July is a special month for special people for special reasons.
To begin with, July 4th is the day that the USA gained its independence from the British Empire. Now if that isn't special, I don't know what is.
Americans Revolt
Another special thing about July regarding my Nichiren faith, is that on July 3rd of 1945 a leader of the Soka Gakkai (Josei Toda) was released from prison after refusing to give up his Buddhist faith during the Japanese militarist authorities.
And finally, it was in July of 1921 that Mao Zedong and a dozen other delegates gathered together in secret to form a new political party. That's right, the Chinese communist party...
oppsss, sorry, anytime I mention Mao Zedong my computer crashes and I get this message from the Republican Party asking for a donation?... Not sure what that means.
For those of you who think dreams are bullshit, here's more truth that they are not -- at least from the mind of this Nichiren Buddhist.
I have been dating this beautiful woman from China for over a month now, and well, I said, I Love You. It was only a matter of time for me to do this for you see, I sometimes speak from emotion which is never good. I should have learned by now not to speak from emotion because, well, you see, I am a poet.
The rain came and I laughed
The sun came and I... cried.
~~ Li Kairui
See that was a poem I wrote under my new name, Li Kairui, but I'll cover that at another time. Today we are talking about dream number 486. Hold on to your seats boys and girls, here are the details:
What you say?
Last night I dreamed I was on a bus with my Chinese girlfriend to go see her deceased husband. Her deceased husband, her and I three were together on the bus, smiling, wondering. What does it mean?
Well, boys and girls, it means that I am connected to her deceased husband. You see, he died around the same time that I was in surgery to have the cancer tumor removed from my lung. Seems to me that he died at this time and she game into my life at this time for a reason. I know, I know!!! I am a dreamer. Well, yes I am. And so I believe he loved her so much that he helped bring us together from the other side.
Today is the 100 day after his death. In China this is a special day. My Chinese girlfriend has allowed me to go with her. I have a Chinese silver dollar to leave on his grave. This morning I chanted that he give us a sign that he is happy with us being together. Let's see what happens.
So I had one of those soothsaying dreams last night. It began on a street corner with a bunch of people I somehow knew, crossing a busy street. One of the guys was standing in the turn lane just before the median. Another guy had made it halfway and was safely in the median waiting for the light to change. I was waiting to cross at the beginning. Seeing the guy in the turn lane I yelled to him that he needed to go to the median or come back to the beginning with me to be safe from cars. He came back and joined me at the beginning to wait for the light. He was a black man. I remembering thinking he should have gone to the median instead of coming back to me, but at least he was safe for now.
The light changed and as soon as we crossed the street, we entered a bridge. Yes, the familiar bridge of my dreams. It's a high bridge, sometimes swaying, sometime still, sometimes open, sometimes encapsulated, but always modern. The bridge crossing is always a fun beginning too; excitement and joy for the journey ahead, which never last long. I walk with confidence at the start, but then look down at the water below and feel woozy at the distance if I should fall, and when I look ahead, scared of the long stretch of bridge I know is ahead.
There have been dreams where there is a draw bridge in the middle of the crossing and it opens before me and pauses my journey. Not this time, nope, I was already at the end of the bridge where I could see a damp landing a few steps below. I immediately take it leaving the others behind. Yes, impulsive me as usual. There is a group of young people waiting on an elevator, guys in their twenties wearing leather jackets and flip flop footings. While waiting for the elevator I look out a window and see this is the last section of the bridge and it leads to a brick building that reminds me of those ugly government buildings built in the 20's by Hitler and Mussolini. I'm puzzled, but nonetheless, excited. I push the elevator button, but nothing happens.
"We've been waiting a long time," one of the youngsters says -- I now realize that youngster was me.
I run back up the steps to the bridge where I left the others. They've moved on. I run back down the steps to the elevator platform. Still no elevator, I push the button and hear a mechanical sound which tells me that the elevator has arrived, but the door won't open. Elevator doors never open in my dreams. I try to force it, but it only opens enough to show me a glimpse of the light inside, and then snaps back. The others are laughing.
"We've tried it a dozen times," my younger self says, "it won't open."
