Our World, Our Future Dreams, Visions, Lessons.
Mt. Hood, Oregon
In a dream: I am standing at what seems to be the entrance to a tunnel, much like a quonset hut with the end opened. I have skis on. I look out across a snow covered parking lot to a long building with many windows. The ground begins to shake. I am knocked off my feet. The building across the parking lot pitches downward on one side, falling off its foundation. Sprinklings of snow fall across the opening of the tunnel. Although it is not apparent in the description above, I knew somehow that I was at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon. I had passed through Government Camp going to and from Portland on several occasions, but had never taken the road up the mountain to the lodge. The year after this dream, some friends who were visiting wanted to go see the lodge. As we rounded the final curve in the road I suddenly remembered the dream and a strange almost deja vu feeling came over me. Sure enough, the lodge was on the right, the parking lot lay in front of us, and the long building lay to the left. But here's the kicker: it was during the previous summer that the lodge had installed the quonset hut in front of the main lodge door (we read the story about it in the lodge entrance; a protection against avalanche and snowfall from the roof.) No pictures existed at the time of my dream of the lodge with the quonset hut opening because it was still on the drawing board!
Trees
Many years ago while hiking in the woods, I chanced upon the stump of an old growth pine on a stream bank that had been cut many years before. I was called to sit and meditate on the stump, where I received a lesson about trees. There are mainly three classes of trees: Guardians, Sentinels and Providers. Most trees are Providers. The give us food, wood and live merely to return to and sustain the soil. Sentinels are mature trees which mark the boundaries of older woods and the realms of Guardians. Guardians are the oldest and wisest of trees. I say wisest because trees do acquire knowledge over time; how to grow, how to fight off fires and pests, how to survive in adverse conditions. Trees communicate this knowledge to each other. And while most tress are providers and would willingly give themselves as timber for our buildings, we humans harvest indiscriminantly, taking the old tress and the knowledge they possess out of the forest. Imagine, if you will, your local library. Every 80 to 100 years someone comes through and removes 80% of the books. Now try to repopulate the library using only what knowledge is left and that of the patrons that walk through the door, asking them to write down what they remember. You'd be lucky to return the library to 50% of its original capacity. Then in 80 to 100 years, do the same again. Each time the remaining percentage gets smaller and smaller compared to the original state. That is what we have done to our forests. Because we do not "hear" the trees speak, because we cannot quantify their knowledge, most people think only that trees get bigger. They do not actually think of them as alive and growing. It is no wonder that our forests are suffering, that our tree farms grow slower than predicted and that disease runs rampant in many forests of the US and the world. A Native American Chief of the Puget Sound (WA) area said of the white man, "They cut the tress like they have no grandchildren." Indeed, our greed has robbed us more than just ancient forests (90+% of our ancient forests); it has robbed the forests themselves of knowledge irreplaceable.
They are among us
In a dream: I am standing outside near a building. I have a sense of unease, almost confusion in my mind. I look up into the sky to see 3 cresent moons. I realize that what I am seeing is the same moon in 3 different positions as it would appear minutes apart. Upon this realization, I become aware of a creature near me. Its head is like numerous pretzels woven together to form a hollow sphere, not quite round. It is clothed in a dark shimmering cloak. It is not happy that I have become aware of it, as I also have that it is a time manipulator, which by befuddling our senses by stretching time around us, influences and directs our actions. By existing in a different space-time continuum than our own normal space, the creatures are normally invisible to us. The creature is hostile towards me. I was not a fan and therefore never watched the sci-fi series Andromeda. (I didn't care much for the Captain guy, whatever his name was.) Some years after this dream, by a strange happenstance, I turned the TV on one night some minutes before a show I wanted to watch came on. The last few moments of Andromeda were playing. There on the screen was a creature in a dark shimmering cloak, its head a large woven mesh of sorts, hollow. The creature was identified on the show as a time manipulator. Obviously, I am not alone in my perception that these creatures exist. Truth is, after all, stranger than fiction. And fiction has been used often throughout history to convey ideas that were unpopular, unfathomable or unbelievable. So what do we do about this alien presence? Be aware. Try to keep your mind open to the circumstances of the moment without preconceived notions or prejudices. Live in the 'now' and do not be controlled by the past or the future. And the next time you see an animal staring into blank space or a dog barking at something that isn't there, remember that just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there!
Evolution: The Next Phase
Humans will at some point, likely sooner than later, cease to inhabit this planet; we have seen to that ourselves. The slightest cataclysm that causes us to lose control of the systems that we have in place to shield us from our own toxins (chemicals, nuclear wastes and the like) and thereby releases them into the environment will spell the end of most life as we know it on the planet. However, some forms will survive and even flourish in what to us would be a deadly toxic environment. The new order will be: ants on the ground, wasps in the air, and spiders in between. Ultimately, ants will prevail. Why? Amongst colonial creatures, ants have few rivals. Their precise social structure puts humans to shame. And consider: fire ants are naturally drawn to electricity. This makes them a bothersome pest in our world as they often short out electrical appliances inadvertently. Now consider a world devoid of humans with all of our leftover computer hardware scattered here and there. Only residual charges remain in most circuitry, but enough to be detected by and draw ants to it. It is quite possible that they may at some point learn the simple binary language of microchips: zero or one, on or off. It is possible to conceive of their eventually learning to use binary in the same way that we have, for mass storage and computational purposes. From there the limits are, well, inconceivable. As the dinosaurs and plants of eons gone by now fuel our mechanical and technological society, it is possible that our waste byproducts will fuel the next evolutionary step on this planet.
