“Isolation tempers the strong.” Paul Cezanne was impeccably correct—creative artists require the furnace of isolation to temper and forge the fragments of themselves and their experiences that inevitably arise to define their work. Such isolation can spawn great art and consequently foster a sense of balance, or wholeness, in the often asymmetrical personality of the artist. In the words of Lahn Jung JuLes, award-winning painter, “authentic creative work makes us whole—by releasing what imprisons us.”

In JuLes’ work, the theme of isolation in its most positive form—contemplation—is strongly evoked. Through masterful, haunting images—oblique shades and shadows—she emphasizes what is one of the greatest challenges of the modern world: how to find one’s spiritual center in the information age, when the mayhem of living tears constantly at one’s time and eventually one’s soul. It is not just her battle, but the universal war all in the industrialized nations of the West must face—the irresistible onslaught of superficial materialistic form over spiritual substance.

Invasion of the Self

JuLes’ painting Invasion illuminates what we all are feeling in this age of too much information, too much responsibility, and too much stress: shadows of figures assailed by hands grasping from every direction, pulling them apart—and down. Is there any respite? Yes—one must go into oneself on an inner journey of reflection and meditation. Invasion, in a sense, lays the groundwork for this voyage into introspection and eventual apotheosis.

Shout is a visceral reaction to this invasion of self: screaming faces, disassociated from their merging, spectral bodies—anguished and gnawed by doubt, fear and confusion—until their very essence borders on the point of annihilation. Where is the human spirit—overwhelmed by a culture of production, consumption and endless marketing of wares? Continue reading Equilibrium

The elevator smelled powerfully of urine, no doubt magnified by the August heat; the acrid smell burned my nostrils immediately as the doors opened. Stepping in I noticed the carpet in the back corners was more than damp; the floor itself was littered with cigarette butts, fast-food wrappers and a couple of spent cans of Colt .45. The doors slid shut; I was the single passenger, but felt my hand instinctively rest on the bulge in my pocket, a spring-loaded knife, its blade barely legal. I shook my head: Stupid—if jumped I’d never get the damn thing out of my pocket in time to do any good.

A fly buzzed around my head and landed on my face. I swatted it, missed, but thought I felt tiny wet spots on my cheek, imprints from the insect’s feet. I thought of the damp corners and shuddered. Naturally, the elevator moved painfully slowly, squeaking and rattling its way up to the third floor; cables dry as the Nazca lines, in desperate need of grease. So this is what it’s like to reside in an outhouse, I thought… Continue reading Demons in the Corners

Slothfully sailing this strait, On a course to mediocrity, We somehow deny our father’s blood That makes up our ocean.

Dread the tempest that claimed them, And strive for your warmth, But as heirs of prowess, we burn. Our coveted flame turns ablaze, And in its shadow the storm wanes.

That is why we [...]

An obese man with dark curly hair held an orange plastic pyramid over the head of a boy in a wheelchair, who seemed to be afflicted with cerebral palsy. I moved within earshot and heard the fat man chanting. I expected him to be talking in Egyptian, or at least Arabic–or perhaps in tongues. It was Spanish, which I recognized from a few years of language class in high school. Apparently, a few of the pharaohs were Castilian. Or maybe Espanol was the lingua franca of Atlantis and Lemuria…

I glanced at my wife and raised my eyebrows. She ignored me.

“I’m going to get my cards read,” she said, moving with her typical alacrity toward a table where a gray-haired woman dressed in black studied the tarot. Suddenly I felt like the “hanged man,” a premonition of the destiny of our marriage, and wandered off to peruse the charlatans and their mummery.

My wife and I had become regulars on the psychic fair circuit, held indoors at the Ramada Inns of the world, or outside in good weather. She had quit her job as a financial manager and become an herbalist. Which really had nothing to do with psychics, mediums, distance healers and tarot card readers, but alternative medicine somehow got lumped in with all this gimcrackery. Continue reading Prisoner of Matter

On a steaming hot summer day at the turn of the century, a man leaves work early and goes home; at about the time his wife takes her afternoon nap.

He walks into the front yard and yells up to their bedroom window:

“Hey, Honey, did the iceman come yet?”

She yells back: “No—but he’s breathing hard!”

An old joke behind the title of Eugene O’Neill’s marathon play about the spiritual void in American capitalist culture. Shattered dreams; material failure instead of success; metaphysical ennui. What to do? Drink heavily, continuously; numb oneself to life’s slings and arrows, defeats and crushing disappointments. The ashram? A run-down waterfront bar. Continue reading The Iceman Cometh

Naomi was a nymphomaniac. I don’t say that lightly, or with the sly grin that comes over a man’s face when he hears this about a woman. She had been sexually abused as a child—not merely touched, but raped continuously—by her father and cousin from the age of 10 until she left home at the age of 16. She was a stunning woman: Dutch heritage, blonde hair, blue eyes with a body that could have graced the pages of Penthouse even at the age of 35. She could have had any man she wanted. Instead, she had every man.

