What’s motivating them? Is it the revolutionary special effects? The Mother Earth overtones? The battle scenes? The overdone eco-green propaganda? The strange merging of Pocahontas and Terminator?

Probably all of the above.

But at a deeper level I can’t help but think it’s the avatar theme, itself.  Avatar, as far as my Sanskrit goes, literally means “descent into flesh.” It refers to the concept of consciousness (or a soul) living inside a physical body.

Happens to all of us.  Sperm and egg collided and our soul descended. After nine months of darkness, some doctor yanked out our new body, gave it a good slap and here we are.

I think this analogy in the film — at a subconscious level — is very appealing to people. It reminds them that the body they have been living in their whole life is not their real identity.

In defense of REAL avatars… The term, as far as my understanding of Hinduism goes, is actually in reference to souls that consciously choose to take human form — like Jesus, Krishna, the Buddha, Babaji. Those souls who’ve achieved enlightenment and come back to help bumbling humanity.

The rest of us are “unconscious avatars” (there’s an oxymoron).

John C. A. Manley
www.MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

P.S. See Chapter 33 of Autobiography of a Yogi for more details on avatars: http://www.metaphysicalSF.com/recommends/aoy

P.P.S. For the record I have not seen the Avatar film. We live an hour’s distance from any major city with a theater that would do the film justice. And considering I’m half blind with no depth perception I’m not spending two hours in a car to see a 3Dfilm without the ability to perceive the three dimensions.

	Ever notice how much catching and eating of fish goes on in the New Testament? The Zeitgeist Movement offers an astrological explanation.

The Zeitgeist film shows the hard to debate connections between pagan symbolism and Christian tradition. Just a few key examples…

• How Easter falls on the Vernal Equinox and Christmas three days after the Winter Solstice.
• How there are 12 disciples and 12 signs of the Zodiac.
• The endless references to fish in the four Gospels (representing the current astrological Age of Pisces).

Some of this may have been added to the Bible to help merge the popular pagan beliefs of the time with Christianity.

But lets assume that Jesus was born three days after the Winter Solstice, crucified on the first day of Spring and had 12 disciples who loved to fish…. I’d say that only proves that the Macrocosmic Power and Intelligence which orbits the Earth around the sun was fully expressed in the microcosmos of Jesus’ life. His little human body and its experiences reflected his oneness with Cosmic Consciousness which has the universe as Its body.

So it doesn’t mean, as the Zeitgeist Movement suggests, that Divine Incarnations were merely a man-made portrayal of natural phenomena.

Or another way of looking at it… Yes, Jesus was fiction. Just like every other human being is a dream.

The facts that the Zeitgeist Movement bring forth, in my opinion, do not prove Jesus was an imaginary creation of man. Instead, these symbolic manifestation of Nature in the life of Jesus were there to disprove the reality of the material universe.

P.S. That’s the end of my five-part response to the Zeitgeist Movement.  As with all things think for yourself. It’s important to determine where someone is stating fact and where they are giving their interpretation of the facts.

View from the main entrance to Hidden Valley Ashram — a yoga hermitage where I lived from 1996 to 2000 with 20 monks and about 30 residents.

After two years of serving in the kitchen of a yoga ashram I was “promoted” to the computer lab. After successfully installing a simple graphic card I was given the task of replacing a high-voltage power supply.

I confessed to having no experience in this area (I was a programmer not a technician). So my supervisor assigned Roger, another resident who used to build robots, to look over my shoulder.

Roger was quite busy, however, and didn’t appreciate being asked to split his attention. So when I asked him to confirm I put the blue wire where the blue wire should go he just said: “Yeah, that looks right.”

Assured of my technical prowess, I turned on the power supply. A shock immediately leapt up my arm. Sparks flew. There was a loud bang and the circuit breaker cut.

It looked like the thousand dollar motherboard and harddrive had been fried.

In the gym, I explained the situation to the senior monastic.

“Should I take all the blame or explain how it’s really Roger’s fault?”

“Well, it is ALL your fault,” he said. “After all… who are you?”

Silence.

In other words, did I want to identify my consciousness with my fleeting incarnation as John Manley or with the omnipresence of God Consciousness — one with everything and everybody?

In the end, I took full blame. My punishment was never being allowed to do any hardware upgrades again.

P.S. My first metaphysical novelette, EsuM, is almost ready for release.  Subscribe below to be notified when it’s out.

	Photo of earthquake survivors in Haiti by Matt Marek from the International Rescue Committee’s website.

