1996: Westward Ho! - #28

On the road training with Velvalee and Joie

The trick in writing memoir is to be able to place one’s self in a present that is now past. The Me I Am Now wants to edit events of the 1990s from the perspective of everything I know will happen later, and the wisdom -or at least more mature assessments - I bring to my retelling of these stories. But who am I to steal the narrative tension from my story, the fun you my reader will have of making the original journey with the frequently confused and not yet 40 year old me, the me whose adventurous spirit was still shedding measured patterns of speech and thought I’d clothed myself in for a dozen years of safety and success in a corporate world?

The fun you will have will sometimes come at the expense of my pride. Thatʻs what makes it fun.

On the other hand, there is a bit of context I feel prompted to bring into the story as another aside to readers. Some of the themes and topics I have touched upon so far in this memoir contrast with everyday, certainly with corporate, behavioral norms and beliefs in our culture: why I trust my intuition with my life; the importance of following omens; even the practice of “channeling” or serving as a medium for a disembodied intelligence.

In indigenous cultures and even in many spiritual traditions it is taken for granted that all of us have some abilities along this spectrum and some individuals are gifted and can further develop their abilities. For example, I just read this article in Lionʻs Roar magazine, written by a Buddhist monk in the Thai Forest tradition. He writes:

I had read the standard list of psychic powers in the Pali canon, but for me it was just a string of words: things like astral travel, psychokinesis, clairaudience, clairvoyance, the ability to read minds, recollection of past lives—one’s own and others’—the ability to contact beings on other levels of the cosmos, and knowledge of where others have been reborn and why. The list had no relevance to my own concerns, so I hadn’t given it much thought.

Now I was living among people for whom the powers in the list, plus many others, were taken for granted as simple facts of life.

-Thanissaro Bikkhu

My companions and teachers during the 1990s took all of these for granted as simple facts of life. As the Lions Roar article continues to explain, it is a scientific fact that the mind shapes our experience, and so-called psychic powers simply take this to another level. However, these abilities are to be used cautiously and never advertised. The problems arise when, being imperfect and less than fully awakened humans, our own human delusions and desires scramble the messages - or create them out of whole cloth.

And that is where the fun becomes not so fun. Still, it all began innocently enough. And in the end will provide growth and lessons in discernment - my main challenge and discipline to this day.

One of the ways in which Velvalee and Joié intended to shake me up, or wake me up, was simple. After that first pre-booked hotel in Memphis, I was forbidden to make any reservations. Say what? Even as a kid in the back seat of our Chevy station wagon, I treasured that spiral bound AAA Triptik, every turn highlighted in yellow, every exit with a service station noted, each day’s mileage preordained with a star-rated motel room reserved and waiting. Bursting with pride at being trusted to read the Triptik aloud and keep us on track, I was a preadolescent Siri and built-in GPS combined.

For the dozen years of business trips prior to my leaving the Bank, my secretary and the in-house travel team would not only have every flight, limo and hotel room booked, my passport would be stamped with appropriate visas and detailed itineraries tucked into its leather case. The in-house medical department would take care of vaccinations against scary tropical diseases and provide me with an emergency kit of antihistamines, analgesics and antibiotic creams.

None of that was allowed on this trip.

After one night in D.C. with my friends on sabbatical from Hawai’i, and one night in a Memphis hotel with Joié, we settled in for a night with Velvalee’s family in Heavener, Oklahoma. I met her daughter and grandchildren and sister. I saw the original Blessed Mother painting hanging above her sister’s piano. And the next day I climbed behind the wheel of the Pathfinder with light snow falling, not knowing how many hours were ahead of us or where we would rest our heads that evening. I realized this was much like the various pilgrimages and tasks Paulo Coelho writes about, learning experiences required by his Master and Tradition. Velvalee had insisted on this. I had agreed to this. I had agreed to allow Velvalee to guide my education in these realms of connecting directly with sources of knowledge not available in books. And still I equivocated.

For maybe the first time ever in my life, I was traveling without a planned destination for that day’s travel. I was not quite terrified, but definitely deeply uneasy. Obsessively uncomfortable. I had argued for hours that we needed a plan. If I was not allowed to research it, I was willing to let Joié channel it. Instead, the morning of our departure, we sat and “held the frequency” together. Then Velvalee instructed me to picture the place the Guides already had picked out for us. What did I see? How would I recognize it when we found it?

The image that popped into my mind was a two story apartment with a living room and kitchenette. I shrugged my shoulders and told them apologetically that was all I could come up with.

As sunset approached hours later and I felt I could not safely continue driving on roads made slick by constant snow flurries that could turn to ice as night fell, we came across an “all-suite hotel.” And sure enough, the only suite available had one of its bedrooms in a loft. Velvalee and Joié exchanged knowing glances. As we settled in I admitted that was an interesting coincidence but suggested that perhaps that’s all it was.

The next morning we repeated the exercise. This time all I could come up with was an image of palm trees. “I guess being with you two just has me remembering our time together in Hawai’i,” I concluded.

After another long day of driving, we came to a northern New Mexico town with multiple motels on its main street. Velvalee and Joié agreed this was where we were meant to stop, but asked me to drive up and down the street until I knew which motel I had “seen.” It took a couple of passes until I noticed one motel had a small palm tree on its sign next to the words “indoor swimming pool”. But wait for it, it gets better. We walked through the front door and just beyond the check in desk was an atrium with the swimming pool - surrounded by -you guessed it - actual palm trees.

Velvalee and Joié high-fived. I just wondered whether there were swimsuits for sale in the gift shop so I could float in the pool and digest what the heck was happening.