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Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Printable Version

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Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Steppingfeet - 01-24-2009

Note to potential reader: This story is big. I don’t mean “big” as in significant or ground-breaking. I mean big as in long. Be forewarned. If you would rather do something worthwhile with your time, close out of this post. Go hug a family member. Plant a tree. Make a pen pal in China. Create a series of paper angels. Just don’t read further!

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Overview
During the first 18 years of my life, I was soundly asleep within the dream of consensus reality. Everything I knew of the world, of reality itself, came to me from the very small world of family, friends, school textbooks, and society as funneled through pop television, movies, and other media. These were the walls of what, in retrospect, was a very small and tight-fitting container – large enough to allow for the existence of the materially-oriented desires to have their space, but not much else. So asleep was I within this dream that I had no conception whatsoever of there being a “box” which one could think outside of. This was all that there was to the world – there was no possibility of there being something more. That was until my awakening…

Upbringing
The oldest of four – one brother and two sisters – I was born and raised in northeast Ohio, halfway between the cities of Cleveland and Akron, where I lived until I moved to Louisville, KY in 2003.

My father worked as a truck driver all of my life, most of his years spent hauling lumber to various locations within a day’s driving distance. He wasn’t an “over-the-road” driver that is gone for days on end; we usually got to see him every night, we the fortunate beneficiaries of his outstanding grill cooking. My mother worked at a local AT&T office during the first portion of my life, and, beginning in 1987 with the birth of my first sister, became a housewife, babysitter, and cake-maker extraordinaire up until 1999 when she again returned to work for AT&T.

My father isn’t what you would call an intellectual – he curses a lot, makes crude jokes, and, despite being occasionally mistaken for an escaped gorilla, goes without a shirt on as much as possible. Like most people, he wasn’t without his own demons, including those that manifested as a chronic difficulty with anger and rage along with, and not helped by, an on again/off again relationship with alcohol, a relationship which eventually helped to bring his marriage with my mother to an end in 2008. Despite his many shortcomings, he never once failed to work hard, very hard to support his family, and he never faltered in his responsibility to provide for our survival. Underneath it all, his heart has always been good and dedicated to the good in all – if you needed it, he would not hesitate to give you the shirt off of his back (and not because he liked going without shirts.)

My mother has always been the martyr, expending herself to the fullest extent possible in order to give to others. I can count on one hand the number of times she did something for herself. Her energy, her sleep, her money, and her time were usually sacrificed for the benefit of others. Martyrdom is actually an apt term for describing the essence of her relationship with her children as well. She gave to us, cherished us, did for us, and built up a massive debt to create a life for us beyond her and my father’s financial means.

Neither of my parents went to college or were involved with causes, organizations, or concepts bigger than themselves for the most part. Neither were religious, spiritual, politically involved, or engaged in the larger community beyond some school functions – both were focused, mostly, on putting food on the table, raising my siblings and I, and interacting with friends, family, and neighbors. I don’t believe that either one of them took the time or expended the energy to systematically reflect upon themselves, their circumstances, and the meaning behind it all.

My parents gave birth to me, their first child, in 1980. I had a great beginning to life. Though there were challenges and fears aplenty, I look back upon my childhood (ages 0 – 12) as if it were a mythical realm, fringed with the vague magic of a dream and painted in the golden hues of a cherished and innocent time. In the complex of townhouses I grew up in, there were a million other kids to play with, trees for fort-building projects, a community pool for swimming, girls to court in my characteristically shy way, and a game system named Nintendo that hit the market when I was five or six years old which would occupy much of my play time all the way up to and through 12th grade.

Middle and High School
In the seventh grade I had switched from one middle school to another. My awkwardness, lack of self-confidence, and (unconscious) alienation from others really came to the fore during this period. I had a difficult time making friends and feeling like I belonged. (Not very uncommon during these years, I know! And for some reason that remains unclear to this day, I had a love of wearing clothes that were way too big on me.)

