"You see, I arrived here having left before the worst but he went through the whole dying shit. So I say get out while the getting is good. Keep your beauty and style and dignity." (4/1/96 - W#29)



Papa:

"Hey babe, what's up? Today is my birthday, but it's not really meaningful to me--except you remember. I have been doing this and that, not much to speak of. But boy, are some of these kids smart. I'm glad I was a kid when I was. Too much competition now--too many smart kids. Hey, when we got out of the War we were all just a bunch of dumb kids, but now they are so smart.

"But did I ever tell you about the kid from Brooklyn in my outfit that thought he was smarter than the rest? He overheard someone talking about Switzerland and decided that was where we were going; so he kept his mouth shut but looked for some old discarded wool winter uniforms and made some longjohns. He threw away his boxers and took three pairs of these with him. Boy, was he surprised by North Africa. We called him 'Itchy.' He took to wearing no underwear, until the day we were ordered to strip to our civvies. Not too smart.

"I saw Uncle Freddy. Boy, was he in bad shape. Was I that bad? Wow. Freddy is doing ok." (4/11/96 - W#30)



"Papa says 'Hi,' but he was in Washington all day at Don's funeral. He said it was some kind of wonderful ceremony. They were flying, swapping damn boring war stories." (5/6/96 - W#31)



"It's my birthday and I can do anything I want. But first a message from the universe. Warning: Time as you know it does not exist, and days or dates represented herein are for symbolic purposes only. Ok, so just keep quiet and listen.

"21 years ago I made Mommy's life miserable and marvelous. Since then I have climbed walls, drunk more OJ than you can count, excelled at school (don't ask about middle school math); I have made jokes and told jokes; I created the world's best laugh--hahaha; I've helped NY Telephone increase its profits; I've learned to read and write and then craft words so that intangible feelings take substance on the page and in the heart; I've learned about snakes and shrooms and sex on a beach, and about Italian and Spanish and Turkish and French; I've had forced marches through the Marais; I've ridden buses for hours to get to camp in my backyard; I've had Papa as a private banker and Uncle Richie as a fat cat uncle; and I've known Lizzie and Ali and Debbie and Brian and so many more; I've ridden roller coasters and goddamn slow trains; I've seen a Rock named Buck and an Island named Shelter and another named for some woman's grapes; I've barfed in strange places and danced in strange ones, too; I've had afros and corn rolls and tresses and long strings; I've been black and white and mocha; I've been awake and asleep and often both at once; I've seen a Brook named Lyn and nine named Yankees, and a lady let me into her crown... no, I was only joking; I've turned 5 and 10 and 13 (ugh) and 16 (wow) and now I turn eternal, which means I get lots more birthdays. But this is what I have learned from all of that and them:

"We are who we are and whom we connect with. We do not choose who we are; we come into being and continue to come into being. But we can choose our connections. Will it be physical or psychic, love or hate, fear or courage, knowledge or superstition, good or evil, close or distant, honest or false, genuine or artificial, here and now or far away and later. Choices, choices, choices. And how we come into being or not depends on our choices. So today I celebrate the choices I have made and that you two have made. I celebrate love and acceptance and challenge and honesty and truth and compassion and courage and OJ. We are who we are, the three or six of us, because of these choices. I thank you for making those choices. I thank you for helping me make those choices. What more need be said.

"O yes, I love you and me. As I was saying, Happy Me Day and Happy You Day. I know it is sad for you, but here's the really tragic thought: no Me days. The risk in living is losing, but the odds with parents like you and kids like moi is, or are, so good to make the risks into meaning. Better to have lived and died than never to have lived at all. No doubt about that.

"So onward, as Whitman would say. And I am not about to read Song of Myself, but onward comrades, there is much road ahead. We shall need the stores of our past and the love of ourselves and the companionship of each other. Let today mark a remembering and a start of a vision. Cry a little and then laugh and be on your way. I shall always be with you in the trees beside the path, and later we shall all refresh in the springs of eternity in which we now unknowingly flow.

"That is my Birthday Ode." (5/10/96 - W#32)



"There is the three of us, and there's the six plus me of us, and then there are the unknown and unnumbered of us--but we'll find out someday. That is still unfolding over future lives, and I don't know who, either--more than 10, fewer than 25." (5/12/96 - W#33)


Papa:

"Hey babe, it's been a while but I've been busy. Don's good. Boy, can that guy fly. He takes me up in jets and I take him up in props, but I can do things he can't--like fly with no engine. Work is great but I don't have much time for it. The beach season is now and forever. Who could have thought. It's great all right, and no taxes.

"I'm feeling free. The whole universe is ahead. Remember when you were a kid and everything seems possible. Well here it is. And it is there, too, but few can see it once they grow up. We lose the language of childhood, which is the language of dreams. Many arrive here with no memory of those images and tools, so people like me have to give them voices.