I look out the window and see the others I left behind are at the end of the bridge. There is a father will his child in the lead and he's at the very edge, however, the bridge is not compete. Or is it? I follow the projected path of the bridge and realize it will touch the shore if there are more people at the end. I run back up the steps and find a passageway that leads to other parts of the bridge. The first passageway goes backwards, the second passageway is where I came from. I'm loss in a dream again, as in life. I'm about to give up, accept things as they are. So what, I'll go back to the beginning and start over. Only, there is no starting over at this point. And with this thought another passageway magically opens, it is a handicap ramp. I approach it and see a narrow path along its side that I must turn sideways to maneuver down, and so I begin my decent to the others at the end to help lower the bridge, but wait! As in all my dreams there is a break in the bridge, only at this time it is the final section. I'm so close to the end this time. I've never been closer. but then, NO, no, please god no...
The dream is over.
End of dream 689.
In analyzing this dream as I do all my dreams, I consulted my Cloud Nine dictionary written by Sandra A. Thomson. I began my analyzes with the main street where we were all trying to cross. Obviously, this is the beginning of my life, my youth. The characters waiting to cross the street I now realize are the different faces I had to wear in dealing with the adults around me at the time. I was born in 1959 and so became of age the 60's during turbulent times. We lived in Detroit during what they then called the riots, but we now all know was just another step in the long struggle for equality and justice in America. We lived in a white neighborhood on the East Side of the city. The first black family had just moved in and I was the friends with Charlie, the kid my age. Charlie was funny, easy going, and very giving. The world around Charlie and me was crazy, but we just ignored it and played GI Joe and Hot Wheels like boys will. One day playing on the steps of my porch my grandfather came out and saw Charley and me and started calling him "boy." Charlie and I were both embarrassed. I crumbled inside because I knew it hurt Charley. My grandparents were racist as were most white parents at that time. It was the first time I felt racism.
Another time, Charley and I were play-wrestling in an open field. We were imitating our favorite wrestlers, he was Bobo Brazil and I was Lord Athol Layton. I was about to deliver my sleeper hold when I felt a foot on my back. It was a black teenager who saw us 'fighting' and ran to help Charley. He kicked me twice before Charley could tell him we were friends playing. The teenager looked at me like my grandfather had looked at Charley. He said something like 'fucking white boy' and walked away. Charley and I decided to play a different game. A few weeks later the city violence was really bad and we could see smoke in the sky from the burning buildings. The National Guard parked jeeps around the neighborhood with armed soldiers. We could only play together until 6pm because of the curfew. That was my intro to life, and my dream hesitation in crossing the street at the beginning of my life. But with the help of others, such as the black man who came back to help me cross the street in my dream, I got on the bridge of life and began my journey.
Consulting my dream dictionary, a "bridge...can unite the past with the present." And I'm certain that is a big part of Dream 689, but the greater part of the dream may be my 'crossing' of the bridge itself. Thomson says in her book: "In many myths, crossing a bridge represents the passage from life to death and into whatever is your conception of life beyond. This, or other crossings, would be a typical kind of dream for someone who is terminally ill or close to death."
Ouch, reading that interpretation is scary, and to be honest I wanted to avoid it. But avoiding dreams only creates nightmares and so I must visit it. As many of you know I'm still recovering from having a cancerous part of my lung removed last month. So, I'm definitely closer to the 'beyond' than I am to the 'beginning.' As I have documented in previous post, my Buddhist faith has bought me some time in life, I don't know how much, but I do know I plan on spending this added time in my faith. Therefore I must now tell you that I am a follower of Nichiren Buddhism in which we chant Nam Myho Renge Kyo for truth and happiness. I joined the Soka Gakkai two years ago and from the first time I chanted Nam Myoho Renge Kyo the right side of my chest hurt. I thought it was from never have held my hands together in chanting before and that in time it would go away with conditioning. It never did go away and so I went to the doctor and they found a spot on my lung. It was an early enough detection that they removed the cancerous part of my lung and so I am now a cancer survivor thanks to my chanting. I truly believe this. Since having the cancerous part of my lung removed my chest doesn't hurt when I chant. And so I am the first one of my family in a long line of lung cancer deaths to have been given more time to live. My family karma of dying young from lung cancer has changed and I've been given more time to spread the news that chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo works. Try it if you don't believe me. Just put your hands together and find a spot on the wall to focus on and chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo three times. The result will be enlightenment and happiness. That's where it begins, and for more info go to the Soka Gakkai International - USA website and find a group close to you, and soon you'll experience the happiness I have, and maybe interpreting a dream of your own.
Finally, back to my dream, I see now that when the elevator door does opens....
