Below is a collection of stories taken from life and various places -most are based on real stories that happened to people and others are generic processes built in to Life itself that seem to be packed with all sorts of interesting room for interpretation.
Stories from Life Itself
The Physical Birth Process
The birth process itself. Generally babies arrive head first followed by their rear end, but not always. This may suggest something about how best to proceed towards a higher type of birth.
Nourishing Mother
The milk production for nursing mothers responds to the saliva of the infant and produces the type of milk the baby needs and produces the type of anti-bodies needed. While in utero, the umbilical cord delivers nutrients to the developing baby. If it is true that life is but a dream, and we are in our "Mother's womb", perhaps our Mother provides us exactly what we need to grow via another type of proverbial umbilical cord.
Thin Moments
Some moments are thin - death, birth, having a gun pointed at you - these are times when we are most real. Why is that?
Stories from Personal Events
Home Defense
There was a man who picked up a parrot from the bird store. Each time he visited the store, the parrot saleswoman would give him some wisdom about parrots, but her wisdom had broader implications. Once, she said (paraphrasing): the parrot will need to be taken out of his cage and given another area to play during the day, otherwise, he will eventually decide that the cage is his home and he will then need to defend it, i.e., start biting people. Once he starts biting, it begins a downward spiral relationship with whoever claims him. Humans lay claim to an area as home, and defend it no differently than the parrot. Maybe we are meant to become greater than the parrot. That may difficult to do while some want to "bite" us.
Childlike Fear of the Sun
There was a child who refused to go out into the sun. When challenged, the child explained: "humans only have 7 layers of skin and if one were to lose them, it would mean certain death.". The child's belief was a misunderstanding of a sunburn he endured, which had caused some peeling of his skin and not understanding something someone told him about skin having layers. It never occurred to the child that skin can regrow. The child's belief had paralyzed him and made him afraid of the sun. He was treating things that were temporary as though permanent, and afraid of things that are permanent. He had an assumption hidden in his belief system that he was unaware of. Happens to the best of us.
Empathy
There was a man who was driving his family home one day. He saw a woman walking on the side of the road with her child. "How dangerous.", thought the man to himself, which he then verbalized. The wife of the man responded, compassionately: "Maybe she doesn't have any money and has no other option than to take her child with her". The husband responded: "Well, there is always a way." Later that day, the same family was at Walmart, and when they tried to start their car, it refused to start - it wouldn't even make a starting sound. The husband checked all the fuses and usual suspects, but found nothing out of the ordinary. The husband said, "Well, let's just use Uber (a car service) to get home.". Unfortunately, this would not work because we had too many passengers and the baby was getting hot and needed to get home . Finally, after exhausting the options, the wife said: "Well, let's walk home" Home was only 2 miles away from the Walmart. So the family walked home due to having no other way. After arriving home, the wife and the husband got into the other car to go back and get the car left behind at Walmart. Upon arrival, the car started immediately, and as of this writing, a year later, hasn't had problems starting since. The lesson seems to be being careful with one's judgment towards others in stressful states. Perhaps we should have offered the woman a lift instead.
The Much Needed Hammer
There was a man that was going on trips to fix his old house he wanted to rent out. Sometimes when going on these trips, he would scan his garage and tools to find what he needed for the trip. Some things would tend to jump out at him - as though they were saying: "take me with you". On some trips he would ignore these "messages" and would regret it when he discovered he needed the tool. If life is a dream or journey, the tools that he needed could be a type of symbolism for something that he needed for his journey through life. A hammer could represent concentration of force to a specific problem. A tape measurer could represent the way he has measured his life. The glue gun could represent some things needing to be connected together. The possibilities are wide and varied.
Flat Earth
There was a people who believed that the earth was flat. Flat in the sense that if one were to compare the shape of a ball in this reality and a pancake, this belief system holds that the earth, the planet we exist on, is more similar to a pancake, than a ball. The belief was a misunderstanding of the dimensions of reality. The earth is indeed flat, like a shadow, it lacks dimension, when compared to higher dimensional reality, perhaps. This mistaken belief however erroneous on the surface, seems to communicate a message - that there may be higher dimensions to our reality that escape our view. We may laugh at the flat-earthers, as though they are children, but not realize we have only entered kindergarten of a much bigger school of dimensions we are unable to see. For more, see Strengths and Weaknesses of Various Ideologies
Tools Needed for the Journey
There was a man that had to complete a small repair on his motor bike's exhaust that required use of a power tool. His parking spot at the apartments was nowhere near an outlet so his inner hoarder / pack rat, working with his inner McGyver, pulled him through for the big win. He used a power inverter (that sat in his dad's garage indefinitely) and an old motorcycle battery (from the previous year) to power a salvaged Dremel to cut a straight groove in a poor quality bolt head on the exhaust end cap of his bike. He removed the bolt with a Craftsman screwdriver he found laying on a back road off two years ago during a road trip. The little things we pick up along the way can mean so much later on.