"Believe, trust, dream. Do live and enjoy. Don't make life a task but experience it as a path of joy. If you can't see a beckoning horizon, change your point of view." (5/14/96 - W#34)


Julia:

"Hi, Elissa. I'm good but curious. Everybody says I ask great questions. I've been playing, writing, singing, chasing Sandy. ARF ARF. You know what I like to do most, collect things--thoughts, ideas, people, events. No rocks here. But remember the best days at camp with you and Marty. That's how it is, but better food. I made a joke.

"Am I happy? Yes and no. I miss my family but I know I am with them, too. So I guess yes. Do they know that? I think so. Mommy especially, and Eric the big boy. He doesn't talk much but he knows." (5/14/96 - W#35)


GW:

"A gracious welcome to our visitors from afar. Do you wish to talk politics. I am concerned. Our nation has lost its vision. Born as we were in rebellion, our greatest strength is always our revolutionary spirit; but forces of a most conservative nature now ask us to do without revolution and evolution. To maintain the past we are asked to give up our futures.

"Look at all the legislation and work this year. It is all about events in the past and correcting past wrongs. Where is the vision. Think what it took to fashion 13 into one. Think what it took to purchase Louisiana. Think what it took to build a railway across a continent. Think what it took to create the light bulb. Think what it took to build the Canal and rebuild after the Depression of '29. Think what it took to go to the moon. Now think about today. What do we have.

"I am grievously concerned. We have lost courage and replaced it with nostalgia. One comforts the spirit, but the other challenges the soul and the spirit of our whole nation. Work against fear so people can be truly free. But remember that radical is not revolutionary. The horizon of public view must be open for most of the people to see. If only those in the capitol see it, or if only the rich see it, or if only the poor see it, it is not enough.

"We have become a nation of parties, not collective vision. And we have become a land of laws rather than a pantheon of human goals. We worry more about what we cannot or should not do and less about what we should and can and must do. Change that and we will once again have a great nation. It is not that we have too much government, o no, but that the efforts of the people as expressed in government are no longer going forward. We protect too much and dream too little. If we could truly dream again, the government as we know it would be vastly too small.

"I leave your humble presence, with gratitude for your attention." (5/14/96 - W#36)



Terra from "the high plains of southern South America":

"Hello, city peoples of North America. I bring you a thought of perspective. Think about my world. If I want to go where it is warm I go north; the sun travels the sky north of me. It would be for you like living in a mirror. So, too, much of what you call life is actually like being in a mirror, not in reality as we here know it.

"Once in awhile death and life trade places. I mean, when things seem out of touch and out of place it may be because you have let your spirit step out of the mirror. But remember this: the image in the mirror and the original are all of the same. It doesn't matter if you see the image or the original--the same truths are there. Just like we people in South America still dream of stars, even if they are stars you can't see from where you are." (5/21/96 - W#37)


Papa:

"Lots of people never get a sense of who they are in life and therefore don't know the words to express their inner selves. I help those with unusual language loss problems to understand and use concepts that are beyond their language skills.

"It is quite common for people to be here and still think communications must take place in words. Their lack of language skills leaves them feeling out of it, but here words are just the surface and imperfect way of expressing things. Deeper ways of expressing things are equally available to all, but those skills have often been blocked by experience and doubts.

"To put it in your terms, try to describe the Empire State Building. Go ahead. You are describing surface reality. Now picture a picture of it. See how much more is communicated. Now think about having it right in front of you. Well, that's like how we can communicate. Forget words, think realities." (5/31/96 - W#38)



LS:

"I used to be a housewife in Bulgaria. Life was very hard. I go to school only four years. Then I worked for my parents in their garden while they work in factories. I also watch two brothers and one sister. Later I grow up and get married, have one baby, but he dies in winter. My husband dies in big war. I am alone. But on the cold nights I lie awake and voices come, I do not know from where. Soon I hear my husband again and many others. I am afraid. I tell no one. But I have to tell. They say I am too stupid to be gifted like that but I keep telling what I hear. They take me to science institute and test me. Then they believe I have gift. But they send me home because they say I not look good enough to be spokesperson. So instead of Moscow I go home and people come to me for voices."

Rikkity: "I wanted you to be here to show everyone a simple truth. Being open to the universe does not require education or sophistication." (5/31/96 - W#39)


Otto Schwerming, auf Hanover:

"He vas just a little green behind his ear but I hire him anyway. What a good ting I do. So how's my little sweet ting. The limelight, the songs, the gowns--it cost so much but you vere vorth it. You vere sensational. Packed house, even on Tuesdays. 30 years you vere the darlink of Hanover, but by day no one knew you. You were a librarian--French stuff, bibliotheque. And your wife was so good about keeping secret. She was once my singer, too, but when you come she no longer draws crowds. But you make her wife, Anna Marie. You have three children, one of each. Hahahahaha. No, you have two--one of each.