In a video clip circulating the internet, Christian TV show host, Pat Roberston, explains how the Haitians “swore a pact with the devil.” This, he suggests, is why they experience so much hardship — such as the recent earthquake.

Apparently the only way those poor African slaves were able to liberate themselves from French rule was by teaming up with the red-suited one.

Call me crazy, but it sounds a little extreme. You’d think overturning oppressive overlords would be considered a godly act — not a demonic one.

I think the real issue here is that people want explain why these poor people would be a victim of such a massive earthquake.

Again, this is one of those situations where only reincarnation and past-life karma can explain why a universe run by an Intelligent and Just Force would allow such things to happen to an already suffering people.

The law of karma requires that the fruits of every good and bad action return to that soul in their current life or a future one. I suspect certain places (like Haiti) are “hot spots” for purifying oneself of past bad actions — just as other places (like Hawaii)  allow you to reap the fruits of good actions.

Most of those poor Haitians may have been Americans or Asians or Europeans in their past lives. I may be a Canadian today, get hit by a car tomorrow and find myself being born **on a mud hut in India by Monday. You never know what seeds are waiting to sprout.

Of course, I do believe in grace  — a big theme in my upcoming novelette, The Redemption of Talafi. While Nature is rather exacting in its laws, I believe the transcendental aspect of God is more forgiving. If we learn our lessons we need not always eat the fruits of our past bad actions.

And by being aware of the suffering of others and doing what we can to alleviate their bad karma (through prayer and physical aid) we in turn purify ourselves. We see ourselves in others. Such compassion detaches us from our  physical egos and its karmic baggage.

So did the Haitians make a “pact with the devil?” No more than the rest of us who think matter is real.

P.S. The earthquake is said to have killed thousands. While this seems tragic, it is not an end. Many of those souls were trapped in a land without opportunity living out their days in violent slums without water, electricity or proper nourishment. Death was a release for them. Next life they have likely merited more prosperous conditions.

P.P.S. If you would like to help those left behind please click here to visit the International Relief Committee’s Haiti Crisis information page. The IRC only uses 10% of donations for fund raising and administration costs while 90% of your donation will go towards deploying its Emergency Response Team to Haiti to deliver help to the devastated city of Port-au-Prince.

Akiana Kramarik before her painting of Jesus titled “Father Forgive Them” (which she painted at age nine) being interviewed on CNN.

You’ve likely already heard of 15-year old prodigy, Akiane Kramarik, who paints pictures of spiritual visions she’s been seeing since she was four. Her depictions of Jesus I find very moving.

I’ve completed two years of fine art training at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. I can safely say that for a nine-year-old to teach herself how to paint at the level of Akiane is quite unthinkable.

Not only does she seem to have retained much talent, skill and experience from her previous lives as an artist but she’s also retained memories of her sojourns in the astral plane (“heaven”) in between rebirths. She talks about her visits to heaven and how there exists a million more colours than what we see with our mortal eyes.

Either Arkiane story is further proof of soul migration from life to life or there’s a very unjust being running the cosmos dealing out artistic talent to some children and poverty to others.

I’ll go with reincarnation and the law of karma.

P.S. You can visit Akiane’s website by clicking here to see all her paintings plus videos and interviews.

P.P.S. On the subject of heaven, make sure you read my previous MetaphysicalSF musing, How My Grandpa Got to Heaven.

	Mahatma Gandhi described life as an “experiment with truth.”

Len Biendron (www.lenbiedron.com) commented on a previous Metaphysical SF blog post (The Roswell Crash and Politicians’ Birthdays):

…the most easily used reason to “do nothing” is that “the truth” is so very hard to define, let alone discover.

I agree. That’s what makes the pursuit of Truth such a challenging game.

Though, I disagree that anybody can “do nothing.” Doing nothing usually just means conforming or following something else. The world seems to be filled with powerful people quite willing to lead others who don’t want to lead themselves.

Len goes onto say…

How do we really know anything? By experiencing it ourselves, or by being informed. By the news media, by other people, by reading about it. None of these sources are certifiable purveyors of truth. But nonetheless we are compelled to choose one and believe, even though if you are careful and compare notes, you can see that the facts are sometimes conflicting or at least ambiguous.

Well, I’ve found that if we rely only on the first five senses to seek out the truth in anything (from “Why do I exist?” to “Whom should I vote for?”) we can forever find ourselves trapped in circular logic.

I’m a big believer in the sixth sense — intuition. Matter by it’s very nature is fleeting and not real. The first five senses only interpret matter –  so they are just as unreal. What is left is consciousness. It’s my belief and pursuit that learning how to tear away that veil of matter-perception allows us to experience ourselves as part of the Only Consciousness behind everything. That realization would give immediate knowledge of all things.

