wolves and coyotes, they raid the farm, causing fear, and destruction.” Bessie paused to make a show of looking Fredrick up and down, “Everyone, cows included, are like the farm, they got two dogs, one joyful and giving, the other fearful and oppressive. These dogs get into fights sometimes and- ”

Bartholomew was leaning towards Bessie like the child he hadn’t been in 200 cycles. He couldn’t help himself, “Which dog wins the fight, Bessie!?”

“The Dog that gets fed, wins the fight.”

This Parable is part of the ongoing series released on Fridays to accompany the Full Posts on Inner Magic. If you enjoyed this content and would like to support the creation of more, subscribe.

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Post script by Vasily Arkhipov

I need to call attention to a few matters for the record. One, Fredrick and Bartholomew don’t have eyebrows, nor noses for that matter. Similarly, it is critical to note for posterity, that although probing was conducted, Bessie was left unharmed and returned to the farm with her young calf. We can safety convey that upon further observation, Bessie did not convey her brief abduction to the owner of the cow, Farmer Tony; who was subsequently abducted one year later.

My Father Time

Before I was an idea, the father of time lived a life worth knowing.

When I was a young adult, my dad used to apologize for his generation, albeit jokingly; “We used up all the fun, sorry we didn’t leave any for you.” Maybe this is true to a degree; there has been no “free-love” movement like his, nor the excess of psychedelics, nor the abundance of a pleasures in disco era. If this is true to a degree, than it is equally important to highlight the generation’s impact on Civil Rights, on nuclear disarmament, on environmentalism, and to a greater degree than before, equality.

Although my father “used up all the fun,” he also was part of many movements that used their youth to create a better world. He grew up in a naval base town, with a mother who pressed all of her children to be radical free thinkers, and to see everyone, regardless of race or creed, as humans who’s rights are worth fighting for. This upbringing aligned with the rise of the Civil Rights Movement; this upbringing prepared him for countless protests and acts of disobedience he would be brave enough to contribute to. He has stories of preparing for marches; of tear gas and billy clubs; stories of crowd control causing campus chaos, and of fearing the draft.

Living in any military base town during Vietnam was a violent place; there was a second war going on; one between the hippies and everyone else in town. It wasn’t long before my father knew it was time to get out, to do like many in those years, to move to California.

There, he leaned into the skills his father had taught him, and began working on construction sites; at first painting, but quickly becoming a skilled carpenter and framer. This was during a particularly large housing boom, and soon he was developing skills he would use the rest of his career; from small remodels to multi-million dollar new construction. I believe this phase of his life is when he really used up all the fun; no longer in a town filled with strife, but in the sun soaked expanse of Southern California. Its this phase of life where he shares stories of escapades at the Huntington Garden, or along the endless then-undeveloped shores near San Diego.

Although I have never heard him say so explicitly, the sunset to these filled times was when my father lost his own father. This was a change in his life that, in my words, shifted his trajectory towards the man I know, the one who puts his family before himself.

Dad began running marathons, and on one particularly hot day of training, he found himself running by a woman washing her car in the driveway. He must have slowed down to gawk at her, because soon enough she was spraying him with those hose, taunting, “you look like you could use a drink.”

Weeks later, he went on a blind date, on the night after Halloween, on the Day of the Dead. His date, my mother, still had black fingernails, and dye in her hair from her previous night’s costume. Still, she was unmistakably the woman who had sprayed him down with the hose. The story goes, that after dinner they spent hours on the couch, only kissing. “The rest is history,” as they both say. After some years of dating, eloping, and after some attempts, I became more than just a thought; I took my first breath and my “time” began.

A Mansion in Heaven

Some cellular level of my body remembers my dad holding me as a baby at bed time, it is a sensation that happens when I listen to the music they used to play around those nighty-night time hours. The music that I’d pass out to was not typical for an infant, it was mostly Jimi Hendrix; most often Voodoo Child.

There is a vivid memory of being in the backseat of the car after a little league baseball game, a game I struggled with. His presence and the feeling of that memory is as important as the words of encouragement I can no longer remember. There are the memories of tickle type wrestling; memories of my dad telling me bedtime stories, stories I’d later learn were largely twilight zone episodes he remembered the plot to. There are memories of him soothing my pain, both physical and emotional; there is the memory of him telling me, “you aren’t even using the training wheels, they fell off last lap!” So many memories of him being there, of him creating time for me.

There are memories of us arguing about civics and politics at the dinner table, the way his mother once pushed her own children to be stronger thinkers. There are memories of him taking me to a construction site before I was much taller than the countertops; I still remember the smell of sawdust while I pushed the nail broom around the framed house he was building.

There is the memory of him sitting me down in the basement to say goodbye to his father-in-law over the phone; the memory of him telling me “we need to be strong for mom,” while she was battling stage four breast cancer; the memory of him arriving at the scene of my first major bike accident; and the memories of driving to the hospital each day together after I saved my mother’s life. Memories of how he donated months of his time to finish a remodel for a neighbor, whose husband unexpectedly passed, leaving two daughter fatherless. Memories of how he struggled, but managed, to provide for our family as the sole income earner, during the financial housing crisis of 2008, while working in construction.