"But I vant to talk about business, not family. Do you still act. A minister. Who would have believed. Vell, we'll think of you but Hanover vill never be the same vithout you." (6/7/96 - W#40)



Rikkity: "The Flying Ditzo Brothers: it's Papa and Don:"

Papa: "Hi, guys."

Don: "Hello, people."

Papa: "We've been high flying but Don likes jets and I'm still a prop man."

Don: "Randy, you were right, no walls. And I can talk to you. All those years I resisted death but now I see the resistance was not about death but about issues in life. I had to believe, and in our culture believing is too connected to churches. Once I saw that belief is a matter of being, not of religions, I could let go and believe. And look Wendy, I can fly. And Milt's a great guy to hang out with."

Papa: "So, he's a real hero! We both think the military was great and run by idiots--except for his friends, and boy does he have friends. We spent some time with JB the other day. Troubled guy. Good guy but troubled. Too smart to be an idiot. Took stuff too seriously for such a stupid organization. But hey, that's death. We got to go. Great flying weather." (6/7/96 - W#41)


LV:

"I was talking with EB about what she said to you the other day about connections. All I did was look for connections in a world of differentiation. She's so right. If your vision is wide open and you look for unities not differences, they will call you a genius. If everything is part of a whole then there are always connections." (6/20/96 - W#42)



"You saw two of my friends. They were physical. It's called materialization--getting one's shit together. They do that whenever they want. They're called emissaries or something. They go out to help people or do pranks." (6/24/96 - I#9)



GW:

"I was talking about regrets, and the one that comes to mind is slavery. We know so little in our lifetimes of the larger vision. We do what seems right and just. But I say this to your time: Those who would spend their energy on discrediting us for our ancient faults will probably be remembered for failing to confront the issues of their own time.

"It's easy to solve history's problems, but hard to solve one's own. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Franklin and all the rest, they dealt with their time and thus created a future. Those who deal with the past create a past but not a future, and surely not a reality. As your EB would say, ponder that." (6/30/96 - W#43)


Marcel:

"Bonjour. You perhaps remember me. I was your stock keeper. And you were so kind. I always worked for you, later as handyman at the inn--the auberge, Auberge Trianon. You stole the name to sound more impressive.

"And you sir, you of the dresses. I drive you in a carriage to Alsace, saying you were my sister. Boy, were you ugly. The Germans will fall for anything.

"Madame, you are well. Better than those days of terror. It is better, remember that. We all think of you often and pray for you. Even in those dark days we knew how to laugh. The best was the watered-down wine we gave the English, and they always loved it. And the sausage that we told them was the best--best of what we never said. Haha. So, be well. Our service is yours. Au revoir." (6/30/96 - W#44)


JT (on Ocracoke Island):

"And a welcome to you, mates. I sailed along the Atlantic coast around Portsmouth in the late 1700s after the Revolution. I avoided war ships.

"It was quite a life. We would lay off an island and wait. Then the lookout would call 'Ship.' This might take days. And then, if the wind blew right, we would overtake 'er and have our way with 'er. Yes we were pirates, and proud of it. Even though I share initials with the famous one, I was small time and lived out my life on a North Carolina plantation I bought with my earnings. Had my way with a few women, too. Some were scared but some liked to play pirate. They called me 'The Rogue.'

"I was more clever than cruel. I had a set of flags made up for all countries; so I would sail up and they would greet me like a countryman and then I would say, 'Surprise,' and we would board and plunder. I hated those mercantile ships--all cloth and junk.

"Ahhh, those were the days. I was happy in the end because on the plantation I made more money with less worry. But I was young and adventure called. I wouldn't recommend piracy as a trade. Too many friends left before their times.

"I am about to shove off. I've got to go plunder the breakfast buffet. Your Ericka told me to say that. When you sail home, watch the horizon carefully. Be well." (7/16/96 - W#45)


MW:

"Hello kind sir and madam. I was once called MW. Since then I have lived in New York in a tenement and worked in a factory. I had so many friends, and I was just one of them. It was a relief to just fit in. Being MW wasn't always easy, but my husband was a truly great man--thoughtful, courageous.

"What you need to remember is that behind all the grandeur of those times was suffering and travail. Life was not easy even for the best of us. I stood with endless women crying at the graves of hope. No day was certain, and pain was always just a moment away. We did what we could to secure a better future.

"You would be wise to follow EB's advice. If you do not look forward you will be consumed by the past so full of loss and pain and fear and doubt. Where and how you are now seemed far distant to us then, but we had to proceed with that vision rather than be consumed by our realities. So dream, and then work towards that dream." (7/16/96 - W#46)



"JT told you to watch the horizon. Sometimes all you see is the horizon, but what's better than that. JT is a philosopher more than a pirate. But he asks the following: 'While you were watching the horizon what did you miss that was happening right beside you. You'll never know.' Ha." (7/20/96 - W#47)


GW:

"There's not much substance to the Presidential campaign. It's a kind of substance abuse. Trivialities are dressed up to look substantial, and substance is reduced to a few slogan words. One party has a forward vision but no drive, and the other only looks back. And that little guy is a joke. Where are the minds like Madison and Jefferson.