Last night I woke up and felt a planet calling me. The last time this happened it was Venus, and so I pulled out my favorite iPhone app, "SkyView," and looked out my bedroom window to identify the planet.
It was Jupiter.
So this morning I googled "Jupiter" and found the following good news:
Jupiter will represent
development, good luck, security, prosperity, plenty, higher learning,
idealism, knowledge, giving, dominance, integrity, and equilibrium....
Right on! all the things I've been chanting for!
Now here's where my innocent gaze up at the stars became a thing which at worse can be likened to a scene out of a bad 70's sitcom, or at best, the Twilight episode "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."
You see: I sleep nude. And so I was standing nude while looking outside my bedroom window up at Jupiter with my glowing iPhone; that's right: bare-assed naked, and I didn't notice that the neighbor across the street was looking right at me from his car. Yes, he saw me standing naked in my window looking up at his apartment with my glowing camera phone most certainly thinking I was peeping at his apartment window where his wife was most likely still sleeping.
"Yikes," I jumped back, closed the curtain, and made it worse I'm certain.
Howdy everyone, sorry I haven't posted in lately, but I've been working on a dream video that I'll post soon. I really am getting this dream stuff down, finally, after 60 years of dreams that I've had which would happen years later. You see, I come from a long-line of backwoods midwifes, animal doctors, and fortune tellers. Yep, good old-fashion American Hillbilly Gypsies -- yes, it is a thing (thang for my Texas readers). What pleases me most is that I still have many premonition dreams which mean I still have years left on this earth, unless that is, the dreams are for my next life... be still my Buddhist heart. Nonetheless, last night's dream was a weird one: a guy I worked with on a few films until I found out he was a White Supremacist and so stopped working with him, was in last night's dream. It took place at work where we were having a foursome with another man and a woman I loved. The other man was a mystery. That's right, that faceless person in dreams.
The White Supremacist guy was doing it to my woman while I was kissing her. Yes, I was getting off but hated myself while doing so. The other guy was standing in a corner. I heard someone coming and so ran and left the others behind. The person who came was the HR leader. That's right, the nemesis of my work life: the Human Resources person who was very cheerful even when telling you to hit the road, "You're fired!" "Oh, and please leave me a good review on the company Webpage."
Yes, the dream got weird and so I tried to run away from it. I went to another office where the White Supremacist guy was in a meeting with other business people and he joyfully winked at me. I ran to another office where I found a desk to hide under. Yep, a safe place that I try to find in all my dreams.
Okay, the analysis. The "safe place" is from my early childhood when my Step Father beat my mother while I hid in the closet with my best friend the Hoover vacuum cleaner -- which looked like R2B2 in the Star Wars movies. The weird sex stuff is just because I haven't had any since the Republican Party was still respectable and not the party of dissenting Neo Nazis on steroids -- pow, right between the eyes, someone had to say it. And finally, the faceless man... well... me. Yes, the faceless person in dreams is always that part of us we don't want to own up to. In my case, that deviant self that is hidden which might share in a perverted sexual thing with three guys and his girlfriend, but fortunately never have because I escape the act before it happened.
My childhood safe place was in the closet with the family Hoover.
Okay, so that's today's dream interpretation.
If you want me to analysis your dream, please respond. The first one is free.
My year of discontentment is over! I have my Covid shot 1 of 2, work is picking up, and I'm cancer free! This has to be the reason I keep seeing the numbers 444. It first happened after I had the spot of cancer removed from my right lung, I woke up one night, looked at the clock and it read 4:44 exactly.
It happens.
But then it happened again at the exact time the next night: the clock read 4:44 when I woke from sleep.
Ok, that's two.
And yes, a third day I woke up from a nap in the middle of the afternoon and looked at the iPhone clock and it read:
So after seeing the number three times I knew it was more than coinkydink, and so began my research of 444 by googling 444:
According to willowsoul.com it is a sign from my guardian angel saying "You're not alone...Departed Ones Are Sending a Message...You Are On The Path to Spiritual Awakening."
Wow, I had chanted before I started seeing the 4's for my deceased mother to send me a message. I have a picture of her on my Buddhist altar and looked at it and said, "If you can, give me a sign, I'm tired of wondering."
And so the 4's stared appearing. More importantly, I hadn't heard from my Guardian Angel since I had a car accident in my 20's and she grabbed me from behind and whispered in my right ear "It's Going To Be Okay." My 1963 Volkswagen Beetle had been demolished and I woke up outside it with a group of people standing over me. Somehow I had been lifted up by my angels arms and placed outside the car. That was 40 years ago.