Until then, the real pursuit of truth is learning how to attune ourselves with our own intuition. Part of that development seems to be about taking what we learn through the senses and “running it by our yet infantile intuition, making a decision, applying it in our lives and reviewing the results.

Ghandi referred to his life as an “experiment with Truth.” And I think that’s the best we can ever do — trusting and having faith that Truth will guide us along if we are sincere and even minded.

P.S. Len’s wife does some beautiful nature photography. You can check them out by clicking here. We have one of her prints of an owl hanging on our living room wall and have purchased many of her greeting cards.

P.P.S. If you haven’t read it yet check out Are We Becoming a Race of Cyborgs?.

Charles Robert Richet (1850–1935) a French psychologist who devoted many years of his life to the study of spiritual phenomena.

Why don’t we live in a constant state of astonishment? Is it because we are too smart? Or is it because we cloak the astonishing in familiarity to protect our own egos from falling into a state of incessant awe?

A video clip was circulating on YouTube a while back (now pulled offline due to copyright infringement) where a comedian pointed out how people get impatient when their cellphone doesn’t have a clear signal — ignoring the incredible fact that their conversation is being beamed into space and then back down again. He cited how people complain about delays on airport runways — when we should be shaking with amazement that we can fly like a bird.

Well, even if you take away all our technological wonders there is still enough to make us feel astonished every second of the day: Birds flying through the air, food digesting in our stomach, the sun rising each day…

Why are we not living in awe about these things? How much richer our life would become if we would simply  silently witness what was going on around us with deep concentration.

Charles Robert Richet, a Nobel laureate in physiology, sums it up nicely in Our Sixth Sense…

It is assumed that the the phenomena which we now accept without surprise do not excite our astonishment because they are understood. But this is not the case. If they do not surprise us, it is not because they’re understood, it is because they are familiar; for if that which is not understood ought to surprise us, we should be surprised at everything – the fall of a stone thrown into the air, the acorn which becomes an oak, mercury which expands when it is heated, iron attracted by a magnet.

Alas, we need only to venture into our backyards to find endless examples of astonishing phenomena.

P.S. I had planned the release of my first metaphysical fantasy novelette for New Year’s day. Unfortunately a load of work (including three all-nighters) didn’t allow me to get it out in time. But EsuM is nearly ready. Stay tuned.

First the Romans were feeding Christians to the tigers – next thing they were running their religion. In today’s MetaphysicalSF ecolumn I explain why I think the Roman Empire likely destroyed  most accounts of the life of Jesus.

(This is part four of my Response to Zeitgeist Movement. Click here to read part one.)

Why are there so few records of the life Jesus? The Zeitgeist Movement says the lack of supporting accounts proves he did not exist.

In my opinion the more obvious answer is that the Roman Empire burned all the other records. Historical records show that when Caesar took over Christianity the Romans destroyed any documents, teaching and scriptures about Jesus that did not conform to the established canon.

The most obvious example is the Gnostic Gospels which yet survived thanks to a smart Egyptian who had the foresight to bury his copy.

Likewise, historians who have been given access to the libraries of certain Indian and Tibetan temples have found numerous accounts of the life of Jesus traveling to those lands (during those conveniently unaccounted decades in the Bible).

But why burn and suppress these records of Jesus?

Well, for example, it is well documented that the Romans suppressed the teaching of reincarnation. They declared it a heresy and destroyed anything (and anybody) who taught differently.

How many other teachings of Jesus were destroyed to help preserve a certain dogmatic view?

In short, they censored everything but the New Testament – which they then edited. For me, this is a much more likely reason as to why there are so little accounts of Jesus outside of the Bible.

P.S. In a future MetaphysialSF Musings I’ll conclude my five-part response to the Zeitgiest Movement by addressing their final claim: That Jesus was merely a narrative personification of a primitive pagan religion. While it’s impossible to deny the abundant amount of pagan symbolism in Christianity — I’ll explain why I think this only proves Jesus’ divinity all the more. If you’re not a subscriber sign up below to receive the final part.

P.P.S. Make sure you’ve also read W2K, Elves and the Intangible Necessities of Life where I announce the forthcoming release of my first metaphysical fanatasy novelette.

The first photo is actually a collage of the same location from last summer and now this winter. Quite the contrast Looks like two parallel universes.
…

On the left is me giving Jonah some amateur chiropractic treatment during a beautiful summer day earlier this year. On the right is my wife Nicole walking with Jonah on yesterday’s cold Christmas morn’ right before a storm hit. Looks like two different worlds!