"But on a different note, I want you to know that Rikkity is well and loved and cared for. She's fallen in with a great lot, the noble dead. So be well and protect the nation." (8/20/96 - W#48)


MW:

"I think you understand. You love them for what they were and then get on with the present so the future can have an opportunity. So listen to what I said. If you only honor loss with sorrow you have disinherited your memory and their spirit. But when gratitude and thanksgiving is shown their way, you keep their spirits so much more alive. Treat the dead as dead and that's what they, and you, will be. Treat them as parts of your living and so you and they live on.

"I must take leave of you now, but God be gracious to you with understanding." (9/6/96 - W#49)


Papa:

"Hey, babe. I was out night flying with crazy Don, jet man. He says hi. Well, actually he said, 'Hello to the Earthlings.' He misses them both [his wife and daughter.] They are trying too hard. He's there for them if they'll just let him in. You can't see us when your thoughts are too busy. Like me--you can't see me because you think so much about Eri and me. Sometimes in dreams you let go and POOF there I am.

"Remember this is not a cognitive activity. O if only people could remember that. It's not about knowing. People look for proof of this. It's there but it's not cognitive. It's the proof of people living fuller lives. If the contact with us dead geezers makes a person happy and more alive, what more proof do we need. Send 10 proof of contacts to Box 359, Universal City, 00000, and you will receive eternal wisdom and a set of Ginsu Knives. We use them here, feed a whole family on one tomato. Hey, when life gets tough you need a Ginsu. Write if you get work." (9/27/96 - W#50)



GW:

"I am greatly disturbed by the Middle East because outsiders keep deciding the issues. But let's move on to better things. You are so lucky to be in Williamsburg this time of year. It is so beautiful. Your town and my home were the only places of comfort to me.

"Some would say you have it easy, but I ask your honest answer. Has life been easy? So, we have the same experience. Do not confuse physical comfort with ease of living. If you ever live such that you can feel the losses of life with ease, not discomfort, then you will really be dead--not like us, but spiritually dead. If the comforts of life shield you from its realities you have gained nothing and lost much." (9/27/96 - W#51)


CT:

"Hi, folks. Rikkity is some chick, but if my parents knew... me with a colored girl, wouldn't understand. They're dead set in their views. But they won't know. They're with the tea lady. Bigots are usually first-timers." (9/27/96 - W#52)


MW:

"We women should not take such harsh stimulants as coffee, for our constitutions are not as strong as men's. We should confine ourselves to teas, especially of the herbal origins--or perhaps good drugs. But seriously, two cups a day will not hurt. But no more than two glasses of wine a day and not more than one after dinner. Rise with the chickens, greet each new dawn, and drop dead. My husband was always up. I used to say to him, 'Sleep in,' but he got up early. Always afraid he'd miss something... like sleep.

"It was gracious of you to be with your friend [at her mother's funeral]. Often I would endure the longest journeys to sit with a friend in loss. When all else is considered only friends matter. But your mode of transportation is more commodious than my mode. One hour from New York to Hampton Roads. In my time, talk about three weeks. We would stay a month or more, and there was this wonderful tavern just outside Trenton. It was quite the city then. So, be in continuing support of your friend. I must go now. Fond farewell." (10/25/96 - W#53)


RL, an authority on the normal and paranormal:

"Good morning. I am concerned for your young friend. She is very vulnerable. Many spirits seek the openings; short-timers who sense their fate may attempt a conquest. Tell her she must protect herself. 3 rules:

"1. Pray for safety, as you do. This usually works but not always. If the person is sufficiently strong psychically it will work.

"2. If it does not work, stop immediately. It is not rude to hang up on such, just as it is not rude to hang up on phone calls from weirdos.

"and 3. If you have an upsetting call while working with someone else, don't call with that person again. You may be strong but what about them." (10/25/96 - W#54)


M:

"Good morning, and please excuse me if I don't rise from the tub. I am in the tub to ease my pain but I can read here all day. Try it, but lock your doors.

"I come to bring you some good advice. People think I'm crazy. Really crazy people are wise; it's the sickos who are not crazy who do you harm. It's the edge of reality finely honed to which both insanity and genius cling as if to the face of the greatest mountain summit. Those who dwell below can either dwell in the sun of the ordinary or dwell in the shadows of the macabre, and one must pay heed to both the deeds and words of those in shadows; for while the deeds will cease with death, the words carry on to infect the future. A person may kill one or 6 million but an idea can kill us all.

