Jack continues his efforts at awakening.

“In violence one is totally asleep and has no understanding.” Maurice Nicoll




Chapter Eight Moments of Awakening





In the Work it is said that one thing that keeps us from seeing contradictions in ourselves
is buffers that stand between two opposites and keep us from seeing them. Though I recognize that I am an excellent substitute and should be with all my years of experience, on the other side of a buffer I have doubts about my effectiveness. For over two weeks, even on the streets of New York, I have little moments of worry about a referral that I gave to one of my six grade students.

I was subbing in Ms. Caddie’s sixth grade class. After their spelling test, the students were partnered up working on math games. Shannon, a light skinned African American girl who was sharply dressed and very popular, stood up, popped something into her mouth, and told the whole class, “Look, I’m chewing gum!”

“Get rid of it,” I said pointing to the thrash can.

“It’s not gum. It’s a mint,” she told me.

“Get rid of the mint,” I said.

“Miss Caddie lets us chew mints,” she replied.

“Well, I don’t let students eat anything in class,” I tell her and hurry to the back of the room to settle an argument between two boys. When I return to the front, I see Shannon pop another mint into her mouth. “Shannon, I told you I don’t let students eat anything in the classroom,” I tell her.

“Ms. Caddy lets us eat mints,” she replies chomping away on the mint.

“Well, I’m not Ms. Caddy,” I tell her and get a behavioral form out of Ms. Caddie’s basket. “Here, fill this out,” I tell the girl.

“No, Ms. Caddie lets us eat mints.”

“Fill out the form or I’ll have to write a referral and send you to the office,” I tell her.

“Write me a referral. I ain’t done nothing wrong,” she replies.

“O.K. Let me have your worksheet,” I say figuring that I can copy her last name from it.

“No,” she tells me holding on to the worksheet with both hands.

I grab the worksheet and pull it out of her grip.

“You can’t do that!” she tells me.

“I’m your teacher. I can do that,” I reply.

At lunch break, Mrs. Holdon calls me into her office. “Mr. Daley, I need to speak to you for a moment,” she tells me and explains that Shannon told her that I had ripped her papers out of her hand and when she complained I told her, ‘I’m a teacher. I can do anything I want.’

“I never said that,” I protest.

“Oh, I talked to several of Shannon’s classmates, and they all agree that you did say that. You just need to be careful about what you say, Mr. Daley.”

“Yea, I can see that.”

“O.K. Thank you, Mr. Daley,” Mrs. Holdon says.

“Thank you,” I answer.

This happened on a Friday. On the following Monday, I didn’t get a call to sub. Since it was a week before Easter vacation, I figured that teachers were not taking time off. However, when I didn’t get a call on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday, I began to wonder if Mrs. Holdon had taken my off the preferred substitute list or something. Though it was great to have these days off before my trip to New York, in the back of my mind I was wondering if I might not have to start looking for a new job.

On the Monday after Easter break, I get called to sub and happen to run into Ms. Caddie in the faculty room. “Did your students complain about what a mean sub I am?” I ask her.

“No, not at all. You did an excellent job,” she replies.

“Yea, you have a really good group of kids. The only one I had any problems with is Shannon.”

“Oh, Shannon has a real attitude. Everyone has problems with her,” Ms. Caddie tells me.

So, there I was worrying for over two weeks that maybe I had been too hard on the student, that maybe I was going to suffer some consequences. It seems that when I am on one side of the buffer, I question my ability. I wonder if I go too far in my effort to correct the bad attitudes that some students exhibit. While on this side of the buffer, I see that it is a part of my job to work on attitude, to teach students that they should have respect for their elders and obey classroom rules.

Last night, I woke up around 10:00 P.M. to the sound of a driving rainstorm. A gust of wind came over the house and through the back yard trees. Turning over, I listen to the pleasant sound of rain dancing on the ground.

This morning the April sky has parted leaving enormous billowing gray white clouds from one horizon to the other. The rising sun breaks free from a great white cloud and floods the valley with sunlight. I step lightly on the rain softened earth and study the new green leaves of the almond trees. About fifty feet in front of me, four or five long neck wild geese huddle together. I slow my pace and tightened the reins on my dog, Bo. The geese begin flapping their wings and giving off high cries of freight. I slow down and try to get as close as possible. Their wings flap more and I almost think that they are going to turn and attack me. I get within thirty yards or so and they take off and fly a hundred yards or more west and glide into the canal. Again, I get within forty or so yards and with a great flapping of wings the geese are airborne. This repeats itself several times, and then the geese take off to the south and fly several hundred yards before landing in a field of high green wheat.

As I look from horizon to horizon, white fluffy clouds crowd the sky in a complete three hundred and sixty degree circle. Above the clouds three black crows cut a path southward. The silence of this April morning fills me with the wonder of our turning Earth. My mind empties out completely. The silence takes hold me. A blue bird drops out of an almond tree. It shows a blue that has never been before, the essence of all blue. The wind blows from Mt. Diablo and sets the leaves of the orchards in motion. It blows all thought from my mind and body. I am at one with the wind blown silence.