Apparently the sexual abuse had spawned this nymphomania—sex was the only way she could relate to the countless men she slept with. But there was more to this sickness than that: For her sex was an act of domination over a man. Not with silly whips and costumes; but the mere fact of having a man inside her made her feel powerful—“you couldn’t resist me—you are mine.” Another notch on her belt. I wonder what number I was.

The haunting started soon after she arrived to be with me at my apartment at Artspace, an artists’ community subsidized by the government. New, spacious apartments created out of a 19th century, dormant munitions factory. I was feeling alone and vulnerable to the charms of the first beautiful woman I encountered; I hadn’t been with a woman since my divorce almost a year earlier. For a while, I just couldn’t. Then the loneliness and the longing overwhelmed me, and I went looking. Not for a roll in the hay (though that was certainly on my mind), but for someone I could connect with and I suppose, talk about the pain of life. Continue reading A Haunting at Artspace

Thirty years ago when I was in college at UCONN I had occasion to go through the tortuous registration for class procedure, held in the football team’s practice facility. As I was walking around with a registration pamphlet, trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, I saw a guy about my age sitting with his bare feet up on one of the registration tables. I recoiled, felt disgusted, and was about to make a sarcastic remark about manners. Then I noticed he had no arms. Not even stubs where they might have been amputated.

He never had arms; he was born that way. He was using his bare feet to turn the pages of one of the class directories. I watched him for a couple of seconds, noticing his remarkable facility in turning the pages with appendages most of us just plodded along with. And here he was at college, with this tremendous disability—and I was internally bitching about having to trudge through the tiresome registration process.

Suddenly I felt my face turn red with shame. And I have to admit, even though I was a 20-year-old “tough guy” (martial artist and workout fanatic), I felt weak. Tears came to my eyes (and they’re rolling down my cheeks as I write this) when I recognized this young man’s courage. Bravo! I thought.

In that instant in my mind’s eye I saw this young man’s life: the terrible pain of his parents as their son was born with this disability; the bullying he would have taken in school and the verbal insults that cut a child to the core; the inability to play most sports and be part of the group; and no senior prom. No senior prom. Continue reading Another Mustard Seed

‘Fifteen Minutes to Meditate Like a Monk’ (Do I have to shave my head?)

‘Manifest Your Destiny in 30 Days’ (Is it gonna take a whole month?)

‘The Secret’ (Paint like da Vinci; master particle physics like Einstein)

‘The Answer’ (No talent required; just believe)

‘The Power of Now’ (Enlightenment on a park bench; better than suicide)

I’m a fool. For fifteen years I have been practicing, almost every day, a form of Taoist meditation called the Standing Post for often an hour at a time. It’s very difficult, especially in the beginning, as the lactic acid build-up in your shoulders from holding your arms in a wide arc, and the fatigue in your legs from squatting, is punishing. More so for me from the horrendous cancer damage inflicted to my shoulders, spine and hips (A Buddhist friend once told me “there is no pain—it’s an illusion” I punched him in the mouth and after the bleeding stopped he changed his opinion. That was suffering.). After many months that pain disappears for most and then you have to face the boredom of standing in one place for an hour. Breathing—always return to the breathing.

I realize now that it’s all been a colossal waste of time. I could’ve just read a New Age book and canned the meditation. Apparently it’s enough to keep ideas about Absolute Space floating around in your head while you’re shopping at the liquor store—and you will be a few heartbeats away from enlightenment. It only takes minutes—not thousands of hours. Just think; just believe; mutter a few affirmations (I’m handsome, endowed like a stallion, and pretty damn enlightened about it, too) and in no time at all you’ll be in the Dalai Lama’s entourage. Handing him his socks. Damn, I feel so foolish. Continue reading The Big “Dumb Down”

I’ve probably been in more cancer wards than any man, or woman, alive. Four bouts of bone lymphoma, two bone marrow transplants, ensured this sad state of affairs. Once I was in a four-bed room. My three “bunkmates” receiving chemotherapy were: a white kid from the rich town of Farmington, Connecticut; a black guy [...]

“The palliative.” The old man gestured toward the patch on his upper arm. “Morphine. I’m afraid the disease has metastasized.”

The whites of the old woman’s eyes were streaked with ochre.

“60 years. 60 years,” she repeated, tears prisms, magnifying those ochre streaks.

“Well, young man, I hope you enjoyed the dinner,” the old man said, looking away from his wife. I sensed his resilience. A man of 80 or so, who had seen much of life. He had seen death. A death shared with his wife.

I had knocked on their door, the only house on a rural dirt road. I was hungry, and hoping for a sandwich. Instead they invited me in, a stranger, to share their meal.

“We had a boy. He died about your age. In that damn war.” The old man’s eyes were cloudy; the morphine dulled the pain but also elevated him, and made him want to talk. I listened. The old woman said nothing, her mouth partly open, saliva forming a spider’s web between her lips.

“Who are you, young man?”

“I’m the illegitimate son of Kaiser Wilhelm. Did you know you have demons in the corners of this room?” Continue reading Oak and Linden

“It looks like a coffin—a brick one.”

“Yeah, thanks for your input, George.”