Here’s one of my son riding a log with the old cemetery climbing the hill in the background…

Here are some snails we found hibernating by a tree…

Jonah and I with some geese and ducks who didn’t think Florida looked good this year…

And here’s the one horse open sleigh we used for transportation…

Hope you had a happy Christmas,

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

P.S. I’m planning to have my first novelette, EsuM, out by New Year’s Eve. Stay tuned. Become a subscriber if you are not already.

P.P.S. If you missed Thursday’s post about preventing poverty by being a more conscious consumer, you can still read it by clicking here…

http://metaphysicalsf.com/2009/12/24/preventing-poverty/

So this is Christmas,
And what have you done

This commonly conjures up images of John Lennon and Yoko Ono protesting hippie-style for world peace and an end to starvation.

As I looked around the store it made me think how our daily purchasing decisions shape the world we live. Much more so than protesting or making charitable donations. Money talks – and we talk with our money every day.

Thanks to oil we are able to have people in far away sweat shops labour away to provide us with cheap consumer goods: Electronics from communist China and clothes, coffee, fruit and chocolate from the impoverished fields of South America.

Developed nations spend so little on the basic necessities of life – no less the “unnecessary” necessities.

Partly because others work at unfair wages to provide for us.

And partly because we have sacrificed quantity for quality. People rather buy genetically modified, chemically sprayed produce from factory farms than locally grown, in-season, organic food. North Americans rather buy tons of cheap plastic toys for our kid from the slums of Beijing than a beautifully handcrafted toy from a local artisan.

There are so many repercussions to all of our buying decisions. Buying less while enjoying more high quality products from fair trade and environmentally sound sources will probably do a lot more to cripple the greedy elite (who are behind most wars and famines).

While giving to charities is great, I think more attention needs to be put towards living a lifestyle that prevents the need for charities. If developed nations had to pay fair prices for all their stuff (from food to clothes to TVs) what a different world we would live in.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

P.S. A great company for purchasing fair trade, organically grown clothing is Gaiam. Check out their website at the following link…

http://metaphysicalsf.com/recommends/gaiam

Outside of the Bible, few accounts exist of the life of Jesus. Many say this indicates he was not real.

(This is part three of my Response to Zeitgeist Movement. Click here to read part one .)

Zeitgeist: The Movie makes the point that outside of the Bible there exists few historical references to the life of Jesus. They conclude that if he was really raising the dead and healing the sick there would be more records of his existence.

First, there are people today who raise the dead and heal the sick.

It’s rare such miracles workers come out and heal and perform feats for the inspiration of the masses. Still, many have. The Hindu teacher, Parahamansa Yogananda, spent many years traveling the United States in the 1920s and 1930s healing and performing “miracles.”

The Los Angeles Time, January 28, 1925, reported: “The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the extraordinary spectacle of thousands being turned away an hour before the advertised opening of a lecture with the 3,000-seat hall filled to its outmost capacity. Swami Yogananda was the attraction.”

Yet Yogananda felt he was only attracting spectators – not real spiritual seekers – and later retired to training serious students in his hermitages in California.

There are endless examples of such people. They are well documented. Interesting for a day and then largely forgotten by the masses. A passing form of entertainment.

Nothing more. Metaphysical demonstrations threaten the very fabric of most people’s materialistic values.

So not only do I believe Jesus performed such miracles – I also don’t believe Jesus was the only one to do so. Jesus even says himself that others would do more impressive miracles then he (John 14:12).

And his disciples even complain to Jesus that others were performing miracles who weren’t “with them.”

Likewise the rest of the Bible is full of stories of people performing miracles other than Jesus (personally, the parting of the Red Sea by Moses seemed more miraculous than anything Jesus did).

Lastly, people believe what they see with their own eyes. The same reason news of Jesus’ miracles didn’t become the international bestseller of its time is the same reason modern accounts of miracles get little attention. People don’t believe or don’t see any connection to their own life.

Honestly, I think the only reason Jesus became the world figure that he is today is because his message was hijacked and used by the Roman Empire. If left to the early Christian communities his teachings and life story would never have been taken up by the mainstream (yet the integrity of his message would have been much better preserved).

Which leads me into another reason why there are so few accounts of Jesus outside of the bible… which I’ll cover in a future post.

My son Jonah and I playing in the icy creek at a local conservation area – a scene in my forthcoming novelette, EsuM.

Time seems rarely on my side but I wanted to announce that I have full intentions of releasing my first novelette, titled EsuM, by Christmas.