So that by the time I began to create solid networks of friends upon entering and proceeding into high school, my study and my grades took a gradual turn for the worse. Plotted on an x-y graph, the horizontal ‘x’ axis beginning with 9th grade and ending with 12th, the vertical ‘y’ axis representing my grades, with A’s being the upper most portion, the graph would resemble something that would be great to ski or sled down. I started out a great student with an interest in study, learning, and excelling, but spending time with friends gradually began to dominate my mental landscape and interests, pushing school further and further from my mind. This trend culminated in coming a hair away from actually failing my senior year due to days missed and those grade-making projects left unfinished. But I had a great time, and I honed my writing skills in the process of composing a massive volume of notes written to my female friends.

With my friends I watched a lot of TV, played a lot of video games, did the standard things that kids do in high school, including partying and enjoying the agonizing failures and triumphant joys of the dating scene. I didn’t pay much attention to politics, world events, current issues, nor did I invest my energy into any athletic, intellectual, religious, or spiritual pursuits. Those domains were not anywhere within proximity to my field of vision. Though, I suppose I should include that I played the alto saxophone from grade five forward and played in the high school marching band for four years.

My primary concerns were to have fun with my friends and earn the approval of said friends. I was then, like I am now, a service-to-others oriented person, but I was not yet conscious of the fact, I was not yet able to be myself. My own sense of self and purpose was not developed to the extent that I could stand strongly on my own two feet of self-knowledge, free and independent of the milieu within which I was surrounded. In the absence of strong self-confidence, self-acceptance, and self-understanding, much of my world was borrowed second-hand from those around me. I unconsciously allowed others, especially those I considered worthy, to dictate the terms of reality to me. In general, what became important to them, my peer group, became important to me. Their ways, for most intents and purposes, became mine.

Though the exercise was largely fruitless, during those teenage years I would lie in bed at night attempting to investigate, from a rational standpoint, the meaning behind and evolution of certain social and societal structures. As far as I can remember, I did not include any notion of God in my formulations and deductions; I just attempted to “figure out” why things are the way they are. I never made any progress with such pursuits because my pop-culture soaked mind was not equipped with the requisite background and education necessary for the task. I suppose it would be akin to attempting to make music without ever having heard a song, and your last name ending in something other than “Mozart”. In retrospect, I can see the embryonic beginnings of what would later become a lifelong philosophical and mystical quest for the truth, but at that time during the mid to late 90’s, I had no idea what it was to think about and perceive the world in philosophical terms, much less that I was living in a multi-dimensional reality whose purpose was spiritual evolution. In other words, I knew of spiritual evolution like the penguin knows that the Earth orbits the sun at a speed of 18.6 miles per second.

Post High School
In March, 1998, my senior year in high school, I had signed up for the Army Reserves and was scheduled to go away to Basic Training later that August. That summer between graduating high school and leaving for basic training was a turning point in my life. It was a turning point in the psychological sense that leaving the nest is for every individual. One must move forward into adulthood to discover the pleasures and the pains of self-reliance and the creation of the first identity distinct from the family environment.

It, on an even deeper level, was also a turning point in that something entirely novel emerged onto the scene: the first hint of my awakening to spirituality, to life’s larger and truer context. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my inner alarm clock, that impulse within to “wake up” and begin asking the self and the world questions, was set to begin sounding off within me during the summer of my eighteenth year. The catalyst for this was a book.

During the summer between high school graduation and my departure for basic training in 1998, I walked into a Walden Book store in the mall and “stumbled upon” a book called Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. This book was, I hope I remember this correctly, an investigative effort to unravel the secrets locked within the myths and the monuments of ancient antiquity. Trekking the length of the globe, Graham Hancock gathered the stories from ancient cultures and the studies of their architectural and engineering triumphs and arranged the data in such a way as to suggest that there was an original civilization on this planet that preceded all of Earth’s supposed “original” civilizations. His supposition was that the civilizations of Sumer and Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley, and those within the Americas were not the first. Rather, each contained remnants and the survivors of an even earlier, highly sophisticated and technically advanced society. Hancock contended that the “fingerprints” of this original civilization were scattered about the globe in the form of the engineering marvels built by the ancients which continue to dazzle and defy explanation by people living today.