My buddy George and I were standing in the driveway of my new home—a tiny brick house I had just rented after my separation. It was all I could afford. It wasn’t much bigger than the typical mausoleum one finds in the better cemeteries. Vines, grasping their way up from the exposed dirt near the foundation, spread out like fingers over the house’s front face, deterred in their skyward reach only by the overhanging roof. I felt myself choke. I shook my head, repeated the word ‘optimism’ to myself, looked at George and said “Let’s go in.”

Two floors; two big rooms. The lower floor smelled of mildewed carpet. I figured I’d put my weight machine down there. George cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled “Hello, anybody in here?” No answer.

The upper had a small kitchen area; a kitchenette. I’d do all my living topside. Bathroom, tiny, with old fixtures. The place had been cleaned, of course. Odd, I noticed a few strands of hair in the sink—long, black hairs. The cleaning lady’s? They weren’t George’s—he was bald. They weren’t mine; I’m blonde and look like I fell out of Northumbria. Oh, well. Continue reading The Brick Coffin

The truth will out. Sometimes by the researches of an investigative journalist; sometimes by the brilliant pen of a writer of fiction. In his searing expose, ‘A Full Accounting,’ John Joss provides both and reveals the truth about one of history’s great cover-ups: the plight of America’s Vietnam MIA fighter pilots. Where are they? [...]

That’s the gospel truth—I received the email this morning. If I purchase the bejeweled dragon pendant—reminiscent of those seen in parades in Chinatown—wealth will cascade down upon me like lap dances at a strip club. Bad metaphor—from what I understand you have to pay for those (I’ll never tell).

Just think: For only $49.95 (and $6.95 for shipping and handling; there’s that lap dance metaphor again) I will never have to stir out of my garret again until the mystical emanations from this green and yellow dragon—assembled from the finest crystal (like my ex-wife’s diamond)—rain down golden manna from heaven. The astral vibrations will do the work for me; which is good—I’ve never been big on work.

But—there’s more. Also included is the wondrous jasper stone—reputedly stolen from the diadem of King Solomon (what’s he got to do with China?) and apparently dug up by the Knights Templar and secreted to France. This stone—which works in concert to intensity the astral projections of the crystal dragon—was smuggled to China during the days of the tall ships and the opium trade. But the British conducted the opium trade? Ah, yes, the Knights Templar spirited the stone out of France, where it wound up in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. Then a pipe smoker stole it from a chalice—reputedly the Holy Grail—that festooned the altar. And worked his way onto a schooner, where he traded it for dope. If only he’d known. Continue reading One Investment of $49.95–and I Never Have to Work Again

Leonine eyes—greenish yellow irises, mascara applied expertly to enhance their almond shape. Not the typical turned up nose; aquiline, a diving platform for her full reddened lips. Blonde braids. Cleavage on display, bubbling up from the tight black top worn underneath her black bar jacket—which would rise up upon leaning, displaying the Celtic flames tattooed on her lower back. Irish blood, like me.

“Kelly, I’ve been thinking of a tat: A crown of thorns around my right bicep. Like my older son—he’s in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, baby, I need a new tat—let’s go together and get some!” Enthusiasm, effusiveness foaming over the top of the champagne glass—a nurse speaking in lilting tones to cheer up a patient. She had been treating me like this for a couple of weeks; holding my palms as we spoke. Silently I wondered: What’s she really like?

“Look, baby.” She turned around and pulled up her bar jacket, displaying a fire design, flames fed by an unknown fuel. “This is what I want to add.” She pulled a slip of paper from her purse: the drawing of a wicker man. She put her hand on my forearm and squeezed. I felt the heat. Continue reading The Wicker Man

My eyes opened and my first sight was the unpainted boards of the back of the bar—The Lucky Spot. I recognized the chain-link fence, bashed in by several patrons who, a bit under, had mistaken “drive” for “reverse.” The saying around town was, “You’re lucky to get out of that spot.” No bikes in the parking lot—it wasn’t ten o’clock yet. Headquarters of the Huns.

Mouth: coated with the white paste kids used to eat during “Arts and Crafts” in grade school with a definite malty flavor. Tongue immovable and the bit of an axe buried horizontally over my eyes. From the color and wearing on the steering wheel I realized I was in my old midnight-blue Crown Vic. It seemed like Saturday.

Then I noticed the head in my lap. A human head. Damn fine thing: it seemed to be attached to a body sprawling from the next seat. Good; a severed head would take some explaining. Yes, but whose head? From the long, raven black hair I hoped it was a woman; the full buttocks and the tiny waist indicated “Yes.” Continue reading The Lucky Spot

At first, I pictured her in a horned helmet with long blonde braids, belting out Wagner in German. But then I realized from our daily intercourse in the hall that it would more likely be a low-cut dress revealing her magnificent cleavage, serving liter-size beer mugs at Oktoberfest. Her burgeoning cheerleader sweater held great promise.

“No, not down there—up here.”

My neck arched painfully back and I had lost track of one of my legs…it was wedged between the front bucket seats, fencing with the gear shift. The raised design of the floor mat tattooed a Datsun logo onto my left knee.