The story itself begins in the New Year of 2000. That was a strange year, wasn’t it? The world entered the new millennium fearful of W2K causing a technological meltdown. I lived in a monastery in the California mountains at the time and we were prepared with six months of food and supplies safely stored away in an underground bunker.

I remember one of the residents telling me: “You know, if suddenly the lights go out and we are sent back to the days of chopping wood and carrying water… We’re going to have the time of our lives!” How disappointed he was when nothing happened.

My upcoming novelette, however, only mentions W2K. Though it makes me think that it would be rather neat to write a parallel universe story of what would have happened if W2K did collapse every computer in the world.

Instead EsuM is one of my few metaphysical fantasies. I’m more into science fiction. Unlike The Redemption of Talafi, a medieval fantasy I had intended to release first, EsuM is a modern fantasy set in my own city (Stratford, Ontario). Because it involves an elf, takes place in the winter and is about new beginnings, I would like to release it over the holiday season.

It’s a little more light than the other works I have nearly completed. Semi-autobiographical. It’s a great story for anybody who finds themselves torn by their creative aspirations and the practical necessities of life. The intangible and the tangible. The seemingly real and the seemingly unreal.

My plan is to release part one for free by Christmas Eve. The complete volume will be available for sale by New Year’s Eve. Stay tuned.

The life of many, many spiritual figures – from India to Egypt – are very similar to life of Jesus. Some say this proves he is fictional template. I say it shows that what Jesus really was is more real than the world itself.

(This is part two of my Response to Zeitgeist Movement. Click here to read part one.)

Before seeing the Zeitgeist: The Movie I was already quite aware that there are countless spiritual figures who led lives very similar to Jesus – having twelve disciples, being born of a virgin, resurrecting, performing miracles, being born in poverty, etc.

The first time I read the life of the Buddha I couldn’t help but think I was reading the Gospels. And early Christian missionaries to India used to claim Krishna was a rip-off of Jesus – because his life, teachings and even his name were so similar – until historians proved Krishna lived several hundred years before Jesus.

The Zeitgeist Movement believes (yes believes… they don’t know) that manipulative powers-at-be across time and continents have been copying the same story over and over again. Sounds rather impressive for ancient times (before printing presses and the internet). And why reuse the same story? Seems a little obvious.

Possible. Sure.

Likely, not really.

So how do we explain all of these coincidental similarities? (It sure is baffling to the whole “Jesus was the ONLY son of God” movement, isn’t it?)

For me, the fact that there are so many great spiritual figures with extremely similar lives and characteristics is astounding proof of the existence of a Higher Reality. I see it as the SAME Cosmic Consciousness that found manifestation in Jesus, also found expression in Krishna, Buddha, Horus and all the other Great Ones of various religions.

That same ONE “son of God” lives in everybody – not just Jesus – and through self-effort and divine grace that Spiritual Consciousness managed to come to life in certain individuals. We can’t even begin to grasp the type of consciousness and life people like Jesus lived — where their earthly incarnation was just a small part of what they perceived themselves to be.

In short, the outwards similarities of various spiritual figures’ lives is a sign of their unity. The same consciousness is behind all of them – manifesting through each of their unique souls. It also shows that all religions are one once you tear away the confusing dogmas created by its later followers.

(Click here to read part three of My Response to Zeitgeist Movement.)

A graph showing the little-talked-about Medieval Warm Period (AD 800-1300) when global temperature rose despite the lack of SUVs.

Here’s what bothers me the most about the whole global warming controversy: Anybody who challenges the accepted theory is treated as a radical extremist.

Even after hackers broke into the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and extracted thousands of very suspicious documents suggesting that the global warming crisis is a hoax… anybody who says, “Hey, isn’t this a little incriminating? Shouldn’t we look into this more?” is treated like a “conspiracy theorists” or as “climate change deniers.”

In fact that’s exactly how science reporter, Bob McDonald referred to such people in the opening sentence of his recent article Climate Science is Still Sound.

There seems to be so much emotional identification with issues such as a global warming and peak oil that I think the objective scientific approach has been lost.

Has the earth warmed? Yes. It seems so.

Is it going to continue to get warmer? Hard to say. Maybe. Maybe not. Notice how they’ve stopped calling it “global warming” and started calling it “climate change.”

Is global warming life-threatening? Sure if it gets hot enough.

But what about a slight temperature change? History would suggest it does not signal the end of the human race. From AD 800-1300 temperatures rose significantly. It’s known as the Medieval Warm Period. Atlantic ice melted and the Vikings crossed over to Newfoundland.