This blew the lid right off the container for me. Regardless of whether Hancock was correct, my bones told me that there was much, so much more to the (capital “P”) Picture. I knew that humankind was a species with amnesia, a species who had forgotten its origins and critical portions of its planetary history. Though I’m sure that it was brewing beneath the surface for some time, this was the moment that it came into my awareness, this was the moment that my seeking began.

On an August morning in 1998, my then girlfriend took me to the military processing station where I would be shipped to Basic Training. Throughout the previous night and the morning of, I cried my eyes out knowing, somehow, that I could never return to who I had been up to that point. (She, too, like me, cried because she could not bear the separation. O, the drama of the teenage years!) In my tears I knew that leaving for the Army was the embarking upon a new direction which would not allow a return to the old. This emotional knowledge, conveyed in the many tears, proved to be prescient, because when I returned over seven months later, nothing was the same.

Pre Law of One
After I had completed my Army training by March of 1999, something had changed and shifted profoundly within me. What was once a stable continent of identity, symbols, and meaning, all began to shift in the darkness of unknowing. My body, for some strange reason, would no longer tolerate the intoxicants I used to happily feed it as it once did, I no longer felt the strong connection to friends and family that were once so basic and unquestioned a part of my experience, and I was increasingly feeling the strength of a growing impulse within me to seek and to find the truth as it is understood from the spiritual perspective.

Which isn’t to say that I lovingly and gratefully surrendered and released the old ways! No sir! I clung onto them for dear life, for *years* attempting to perpetuate patterns that should have been laid by the wayside long, long ago. I continued the attempt to smoke, to drink, and to connect with friends who weren’t experiencing the changes I was. I still attempted to live an unhealthy life, devoid of proper sleep, exposure to nature, and filled with furious fits of anger. But the evolutionary impulse within was moving forward with or without my consent.

Great confusion, terrible fatigue, and numbness characterized this period. Though I knew there was a positive direction of truth seeking increasing within me, I could not stop clinging to the old sources of meaning and pleasure, happiness and comfort. Yet, no matter how much I returned to them with hope, those old pools were drying up, no longer providing the meaning and identity that they once reliably gave me. Instead, I felt disconnected and adrift. Though I was still living with my parents in the same neighborhood, though my friends could all still be reached at the same phone numbers, I gradually became, without much effort on my part, distanced from them. I no longer felt strong connections to them or my family and I could not for the life of me figure out why!

Without much planning on my part, I began to follow new imperatives within. I took an interest in eating healthy, in meditation, and in reading non-fiction literature on metaphysics. I eventually spent little to no time with friends and family, instead spending long stretches of time in solitude, either outdoors or tucked away in my small bedroom on the second floor.

In the course of my initial forays into spiritual literature during those nine months (March ’99 – Jan ’00), I was encountering concepts that had great resonance, but nothing cohered into a framework of perception within which a system of rigorous seeking, discipline, and self-study could be undertaken. Those concepts that I encountered spoke of reincarnation, multi-dimensional reality, and of the evolution of consciousness, but, again, nothing which could be considered an internally consistent and coherent system of logic and philosophy took shape. It wasn’t long before this all changed. In January of 2000, aimlessly following a series of links on the internet, my eyes fell upon the most profound collection of thought that, to this day, remains unparalleled in its power and personal significance on my path.