The rear seat of a Datsun B-210 was designed to carry two American children under the ages of 10. Or two Japanese who stunted their growth early on with cigarettes. Thinking in advance, I had opened the rear windows. One of Brunhilda’s calves rested on the doorframe of an open window. I, a lineman, was perched like a gargoyle between her thighs, attempting something I’d only read about. It was a natural pose for Quasimodo. Continue reading Dippity Doo

The compression in my lower spine—unbearable. It’s as though someone—Hulk Hogan, perhaps—is pushing the top of my skull down, squeezing the semi-liquid disks until they ooze out either side of the vertebrae. Sitting at the computer is impossible after a half hour. Lie on ice packs on the bed and take another crack at it later.

And tonight, sciatica—Tabasco sauce on the big nerve running down the back of my left leg, 15 minutes later it progresses to my right leg. A constant plucking of a harp or beat on a snare drum that means no sleep.

Up until a month ago that was my everyday story.

Years ago I went to a pain clinic to try to get some relief from this pain caused by cancer damage in my spine. What did I get? Painkillers to muffle the symptoms. Slow-release morphine. It helped.

Unfortunately it also made it impossible to move my bowels. Build-up in the colon; no amount of effort seemingly made it possible to eliminate. Too much disparity in the circumferences at play. Continue reading Chronic Pain: No Way Out?

“What ails thee?” The question Percival, in his search for the Holy Grail, failed to ask. If he had, King Amfortas—wounded in the thigh, a euphemism for the groin, would’ve been healed and the Waste Land regenerated. His mother, before he began his pursuit, instructed him not to ask questions, which was unseemly for those of knightly blood. As always, blame it on Mom.

In the Eastern, Taoist and Buddhist meditations I practice, the ultimate goal is annihilation of the ego—which shouldn’t be a goal at all. But it is. Once the ego disintegrates, one “sees things as they really are.” That we are not separate, merely human stems of a greater consciousness. According to the Buddha, it required several incarnations on earth to achieve this state.

I think the question “what ails thee?” is the first step in the Western search for enlightenment; typically an external mechanism as opposed to the Eastern approach, which is to not ask questions and delve within. It takes one out of his or her ego, human nature that, in order to survive puts self-interest at the forefront of any action. You see other people’s ailments and problems and reflect on the commonality with your own. Dawn breaks. Continue reading “What Ails Thee?”

In WWI fighter pilots did not have the benefit of parachutes.

A Fokker gets on your six o’clock, rattles a burst into your gas tank, and you burn to death as you go down with your plane from 10,000 feet. Choking from the flames of your burning coffin, you could get lucky—you might be able to jump clear. The fall from 9,000 feet—the horror as your mind montages the events of your life for half a minute or so and anticipates the “whump!” as you hit the freshly-plowed field in France and every bone in your body splinters and your skull flattens—is a blessing. Perhaps the soul leaves the body upon impact. Perhaps, the rest is silence.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Are you still in Mississippi?”

“South Carolina—plane had engine trouble. Should be in Germany tomorrow.”

I licked my lips, searching for moisture.

“Then?” Continue reading My Son Is Deployed

A heron, bluish-gray and about four feet tall, stalks fish and frogs in the reeds on the other side of the pond behind my house. Deliberately it raises a reed-colored leg and carefully places it into the water a foot ahead of its other leg, barely disturbing the placid surface in the process. After many minutes of standing motionless it will raise the other leg and repeat the process. Sooner or later a fish or a frog will mistake one of these legs for a reed and the eight-inch beak will pluck it from the water and effortlessly gulp it down its S-shaped neck. Then it will carefully move its other leg…

Patience. Forbearance. The qualities one needs to beat recurrent cancer. To survive my relapse, I would have to emulate the qualities of the crane. I had to realize that every time I beat a relapse, I was one step closer to being cured.

In research labs worldwide Ph.D.’s are working on cancer cures. These men and women are not motivated by financial gain; mere money doesn’t drive them. They work out of enlightened self-interest; they want to help people survive and they want recognition for it. They want to be the ones who find cures; they want their faces on postage stamps, like Jonas Salk. Continue reading When the Student Is Ready, the Teacher Appears

A Cornucopia of Wealth Has Been Waiting for You Since Your Birthday January 1st!

Don’t Miss This Final Opportunity to Stake Your Claim!

Robert, You Were Born to Be Rich…

An email I received from a nebulous character named “Bethea.” Since I fully appreciate that I was born to be rich—and handsome—and endowed like a stallion, I had to read on. How do I claim my birthright? By ponying up five easy payments of $19.95—for which I will receive my very own sterling silver-plated cornucopia pendant. Apparently if I wise up and start wearing this pendant, all my dreams will be fulfilled. The angel Gabriel will start watching over me; money will flow magically into my PayPal account, and beautiful women will crawl all over themselves to kick my door down.

I have heard and read that some people place great stock in amulets, gems, and jewels; that they have special properties—if worn or carried, luck, riches and romance will overwhelm the wearer abundantly. I have my doubts. Continue reading Responsible Astrology?

