The True Way: Spirit Encounters in Dreams -3

In my second hour sophomore high school class, age 14, I had US history.  My teacher was Gene Van Dongen and he always knew that twenty minutes into the day's lesson I was daydreaming.  I sat expressionless as my eyes closed or had a blank stare and it was then he asked me a question.  He replied, "Earth to Richard, earth calling Richard, the answer to my question please?"  He baited me to respond with "Duh," and groggily I uttered an answer far removed to the topic of discussion.  My classmates broke out in laughter and ultimately I was sent to the principal's office as the class disruptor.  This was the same scene as if taken from a 1980's movie script called "Explorers."

I couldn't help the daydreaming.  My mind was traveling at the speed of light to escape the pain and confusion swirling in my head to escape harm.  I was troubled, but couldn't explain how I felt before the pain started.   My mind was so confused.  Gene, my teacher told my parents I needed professional help and doctors, internal medicine specialists and psychiatrists poked and prodded for clues to my unknown illness with no results.  Everybody thought I was faking the illness and the conclusion was I went daydreaming to escape studying.

I was daydreaming not by choice, but by survival - it was the way to escape my pain - severe headaches that got worse as the school day progressed.  I left the world behind and was an earlier explorer floating down the Grand River or dreaming about Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain steamboatin on the Missouri  and Ohio Rivers or rafting with Huckleberry Finn on the mighty Mississippi River) - anyplace was better than listening to Gene in excruciating physical pain.

The summer before school started while in a State Park Campground near Lake Superior I had on a full moon night to see the Norse Horsemen riding the Northern Lights  (Aurealis Borealis) in different colors and hues dance over Lake Superior.  The reds above closest, the blue, green and yellow wisps dipping and shifting aimlessly across the dark lake.  Add to this scene the double exposure on mirrored water surfaces - a rare occurrence for Lake Superior and both happened in one night complete with shooting stars.  Another breathtaking incidence occurred when seeing five wide rainbows over Whitefish Bay east of Paradise, MI.  Beautiful!

Suddenly an old man of 93 years was being lead to the shore by his grandchildren.  He had been a farmer in Michigan's upper peninsula his entire life and had never seen the Northern Lights - "so beautiful" he said.  Farmers go to bed at sundown - the eyelids drop and he enters the land of nods and dreams.  His grandchildren helped him sit down in the sand and left a few minutes and I explained several legends about the mystical nite lights of heaven as we watched them shimmer and dance across the sky.  With a chill in the air they returned and lifted him from the sand.  They took both of his arms and lead him up the 80 step staircase.  It was the highlight of my summer.  As Mark Twain would say with his vulgar talk "We've become damn good storytellers."  Twain's wife was a Christian woman who hated his swearing too much during lectures and that habit I don't do."....continued

The True Way: Spirit Encounters in Dreams -2

Imagine what we wouldn't have in life without our dreams or that of others? That is Star Wars or Star Trek creations.? You know to boldly go and discover what lies beyond the galaxies in outer space. I've never been a huge fan of Star Trek starring William Shatner.  I chose to pick and choose wisely, but do love Star Trek IV with the transportation of whales back into the future.

All of us currently live in a world that's spinning so fast.  Life unfolds and technology changes in less than five years.  True what we say, think and do so is different every 15 years.  We evolve and change our opinions - sometimes completely opposite.  That's what gets so many politicians into trouble - what they once thought is different in the near future.  No longer can one complete higher learning, graduate and coast thru life otherwise certifications and licenses go extinct after five years.  We become what we are when we continually fail to educate ourselves - education is the fuel that makes dreams possible.  As Mr. Spock of Star Trek said, "Live long and prosper."

Past science fiction is closer to non fiction.  Got to keep learning - can't ever stop unless it is your desire to grow old and die sooner than expected.  Learning keeps you young at heart.  When in high school I was like three junior high adventurous boys in a movie called "Explorers."  All three boys had visionary dreams simultaneously - a galaxy adventure starring River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke.  Curious of their dreams they set out to discover what electro magnetic force fields could teach them about space travel and who was talking to them in dreams  It was space alien children who stole dad's mini-spaceship and were joyriding around the heavens to find secrets of the universe and why Earth was such a hostile place to live.  Our music fascinated them - but the streaming videos showed them what they did like - the hostilities of mankind.  Still they were attracted to Earthlings.

This 1980's sci-fi fantasy movie is chock full of humor, warmth and the hopes of three impression able young minds to keep on dreaming and hope for a better future.  Without all our dreams there is no future for they are what we make of life.  The boys soon discover an energy force (shields when computer activated encapsulates their crude spaceship inside a magnetic sphere where inertia movement makes them impervious to harm.

Once inside the perfectly round sphere nobody or anything can enter the capsule and the magnetic pulse propels them thru space at the speed of light.  Inside the sphere is a carnival converted Tilt-a-Wheel they made into a spacecraft and welded a metal garbage can over the window for a heat shield.  They launch themselves into a fantastic interplanetary journey to discover their own version of secrets of the universe. Aliens were summoning them in their dreams from outer space - an unknown force was actively fishing for them by providing bait and reeled in their catch.  Lots of life lessons in this movie that parallels the life of the boys as seen thru their eyes and actions of adults.  I know people hate cliff hangers, but until next time (continued - heard you growl)