Tuesday, April 15, 2014

JET STREAMS -- Essay / Memoir





WHEN JET STREAMS 

BECOME LIFE STREAMS:

The Mystics Path
to Peace 



Text and Images 
(c) Copyright 2020 by Neall Calvert


'Past-Present-Future'    (c) 2020 by N.C.
  

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essays, articles & sets of poems on the mystical path.
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AS I DROVE SOUTH ACROSS OAK STREET BRIDGE, emblem of the citys boundary, I wondered where I would find peace of mind today. Having over-worked and over-worried yet again, been tense and unhappy for a week, it was vital that I unwind. In contrast to the heavy rain that had been bombarding Vancouver for days, a creative cobalt-blue filled the top half of the world this Sunday morning.
      
      I was thinking of farm country seventy kilometres to the east when through the windshield I noticed, extending forward across the sky overhead, a strong, bright-white jet contrail. The track seemed to be acting like a pointer, so I took it as my guide and decided on Crescent Beach, fifty kilometres to the south.
      
      When I arrived at Blackie Spit at the north end of Crescent Beach it was being visited by the self-sufficient, seemingly worry-free ducks, gulls and shorebirds that feed near this small sandy point. The view through my windshield across Boundary Bay extended for tens of kilometres: northwest to the distant snow-capped North Shore mountains, southwest to the Southern Gulf Islands, and west to the much larger peninsula whose southern tip is American territory: Point Roberts, USA.

     The smell of my hot egg-cheese-and-potato wrap from the local gas station announced breakfast to the local crows and they assembled near my car. It tasted too good to share, but after partaking I began throwing blue-corn chips out the drivers window. Soon one of the brainy birds was perched on my outside mirror, just half a metre from my face. 

     As it bent forward to take a chip from my hand I thrilled to the precious faint scraping sound of its impossibly delicate, wrinkled black trident claws trying to keep hold on the smooth metal mirror frame. An organically-grown morsel grasped firmly in its beak, it flew off and then -- after setting the chip on the ground, jabbing at it till it broke into small pieces and swallowing the bits -- it returned for more. The rest of the tribe was content to feed off whatever I tossed out the window.
      
      I walked to the narrow point where the tide was coming in from both sides, only two feet apart. I felt like a giant as I stood, soaking my shoes in the incoming surf, soaking my mind in tranquil early sunshine. After an hour of photographing ducks paddling the various nearby lagoons I headed to the main beach area. On one of the varnished slab benches beside the long promenade for which Crescent Beach is known, I sat down facing the ocean. 



'Watching Water Fall'     (c) 2017 by N. C.
       
      Listening as the waves quietly rolled in, I examined the eight-kilometre expanse of water that separated me from Point Roberts. The bay was owned today only by seagulls, one distant motoring sailboat and a lot of still blue air. But I was mildly surprised when a contrail began forming in the western sky. It pointed slightly downwards, towards the treed cape of Point Roberts. Okay, I said to myself, if jet contrails are going to guide me today, then Point Roberts, USA is my next destination.
      
      Travelling leisurely through farmland, I stopped to photograph reflections in small lakes left from the week’s rains. Once through U.S. Customs, where a birth certificate proved Canadian citizenship, I advanced down the tiny community’s main road. At first opportunity I pulled off into a more rural area. The track turned from west to south and after the bend I was astonished to spy yet another contrail, this one growing southward. What, I wondered, would greet me south of here? Soon I’d run out of Point and be in the ocean.
      
      The pavement took me to Lighthouse Marine Park, occupying the southwest tip of the cape. Millions of fist-sized rocks, polished smooth from eons of wave action, make it hard to walk on the beach so I climbed the two flights of steep wooden steps up the observation tower. From here, as this day moved steadily forward, I could appreciate the Strait of Georgia, almost calm, with its occasional cabin cruiser and a few feathered flyers in the air. 
       
      As I gazed up at the various birds, I noticed several flocks of ducks manoeuvring, in an attempt to link up. Next, in a constantly shifting, back-and-forth mid-air scenario, perhaps three hundred ducks formed a raggedy long line. Then, slowly shifting and adjusting, in a stage play that was beginning to carry hints of magic, they arranged themselves wingtip to wingtip . . . and then, with a rushing sound from hundreds of wings, a precise, straight formation of three hundred ducks -- the largest I had ever seen -- swept by just metres over my head. 

   What force arranges such things?! I had been observing the wild world for years and had never come across such activity. . . . In those awesome moments something in me changed. I felt connected up tooto something very big: the entire living world of Nature. And I couldn't help but wonder, had the show been just for me? . . . It didn't matter. Standing calmly seven metres above the beach in afternoon sunshine I began to understand something about inner peace.