Is global warming caused by carbon dioxide? Maybe. Maybe not. Remember that without carbon dioxide there would be no life on earth. Plants live off the stuff. The surfaces of Mars and Saturn’s moons have also increased in temperature. That would suggest that not SUVs but some greater astronomical force is to blame (like the sun!).

Is there big money to be made by global warming? You bet. And people like Al Gore are set to make a ton from various green technologies. (see Al Gore Set To Become First “Carbon Billionaire”).

All I’m saying here is stop giving people derogatory titles like “conspiracy theorists” when all they are doing is asking intelligent questions about this important subject.

According the Zeitgeist Movement Jesus (and just about every other historical spiritual figure) was a work of fiction.

Earlier this year I watched Zeitgeist: The Movie for the first time. It presents its message in three parts:

1. That Jesus (and just about every other historical spiritual figure) was a work of fiction created to manipulate people through religion.

2. That the official September 11 explanation is also a work of fiction. The film presents evidence suggesting that the attack on the Two Towers was an inside job.

3. And that the Federal Reserve is also a fiction created to benefit a rich elite.

I’ve no issues with point two and three. I thought they presented the facts and drew appropriate conclusions.

As far as point one goes… I think they presented the facts and drew the wrong conclusion. Since the Zeitgeist Movement is obviously encouraging free thinking I’m sure they won’t mind me expressing my take on their anti-religious standpoint.

The Zeitgeist Movement concludes Jesus was a work of fiction based on the following three facts:

1. The fact that throughout history there are records of spiritual figures (before and after Jesus) who lived lives very, very similar to Jesus’.

2. The fact that there hardly exist any accounts of the great life of Jesus (outside of the Bible).

3. The fact that the story of Jesus (and the Christian traditions that followed) are packed full of pagan symbolism – suggesting that Christ was merely a fictional personification of nature and astrology.

Now, I DO agree with all three points. I just don’t agree with the conclusion that these facts mean Jesus was a fictional character.

I think they got it backwards. In many ways, what these three points suggest is that our whole view of reality is a fiction. What was manifesting in Jesus (and all the other Great Ones) is the only thing that is real.

In future MetaphysicalSF Musings I’ll explain why I think the Zeitgeist Movement has drawn the wrong conclusions about these three points. If you haven’t seen the film you can watch it online by clicking here.

Again, I agree with their facts – just not their interpretation of the facts. It’s always important to separate the two.

(Click here to read part two of My Response to Zeitgeist Movement.)

The next day Grandpa had a room in at Toronto’s St. Joseph hospital. The doctors said his kidneys had failed. His heart was also so weak they were surprised he was still alive (no less living on his own at 98). They told him he would have to go into a nursing home under 24 hour care.

“No way!” said my grandfather.

And the next morning he died.

I think a week of hospital care had been humiliating enough. The drugs made him think wild animals roamed the hallways of the hospitals. Two of the times I visited him he was so medicated the nurses couldn’t even wake him.

Fortunately it was during the SARS outbreak and a “one visitor a day” rule was in effect. All the better. It meant only those closest to grandpa saw him those last days. The one’s who would remember him as the man who spent the last 30 years of his life completing hundreds of landscape paintings, reading and indexing every National Geographic from 1945, cooking meals from scratch, crafting clay Christmas villages for charitable fund raisers and tending his one acre yard.

And then there was his love of boats. He had many model sailboats he put together with all that intricate rigging. He could talk for hours on the subject, from navigation, to history, to travel destinations.

He spent half his long life working as a bookkeeper for the Canadian Steamship Lines. I think, however, he would have preferred following his father’s footsteps – being a member of a ship’s crew – not confined to land counting invoices and expenses.

His father had sailed many trips from England to the Orient. Returning from one such trip, he stayed at a seaside boarding house for sailors on the Shetland Islands. He asked the landlady’s daughter to go to the circus with him. They had a fun time so he said, “I sail out for China tomorrow. I’ll be back in two years. When I get back will you marry me?”

She agreed and that’s how my grandpa’s parents met.

Marriage and opportunity brought them to Canada where my grandpa’s father ran a school during the winter months, teaching sailors how to navigate. During the summer months he would be on the Great Lakes adjusting compasses.

Grandpa grew up hearing tales of trips to the Orient. But, his father would always warn that a “sea-faring life was no life for a young man” and made sure Grandpa received a proper education and got a “proper” job.

Yet my grandfather spent the rest of his life reading about boats, visiting docked boats at Toronto Harbour and sailing on lakes at summer cottages. He’d often forget he’d already shown me and bring his photo album from a cruise trip he took to Alaska. 90% of the photos were of the ship – very little of Alaska itself.