So for those of you who don't believe in Angels, or worse, think they are things from a Christian God only, you're wrong. We all have a guardian spirit who comes to us in need, if we open to it through prayer no matter what definition we give it.
So I need to apologize for my last post. I should never have made the killer's motives a matter in the senseless killing in Colorado this week. I've been searching the web to see what his motives were and have been reading the people on the Right say things like, "There they go again blaming it on the guns..." and those of us on the Left saying, well, read my last post. The fact is people are dying and until we become kinder to each other, it will continue. Unfortunately, the smoke hasn't cleared on the Colorado shootings earlier this week, and last night in Virginia Beach 9 people were shot and 2 more dead. It's the Wild Wild West again folks, yee haw; in last night's killings, it was originally 1 dead and 8 shot, but then another armed person showed up and started shooting and so the police shot him. And the madness continues. The NRA has more proof we need more guns to protect ourselves, and them Leftist -- like me-- have more proof we need some kind of guy control. Damn, if only Steve Jobs were still alive and could make a Smart Gun, you know, a gun that will only kill Long-Haired-Freaky-Looking Dudes.
You talking to me?
That's all I got today, sorry again for my last post, motives don't matter actions do, we're all in this together, let's do something; and so I want to begin the conversation that we go to the Dodge City Law, that is, leave your guns out of the cities and suburbs. You can have your Ak47s and Uzis outside of the city limits to protect your lifestyle from those last remaining coyotes you're always bitching about.
More senseless killings by another Conservative (read the news, I'm not interested in recanting the violence in Atlanta and Colorado.) Okay, so we know the Atlanta guy was a Man-of-Faith killer, but we don't know about the guy in Colorado yet, so we'll wait and see, but I will go out on a limb now and say he's not Antifa. The only reason I raise this issue is that according to Fox News it's a result of the Union Bomber.
So, if we find out the Colorado was left-leaning at all, I'll update you; speaking of which, what's good for the Goose is good for the Gander and so, I have to report on how President Biden is making some of my silly Republican GIF look serious. Case in point.
Years ago I posted this GIF on Creepy Ted Cruz kissing a baby:
Then I see this Creepy Biden kissing a baby:
Okay, Cruz's is definitely creepier because, well, she's a little girl not a baby!
Then of course there was the Mike Pence Slip-and-Fall:
Which has now been topped by the Biden Slips-and-Falls:
Yes, we're all in this together, and both sides do things stupid things.
Now, for something completely different, the Fourth Dimension.
Woke up this morning to four gun shots. Being raised in Detroit I knew what to do, duck and cover away from the windows until you hear the police, then if no more shots, threat over. No police today. My condo here in Dallas was built in to 60's before gated entries were a thing, and so we get hit all the time; mostly it is just people checking for unlocked doors to see what they can get. Over the last years it has progressed to breaking in to get sun glasses and other items of worth. For the record: it gets worse every year no matter who is president.
Yesterday I went to the old Farmers Market in Dallas to get some fruit. The market used to be isles of tin sheds with Mexican farmers offering samples of fresh strawberries and oranges that make my mouth water today. Now most of the sheds are gone and so are the farmers. There are a few organic fruit booths hosted by well-groomed millennials, but no farmers, oranges or strawberries, just edible soap, snobby tee-shirts, and smoothies galore. Yep, the Farmer's Market in Dallas is now the Bourgeois Market of Tomorrow, and the area is now filled with high-rise condos, manicured pets, and over-priced coffee shops. That's what it looks like on the surface, but a few blocks away in the remains of the old Farmer's Market, there is a different story: a hundred homeless people with lazy limbs wondering if they will ever eat again, some, looking for a place to shower before their McDonald's afternoon shift. This isn't the homeless, this is the working poor, displaced, suckers, whatever you want to call them. They missed the starting gun in the race, or got hooked on a drug with no Betty Ford clinic money to help them get off. Whatever their reason, there is no human welfare system to help them, for a human welfare system that works takes tax money. Tax money the rich refuse to pay. It really is that simple.