The Law of One
Everything I discussed in the previous “Pre Law of One” section about my relationship with friends and family, the disinvestment of meaning from all previous symbols and points of identity, and the growing isolation, continued well beyond my discovery of the Law of One books and, in many respects, continues to this day. But these books are a metaphorical Mississippi River running down the middle of my incarnation – that is, I can divide my incarnation into a pre and a post Law of One.

I was 20 years old on the day I discovered Book I of the Law of One material. Though prior to this point I had encountered a handful of introductory concepts, I had essentially no understanding of metaphysics, physics, spirituality, or religion. With no background in these fields one might think something as obscure, as sometimes difficult to penetrate, and as unorthodox as it gets, would find no home within my mind. Were one to look at the one known as Gary prior to reading the Law of One series and place a wager on whether he would take to such a work, the odds would be something in the vicinity of ‘not likely’. One would imagine that one such as me would pass the books up like one would a TV commercial.

Yet, when reading the material online for the first time that January, my eyes were waterfalls. My tears while reading the Ra Material were tears of recognition, of coming home, of finally finding that context that I had been looking for. For me, it set soo much of the world, the real world, in order. It defined me, it opened the universe up to me; rather, it opened my eyes to that universe which has *always* been available to me. It answered questions I was asking and answered so many more questions I didn’t even know I had! Whatever truly happened during that time period of euphoria – filled with this profound sense of infinite possibility which has yet to be rivaled – I can say for certain that my seeking as I now know it was set on its proper course in those moments; and so much of the remainder of my life was put into motion.

My seeking is largely who I am now am such that I cannot imagine who I would be had I not crossed paths with the Law of One series, the books that define and structure my seeking and my understanding of self and reality. Not that my essence or who I am, on the deepest of levels, would be something other than it is, but rather my conscious understanding of my self, the choices I have made in my adult life, the connections and friends I’ve met because of the Law of One and welcomed into the heart, the very things of spirit which I seek after: unity, faith, love, Creator --- all owe their possibilities of existence to the discovery of the Law of One series. My mind, now, is hardwired to think in the jargon unique to the Law of One books.

With the aid of those singular books (when I make efficient use of the understandings presented therein), I am oriented towards the purest purposes of love and light here within third density. In the midst of unending confusion, distraction, and deception, I am set on track with as sharp a focus and as straight a vector as one can hope for with the aid of external material. These books never, ever fail to clarify my thoughts, distill the essence of any abstraction, and to serve as an inspirational guide and reliable reference and resource for navigating the Path. I owe so much to these books… I could cry in gratitude for it sometimes. I have said to myself on many an occasion that I should wake up each morning and thank God for blessing me with this material.

Fast forward nine years later to January, 2009: With a great deal of study under my belt, a dramatically more sophisticated approach to and perception of the world, workshops attended, people met and learned from, discipline applied, mantras repeated, years of meditation, a variety of books read, my socks are still knocked off by the profundity and clarity of the Law of One books. I have been rereading and studying their pages for nine years and I have yet to feel anything but total adoration and gratitude for the love and the light contained within, and gratitude for those who sacrificed to bring the material through. Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert and Jim McCarty risked so much to undertake something so beautiful. The light of their work burns bright in many a heart, especially my own.

Since the books and the entire L/L Transcript Library entered into my life in January of 2000, everything has been increasingly about seeking the truth. Yes, I have a great variety of desires, including the occasional desire for Baskin & Robbins cookies’n’cream, the well entrenched desire for overpriced Nike or Adidas tennis shoes, and the even more riveting desire to continually re-enact unconscious patterns, but at the center of them all, underpinning the self-exhausting, tail-chasing pursuits which can be rightly classified as “vanity”, is the desire to directly apprehend the One, to watch subject and object melt away into a mystical, ineffable experience of oneness. Around this desire my adult life has been molded and shaped. Seeking the One slowly but surely consumes more and more of my identity. The rest, my friends, is just details… of which I will add a few more.