The light from the back of the dairy penetrated through the rear window of my father’s Ford Galaxy, illuminating my co-conspirator’s face. A turned-up nose; turned-up by a few centimeters too many. I glanced down and noticed her jeans and panties pulled down around her ankles, then looked up a couple of feet and saw what I’d never seen before. She leaned over, pulled on my neck with both hands, put her lips to mine and started wiggling her tongue in my mouth. Her breath was bad; perhaps sinus trouble. I pulled away and offered her a sip of the pint of Colt .45 I clutched. Then I chugged the remainder of the can.

The malt liquor relaxed me; damn the sinuses. She started fondling me.

“Not bad—but you should see Rico.”

Rico, a buddy from the football team, first alerted me to the fact that this Voluntown girl “put out.” I was dating a cheerleader; beautiful, Scandinavian type that would not go all the way or anywhere near it. I desperately wanted a notch on my belt to impress my friends, some of whom had made the trip. Continue reading Love in a Ford Galaxy

“I like smoke and lightning,
Heavy metal thunder.
Racing with the wind,
And the feeling that I’m under.”

A verse from a Steppenwolf song about the wild world of biker clubs. It’s surprising how many women I’ve encountered who fantasize about spending a night with a biker. A real, tough, masculine guy with an edge. It always surprises me—as many women seem to also want a man who can “open up” and express his deepest feelings. Perhaps shed some tears in her arms.

I’ve been around outlaw biker clubs, back in my late teens and early twenties, sporting shoulder-length hair and a scraggly goatee. I used to hang around a club called The Lucky Spot—headquarters of a local outlaw club called “The Huns.” Bikers are big and tough, no doubt. As a matter of fact, the joke in town was if you went to that particular bar you were “lucky to get out of that spot.” I am good size and trained pretty hard in martial arts in those days—which was fortunate, as I sometimes needed it to “get out of that spot.” Continue reading What Do Women Really Want?

Carlene, the clinic nurse, gave me a look that said “Why did you have to ask that question?” Then I knew. Dave was dead. It appeared that he’d developed pneumonia after the high-dose chemotherapy. When he didn’t respond to antibiotics, the doctors X-rayed his chest and found his lungs honeycombed with tumors. He didn’t last long after that discovery.

I struggled out of the vinyl-covered treatment recliner and limped to the clinic’s bathroom. The steroid they’d given me in the hospital had bloated my body and face almost beyond recognition. For the next week I would urinate gallons each day until my tissues drained the excess fluid.

As I washed my hands I studied the hairless, massive head in the mirror. My swollen cheeks suffocated my cheekbones, crowded my eye sockets, almost hid my ears and hung pendent from my jawbone. The monster must be laughing—surely it couldn’t be afraid of me! You’re lucky, Beowulf. You are dangerous, you look the part. Everybody—especially the monster—knows it. Where is my grip of iron? My coat of chain mail to protect my body? My warrior’s mask to hide my features? If I felt strong, and looked grim, I might be able to conjure a reason why I still am alive, and Dave is dead. Why am I still alive? I’d like to think it’s because I’m a magnificent physical specimen but the mirror indicates otherwise. Continue reading Never Ask a Question to Which You Do Not Know the Answer

Jesus Christ appears in my mind during a meditation exercise—and I survive cancer. Was it real or just my subconscious?

In 1991 I was diagnosed with Stage Four bone lymphoma and given six months to live. My oncologist proposed a six-month regimen of double doses of CHOP chemotherapy, twice as much normally given for a man my weight. I started meditating and visualizing several times a day to help my immune system fight the disease. I imagined my bones a sandy beach covered with weak jellyfish eggs–cancer cells. When the waves came in and covered the beach, they would remove these weak cells as they receded. I timed this with my breathing, and did it religiously for the six months of my treatment.

Finally, at the end of six months of chemo, I went for various nuclear medicine tests to determine the state of the cancer. The radiologists determined the chemo had killed 90%–but 10% was still alive. My oncologist was at a loss–she couldn’t give me any more chemo without killing me. I heard this news, felt despondent, but proceeded with my visualization anyway–waves coming in on the beach, etc. Suddenly a figure appeared on the beach–this was the first time such a thing had happened in six months. It was the figure of Jesus Christ, who bent down with a rag and wiped the beach clear of jelly fish eggs. Then he stood up and tossed the rag to me. This occurrence jerked me out of my meditation, bolt upright. Fifteen minutes later my oncologist called and said the radiologists re-interpreted my tests and determined that the cancer was completely gone! Continue reading My Brush with Jesus Christ

Are you a surface dweller—a spiritual dilettante? It’s easy to tell. There are definite signs. You probably buy self-help books and DVDs one after the other. These probably have titles like “Manifest Anything You Desire in 30 Days” or something like that. Such a DVD was recently offered by Dr. Wayne Dyer, a New Age self-help guru. Do you really think it’s that easy to “manifest” a wholesale change in your spiritual attitudes and gain anything you want in life in as little as 30 days? Think about it.