Use to be, you might see a handful of homeless here in Dallas. I'm old enough to remember that. That was back in the 80's, before years of tax-cuts for the rich and corporate welfare for the MBA Stud took its toll. Funny, if you listen to the conservative talk they still blame the poor for the problem. You think they would wise up by now. I've seen it my whole life, from when Ronald Reagan said a person who is honorably discharged from the military can no longer get unemployment because he left his/her job, to Newt Gingrich and his pals taxing social security and unemployment benefits, all while they were cutting taxes for Football Team Owners, Trump Ltd Inc., and Jeffrey Epstein. Reagan and the Republican Light, Clinton, cut social programs to offset tax cuts. At least back then, they did try to offset the tax cuts, since George Bush they just cut the taxes and increased spending on war and corporate bailouts. It's a crazy mess that will not end until the rich pay their fucking bill. The trickle down profits they have been hording for years isn't theirs, it is ours, and it is time we demand it.
So I'll receive the comments on this post as I do the others, that I'm full of shit and don't know what I'm talking about. The problem is liberal welfare, bla, bla, bla. I now know what it must have felt like being a conservative man/woman in the groovy 60's with peace rallies and free love. The funny thing is that back then, I was what you would call a conservative. I knew the war was bullshit but enlisted in the Navy because that's what my conservative family did. I also believed in less government, but also, a worker's right to organize. All conservatives did, but then they started the lies that unions were breaking the system, when the problem wasn't the workers making a good living, it was the top executives raiding the profits with exorbitant million-dollar bonuses instead of using the money to retool their products to compete with the Japanese. Paying a worker a fair wage has never been a problem. The money auto workers made in the 60's was put back in the economy and caused growth galore in the economy. Then the 80's happened and worker's wages had to be cut at the expense of... wait for it... TAX CUT FOR THE RICH. Which really begs the questions: why do they hate a worker making a living wage so much? Why? Why do they hate the fact that a worker should make $15.00 an hour flipping burgers at a McDonald's burger joint? What are they afraid of?
Their argument is that everything will cost more. Hello, what do you think tax-cuts for the rich does to our economy? It takes money out of the school system, roads, etc. Since the rich stopped paying for our roads by supporting their profitable tollways, we pay more in license fees. It's a tax given to us in secret, but know that when the wealthy paid their fair share, our roads were free and better, the envy of the world...
So the police have arrived and no more gun shots. I can stop typing now. I'm safe.
Sorry I've not written in a few weeks, but I've been watching the sun come through my west window with glee every afternoon. It's something you do when you have cancer. You look at everything and see its beauty. The sounds of the little kid riding the big-wheel scooter he got for Christmas has been fun too. I've even enjoyed hearing a Republican woman I've worked with for years complain about how the new president Joe Biden has signed so many new executive orders in his first week of presidency. In the past that would have bugged the leftist-liberal-medical-care-for-all liberal in me to no ends. Now I smiled and enjoyed her words, for her closed-minded negativity reminds me I'm alive.
On a brighter note, the football player they are calling the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) won anohter Super-Bowl yesterday; which reminds me of lyrics I heard in my youth from a local Punk Rock Band, the spiked-hair guy with heavy eye-makeup sang:
"Situation normal: all fucked up!"
Congratulations GOAT quarterback. May the devils of luck continue to shine on for you.
Hold on to your seats boys and girls, there's going to be plenty of action in the final days of Trumpism as our prayers for Truth and Justice are being answered. I was serving a group of conservative lawyers here in Texas who I know were big Trump supporters in the past and they were talking about how all the Proud-Boy-Qanon-White-Supremacist who attacked our capital this week should be arrested. The tides are turning. Finally!
Here at EsotericDaily.com I'm trying to make sense of it all and the only thing I know to do is to continue ignoring the crazy of the White Supremacist Pretending NOT TO BE and point out to them that THEY ARE WRONG, and we love them and so please put down your hate and join us.
Having said that, I will try to talk to White Supremacist the best way I know: sports. More precisely, Fantasy Sports. In doing so I have created three Fantasy Basketball teams in tonight's pool of basketball games.
The first one is the White Team composed of randomly selected white players only:
The second team is the Black Team, composed of randomly selected black players:
And the third team is a mixed team of combined players from the both (note, I had to replace some to make the salaries work, but did so randomly by color of skin, just as the White Supremacist judge everything they do).
Now, if I were a betting person, and obviously I am...
While the Quack-Anons are attacking democracy with no mask on their faces, the pandemic is getting out of control. Japan and China have gone back into lock downs and we're still rioting like it's 1999. There are facts and there are conspiracy quacks. To be clear, here are images of the Quacks:
Minnesota Viking Fan Pissed Off His Team Is Not In the Playoffs, invades the Capital: Quack!