Details in the post Law of One World
Though I had attended a seminar in Chicago in May of 2001, it wasn’t until April of 2002 that I made genuine “first contact” with others on a path similar to my own. I attended the “Time of Global Shift” seminar in Louisville, KY, headed by Scott Mandelker and David Wilcock, featuring Carla Rueckert and Jim McCarty. It was my first real meeting with all four individuals. As importantly, I met Jeremy and Tiffani, two people whose friendship has been significant to me on my path. In June of 2002, I went to Louisville, Kentucky to visit Carla and Jim and experience my first (of probably five or six) personal channelings.

During that first channeling, Q'uo indicated, in their rather general and non-specific way, that I as an entity was on the precipice of the life to come, that of the spiritual seeker who lives and navigates his way by faith alone in pursuit of the truth. Looking back upon their words, I see how true they were. During that time period, my ship was beginning to break free from its home port to set sail upon the vast and unknown waters of the open sea, never to return to a fixed location of comfort and identity I could call "home".

In August of 2002, I moved to Huntsville, Alabama for four months to live with Ed, another good friend met upon this path, in order to help produce the Huntsville “Time of Global Shift”.

After returning from Huntsville, I spent the first six months of 2003 in Ohio continuing on my trajectory and deepening my seeking, but still facing many of the same struggles outlined above, with special emphasis on finding self-worth.

In February 2003 I attended L/L Research’s annual Homecoming. During the event, Jim, Carla, myself and two of the other participants, David W. and Vara R., all discussed the possibility of living together under Jim and Carla’s roof in “spiritual community”. Needless to say I was thrilled out of my mind. I had for some time wanted to be nearer to those who were also seekers as no one was even remotely on a spiritual path in my childhood hometown. (I had an uncle who had found Jesus, that was about it!) This was the best, most perfect, most hardly believable opportunity I could imagine!

Moving in on the summer solstice of 2003, there was a lot of hero worship on my part during those early days. At 23, I was the youngest and most inexperienced of the bunch, with virtually no credentials of my own. Jim and Carla, in their fifties, were responsible for the material I consider my Bible; David and Vara, in their early 30’s, were each accomplished in their own right. My hopes were very high for the possibilities I envisioned this group capable of.

Others joined the experiment, people came and went, we all learned a lot, good times were had, and eventually, about two years later, I was the only one remaining in Jim and Carla’s house.

There came a point in 2005 when I was going to move temporarily to Nashville, TN in order to work in a high end restaurant with my friend to pay off my credit card debt. I had already turned in my two week notice with my employer in Louisville and was making preparations to leave town when a female co-worker said, “You’re not going to go, you’re going to meet someone and fall in love.”

Why she would say this is beyond me as one, she knew practically nothing about me and two, I had been single for a very long and lonely time. I had zero expectations of meeting someone. Yet, meet someone I did. Within a week of hearing the prophecy, I met Valerie at work. Valerie had just returned from earning her masters in Alaska and was seeking employment as a teacher.

Valerie and I struck up a conversation about meditation, she expressing her interest in attending a local meditation group, me in saying that we should together go. Arrangements were made and we met outside of work, too late to attend the meditation, but without loss because we parlayed the meeting into our first unofficial date. Our second meeting the following night, we kissed! And {Begin June 2012 edit} we were together for five great years in my first and longest adult relationship, ending in December 2010.

Valerie had been the source of much goodness in my life. I noticed remarkable growth within myself thanks to the love and support she showered upon this undeserving self I call “me”. With the positive catalyst she offered, I had become much, much more confident, self-assured, relaxed, and, “manly”, I must say. : ) I awoke and became more comfortable with my sexuality; I felt so much more human, so much more in touch with my emotions, and so much more me because of her. In the ongoing search for my heart, she was pivotal in helping to reveal its location. {End June 2012 edit}

Obviously, after having met Valerie I didn’t move to Nashville, TN. Instead, I stayed in Louisville where I am to this day.