"Now I must take my leave. I await that monster, S." (11/22/96 - W#55)


"I was in Peru when you've done this nun thing, Mom. Later, too. You were a nun twice, you little prayer machine.

"I was an indigenous person of the female gender--Inca woman. They called her 'Inca Woman, Last of the Real Hot Incas.' So hot no man could handle her. Or maybe I inflate the memory a bit. Would you believe a half-blind peasant with bad teeth. No man would handle her. But late one night when the moon was dark she made a poison and gave it to all. Ha. She was also a bad cook, so all they got was great dreams. So even today in the mountains of Peru they sing of the ugly dream maker." (11/25/96 - W#56)


MW:

"Here's some words of a more serious nature for those of us women who have lived with loss. One must find ways not to make the losses their lives... really should have said 'her life.' We have choices. We can make our lives synonymous with the loss, or we can see ourselves as victims of the loss, or we can ignore the loss at our great peril, or we can live through the loss and learn and discover there is just as much meaning--albeit different meaning--on the other side of loss.

"The struggle is to keep hold of life even in the face of death. Too many lose their way and get stuck in time, or else lose life itself. If you take it personally you have lost too much. I do believe in a God of love and mercy, but a very impersonal God of love and mercy who set forth those qualities in the human soul as living remnants of the divine for each of us. When bad things happen, that is not God; that is the flow of nature. But in those times when bad things happen, the vision of life and love and mercy that allow us to continue with meaning, there is God.

"We speak so often of God the Creator. That role is long gone but God the Redeemer lives--not God the Redeemer of afterlife but God the Redeemer of life--caught in the spark of hope that lights the dark passages of Earthly existence. To not see that spark; to sit in the darkness of sorrow, despair, denial, is to miss God.

"So to all living with loss I say, have faith the loss was not personal but the discovery of life beyond loss is very personal and ultimately divine. I bid you farewell and hope born of faith." (2/7/97 - W#57)


FR:

"Hello. I must choose my words well for English is not my language; Sumerian is... at least, once it was and I identify today with that time of my existence. I am concerned that your time also shares my worries. Mine was a time of tribal conflicts--fights between people over territory, but usually over power and energy.

"It is interesting to note that in all the wars of mankind the issues of one generation pale in about one century. To ever believe that an issue of power or energy has urgency is to miss history's lessons. So I tell you this: Move quickly to end suffering but move slowly to establish beliefs." (2/7/97 - W#58)


CT:

"Now about trout. I don't have an obsession about trout, literally or symbolically. It's Rikkity who has the problem. Fishing is about sitting still, not talking, just thinking and fishing. Now, can you picture Rikkity sitting and not talking, without a TV or phone or sleeping. She and I share great times but I like more times of quiet than she. I am more like you, ma'am, than like Rikkity. Sure she's your daughter? We have a peaceable truce. But we each have to realize that we each are right for ourselves. I don't want Rikkity to be me, and there are times when I prefer trout for company. But we are all well and we love lurking with you guys. Not everyone is so receptive.

"I just hate it when I'm lurking and I come up against a wall of fear. Pisses me off. And I would have been a proud builder of such a wall in my time. No, I didn't overcome it but I was open to overcoming it. I didn't think it was right. Too many people translate their fears into beliefs rather than into questions--beliefs about themselves or how things are. Some make objects of their fears, others make beliefs." (2/7/97 - W#59)



"Clones are good but mistaken--physically identical, but what about spiritually. You get two clones, both born the same day, but--and here's the big but--only one spirit per body. So you think you have two of the same, but noooooo. Here's a paradox: If you get two bodies with the same spirit, what inhabits one while the other is out partying. Huh." (2/28/97 - I#10)



Papa:

"Hi, babe. The beach is good and the sky is good and so am I. But I miss the good old basement. It was like heaven down there. It was not exile, it was freedom. I could putter. It could be a real mess, but now I have all this space it's different. Not as much junk here, and I like junk.

"The things that have value to you are important, just as my cheap, comfortable pants are. There is no intrinsic value. I'll bet if you were in Minnesota in the winter and I offered you some Haband pants because you were naked, you'd take them. So they're beautiful, so to speak. And they fit you like a pair of pants.

"So I fly and sun and laugh the day away. Ho ho ho he he he, in the merry old land of Pa." (4/1/97 - W#60)


TJ:

"I am now a man of controversy, but my most recent life was that of a milkman in Rehoboth Beach. And a great day to you, sir. One quart or two.

"I want to speak on liberty and freedom. To be free is to have no unnatural restraints on one's actions, thoughts, or beliefs. One in jail is not free; one in chains or servitude is not free. There are many ways we are not free. We choose bonds of marriage or business or the like. The only truly free person is one without connections.

"Only time and hindsight can tell us which restraints of freedom are worthy and which are not. Is life in what you call a 'gang' freedom, no. Is it good, no. But what about a gang of men who go around acting and talking in seditious ways. Would you say the Disciples were good. Aha, got you.