It’s been said that America has become a seminar society. People want easy answers. Thus we have books like “The Secret” and “The Answer.” These self-help guides advise you to believe, just believe, and you will be able to accomplish anything you want in life. They claim that such geniuses as da Vinci, Michelangelo, Newton and Einstein knew this secret and that accounts for their brilliant successes in the arts and physics. These four men probably had IQs over 200—they were using more of their brains than most humans. It was genetic. They didn’t need a “secret.” Their work was so brilliant it had to be recognized. I don’t think people who read such books suddenly develop proficiency in quantum physics or can paint for the Vatican. Continue reading Are You a Surface Dweller?

The idea that we cause our own diseases comes from ancient societies that didn’t have any knowledge of bacteria, viruses, and genetics or of the dangerous effects of chemical and radiation pollution and poor diet. In ancient times, people thought that repressed or negative feelings could cause diseases. Or somehow it was punishment from God. You will come across this idea in New Age books that litter the bookshelves.

Louise Hay, who has written many self-help books over the years, claims she had cervical cancer and cured herself with forgiveness. From what I understand, no medical professional could confirm that she ever had cancer in the first place. I guess we have to take her at her word. The Chinese have a saying that fits: Believe half of what you see and nothing that you hear.

Bernie Siegel, a Yale general surgeon who wrote a series of books in the eighties (Peace, Love, and Healing) espoused this idea that repressed feelings or depression cause cancer. One of his chapter titles in that book read “Why Do You Need This Disease?” Rubbish. Siegel had no training in oncology or psychiatry and was admittedly burned out and in despair over the deaths he had witnessed in the operating room. He projected his own despair onto cancer victims. Continue reading Do We Cause Our Own Diseases?

You’re in a convenience store, examining a can of Spam in one of the aisles. Suddenly a hooded man bursts through the door, pulls out a .45, and waves it in the cashier’s face demanding the contents of the cash register. You begin breathing shallowly, from the chest, as fear for you own life pervades you. Thoughts pinball through your mind: Will he shoot the cashier—and then me? Am I to die in a convenience store of all places? Where are the police?

The cashier complies; the robber bolts through the door. Your breathing slows and deepens and the thoughts in your mind slow. You become calm.

This scenario illustrates the connection between breathing and the mind: Breathe shallowly and quickly, and your mind generates a frenzy of thoughts. Breathe deeply, from the abdomen, and the thoughts slow and become manageable.

What has happened when you perceived danger was your body reacted with the fight-or-flight response—it’s kicked in the sympathetic nervous system, one of the two components of the autonomic nervous system. Your body floods with adrenaline from your adrenal glands as you prepare to confront the threat to your life. Continue reading Abdominal Breathing: The Core of the Internal Energy Arts

The scent of roses drifts into my nostrils; I inhale deeply from the bottom of my lungs and feel the essence of the flowers pervade me. Sweet, a little too sweet. I am practicing the standing post on a small hill overlooking the Rose Garden, one-quarter acre of carefully cultivated plants—red, white and pink—that give the town of Norwich its nickname: The Rose of New England.

I rent a tiny brick house of three rooms just across the street. Narrow and rectangular, a friend joked that it was shaped like a coffin. I joked back that I was a firm believer in rebirth—so the house was perfect for me.

It’s June 19th, 2002—exactly 20 years since my wedding day. Things are just starting to sink in: cancer four times, post-traumatic stress, heavy weekend drinking, divorce. Forever away from the house that was my sanctuary, the house I came back to time and time again from my weeks and months in hospitals. Away from my sons—my primary reason for living. Rejected by my wife, the only woman I ever loved. Continue reading Rebirth in the Rose Garden

An older, retired gentleman struggles from his kitchen to the living room, each step an act of courage due to the terrible arthritic pain he experiences. He makes it to his recliner, and steadying himself on his walker, eases himself into the chair. He picks up his remote, presses the ‘On’ button, and waits. And not much happens. The Direct TV receiver comes to life, but his television does not. The Direct TV remote does not operate with his television, a Toshiba, a major brand.

So after several minutes of struggling, he manages to stand up and grasp his walker. He then takes a dozen painful steps to his television, pushes the ‘On’ button, and the TV turns on. He then leans on his walker, makes a painful U-turn, and struggles back to his recliner. He’ll have to repeat the process when he wants to turn the television off. Continue reading Direct TV–Shylocks Who Bilk the Consumer

Does the road of excess lead to the palace of wisdom? Was William Blake right? Many writers, artists, actors and musicians seem to think so—at least early in their careers, until their addictions overwhelm their self-destructive tendencies and lead to early ruin or death. Van Gogh, Coleridge, Hendrix, Morrison, Hemingway, Capote, Burton, Thomas—an endless list.

Why? Isn’t normal consciousness sufficient? Or is living on the creative edge of life so draining that artists must seek solace in mind-numbing escapes to re-ignite the creative fires? Or are they cauterizing the pain of the vanilla life and the people who do not understand or accept them? Continue reading The Road of Excess

Columbus, Vespucci, Magellan and other Noted Cartographers of the Age of Enlightenment: you were misinformed. The world is not round. It is flat. It has edges—razored rims that patrol the perimeter to the void. One small error in navigation or a mistake on a chart and your ship will scrape across these sharp edges into the darkness forever. You’ve probably seen the painting.