The following year after meeting Val, in February, 2006, Carla, swamped with L/L Research email and tasks which she could not keep up with due to limitations upon energy and time and her chronic health related issues, asked me to sign on as the admin for L/L Research. At first I was a bit intimidated by the job, I must admit, I had no clue how I was going to accomplish it, but like a tough boot that needs broken in, once I walked enough miles in the role of admin, the role fit like a glove. I have grown to love and cherish the job, the work, and the opportunities it provides to assist people studying L/L Research’s channeling and to correspond with others of like mind. The job is infinitely fulfilling, inspiring, and, dare I say, fun. Three years into it, it truly keeps getting better.

And finally, as is obvious by virtue of the existence of this post, L/L Research launched Bring4th.org, its community oriented activist website, in December of 2008. I am so in love with this website and all those who use it. In addition to increasing my enthusiasm for this job tenfold, it has offered me an outlet for creative expression, helped to forge a new and wonderful friendship with Bring4th’s webguy, Steve, and Bring4th's chief moderator, Monica, and given L/L Research a new world to expand into and new service to offer. I look forward to this next chapter in the evolution of L/L Research.

Having the Law of One books in my hands is blessing enough for one lifetime. Having the opportunity to work alongside of Jim and Carla McCarty is blessing enough for ten lifetimes. It has been the honor of my life to work here at L/L Research, to contribute to its operation and growth, and to welcome many new loved ones into my heart.

Love and Light!!
GLB

PostScript: Many of the struggles listed pages and pages ago still live within me. In the process of growth, many things have fallen away. My personality has transformed ever so slightly, becoming more transparent to the inner light within, but many core issues still remain. “Awakening” to spiritual reality has not made me free and independent of time and circumstance. Much old context and many old voices there are still within me. I am indeed an eternal soul, the inner light is my birthright and true nature, but as it so happens the self is a meeting place between the inner *and* outer natures. In order to raise the locus of this awareness, or meeting place, to the “crown which is already upon the head”, I must acknowledge, honor, embrace, love, and balance that outer self – “that self which is perfect”, according to Ra. The work continues… indefinitely.


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - ayadew - 01-25-2009

It is so wonderful to wake up, GLB. We have cried much together. I am happy for you.


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - fairyfarmgirl - 01-25-2009

Thank you for sharing... I am still integrating my waking up... It has been a process LOL!

fairyfarmgirl


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - peelstreetguy - 01-26-2009

Thank you for all the great work you do!


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Lavazza - 03-23-2010

Amazing story Gary, thanks for sharing it!


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - fairyfarmgirl - 03-23-2010

(01-24-2009, 01:29 PM)Bring4th_GLB Wrote: Post High School

It, on an even deeper level, was also a turning point in that something entirely novel emerged onto the scene: the first hint of my awakening to spirituality, to life’s larger and truer context. Though I didn’t know it at the time, my inner alarm clock, that impulse within to “wake up” and begin asking the self and the world questions, was set to begin sounding off within me during the summer of my eighteenth year. The catalyst for this was a book.

During the summer between high school graduation and my departure for basic training in 1998, I walked into a Walden Book store in the mall and “stumbled upon” a book called Fingerprints of the Gods, by Graham Hancock. This book was, I hope I remember this correctly, an investigative effort to unravel the secrets locked within the myths and the monuments of ancient antiquity. Trekking the length of the globe, Graham Hancock gathered the stories from ancient cultures and the studies of their architectural and engineering triumphs and arranged the data in such a way as to suggest that there was an original civilization on this planet that preceded all of Earth’s supposed “original” civilizations. His supposition was that the civilizations of Sumer and Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley, and those within the Americas were not the first. Rather, each contained remnants and the survivors of an even earlier, highly sophisticated and technically advanced society. Hancock contended that the “fingerprints” of this original civilization were scattered about the globe in the form of the engineering marvels built by the ancients which continue to dazzle and defy explanation by people living today.