Sweet Tea
This morning I ordered tea from my usual supplier. The menu on the drive-through said: Unsweet Tea. I was pleased, but also cautious as I have learned that what is said on the drive-thru screen doesn't always make it into the cup. I have a little quality control measure - I ask, "Unsweet tea?". Sometimes they'll tell me, "Unsweet tea". I watched as the guy fill up the tea cups. "Will he get the right one?", I wondered. He opens the sliding glass door and hands me the tea. I ask: "Unsweet?". He replies: "Yes, unsweet, sir". I feel confident and drive on.
Sometime later, I take a swig and in disgust think something like: "Ugh. Syrup! Arggghhh - sweet tea, but how, he said it was unsweet!"
I return to the store to swap out my sweet tea for the unsweet tea I had ordered. Along the way, I am thinking to myself: "Don't assume, maybe the guy was just having a rough day, not paying attention. Maybe there is even some lesson in this event - it's just tea, so let's be rational, but still, we need to fix this problem - it seems to happen so often, etc."
I approach the server at the counter. The server, looking distracted and only interested in new sales apparently, indicates that the tea can be self-filled and points to the drink area on the left. I'm thinking: "So much for service, etc." then regain myself, and say to myself something like "Well, just fill them up and move on - no biggie".
Then it occurs to me: "I should contact headquarters and tell them ... they should ... they should ... they should use two different words for unsweet and sweet since something is getting lost between the order and fullfilment roles of this company. Perhaps it is a hearing problem or something". Finally, the tea is filled up and I proceed out the door, making plans to contact headquarters to resolve the trouble with this tea word.
Headed out the door, I take a swig and in disgust think something like: "Ugh. Syrup! Arggghhh - sweet tea, but how, the label said it was unsweet!
Realization sets in.
Now realizing the full nature of the problem and feeling pleased with myself for giving the the drive-thru guy somewhat of the benefit of the doubt earlier, while feeling somewhat guilty about 'charging' him for a crime I now realize he may not have committed, I manage to catch him at the counter. I explain the issue and say that someone must have put sweet tea in both containers, labels aside.
His eyes light up and he apologizes (on behalf of the company presumably). He disappears for awhile, and then a few minutes later another lady appears with what is hopefully, at long last, unsweet tea. She assures me: Unsweet. I can only hope, and by now, some small fiendish part of me is hoping that it is still sweet just to delight in the spectalce.
I leave the building, take a swig, and smile. All is well.
Icarus and our pet Chicken
Yesterday, I watching this video on Facebook, shared by a friend, that talked about that old story of Icarus and his father, Daedelus. Icarus and Daedelus were stuck in a prison surrounded by water, but fashioned wings to escape, as I recalled. The video said the story had lost something in our cultural remembrance of it.
Most everyone knows about Daedelus telling his son not to fly too high. If Icarus flew too high, the wax on his wings would melt and he would plummet to his death. But, the part I and others had forgotten, was that Daedelus also told his son not to fly too low, or he would get his feathers weighed down by the mist above the water, and drown. I was astonished by this thing I had missed most my life, but as usual, I soon forgot.
The next morning as I went to check on my birds, I found a chicken, soaked and tired, stuck in one of our larger metal water tanks in the garden. It was standing in the tank, but after I pulled it out, it was too tired to stand on the ground. So I set in some hay, and watched until it regained its strength and carried on.
It wasn't until later that I was struck by Daedalus' warning about feathers being weighed down by water and this chicken. Seeing it there, the chicken soaked, tired, unable to move, reminded me of me at various points in life, and the rest of us somehow. Could there be more to the story, some meaning to be found?
I suppose each of us has strengths. Chickens can't really fly, but they sure can make eggs and find bugs. We have ducks too and they can fly. Each morning, it brings me joy to spray our ducks with a hose. They love it, whereas the chickens flee. I don't think this story says the chicken should oil its wings to avoid drowning, nor that the chicken should learn to fly. I think it does say something about being stuck, and exercising care and cleverness to get out. I'll leave you to figure it out. Thanks for reading. I wouldn't mind hearing your stories of escape, either.