Sep 20
8
In The Beginning(13)
THREE
“Change Your Focus”
When I was finally able to sit down with Jack and Darlene for a few minutes, an hour and a half had already passed and very quickly at that; the crowd was beginning to thin.
“Jack, do you realize,” I began, “that precisely at the moment you stood up next to Darlene, I was silently asking what to do. I heard the words, ‘change your focus.’ Your interruption was perfectly timed; I wasn’t supposed to speak the things I had been planning ever since our lunch. I had no clue as to how to change what I’d planned to say …this is very exciting, I have to tell you.”
“Exciting is exactly the word, isn’t it,” Darlene interposed. “What I’m seeing and I just checked in, I’m supposed to tell you, Jeanne, is that the title of the series you are to write for the magazine Destiny, is “Change Your Focus.”
“You people,” I said, wagging my head back and forth, are so amazing, you have no idea what a thrill this has been to be here. I’m only sorry that I have to leave so soon …I so wanted to meet Brad in person after all these years. To get here and find out he is in Toronto completing something for a client of your consulting business, Jack, was disappointing.”
“He’ll be back late Monday afternoon,” Jack said as a perplexed look came across his face.
“Am I interrupting anything here?” Will Barry, had just put one hand on Darlene’s shoulder and the other on mine as he leaned over to ask the question. Will was the psychiatrist Darlene had briefly consulted for depression many years previously. This consult along with so many other events, seemed somehow to be magically strung together as the catalyst for forming the “group of twelve” and the acquisition of their building.
“As a matter of fact, Will,” Jack replied, “I just had a very strange thought – did you have something specific in mind?”
“Tell me your thought, first, Jack, so I don’t feel so ridiculous.”
These people, the thought hit me again, so spontaneous, alive and wonderful and to think my initial writing of the Leapfrog Manuscript had been an integral part in their coming together …so amazing.
“So here goes, for your input as well, Will …I’m getting that Brad is supposed to go to Hawaii and the first article in the series you are going to be writing for Destiny, Jeanne, will be sprinkled with excerpts not just about the history and evolution of this group, but from interviewing and actually collaborating in the writing of part two of the manuscript with Brad.”
“Oh my,” I almost “gasped, that sounds so unlikely after all these years, and yet I know that it is perfect and that it is supposed to happen …if, of course, Brad agrees.”
“I’m getting that is exactly what is supposed to happen and sooner rather than later,” Darlene interrupted. “Well, Will, what say you?” She said, looking up at him with a look that was not only questioning, but had a lightly challenging tone to it.
Will Barry merely laughed in a very high pitched cackling sound which I later found out seemed to irritate everyone initially, but later became a delight when they got to know him better. I was so impressed with the whole story I’d heard about Will Barry, M.D. (now retired) and the dramatic change of his practice to being totally spiritually oriented rather than based upon traditional medicine or psychiatry, at any rate his “cackle” didn’t have any effect on me whatever.
“That’s really funny,” he finally said, composing himself very seriously, “I was standing clear over on the other side of the room talking with my wife, Ann, and Jeanne, when I noticed that you guys seemed deeply involved in a serious discussion. I heard, ‘go interrupt them.’ It made no sense, but then what about anything that’s happened today does make sense to these finite brains of ours, right? …but to answer your question, Darlene, what I’m seeing is a picture of surprise on Brad’s face Monday evening when we tell him the news that he’s going to be spending several days or even weeks with this beautiful lady – and in Hawaii, no less. Well, I’ve done my job,” he said, punctuating it with another cackle – “I’m so glad you’re here Jeanne, as Ann would say, I’ve been ‘peddling’ your first manuscript for many years.”
He looked off into space as if momentarily confused, then merely turned and walked back toward his wife.
“Jack,” I resumed our conversation, “your earlier remarks about science no longer being objective observation really struck me. Would you mind expanding on that for just a few moments?”
“Have you ever heard of the ‘Chaos Theory’ or the ‘Uncertainty Principle,’ Jeanne?”
“Jack, I have come to the conclusion that rather than feeling stupid I am actually fairly bright.
“Then Brad came along in that interview and my life was turned upside down by knocking and demanding until I was connected to universal wisdom emanating directly from Spirit. Certain aspects of science are fascinating, but like so many other topics such as religion, I find myself by-passing them with an almost purposed and studied neglect. What am I missing out on by knowing nothing about the ‘Chaos Theory’ or the ‘Uncertainty Principle?’ ”
“Missing out? …I’d hardly say that you are missing out on anything, Jeanne, those, for me, just happen to be excellent frames of scientifically-proven reference that science can no longer be construed as objective observation any more than religion or philosophy or humanities or any other systems of thought which are historically thought of as subjective.