"On the other hand, we have liberty--the ability to create one's own life. I may not be free but I can still have the liberty of my thoughts, my prayers, my God. You can have your freedom taken, for good or ill. You may give up your freedom as well. But liberty can only be given away; it cannot be taken. Yet, so many give up their liberty without a second thought. They blindly follow sects who offer some kind of vision of spiritual freedom. But to give up liberty to gain freedom is folly indeed; for it is liberty that we are endowed with, freedoms we create.

"To get human freedom at the price of divine creation is the real heresy, for if one were to offer you chains but freedom of spirit, or chains on the soul but freedom of body, which would the wise man choose. In chains, but with liberty, I might still learn from life. Free, but without liberty of soul, I will learn nothing. So one gives away real life for life's comforts when one should rather accept life's adversities; for the chance to experience life is life itself. Freedom is of one life, liberty is of eternity. And I remain your humble servant." (4/4/97 - W#61)


Ericka's Bench

"UTV. Got a backache and bad breath, try the new sensational UB Brothers' little tablet: chlorophyll for your breath and heroin for everything else. Ask for it at your local junkie's. And now, it be Ericka's Bench."

Rikkity: "Yo, mom. Hey, somebody stole ma bench. Hot damn. Wow... whoa, they be stealing my ass next. But seriously, here's the Bench and here's Rikkity, and today 3... count 'em 3... visitors, all new to my Bench. The first is Juan Valdez... no... and his mule. But seriously, folks, here's SP. SP, welcome, and we'll begin with a question for $10."

SP:

"I was one of the maids with you at the auberge. I was a simple country girl. You always said you two were also country girls, but I did not believe it. But I kept it to myself. We were such good friends in a bad time. It was supposed to be a time for the people, but the people were scared. Terror does not make a good bedfellow. Often I felt safe only because you were there, too. I don't want to go back.

"It [the auberge] was beside a small stream, about 300 meters from the Loire. It was made of stone. In front ran a small road. Who knows about today. Ste. Marie, I believe that's what we called it--very small. I never went further than there. What I miss most is the cheese. Before your brother left he made so many cheeses. We ate them for months. He knew how. It was one food we could make without buying anything.

"But I just got a signal from Rikkity, so au revoir." (4/11/97 - W#62)

Rikkity: "And now, our second guest, who refuses to play games. Here's N."

N:

"Hello. I only have one initial because I like being different. I was a hippie in the '60s. I was at Alice's (I cooked) and I was at Woodstock. Rikkity is purple. I died at 35, of boredom in the Reagan years. But hey, it was a trip. Man, it was soo great to get high and get down and get dirty and get no sleep and get nowhere in life. What a waste. I know that now. A lot of my friends still think it was soo awesome, and they are joining tea ladies--didn't learn a damned thing.

"I hope I can come back with all the vision but not the drugs and not the hate. So much of our talk of love was a veil over fear and hate. Most of all we wanted to love ourselves but couldn't, and we hated that and those who kept us from loving ourselves.

"We all took on a group persona because we had none of our own. We dreamt of a world where everyone could be himself or herself, but we became everyone else. We let drug reality substitute for living reality. You know you can get higher on living than on drugs, but we didn't know that. Hey, anyone who thinks sitar is exciting is brain- and life-dead.

"We looked everywhere for life except within. As Dorothy says, 'There's no place like home,' but we left home. Sorry, Rikkity, to dispel some of your myths. It was fun but it was not enjoyable. It was often frantic, driven, without goals but fleeing an unseen demon. As long as we weren't our parents we thought we would be free of their crap, but noooo. Freedom is something you arrive at by being, not by running away into nonbeing. So I look forward to another time when I can live what I remember. Too bad that so much of the '60s can't be remembered because all of us were so wasted.

"A lot of it was rebellion against the Empire...no, rebellion against the imposition of values. But we really had no thoughtful replacement. It was just one big adolescent blow-off. Our parents couldn't do it because of WW2, and their parents couldn't because of the Depression, so a lot of pent-up energy. We were living in the '60s with models of expectation from the '30s. Get real, man. And they hated us because we were their dark side. Remember all the lectures about duty and obedience and productivity and patriotism. It was their issue, not ours. They raised necessity to the level of virtue and then wondered why we didn't bow down to their god; but it was a set of false idols. We named the Emperor's clothes, but they got mad because they had spent 30 years making those clothes.

"I'm getting a signal. I'm getting poked. I'm getting out of here." (4/11/97 - W#63)

Rikkity: "N says goodbye. And now, here's DK."

DK:

"Hello. I don't know why I am here. Rikkity asked me and she's such a dear guide. I met her recently when I arrived here. I had been living in the Netherlands--not the nether world. I was a grandmother of six by my three sons. My husband is still alive. I had been a housewife ever since the day we married. Before that I was a clerk in my family's store. We sold things people needed--food and wine. So, that's it.