     I realized that what I was seeking would only come from accepting the world exactly the way it was. Wonderful parts and not-so-wonderful parts equally (including events of both kinds in my own upbringing) all comprise this world (at least at this stage of humanity's development). Stories of violence, greed and tragic suffering fill newspapers and TV newscasts (I had been a newshound journalist for five years and then often a newspaper reader) as well as stories of human altruism, basic goodness and the magnificence of Nature. 

     But endless concern about human evil or ignorance brought only disempowerment: feelings of helplessness. Real change in the world would come from me discovering how to become peaceful and empowered within first, perhaps through taking regular holidays such as this one that involved following my intuition and enjoying Nature, and then teaching others how to do the same; it would come from me becoming an agent for the change I sought to see in the world.


'Ocean Trails'    (c) 2016 by N. C.

      I walked back to my blue Mazda hatchback and, after a nap, woke up to the sun setting over the Gulf Islands. I experienced once again the particular bright stillness that occurs just at sunrise and sunset, and mentally thanked and said goodnight to Sol. The ocean had become a huge, glowing, pale blue field, one seemingly sourced with a light from withina show Ive learned that Nature likes to put on just after the sun has disappeared. 
     
      In fading light I drove slowly eastward across the tip of Point Roberts. At the end of the road, as I turned the car around, I saw in the western sky a tiny contrail forming. It had been heading upwards, but now it arced to the right, northwardsthe direction of my home. Still guided, still connected, a part of me silently thrilled.
      
     Two weeks later I again headed out of the city for a day in Nature—to West Vancouver’s Lighthouse Park. As I drove west through Ambleside shopping district I suddenly noticed in the southern sky a long, glowing contrail numinously growing westward—pointing the way to my destination . . . 
      
     Materialistic science says that we are mere observers in the universe, and that consciousness must fit into the brain inside our heads. Spirituality declares that we are part of the universe, co-creators; that we are hardwired for mystical experience; and that there is no limit to consciousness. The spiritual mystic’s path—the Big Picture—is the one that seems to bring the most inner peace.
  



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Postscript: December 3, 2017

In autumn of 2017 a couple of disciples of Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi from Parksville, B.C. (120 kilometres south of my new home town of Campbell River, Vancouver Island), came to town to teach kundalini meditation. I feel drawn to Indian culture and I attended the three weekly classes held at my local library. Afterwards, I felt I had received some benefit: I was lighter and had more energy. I practised the techniques at home daily and wondered if this would be the context and the 'inner technology' that would change my life for good into a constant state of happiness. But the eight-inch-high picture of Mataji that had sat on my kitchen table I had inadvertently knocked over four or five times in the month since placing it there.

      On Sunday, December 3, the husband-and-wife team had scheduled a meditation class in Courtenay (50 kilometres south of Campbell River) and, though I was still unsure if this path was for me, I decided to attend -- with one caveat: I would pray on the way that if kundalini meditation wasn't right for me, I would be shown this in some way.

     I took the scenic coast road, Highway 19A, and after 45 minutes of affirmative prayer was inserting the GMC Jimmy into a parking spot at the back of Courtenay librarys lot. As I walked toward the library building I noticed a white jet contrail in the clear blue sky. It was heading north -- to Campbell River, from where I had just come. Surely not an indicator, I thought. And it wasnt a large contrail, I rationalized (though its direction was quite clear) . . . I wasn't sure.

      I decided to think things over on a walk to a nearby hardware store for an item I needed. As I emerged, I spotted another jet contrail, this one pointing in exactly the same direction -- north towards Campbell River. . . . I had asked for a sign and in the space of ten minutes something indicative of direction had happened -- twice.

      After a warm cinnamon bun at Driftwood Mall’s bakery, I headed north. Once again in Campbell River, driving west on Cortez Road just before turning into my apartment's parking lot, I spied in the now pale-yellow western sky two golden, north-heading jet contrails -- one just above the other, one slightly ahead of the other. It seemed a beautiful echo of what I had just experienced in Courtenay.

      In my apartment once again, going over e-mails I came upon a new one from Reverend Lea Chapin, an experienced direct-voice channel for Mary Magdalene, Jesus and Mother Mary. I had been studying Ascended Master material for a decade, but wasnt certain sometimes if I was making progress. This channelling contains deeply moving messages on achieving inner peace from all three of these sources. Words are often not enough to express profound spiritual states, but these ones somehow do the job [see gem.godaddy.com/p/0eb34b?fe=1&pact=9628].

     The next day I had my first kundalini experience -- five to ten minutes where my tailbone region spontaneously and pleasantly vibrated with some new kind of energy. My body filled with a level of positive vitality I had never known. . . .

     Somehow, by following my jet-stream guidance system, by trusting my own inner / outer experiences, I had gotten what Id needed from the kundalini couple: another step forward into inner peace.



Christmas Parade, Campbell River, B.C., 2017



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