As I walk though the orchards on this beautiful May morning, an airliner jets overhead at about 36,000 feet. It strikes me that looking down from the air and marveling at the distance that I could see on my last flight over California, I was seeing about seven miles. As I look across the fields to the peaks of Mt. Oslo, I realize that I am seeing a distance of approximately 60 miles as the crow flies. I am actually seeing nearly ten times the distance that I saw on that spectacular flight several weeks ago.

In math class on Monday, I ask the class, “How many of you have seen the Disney video Hercules?” By a show of hands I learn that most of the students are familiar with it. “You know, that Hercules comes from Greek mythology. Many of the myths of ancient times express esoteric ideas. Hercules came down from the Gods. He was able to return to the Gods my doing acts of heroism here on Earth.

“The Fourth Way says that we all come down from a star. That we descend to the Earth, that we leave our heavenly father and our born of earthly parents so that we can accomplish something on this Earth. According to Fourth Way teaching, each of us comes down from a star to do something on this Earth that no one else can do. We each have a special task to perform. We can only do this by reaching a higher level of consciousness.” I tell my students.

I’m surprise and disappointed to find that the students have little to say about my revelation. The sour faced girl tells me that she is a Christian and believes in one God, not in millions of Gods. Justin tells me that nothing I say makes any sense. In a P.E. class a couple days later, one of the students who seems most interested in the Fourth Way ideas tells me that he like it a lot better when I told them about my history. “That was a lot more interesting than your philosophy,” he told me.

This morning as I walk the Promenade of Mother Walnut Trees on my way home, I see a species of swallow that I’ve never seen before. They are blue under their gray wings and white on the belly. There’s a whole flock of them skimming atop the canal water and flitting in and out of the bright green leafed trees. Over twenty different “I” ‘s pop out on my hour walk home even through I’m trying with all my might to die to each of them. An “Observer I” pops up several times: observing the bright sparking sun light that comes off the water and commenting on it, observing the deep deep green of the leaves and commenting on it. And, a “Writer I” also makes several appearances trying to put the morning into words. Most are just every day “I” ’s vying for my attention. But, a part of the walk the beauty of this May morning holds my awareness.

And, it strikes me what Krishnamurti and Henry Miller are saying: You are the world; you are not separate from it. And, at the same time, you are an individual manifestation of the world. You came down from a star to develop that unique essence that will help to raise the consciousness of the entire universe. So, you are a unique manifestation of the entirety. Your uniqueness is only a single aspect of the totality joined together.

A week later as I walk past the Mother Walnut trees, in ones, and pairs, and three somes, swallows flit out of the trees and skim along the top of the canal water. Some are the blue winged swallows that I saw for the first time last week. Others are orange breasted. There are several with white breasts, and one with a vermeil colored breast. I’m walking uphill against the curve of the earth now, heading toward home. Yesterday, walking on the beach of Half Moon Bay, I noticed how sharply the sandy beach sloped to sea level at the point where the waves were breaking. Then, it struck me that the sand, the bottom, the earth beneath the ocean continues to slope downward all the way to the point on the planet Earth where it begins its upward part of the curve. Looking across the vast Pacific, I can feel the curve of the earth beneath the gray green water.

Last night, as I walked my way deeper into the orchards, I noticed a half moon following my path. The sun appeared to be moving westward as the earth rotated on its axis from west to east. At least another hour of daylight, I told myself and decided to go in a little deeper. As I caught sight of the moon again, I saw that it circles the earth from east to west just the opposite from how the earth spins in its rotation. And the moon also spins on it axis doesn’t it? Isn’t that how it changes size? I ask myself

Walking home on this sunny May morning, again, I feel the upward curve of the earth. Only a few “I” ’s
pop up to pull me out of the morning. “The Writer I” several times, once to take note of the million blades of green spring grain that have sprung up across the fields to the south another time, thinking that like Henry Miller I need to write about some of my old boy hood friends, Lester Leadum, Ollie, Jackie Bird, the guys and girls from the Triv., Johnny Jones…. The “Hungry I” wondering what we would have to eat when we get home, came up a couple times.

On the way out passed the Mother Walnuts all the “I” ‘s are silent as this early June morning rolls downhill more into June. Coming back, several “Writer I” s pop up and also an “I” that is disappointed that it lost that dream from last night after going over it on awakening and going back to sleep and dreaming a second dream.

I’m standing with Stoke, Blake, and Jake in a high mountain dried up stream. We’re making our way downstream prospecting for gold. “Look,” I tell Jake pointing to a crevice. “This is where you can find flakes of gold. As the water comes running down this hole is empty and the heaviest metals fall into it first. So the gold is often at the very bottom,” I say scooping out handfuls of sand and some stones. “Look. A gold flake,” I tell Jake picking it up with a fingertip and rubbing it on my thumbnail. As I dig deeper into the hole, I find a gold brick about the size of an inch thick chocolate bar. “Gold! Gold! Gold!” I shout as I continue to pull out bars, seventeen in all. “We’re rich, we’re rich, we’re rich!!!!” I shout While another “I” is saying, These were made in a bank. We must’a dug into an old bank vault. We gotta give ‘em back we gotta give ‘em back.