How did I arrive at this important discovery without the aid of astrolabe, compass or sextant? Personal experience: several times I’ve come close to falling off the edge.

Sometimes it would be a relief to let my ship drift over the side, all hands lost. But I continue on, rim-roamer that I am. Why? For various reasons, and for none. Two of the reasons grapple on the living-room carpet before me. Continue reading New Evidence for a Flat Earth

I pick up my briefcase and conceal the look of disgust on my face with the Corporate Bob mask that I keep always to hand: Corporate Bob, the affable and proactive newsletter editor, propaganda writer and liaison between Aetna’s most profitable independent insurance agents and various Aetna executives. Smiling Bob.

Limping from sciatica, I navigate through the crowd of employees milling through the great main hall of Aetna’s headquarters in the City of Hartford. How many people work in this one building alone? Five thousand?

How many mask their feelings with insipid smiles as they trudge their way daily through this great corridor, decorated in dark green tile with walls of simulated alabaster like a Roman temple? How many die a little each day, whispering “Rosebud” like Orson Welles at the end of Citizen Kane, as they make the non-negotiable tradeoffs necessary for success in the corporate environment? How many recall their childhood sled? Continue reading The Man in the Poison Mask

Respiration. Transpiration. The act of exchanging gases is the difference between a dead organism and a living one. I breathe. And I resent it.

It’s still dark; four AM. Last night I slept on my back, arms stretched wide across the mattress, a condemned man waiting for his nails. Rib cage expanded, lungs open, a pillow underneath the knees: it helped the breathing process. I should have slept in a ball, pinching off the bronchial tubes, easing my way into the black.

I wanted to but I didn’t have the courage. Continue reading Manic Depression

A 32-inch waist, bulging pectorals and arms biceps-pregnant—that was me in 1990. I worked out twice a day—for an hour at noon, lifting weights, and for an hour at night, riding an exercise bike and doing pull-ups. I was in the best shape of my life—better than when playing football or training in the martial arts. I ate the healthiest foods—grilled salmon and tuna, cruciferous vegetables, and fruit for snacks. I took vitamins and herbs. And that year, I got cancer.

Despite my best efforts to be in top physical condition, I was diagnosed with a terminal illness. All the sacrifice—and for what? Stage Four bone lymphoma, and six months to live. Perhaps I should’ve eaten more potato chips… Continue reading What Is Health?

Maybe the Egyptians had it right: Spend your entire life preparing for the life to come—the afterlife. Build a magnificent tomb in which to spend eternity. Stock it with food and wine, gold and chariots. After all, you’re going to be dead a lot longer than you’re going to be alive.

But pharaohs like Ramses II hedged their bets. No one in Egyptian history built more temples and monuments to his own ego than the great Ramses. Father of more than 100 children, he ruled for over 50 years. He wanted his own subjects to know—as well as everyone else who walked the earth for thousands of years—of his achievements. I guess he wasn’t counting on life everlasting. He wanted to immortalize himself in stone.

The common people, who had a belief in the afterlife, couldn’t afford to build monuments to themselves. They were lucky if they could afford a cut-rate version of mummification in which to preserve their bodies. These common folk—the workers who actually built Egypt’s great monuments and pyramids—were buried in the desert sand, no gold or jewels weighing them down. Nothing to fear from tomb robbers—just the jackals. Continue reading Mummies in the Sand

The nuclear medicine technician injected a syringe containing a radioactive isotope into my vein. The isotope flows through my bloodstream and gathers in any area containing a tumor. The nuclear medicine equipment detects this accumulation.

Questions, thoughts, and fears clouded my mind as I lay down on the metal exam table waiting for the test to begin. Could the tumor be gone? Suppose its spread to another part of my body? Is the pain I feel in my hips the result of the destruction caused by the earlier tumors, or has the cancer returned?

One of the technicians positioned the scanning machine a few inches above my face. She winked at me, whispered “Good luck,” and went to the control desk to start the test. The technician had run several of my nuclear medicine tests in the past. Maybe she would give me a hint—maybe she would let me know the results so I didn’t have to wait three agonizing days for the radiology doctor to read the pictures, write a report and pass it on to my doctor. Continue reading On the Cold Metal Rack

My body jerks and quakes—a marionette controlled by a maniacal puppet master—and finally thrusts once or twice before becoming still. My breathing calms; every joint in my cancer-ravaged body feels open. I experience a kind of quiet euphoria. It’s as though a mild orgasm has infused every part of me; like semen has leaked from my testicles and backed up into my bloodstream…

Stillness, a sense of internal quiet, is hard to come by these days. Stillness calms the mind, allows the body’s many systems—nervous system, cardiovascular system, endocrine and lymph systems–to function as designed at high levels.