"I learned that I was not the queen nor the richest woman in town. I learned that the simplest things can make a difference--how I raised my sons, how I treated my husband, how I related to neighbors, how I greeted each day made life. I did not dwell on the loss of my parents in the war, even though I miss them. I did not dwell on the three daughters who died in infancy, though I miss them. I did not dwell on what was not, but on what was.

"At my service several spoke about how I lived life on life's terms, and therefore really lived. So I learned that one learns most when one goes with the flow of life, not against it, and one remembers best when one learns acceptance. To battle for one's beliefs is good until reality is set, and then to live in acceptance is the only path to wholeness. And if one places all hope and faith in only one thing in life, surely life will disappoint; but if one places faith and hope in life much will come, much more will come to fill one with joy and love and learning. You can't remember the things you resist; you only remember that which you embrace as real, even if it is not what you would think you would choose. I do not know what lies ahead. I've lived many times, and realize that life is not in grandeur but in simple lessons deftly taught by grand life itself.

"I do not know if we shall talk again, but I hope my words have made sense, and goodbye."

Rikkity: "Hi. So today we have 3, and one is about to move on. Any guesses. Not the second one; he has to go back and find out if he can live what he thinks. DK is ready--not just to move on to another life, to a new level; just about to merge into that cosmic meaning beyond my knowing. She is full and ready. And she had to stand in line with a first-timer and she just laughed it off. Better than me.

"So that's the Bench. I'm out of here. All 3 are giving me strange signs. Here they come to drag me away... aaaaaaa... goodbye. She doesn't know it yet... shhhh... now she does and she's crying." (4/11/97 - W#64)


"Look, what's the whoop. Sure TJ had slaves, but does that mean he was less good than the non-slave holder in Boston who benefited by slavery. Or how about the Africans who sold their darker brothers and sisters into slavery. Could it be that some who object to Jefferson are descended from them. Can anyone ever be free from the failure of total humanity. So I think they point a finger and make an issue when they could better be making connections. And they keep harping on the fact that TJ said he doubted that whites and free blacks could coexist. Didn't Malcolm X say that, too. Ah, all that damn victim thinking--cut off your nose to spite your face. It's about power, control, looking backwards." (4/28/97 - W#65)


Papa:

"I try to help people in ways that will open them up to themselves, to know that they've always known it--remedial work. It is, but it shouldn't be. Too many people give up on their potential. I did in some ways.

"Just remember you have the capacity for much more than you realize. If you are not pushing the edges you are not truly alive. To be alive as a biological reality is to be constantly seeking to create and recreate what you are capable of; why not so with spiritual life, too. So keep on living by keeping on growing and becoming.

"I work with those who have forgotten to grow. I show them their selves and they say, 'Oh, wow;' and then most will be ready to take up the task of growing. I mean, what's the point of being dead if you can't learn and grow.

" 'Dead' sounds so deadly, final. Can't use 'not alive.' 'Dead' is so biological. Guist (pronounced gwist)--new word for 'dead.' Let's play a game of guist. Doc, my guist hurts. This is my guist husband. All those guists, all dressed up and lots of places to go. Write if you're guist." (5/9/97 - W#66)


TJ:

"I do not live and guist... haha... by the opinions of others, for I must be freely myself at all occasions. That I owned slaves I do most eagerly regret; that I lived in a world and time that accepted such is also a regret; but, I do not regret who I was in total.

"Has there breathed a man whose life is without blemish. Show me him, that I might see the folly of perfection; for we learn not from perfection but imperfection. Such a perfect human is of another spiritual realm, and not human therefore.

"If it was wrong for me to have position and privilege by reason of my skin color, then why is it right that others now should take precedence by reason of theirs. As an old friend said, 'Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to relive them.' And I would add that those who live in history and base the present on the wrongs of the past will never find the future. Learn, remember, and then by God move on. Are not the bitter effects of slavery kept more alive by such focus. Can they not envision instead a future and put a name to that.

"I lived with my soul anchored in eternity and my mind focused on the future. Yes, I trained my mind with the wisdom of antiquity, but not to seek out iniquity but to rather build a loftier perch from which to gaze intently upon the horizon of the future. Grow from the past, but always grow toward the future.

"I design, I work with thoughts, and I talk a lot. No dairy cattle this time--that was another life. And I write and write and write and...I work with some living and many guist. My guistness, it is as elegant as my liveliness, for elegance is of the spirit, not the station." (5/9/97 - W#67)


SH:

"Hello. I was a teller and an amateur story teller, and I was good at both. I lived in Minnesota, and I was the last bank teller robbed by the Jameses. Jesse was not polite. I lived to tell about it over and over.

"Have you ever noticed that some people live defined by one event of their lives. All people have many stories running through their lives, but a few get stuck on just one--like the widows stuck on marriage, or the mothers stuck on motherhood, or the men stuck on career, or the famous stuck on fame.