Which night was it that we rode the elevator to the Top of the Rock?” I ask myself on this first Monday in June. School is over for another year.

It must have been Saturday night after our visit to the Village. We left early intending to meet Bella at five or so to take her out to dinner, but they had an extra rehearsal and she couldn’t go. So, a quick little nap, and then we head down Fifth Avenue for another quick peek at Saint Patrick’s. A couple times around, and I just had to go inside again. Anne waited outside so I didn’t sit down, but just walked through some of the stations.

At Rockefeller Center, there were several guys out front promoting the tours. One told us that we could buy tickets right inside, no wait. The day before there had been a big line. I recall the guidebook saying that some like the view from the “Top of the Rock” better than that of the Empire State Building and the lines were a lot shorter.

We got right to the ticket window, and sixty-four dollars poorer, followed directions to the elevators. That’s where the lines were. Not that long though, only a couple city blocks. The thing that was holding us up is that halfway up the line everyone was posing for pictures. Then, someone found out that you didn’t have to pose. You could go around the posers. The line broke around and next thing I know, we’re in the elevators and climbing to the seventy-second floor. Out on the platform, I’m glad to see that we have to look through protective glass. I kind of lean back not wanting to get too close to the edge. Looking down on the skyscrapers is sure one breath taking experience. I try to pick out some of the more prominent ones, The Empire State Building, Macy’s, the Chrysler Building.

I can’t believe how small Central Park looks from this elevation. Then Anne leads me up the stairs to a higher tower where we can get an even greater look. Here, there is no glass wall. I stand at least a foot behind the waist high wall and lean away from it. At one point, I want to grab Anne’s arm and pull her away as she leans over the wall to look straight down.

My fear of heights really came to the surface on the drive to Eureka last summer. Such a beautiful drive, with redwood trees as tall as the New York sky scrappers, and long curving climbs where you can see rocky tree laden terrain that dropped several thousand feet. Leaning away from the curve and braking to a crawl, hands tightening on the wheel, I could feel the fear in my breast battling with the joyful sights that flashed past. Even safe in our fourth story Victorian room at the Eagle House in Eureka, I leaned back as I scanned the streets below and wondered if I dare open the window.

The wind awakens a cloudy morning dove who sings outside my widow. Wind sound through the trees blows away all the different “I” ‘s that crowd my mind and body. A moment of Self Remembering spreads the silence until a life “I” steps from behind a buffer. He is thinking about the money he’ll save by refinancing. He’s telling me that the money game is not all that bad. Maybe we should take the broker’s advice and do an interest only loan and invest the savings like he showed on the spreadsheet, he argues.

The wind sounds across the valley and brings a taste of the distant Pacific. The voices fall
Silent.

It’s a week deeper into June. Henry Miller says that we must chose between Money and Spirit and most of us chose Money here in these United States. How often when I am in a meditative state does an I from Money jump in and demand attention. Even now as I’m walking through the green nut filled orchards, taking in the bird sound, a “Money I” jumps out from behind a tree and I’m telling myself that it is costing me less than half a percent more to take the loan from WaMu and I’ll be paying half the closing that the lower interest guys charge so it really wasn’t such a bad decision.

A second “Money I” jumps in and I’m telling myself that I took the most conservative way out. Sure, you’re taking a little risk going with the lower mortgage guys, but you might save half a percent. Do you know how much money that is in thirty years?

A third “I” says, Yea, you stupid bastard. You’re not saving a cent by refinancing. All you‘re doing is pushing your debt twenty years into the future and paying it all to the money guys. Do you know how much interest you pay on a two hundred thousand dollar loan? Over two hundred thousand dollar! Two hundred thousand dollars!!! You end up paying one hundred percent interest. One hundred percent!!!!

Bird song pulls me back into the morning. A lone mother walnut tree encircles me with the shade of her outreaching limbs. Sunlight enters the tree and fills the waving green leaves with a burst of energy that feeds the whole earth. Time and thought come to an end as the morning enters my very soul.

Maurice Nicole says that there are two levels of thinking, the sensual level and the level based on faith. Faith, according to Nicole, is believing in the invisible world that is beyond and responsible for the visible. “Thus sense and faith describe two ways of thinking, not opposites, not antagonistic, but on different levels.”

Miller’s Money then is thinking from the level of the senses. And, it is proper to think from this level in order to fulfill ones material needs. That’s the easy part of living if you apply conscious effort to it. At another level, and to reach this level you must put in way more effort than you do at meeting the conditions of every day living, there is a whole different world. A man cannot reach higher levels of consciousness if he spends all his time and energy on meeting the needs of life. Many times we can get by with far less than we “need,” and have energy left to jump up and catch the rope.