Any good doctor will tell you that it’s not surprising that things go wrong in people. What’s surprising is that things do not go wrong all the time, simultaneously and continuously. That’s how complex the interplay of the body’s systems is; that’s how much opportunity for error exists. Continue reading Stillness

Light penetrates into the space between the two pillows that sandwich your head. It brushes your face—suddenly you are aware of your breathing, and the smell of stale beer. What is it? Bass Ale? Who could tell—it might as well been Pabst Blue Ribbon.

You open your eyes, carefully, and as you recognize the movie poster of Burton and Taylor hanging on your bedroom wall, reassuring you that you are home, you become aware that someone has broken off the bit of an axe in your forehead. The pain is blinding.

“Jesus, God, how much did I have to drink last night?” you wonder. Then a sudden realization, a sick feeling in your center, and your heart starts to pound wildly. “The car!” Continue reading The Last Round’s on Richard Burton

Good, bad, or indifferent—how do you feel about the last post you read? If indifferent, you probably didn’t get past the first paragraph, so there’s no point in leaving a comment.

But if the post resonates with you, strikes a chord, it would be great if you could take a minute and write a [...]

It’s a very seductive idea: That God, the creator of the universe, has a special life plan for each of us. No matter what slings and arrows we encounter during our time on this planet, it was meant to be. No matter how much we exercise our free will, and no matter what the outcomes, it’s already written. It’s surprising how many people believe this at some level—and not just fundamentalist Christians. Mainstream Christians, Moslems, Jews, Hindus and more.

You hear the sentiment expressed in times of extreme stress or misfortune: “Why has God sent me this burden?” The question is a koan, as it has no answer. Job asked God the same question, back in the days when God would answer directly. “I am that I am.” It was not the answer he sought, considering his life and the lives of his family had been ruined for no good reason.

The idea that God has a plan is not a thinking man’s philosophy. But then again, religion isn’t for thinking men. It’s based on faith, which is not rational. Continue reading Does God Have a Plan?

“I just want to walk, right out of this world—because everybody has a poison heart.”

That’s the chorus line to an old Ramones song. The Ramones were a punk rock band that I favored back in the late seventies and eighties. They’ve all walked out of this world—cancer, drug overdoses—except for the original drummer, [...]

The minister, enough Vitalis in his hair to lube a Buick, places his palm on the forehead of the afflicted, an arthritic older woman.

“Praise the Lord—you are healed!” As if on cue, the afflicted defies gravity and falls backward, stricken with the spirit, into the arms of the good reverend’s assistants. Then, she [...]

I have a dagger in my mind, and it’s in deep, hilt and all. My eldest son, Geoff, spoke to me on my cell last night. He’s 21, in a Special Forces unit, and due to be deployed later this year. Where? He can’t say, as it’s classified. He’s the toughest guy I know, [...]

“A true spiritual leader doesn’t drive a Jag and own a three-million-dollar home in California.” Recently, I responded with these words to a post by Deepak Chopra, on his daughter’s website, Intent.com. It was about spiritual leadership.

I noted that some of the great spiritual leaders in history—Jesus, Buddha and Lao Tzu—were men of [...]

Curled like a fetus, I shiver under the weight of the sheet and blanket, a poor substitute for the safety of my mother’s womb. My bone marrow is recreating itself, and like any birth it’s painful. Four days of high-dose chemotherapy virtually destroyed my marrow; a week of daily growth hormone injections is helping [...]

“Grand championship chess is a war without armor, a battle without blood—and as extravagant a waste of human intelligence anywhere, outside an advertising agency.” –Raymond Chandler

You just can’t get away from it. Advertising. Television, radio, mail, email ads, e-newsletter ads, website ads—I thought I’d reached my breaking point. But there was one more [...]

Jessica Simpson has gained weight. Beyonce “dissed” at a concert. How Jon Bon Jovi makes his marriage work. Have I been reading the National Enquirer? No, I got these valuable, world-shaking news events when I turned on MSNBC. Naively, I thought I could find out about the state of the economy and the wars [...]

“Lay on MacDuff, and damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’” These are the bravest words ever spoken in English literature by Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth knows he is doomed to die at the hands of his nemesis MacDuff, yet he remains unyielding in the face of certain death. And from his actions and [...]

The thick glass of the big window warps the appearance of the night sky, making the visible universe look curved and three-dimensional instead of flat. From my hospital bed I witness the drama unfold: Orion the Hunter clubs Taurus the Bull, Hercules squashes the head of Draco the Dragon, Hydra the Serpent encircles the [...]

…The monster who lived in darkness suffered when he heard the music ringing day after day from the great Hall of Men. They were happy! They were chosen by God to walk freely in the light—he was condemned to roam the marshes and moors by night in rage and pain…Why? The monster was born [...]

The cancer clinic is packed, as usual. Women in turbans and wigs and completely bald men occupy almost every chair in the narrow corridor that leads to the treatment and test rooms. A few quietly talk or thumb through outdated magazines. Some stare at the corridor wall a few feet in front of them; [...]

“To see things as they really are.” That is my intent, and it’s a grandiose one, as that is the Buddhist description for enlightenment. How does one become enlightened? According to the masters, there is only one way—through many years of meditation and mind training. The Buddha himself claimed that it took him several [...]