When the light bulb goes off.

"The only strength for me is to be found in the sense of a personal presence everywhere, it scarcely matters whether it be called human or divine; a presence which only makes itself felt at first in this and that particular form and feature. . . . Into this presence we come, not by leaving behind what are usually called earthly things, or by loving them less, but by living more intensely in them, and loving more what is really lovable in them; for it is literally true that this world is everything to us, if only we choose to make it so, if only we live in the present because it is eternity."
— Richard Lewis Nettleship, Lectures and Memories, Vol. I, p. 72 (Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1897.)

My terrestrial life has been increasingly filled with work (two jobs and a growing practice) and family (two kittens) and all the other things that serve the continual filling of the never-ending ocean of samsara.¹ Hardly the down-winding road to retirement and liberation from maya! There's been little time to even look at this poor, lonely blog. Tim is around, of course, but I'm not always paying attention. Of course, those in spirit have their way of getting my attention, and their favourite way is to mess with electricity, mainly by causing light bulbs to blow out when I touch a lamp or go to turn on a light, or even just walk in the room. Poof! One of my colleagues who shares my therapy space finally found a discount outlet for light bulbs. The most recent attempt to get my attention is one that I've never heard or read about, and have only had happen a few times in my life, so just remember, you saw it here first.

For those who don't yet have aware access to their own mediumship abilities, I wonder how they might be able to comprehend an aware existence such as mine where each foot is in a different land. Or, more accurately, one mind here, one mine there. There's no doubt that most, if not everyone, has experienced weird and unusual things, but just let them go on by, as if they're just more of the driftwood of manifestation always passing through and out of our lives. But what if these weird and unusual things are messages in a bottle?

The message behind the gleeful destruction of light bulbs is, in my case, usually and simply, "We're here." And at other times, especially in the case of the newly-transitioned, it's "Oops, didn't know my own strength!"

The most recent attempt at getting my attention happened two nights ago just after a new bulb blew as I went to turn on a lamp in my office. After replacing it, I went to the closet to get my slippers (I work best in bare feet, but one must show some semblance of professionalism) and the sliding door, which is 8 feet high and very heavy, (I'm not a big person) heaved itself out of the track and came completely out of the door; in fact, the screw plates holding it in came out as well, and I was left dancing a waltz with the 4-segmented panels trying not to get flattened.

It wasn't until a few minutes later when I realized I couldn't fix it and had managed to prop it up safely, that I remembered this happening before, a memory probably stimulated by the light bulb event a few minutes before that, as well as a Rune reading a few minutes before that, advising me that "things in my life may be torn asunder". I remember seeing a few horror movies, usually about demon possession, when a door is torn of the hinges by an unseen spirit. My experience has not been that. If it weren't for past experiences, I would have assumed that the door was defective; but it wasn't. All told, I've only had a door come off in my hands five times in my life -- which still seems like a lot, doesn't it? I think so.

When I was 19 and living in an old farmhouse without any running water or indoor plumbing, it was clear the place was haunted. It had been deserted for over 50 years before I had moved in, but thankfully it had electricity. Many weird things happened there, but the first and one of the most dramatic is having my bedroom door come off into my hands one morning. The hinges didn't come off because the screws pulled out; the slide part of the hinges were just no longer in their holding places. Somehow, they seemed to have just come up and out by themselves. That night, more activity occurred in the room, including the loss of several light bulbs, and resulted in Barnabas the dog refusing to sleep with me for the next two weeks.

The same door thing happened to me twice in two dorm rooms in college, and the residence authorities were stymied enough to not make me pay for either one. It happened again a few years later in my apartment, with another bedroom door coming out of the hinges, with the hinges remaining securely fastened to the wall. My roommate didn't blink an eye, though, having lived with me long enough to know better than to try to figure it out. I know now that this kind of thing is directly related to the same kind of "energetic interference" that causes lights to flicker and blow out in my presence or when I touch them.

But to get back to the original idea — what's the message, if any, here? Are the Risen playing their own special version of The Price is Right? If so, maybe next time I'll take the box. All kidding and simple-minded ideas aside, the answer is not so simple, although the initial symbol — a door — is. Doors are for shutting in or out, for closing one in or out, to complete closure of a room. So removing a door implies the opposite of these, and creates a doorway. The complexity is that many physical doors in material reality occupy the same "space" as "openings" that exist inter- or alter-dimensionally. The geographies of the Risen — all geographies of all dimensions at all times — interpenetrate. Because of our particular perceptual focus, we hardly notice most of the constant change that is part of a material manifested life, primarily because we resist change and so deny it. Regarding the changes of other dimensions that are interpenetrating ours, we never notice the changes taking place, unless we're co-resonating with them. The only time most of us really notice is when we or someone else transitions from one geographical vibration to another, and experience also but erroneously known as "death."

In this most recent case of door-jinx, the messages are many, beginning with the surface message, "pay attention." Another factor that is driving the activity is that currently there are several individuals in my life who, within the last week, have had life-threatening experiences, including diagnoses of terminal illnesses and accidents. Because I resonate with these people so strongly, parts of my manifestation experience will react/respond to theirs.

This inter-reaction/response is also known as a "portent" or "to indicate, presage, or foretell." Portendere is Latin for "to stretch out before." Por, or per, is a simple prefix for "for" and ten is "stretch." This same Indo-European root, ten, is found in "tantra," from the Sanskrit tantram, which means "loom." Ten is also at the root of sitar, from the Persian for "string," which produces vibration and resonance.

A portent, while seemingly an omen or alert about something in the future, is really an indication about something already connected with the present, or interwoven on the loom of samsara. A weaving is of intersecting points, connecting many separatenesses into a greater tapestry of design. When one or more strings vibrate at similar or equal resonance, there is amplification, and another quality arises — as to what form it may take depends on who is there to receive and perceive it. As noted in earlier posts, this is seen in the event of simple atoms coming together to make more complicated molecules, whereby "something unseen and divine" descends to manifest something wondrously new and mysterious.

A Skeptic (with a capital "S") would have the idea that I'm seeing things that aren't there, without allowing for the idea that I'm seeing things that are there. Obviously, it's a matter of differences in perception, which hinges on particular beliefs currently being held before us like a lens of focus. Change the belief, and perceptions will change — which may seem to indicate that things themselves have changed — but actually they haven't. Nothing has changed except perception.

My light bulb and door events are many things to me — symbols; events; portents; hellos from heaven; tweaks on the nose; resonant amplifications. They are also indications of a Great Tapestry of design and purpose behind human events; eventually, these events become offerings to join with others for higher purposes, where "the threads for weaving are placed in our hands which it is our duty to weave with our highest skill and devotion."² We are each an atom in our Universe, brought together with others into a Weaving that is utterly beyond our comprehension, but not our delight.

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¹ From the Sanskrit sam, "together" (to flow together, to go or pass through states, to wander"). Mostly, a great revolving door between life and death and a new life.
² Raynor C. Johnson, Nurslings of Immortality, p. 271.