This blew the lid right off the container for me. Regardless of whether Hancock was correct, my bones told me that there was much, so much more to the (capital “P”) Picture. I knew that humankind was a species with amnesia, a species who had forgotten its origins and critical portions of its planetary history. Though I’m sure that it was brewing beneath the surface for some time, this was the moment that it came into my awareness, this was the moment that my seeking began.

On an August morning in 1998, my then girlfriend took me to the military processing station where I would be shipped to Basic Training. Throughout the previous night and the morning of, I cried my eyes out knowing, somehow, that I could never return to who I had been up to that point...In my tears I knew that leaving for the Army was the embarking upon a new direction which would not allow a return to the old. This emotional knowledge, conveyed in the many tears, proved to be prescient, because when I returned over seven months later, nothing was the same.

Pre Law of One
After I had completed my Army training by March of 1999, something had changed and shifted profoundly within me. What was once a stable continent of identity, symbols, and meaning, all began to shift in the darkness of unknowing. My body, for some strange reason, would no longer tolerate the intoxicants I used to happily feed it as it once did, I no longer felt the strong connection to friends and family that were once so basic and unquestioned a part of my experience, and I was increasingly feeling the strength of a growing impulse within me to seek and to find the truth as it is understood from the spiritual perspective.

Which isn’t to say that I lovingly and gratefully surrendered and released the old ways! No sir! I clung onto them for dear life, for *years* attempting to perpetuate patterns that should have been laid by the wayside long, long ago. I continued the attempt to smoke, to drink, and to connect with friends who weren’t experiencing the changes I was. I still attempted to live an unhealthy life, devoid of proper sleep, exposure to nature, and filled with furious fits of anger. But the evolutionary impulse within was moving forward with or without my consent.

Great confusion, terrible fatigue, and numbness characterized this period. Though I knew there was a positive direction of truth seeking increasing within me, I could not stop clinging to the old sources of meaning and pleasure, happiness and comfort. Yet, no matter how much I returned to them with hope, those old pools were drying up, no longer providing the meaning and identity that they once reliably gave me. Instead, I felt disconnected and adrift. Though I was still living with my parents in the same neighborhood, though my friends could all still be reached at the same phone numbers, I gradually became, without much effort on my part, distanced from them. I no longer felt strong connections to them or my family and I could not for the life of me figure out why!

Without much planning on my part, I began to follow new imperatives within. I took an interest in eating healthy, in meditation, and in reading non-fiction literature on metaphysics. I eventually spent little to no time with friends and family, instead spending long stretches of time in solitude, either outdoors or tucked away in my small bedroom on the second floor.

In the course of my initial forays into spiritual literature during those nine months (March ’99 – Jan ’00), I was encountering concepts that had great resonance, but nothing cohered into a framework of perception within which a system of rigorous seeking, discipline, and self-study could be undertaken. Those concepts that I encountered spoke of reincarnation, multi-dimensional reality, and of the evolution of consciousness, but, again, nothing which could be considered an internally consistent and coherent system of logic and philosophy took shape. It wasn’t long before this all changed. In January of 2000, aimlessly following a series of links on the internet, my eyes fell upon the most profound collection of thought that, to this day, remains unparalleled in its power and personal significance on my path.

Good Greetings Bring4thGary and All:

I was re-reading your wanderer story and was struck by a correlation. In the Early Spring of March 1998, a book called Connecting to the Arcturian, David K. Miller fell off of a book shelf at a bookstore and landed on my feet. In Late spring of 1998, The Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim caught my attention with a golden glow around the book and I found that I just had to read it and re-read it and re-read it ... and still re-reading it along with the Law of One material. These books changed my life. What struck me was the time frame of the Spring of 1998. The interconnectedness of us all in our awakening... By 1999 there was no way that I could go back... LOL BigSmileBigSmile

fairyfarmgirl


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Ashim - 03-23-2010

Gary you are awesome. Thanks for sharing with us.
Had it not been for you guys..............