"Life should be filled with a rich retelling of one's journey, without stopping in one place too long or too often. I discovered, in my later years, I had missed so much by concentrating myself in one moment. So take heed.

"That's all. I'm out of here to do things beyond measure. Have many many focuses in life. Know diverse people. Spend more time hearing their stories than telling your own. Diversify. Bye." (5/9/97 - W#68)


In France:

"Mom, you cried at Chartres because you've been there before (Revolution.) Hid the man. Guess where he dressed. He became a nun there so we could get him out." (7/22/97 - W#69)


"About Ste. Maure-de-Touraine. What maure need be said. Ah, de old homestead. And the Place du Trianon, haha [now public toilets.]" (7/26/97 - W#70)


MW:

"I ponder about the choices that are made. Some people choose ignorance over wisdom because it's easier; others choose violence rather than courage; others choose servitude rather than independence. Each of us makes some lesser choices. Why. Is it for the learning or the lack of learning. I don't know.

"Why must life be so filled with both hopes and regrets. Must it be so. Must the value of the view from the mountain crest be measured by the struggle of the climb. Ah well, that's all.

"Fare thee well, kind fellow travelers. Remember this is not a place of greater answers than yours, but a place of greater questions. You discover more answers when you are asking than when you are not." (8/1/97 - W#71)


HG:

"Hello. I think one of the things we need to consider is the way it all will be presented. Yes, it will take a deft hand and a quiet tongue. You must learn to write and speak only to the point of resistance.

"I give you this image: you are pounding a post into the ground. You keep pounding, trying to get it to go where you want. You feel resistance, but keep pounding. The earth becomes packed down and resists you more. You finally come to a point of refusal. But, if at the first sign of resistance you had paused, the earth would have slowly given way and you could have proceeded without resistance for a bit further--pounding to resistance and then backing away. And you'll find the post drives deeper and straighter, with much less effort and no splintered posts.

"Keep the focus on the larger picture. Don't get caught in words. Be more concerned with the reception than the transmission. Time is ample; take the time. I think that's all." (8/1/97 - W#72)



"There's a difference between a believer and a fanatic. Fanatics are believers who have had more experiences than believers. But new believers are summoned by believers, not fanatics. The experiences they hear about can only be one step beyond their existence. More than one step and it seems and sounds like fanaticism." (8/15/97 - I#11)



Widesight

Announcer: “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you this special message: Things are not as they seem. Thank you. More details later. Now back to the regularly scheduled shit.”

Rikkity: “And we’re greeting those who have just joined us. We’re in process already, and this is Ericka’s Bench. So, as I was saying, today we have Marky with us plus his friend GW, and a cameo.

“So, our first guest was just out of his teens when he came to America to found a high school named after him. Eet ees so. If he hadn’t come here, would the school be called that? I don’t theeenk so. Cause and effect, my dearies. Time does not matter. Even matter does not matter. So, welcome our friend Marky.”

Marky:

"Bonjour. Things are not as they seem. Do any of us know what the future will bring. Que sera sera. We know the past if we remembered; we know the present if we are alert; but the future, no. What some people mistake for foresight is actually widesight. We see more, so to speak--we see larger patterns. But it's still a crap shoot of prediction, but with more info.

"You see, my friend GW was one who could tap into wider sight. Those redcoat assholes looked more to the past and the smaller vision, so they lost--go home, bye-bye, ciao, au revoir, don't write. So, we can give you greater vision but not supernatural vision." (10/3/97 - W#73)

“And here’s my good drinking partner... oooops, is MW around. No, ok. Here’s G.”

GW:

"A gracious hello. He’s a bit impertinent but he has a good mind and a generous soul.

"It is well with me, but not so well in your world. I am still troubled by the lack of vision that covers the world's eyes like a heavy woolen blanket, which keeps out the light and is a heavy burden as well. So I commend to your thought and action the visionary life. It will take only a few voices in the dark, because so many are ready to hear."

“MW is here now, so you may talk with my mistress. But I pray discretion." (10/3/97 - W#74)

MW:

“I don’t think such familiarity in this public medium is warranted or wise. I learned long ago that walls and ether have ears. So to all who are listening in, BOO.

“We don’t always get it. We don’t get much of your television. I meant we don’t understand much which passes for humor... and news. So I wish you a fair weather day.”

Rikkity: “So guys, it’s been fun and real and so let’s do it again soon. So for all the souls here and all the disassembled parts yet to be together, this is Rikkity saying ‘if you’ve got it, sit on it.’ Eri’s Bench is a production of the universe. UTV. Adios muchachas.”



"We spirits speak, so to speak, and of course hear ourselves. So if someone else hears us, they are not hearing voices no one else hears, ha. It's all a matter of perception." (10/7/97 - I#12)

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