“Both ‘Uncertainty’ and ‘Chaos’ have mathematically precise equations that unequivocally prove that you cannot predict anything with certainty and simply by studying something like some subatomic particle like a neutron or proton changes it. Precise instruments used in a variety of strictly scientific experiments have proven this over and over.
“The point I was getting at was that by using the method you described in the manuscript, tap, tap, tap and demanding to get answers directly from SPIRIT, my dependence on understanding and science upon which, engineering is dependent …was upended. You might find it interesting to do a little research on the Internet by inserting in your favorite search engine, ‘Chaos Theory’ and ‘Uncertainty Principle’ …but if you don’t you are missing nothing as far as I’m concerned.”
______
Shortly after take-off, the pilot announced a possible delay due to head winds. So, here I am in the middle of the five hour flight from L.A. to Honolulu. I’ve already changed my watch to indicate the time in Hawaii (7:46 a.m.) Monday morning.
I’d spent three hours with Sid Wilmot and Al Edmund, publisher and editor, respectively, for the magazine, “Destiny,” in the suite they had reserved for me at the Hampton Inn near the airport in Albuquerque yesterday.
They both had enthusiastically endorsed the planned series of articles and Al’s suggested subtitle: “On a Spiritual High” blended with Darlene’s “Change Your Focus.” Al had presented a generous Destiny advance check, signed by Sid along with some typed instructions on how to get to the “retreat” he owned near Captain Cook, Hawaii; 35 miles south of Kailua-Kona on the Big Island.
The housekeeper who lived nearby would pick me up at the Kona International Airport at Keahole in one of Sid’s three cars kept at the “retreat” for the use of the guests.
I told them that I thought it was possible that Brad Cullen would be coming out for me to interview, and asked if there would be private quarters available for him as well. Sid said there were no other occupants planned for several months and that he would make sure the housekeeper would set up a separate place for Brad.
One rather exciting and unexpected outcome of our meeting was that they were going to e-mail me a proposal for a separate publishing contract for “Leapfrog part 2” to be discussed with Brad …they said they would like to at least have “first rights of refusal” from both Brad and me.
Sid was Jewish and Al attended a Christian Science Church – yet both had read and enjoyed The Leapfrog Manuscript, as I referred to it, though it had never been published. It had come out as the “Appendix” to the novel written anonymously by Brad under the title Leapfrog and was distributed around the world digitally. A Canadian publisher picked up the book and it is still offered through Amazon –I was also told that a motion picture, based on it, is planned.
I could hardly wait to find out what Brad’s response to the “announcement” that Darlene, Jack and Will were going to hit him with tonight. I would be calling Darlene when I arrived at the retreat with the contact information. We had already exchanged e-mail addresses.
The Hawaiian Airlines flight I was connecting to in Honolulu was scheduled to land at Keahole around 2:30 p.m. and I should be settled in by around 5:00. With all of these details running around in my mind I had a rather restless night with little sleep – and had to get up around 3:00 a.m., Albuquerque time, to catch my flight to LAX. Still, I am totally energized and at the moment, of all things, thinking about what Jack had said about the “Chaos Theory” and the “Uncertainty Principle.”
Gazing out the window of the 757 at the sparkling expanse of the Pacific Ocean below …I was musing about what Jack Adams had said about the fact that by merely observing things they changed. Surely, just by looking at the ocean below I wasn’t having any effect on it, was I?
I was shocked at the idea clearly coming into my mind – so clear that it was coming to me as an audible voice. “Jeanne if you want to get to universal truth you must learn not to frame your questions in a negative and thus limiting way. When you say ‘surely I am not’ as related to anything …your brain takes it as a command and will give you the answer you just demanded; both your question and answer interfere with what I have to give you.
“In just a short time you will be interviewing Brad Cullen again, but this time you both will need to be even more open to Me than you were during the first interview so that you can both receive what will be brand new to the two of you.”
“My word,” I exclaimed. The man sitting next to me said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.”
I stammered, “Oh I’m sorry, a rather strange idea just struck me, and I just blurted out my amazement to it without thinking.”
“That’s quite all right, are you coming to Hawaii on vacation?”
“No, I’m an author and I have a writing assignment to do a series of articles for Destiny – it’s a magazine kind of slanted toward alternative reality. They are putting me up in a place they own on the Big Island near Kona so I can have privacy for the next several weeks; how about you, what is your purpose for coming to Hawaii?”
“I live near Honolulu; my wife and I own an import business and I’ve just been on a sales trip to some of the major retailers on the mainland. If I’m not prying I’d love to hear about your assignment.”