Biblical Prophesy
"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." Revelation 6:12-14 "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea..." Revelations 7:8 This passage is an unbelievably accurate description of a large meteor strike upon the earth. For those of you who have not seen the movie "Deep Impact", watch it; for those who have, revisit the scene where the meteor strikes the Atlantic ocean. The CGI representation is very good and likely quite accurate. The burning mountain is cast into the sea. The atmosphere is blasted away from the point of impact "as a scroll." The fallout of ejecta would form an umbella of luminous, molten particulates, much like the shape of a heavily laden fig tree. Now consider that this description was written some 2,000 years ago; before knowledge that we live on a planet, before knowledge of extra-terrestrial objects. Some would argue that this description is of volcanic activity, but the description does not fit. Even large and sudden eruptions like Pinatubo billow upwards first, they do not form the fig-tree-like umbrella, and they do not blast the atmosphere away. Though a large caldera eruption like Owen's (Long) valley or Yellowstone would darken the skies, it would not create the other events depicted here and elsewhere in Revelations.
The Center of the Galaxy
I had been troubled for some time that scientists' measurements of x-ray and other emissions coming from the super-massive black hole (SMBH) at the center of our galaxy (known as Sagittarius-A) was less than it should theoretically be. Recently comes word of another smaller SMBH very near the larger one at the center of the galaxy. Estimates show it to be about 1 light year from the event horizon of Sag-A and moving at the incredible speed of 2/3-C, C being the speed of light. In my opinion, this smaller SMBH is, very much like a shepherd moon in the rings of Saturn, sweeping up the matter in the vicinity that would ordinarily fall into the central SMBH, thus the output from Sag-A is insufficient due to lack of material. Logically, at some point in the near future, the SMBH's will merge creating a titanic shock wave and burst of radiation. But here's the crux: we are observing these celestial bodies from 27,000 light years distance, which means...this merger has already taken place; the wave is on its way. Could it be that, as the Maya calculated, we will be crossing the galactic equator in 2012, just as that shock wave reaches our neighborhood? Perhaps they knew more than just our position in the galaxy and that is why they did not continue their calendar beyond 2012. Such a shock wave and radiation spike would be unprecedented in human history. It would likely be felt anywhere in the galaxy, perhaps beyond. But along the plane of the galactic equator, it will surely be the strongest. Perhaps prophecies of the end of the world were not so much prophetic, but as an awareness of an event that had already taken place 25,000 years before, 27,000 light years away.
The Wave (as viewed from another location)
In a dream: I am standing on the shore of a white sand beach. A cliff face rises some 20 to 30 feet high behind me. On the cliff side is a large gray building, very box-like in shape. I look to the ocean to see the water receding. On the horizon is the silver crest of the approaching tsunami. I yell to those on the beach to run. I turn and start up a wide staircase beside the building that leads to the top of the cliff. I realize I am not going to get far enough, high enough in the time I have. I wake myself. Some years after I had this dream I visited a friend in Lincoln City, Oregon who was working at Chinook Winds casino. Next to the casino is the Shilo Inn, a large gray box of a building atop a small cliff overlooking the ocean. Between the casino and the inn is a staircase leading down to the white sand beach. It was exactly as I had dreamed it. The wave I saw in the dream would surely inundate the casino, the inn and the town of Lincoln City. There are 3 possibilities that I see for the creation of the wave that I have dreamed of: 1) a large subduction quake along the San Juan DeFuca plate boundary (such a periodic event is currently due), or possible a large quake elsewhere in the Pacific, 2) a large chunk of the Hawaiian islands cleaving off (another geologic event that is also due), or 3) a meteoric impact in the Pacific Ocean.
The Wave
In a dream: I am in the parking lot of the Astoria (Oregon) Tower. A towering wave, an incredible tsunami sweeps into Astoria bay. The wave engulfs the whole of Astoria up to the Astoria Tower. I climb a tree in the parking lot as the water level rises, hoping that the extra few feet will be enough. The wave rises high enough to move vehicles about the tower parking lot beneath me, but no higher. The wave recedes leaving devastation. At the time I had this dream I had been to Astoria only once and had seen the tower from a distance, from the bay below. Some years after the dream I visited Astoria again. With purpose I went to the tower. Sure enough, there was the tree in the parking lot that I had climbed in my dream. The view of the bay and the bridge below was also exactly as I had dreamed it. How could I have dreamed these details having never before seen them?