The day before he passed away I visited him. He was out of ICU and in his own room with an amazing fifth story view of Lake Ontario. It was July. Boats were on the water all day long. He just sat at the window watching the boats and reading a book.

His hearing was almost gone at this point. He did most of the talking – mostly about sailing, art and the lakeside cottage he loved.

Before I left I said, “I’ll see you soon.”

He shook his head, laughing. “Okay,” he said in a disbelieving voice.

I thought he thought I wouldn’t come back to visit him.

The next day, when my father called to say he passed away, I knew it was the other way around. Grandpa had no intention of staying.

After breakfast the next morning the nurse found him lifeless. What she probably missed was his astral form getting out of bed, walking down the hall, taking the elevator to the first floor, strolling out the front door all the way to beaches.

A large sailboat waited for him. He boarded and sailed away.

And that’s how my Grandpa got to heaven.

Namaste,

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com

P.S. If you’d like to increase your chances of living to be 98 like my grandfather, check out Dr. Dean’s Future Health Now! program at… http://getfuturehealthnow.com/freesample (I highly recommend it!)

The film brought back many memories for me. I grew up in Brampton, Ontario, (outside of Toronto). Most of my classmates were East Indian, Pilipino, Portuguese and Italian.

Sometimes I felt like I was the foreigner. (Not that I ever had a problem with that.)

I had a good friend who was East Indian. It was always a little strange visiting his family. We attended a Catholic school. Yet, his parents still dressed and acted like Hindus. His mom would be cooking this soup dish called “doll” (dhal is now a staple in my household) with Indian music playing in the background. But instead of a statue of that strange elephant God on their front lawn, it would be Mother Mary holding baby Jesus.

Back to the film…

In Namesake, a newlywed Indian couple moves to New York in the middle of the winter. The movie spans about 30 years with the birth of their son and daughter. Their son takes the spotlight for most of the film, shared, partly, with his mother.

It deals with the alienation the mother feels living in American culture and having children now more American than Indian. There’s a funny scene in the film where she tells her son to stop calling her and his father, “guys.”

The other half of the film deals with the son trying to come to terms with his Indian heritage and the strange Russian name, Gogol, his father gave him.

Funny? Rarely.

Delightful? Yes.

Moving? At times.

How was the acting? Excellent. Convincing.

Worth seeing? Yes, if for no other reason than to get a glimpse into the life of East Indian immigrants and the struggles of multiculturalism.

Namaste,

John C. A. Manley
www.metaphysicalSF.com

All doomsday joking aside, as we approach the hoary year 2012, a variety of predictions abound – ranging from hopeful to horrible…

1. The collapse of Western civilization. This wouldn’t surprise me and it may be time to hit the “reset” button.
2. We blow ourselves up. Personally, I’d rather this one doesn’t happen – though it’s a theme I explore in my upcoming novella, All the Humans are Sleeping.
3. Aliens come, before we press the button (per #2) and tell us to get our act together or they’ll blast us to pieces (e.g. The Day the Earth Stood Still).
4. We all evolve into some higher level of spiritual existence where most of the goals and necessities we hold dear to today become irrelevant and rather petty.

Or nothing much happens. Much like W2K we end up with six months of protein bars we’ll have to eat before the expiry date.

But if some variation on 1, 2, 3 or 4 came about, life as we know it now would come to an end (and in the case of #2, life, period, would come to an end). Now, I’m not trying to be morbid or anything. Such a global shift serves as a prod to get us moving on whatever it is we feel we are supposed to be doing with our life – not waiting for tomorrow.

Case in point, for five years I’ve been putting off completing and releasing my first three novellas, The Redemption of Talafi, Esum and All the Humans are Sleeping. Always something got in the way.

And, if 2012 comes about, and sends us back to pioneer days leaving a local newspaper as my only publishing opportunity – I’ll have missed my chance. No more internet. No more on demand self-publishing.

2012 or not… Who knows how long our way of life will continue. Some argue it’s sustainable. Others say it isn’t. But, global crisis aside, a car may hit us tomorrow.

The time to make things happen is now. Even if only a baby step each day. No matter which way you look at it – life isn’t long.

And even with reincarnation, you still need to put up with the initial six years where you retrain your new body and mind in the art of walking, talking, eating, peeing and pooing…

The next six years (age 7-12) focus in on reading, writing and arithmetic.

The following six years (13-18) are generally wasted as a misguided teen.

Followed by another six years (19-24) which make the previous six look productive.