Love & Light


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Steppingfeet - 03-23-2010

Lavazza, you trudged through it. Your turn for the "wanderer story" buddy! ; )

fairyfarmgirl, maybe there was a big ole wave in the Spring of 98 that lifted us both from our slumber. Interesting the timing and that it was a book or books that opened the door. (I think often it is a book that opens an individual's mind.) I've been meaning to check out Peace Pilgrim for ages.

Ashim, thank you. I cannot take any credit for that material which aids your seeking. I, like you, am a beneficiary of its teachings but have not channeled anything myself. At the time of the Ra Contact, I was more concerned with getting my next milk fix and diaper changing than I was metaphysics. : )

And a much belated thanks to Ayadew and Peelstreetguy!

Love you all, GLB


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - haqiqu - 03-23-2010

(03-23-2010, 08:14 AM)fairyfarmgirl Wrote: Good Greetings Bring4thGary and All:

I was re-reading your wanderer story and was struck by a correlation. In the Early Spring of March 1998, a book called Connecting to the Arcturian, David K. Miller fell off of a book shelf at a bookstore and landed on my feet. In Late spring of 1998, The Peace Pilgrim, Peace Pilgrim caught my attention with a golden glow around the book and I found that I just had to read it and re-read it and re-read it ... and still re-reading it along with the Law of One material. These books changed my life. What struck me was the time frame of the Spring of 1998. The interconnectedness of us all in our awakening... By 1999 there was no way that I could go back... LOL BigSmileBigSmile

fairyfarmgirl

Ditto here regarding 1998, fairy. Although I was studying and getting glimmers of Light earlier, 1998 was the year that I played The Fool (from Tarot) and stepped off the cliff into my wandering life. And, you're right, there was no going back after that.

:->


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Lorna - 03-23-2010

1998 was a big year for me too, knock after knock after knock after knock till i gave in and went with the flow and stumbled into a job that would allow me to stumble across the Ra around 18 months later
very interesting that that time period seems so significant for so many people


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Brittany - 03-23-2010

Hi Gary! For some reason I was really into baggy clothes when I was a kid, too. We should add that to the wanderer checklist. :-)

It's funny, my awakening sort of started with a book, too, that I just happened to stumble upon.

I never stopped to think that you were once in my shoes, being the baby of the group. In fact, you were younger than me when you joined. I already see you as a seasoned LOO veteran. It gives me hope that one day people might see me that way.

Love and Light,
Lynn


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Lavazza - 03-23-2010

1998 was also an important year for me although I would remain asleep for another decade at least... Oh wait, this isn't my wanderer thread, oops! Yes, the time has come. I will try, try *try* to get it out this week. Haha! BigSmile


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - transiten - 03-24-2010

GLB

What an inspiring fluent wanderestory! Since i'm from Sweden i should not be able to evaluate your english and mode of expression, but to me you should do well as a writer; i just couldn't stop reading:idea:

transiten


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Peregrinus - 03-25-2010

Thank you for posting you story brother Smile

You must be a bright soul on the other side, for it appears to me you don't have a lot to work on Smile

So Jim and Carla rent out rooms? hehe


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - Whitefeather - 03-25-2010

I agree with Transiten that there are in these lines, seeds of a writer. That story seems like a good start for a book and, we, the readers, want more! Smile

Truly, Gary, that was beautful; thank you for the gift you made to us by sharing your story. You have a gift with words.

Besides, your writing shows that you seem to watch your life from a higher perspective which gives you a certain detachment to it; traits of a higher soul indeed! Smile

L/L and blessings to both you and Valerie,
(I love love stories!)

Whitefeather


RE: Life Shines: My Wanderer Story - charlie2012 - 03-25-2010

Gary, an amazing story and as you already know, a well written one! Your words just seem to entangle people Smile

Thank you for existing!
Love and light!