Then there are the memories of his presence next to my own hospital bed while I struggled back to life. He was there from the moment I woke up each day, often before six in the morning, until it was dark outside the windows; I remember him there every day; every day for nearly seven weeks.

He has been there during some my most frightening times, my most victorious, and most foolish. He fills my memories, both the ones still in fidelity, and the ones murky with lost neurons. There is no better evidence my father created time for me, than the sheer number of memories I have with him.

My dad has a saying for the most generous people in his life, “they’ve got a mansion waiting for them up in heaven.” He may be too humble to see that his life, of caring for others, of acting with selflessness, integrity and equality, has also earned him quite the mansion in heaven.

Walking on Feet Just like my Father’s

There’s another memory, of sitting at our kitchen table together; a table covered in the blue prints of a job site. I would have no way of knowing that day, as I likely doodled with crayons, that in twenty some years I would be sitting at that table with him again; us both with blueprints; us both calculating costs of materials; of becoming my own version of his general contractor profession: a project manager.

In hindsight, clearly something about his profession left an impression on me, but when I tell him, “I am proud to be your son,” it isn’t really related to his skills or his work ethic; although these are impressive, and I’m grateful to inherit them. I am most proud to call him my father, because of his generosity; both in his action, and in his heart. I am proud to have inherited his belief that we all have our own relationship with God, and his belief that everyone is equally deserving; I am proud to have inherited his open mind, and his ability to become a pit bull when its time to protect the ones we love.

For a phase of my adolescence, I would self describe myself as a “gamer.” It was how I spent time alone, and with friends for a long stretch of grade school and into high school; even my first payroll job was at a video game store. It wasn’t until college that I sold my console in exchange for a music festival ticket, a choice that some part of me still has questions about. I would stop using the label gamer, but I never really gave up gaming completely.

I wouldn’t say that gaming is a guilty pleasure; I’m not ashamed. Playing a computer game helps me unwind more than TV most weeks, and just like a good book, a favorite TV show, or a movie worth watching, a game can transport me away from the troubles at hand; often in a very stimulating way.

For those following my Summer Series on Creating Time; a good video game will make hours fly by. Like a good book, an immersive game is an easy way to devour, rather than create, time.

Dungeon Crawler Carl

I hope that one of the readers of this post has a gamer in their life that has yet to find the joy of a good book. I know plenty of people who like both, but I also know plenty of gamers who have to realize what they’re missing in a good book or audiobook. I hope that someone takes this recommendation to heart, because this last month I have fallen in love with the author Matt Dinniman. I believe Dinniman’s writing could turn any gamer into a reader; particularly with the series, “Dungeon Crawler Carl.”

You know those books that just start; where it is immediately funny, action packed, and makes you ask “what in the F,” out loud? For those who don’t need every bound page to be of the high-brow variety, I have a book for you; a book that isn’t one thing. It’s a science fiction book in the way that the Fifth Element is a science fiction movie. Nothing needs to be explained logically, because that isn’t the point. Yet, its basically set in a fantasy world; a near present day earth that is suddenly made into dungeons and dragons “game;” by who? I can’t give it away.

I wouldn’t know where to put it in a bookstore, its such a laugh out loud riot, that I’ve embarrassed myself laughing to it in public. The jokes are the center stage, sometimes slapstick, sometimes cultural reference, sometimes just sheer situational brilliance. Yet Dinniman somehow also makes it warm with emotional, and often insightful; albeit in a darkly satirical way when he does. It is also a written RPG, with characters that gain experience, levels, achievements, skills and spells, and most importantly, Loot. Somehow the book taps the same dopamine line as a satisfying game.

There are five eight books in the series, and a neighbor recommend I listen to them rather than read; the audiobook/theater version is I recommend. There is incredible voice acting, and although the books won’t help you fall asleep, they will help you breeze through chores, long car rides, medical recoveries, or the many other reasons we want a fast forward button on life. If pure science fiction is more your beat, I also recommend “Operation Bounce House,” also by Dinniman; still funny, still social commentary, but set on farm on an alien planet.

Satisfactory

A video game recommendation to fit this post

I may not label myself as a gamer, but I still entertain my inner child’s desire for time gaming. I even did a self study since writing this Substack and found that if I give myself some gaming time each week, I’m actually more motivated and more productive when I let my brain completely get absorbed in a few hours of gaming.

Last month however, I started playing a game that could easily absorb my life; Satisfactory; a game that has been in the works for over half a decade. I’m not going to go long here… Anyone who hasn’t heard about it, but is interested in a game with the title, is likely already on Youtube scoping it out. Without assuming, I’m guessing most of my readers haven’t played a video game in a while, but I bet someone in your life is, or maybe even works in the industry.

I won’t describe the game, just three common comments from a forum,

• “I’m 200 hours in and thinking about restarting.”

• “I know what I’m doing after surgery.”

• “There’s no wrong way to play this game.”

This Monthly Media Obsession is part of the rotating themed Friday content, such as this Side Quest. These accompany the longer and more thought provoking Full Posts on Inner Magic. If you enjoyed this writing, you may enjoy my many other offerings.