Usually something called “responsibility” kicks in over the next six years (24-30).

After that we’re 30 and we finally get our act together and pick up where you left off last life.

In short, we may have forever… and that’s the problem.

Therefore, doomsday or renaissance, 2012 gives us a good kick to take advantage of what life has to offer us now, today, 2008. And, it’s just a hunch, but I doubt these shoot up the zombie video games are really helping.

Namaste,

John C. A. Manley
www.metaphysicalSF.com

P.S. 1,114 days until December 21, 2012 (the exact date when the Mayans predicted the “end of the world”). What are you going to do with the next 40 months?

A band of Iroquois natives captured a Jesuit missionary in the Ontario wilderness in the 17th century. The Jesuit expected – as was the custom with captured missionaries by this particular tribe of Indians – to be tortured for several days and then finally burnt to death.

In case you don’t know… death by fire is very slow and painful. The Jesuit wasn’t looking forward to that. Plus, a week of torture, beforehand, wasn’t much to his liking either.

It was one of those “let this cup passeth me by” moments.

“Before you begin your torture,” said the French priest to the Iroquois, “I have something of great value to you.”

“What’s that?” they asked.

“A magic ointment that would make you invincible in battle,” said the Jesuit. He took from his bag a bottle filed with a paste. “Any part of your body will become invincible when you apply this holy ointment.”

“Show us,” they said. “Show us how your magic ointment works.”

“Very well,” said the Jesuit, “but if I prove to you it’s magic and show you how to make your own, do you promise to let me live?”

“Yes,” they promised.

“On your word,” asked the priest.

“On our word,” said the Indians.

“Alright,” said the Jesuit. He put his hand in the bottle and scooped up the ointment spreading it all over his neck. “Have your strongest man thrust his tomahawk as fast and as hard as he can at my bare neck.”

The Indians looked at each other in amazement. But they motioned to a tree stump. The Jesuit calmly walked over and placed his head down. One of the Indians raised his axe and brought it down…

…and the Jesuit’s head rolled away – the rest of his body falling dead to the ground.

Talk about making the best of a bad situation…

The Jesuit had already come to terms with the fact his time on earth had come to an end. His goal was not to save his life, but merely to avoid torture. He tricked them into killing him quickly and relatively painlessly.

Sometimes, I guess, it’s good to lower your expectations.

It also, shows, that the Jesuit was not too attached to his body.

Such non-attachment to our current state of existence is an issue I deal with a lot in The Redemption of Talafi (my upcoming metaphysical fantasy). The reflection we see each day in the mirror, along with its name, belongings and accomplishments, will only be with us for a relatively short time. Yet we put so much stock in it.

The Redemption of Talafi looks at how our experiences in this life are but a short scene in the grand performance of our existence.

I’ll be releasing part one (at no cost) of The Redemption of Talafi soon. I’m in the midst of (slowly) setting up a special section of the website for the virtual book release. If you’d like to see the cool header I designed, click here.

Namaste,

John C. A. Manley
MetaphysicalSF.com
Where Spirituality, Science and Imagination Become One

(In case you’re wondering, Biosphere 1 refers to the Earth’s actual ecosystem.)

The goal was to see whether human beings could survive in such a sealed structure without dying, getting deathly sick, starving, running out of oxygen or going insane.

They figured it was better to test it out here, on Earth, rather than the moon or Mars. If things went wrong (which they did) they could always open an airlock and let in more air, food, water… or the crew could just walk out.

83% of their diet was grown within the Biosphere. The other 17%, I assume, was brought in before they sealed the hatch. As I understand they ended up eating so many yams their skin turned orange.

They lost weight the first year but increased their farming efforts and beefed up the next year.

The other reason they started growing more food was because the carbon-dioxide content of the air kept on going up. With only eight people they weren’t sure where all the breathable air was disappearing to. In the video link below you can hear crewmember Jane Poynter explain what they finally discovered was eating up all the oxygen.

It’s a fascinating, 15-minute video, looking at how delicate our planet’s ecosystem truly is and how disconnected we are from it…

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_poynter_life_in_biosphere_2.html

Namaste,

John C. A. Manley
www.metaphysicalSF.com

P.S. In case you’re wondering, despite the oxygen and calorie problems, the crew of Biosphere 2 all came out of the two-year experiment with exceptional health.

P.P.S. Just goes to show that a lifestyle that is in tune with the environment is also conducive to personal health. If your lifestyle is out of tune with both the environment and your own biology you may want to check out Dr. Carolyn Dean’s Future Health Now! program…

http://drcarolyndean.com/futurehealthnow