Believe it or not, I’m on the road again . Tonight I find myself in Rochester Minnesota..

Home of some of the hardest working and nicest people I’ve every had the pleasure  of working with.. It’s also the home of the least spicy food on the face of the planet. Here ketchup is a spice.. I’m sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for a bunch of my friends from Burlington to join me.. We’re going out for dinner ..  and I know I’m hoping I can score some hot sauce on the street.   Rochester is also the home of the Mayo Clinic.. one of the largest private hospital systems in the country. It’s strange for me to be among all these hospitals again.. It brings back so many memories. I saw a helicopter landing on the top of one of the hospitals. The image  hit me hard.. and I had to sit for a bit before I could drive on.

 

 

There’s a large IBM facility here.. In fact it was the site of my very first business trip almost exactly 26 years ago. I remember being so surprised that they’d let me rent a hotel room or rent a car for myself. I remember telling them that I was older than I was… Now that’s a change.   I also remember getting reported to IBM security for hitchhiking with an IBM badge on… (times have changed   I wouldn’t consider hitchhiking safe anymore ).. I also remember sneaking in to a Pinchus Zuckerman concert at Assisi Heights, a local convent.  The event had sold out… but one of the folks recording it for public TV told me to pretend I was with the video crew.. I did.. and they let me in.. more than that.. they put me to work. I actually saw the concert on PBS several months later and saw myself moving cables… That was a long…long time ago…

 

It feels very funny being away from home again. Max will be heading back to school in a few weeks… and I want to be with him as much as I can. Gabe also gave me a funny look when I told him I was leaving again. I almost canceled the trip.. but duty calls. I feel such a strong need to stay home with my family.. but I keep finding myself on airplanes.. It’s a hard habit to break.   I need to fix this. . 

 

 I just spoke with everyone at home. Gabe’s at a Friends of Sam meeting up at the Townsend’s this evening. The FoS got a really great write-up  in the Burlington Free Press on Saturday. I’m so proud of all of these kids ! They are really making a difference

 

Speaking of making a difference.. I’m still thinking about the seminar that Diane and I attended last weekend. One of the things that struck me most about Chopra’s message was the notion that we are all connected as a single soul. In his view, we spring up as different localizations of that soul when we’re in physical bodies.. then revert to the greater whole when we die. We’re then reborn into new lives when our collective soul feels it’s time.. Chopra spoke of the Buddhist meditation mantra ‘I am’ .. meaning I am part of the greater collective soul.. and ‘I am that’ .

meaning that things outside our selves like other people, trees,  animals, etc. are all projections of the same collective life force.. I’m not sure I’ve got my head all the way around that.. but the message still gave me great comfort somehow..  It makes me think of Sam

 

Another thing that struck me at the seminar is how optimistic Chopra is .. even in the face of all the war and injustice  in the world. In his opinion, society is evolving and is slowly improving . He sited social research that showed that the drive for social justice, better stewardship of the environment and for peace are gaining strength all over the world.. He sited He maintains that it will shortly ‘tip’ in the direction of a greater sense of world unity and collective good.. May it be so…  Chopra’s institute is making a movie about this coming tipping point. Check it out here

OK.. Speaking of tipping.. my head keeps rolling to the side a I fall asleep. Let me stop here and pick up tomorrow. 

Gnite all ! Gnite Sam

 
-me

 ps. Here are some more politically neutral bumper stickers I’ve seen over the last 2 days

 

 

 Friends..   It’s 1:30 in the morning and I have too much to say for the wakefulness I still have in me. My day began with 7AM Yoga at Omega in Rhinebeck..

and ended with me blowing up several pounds of non-dairy coffee creamer in th parking lot of the Department of Motor Vehicles in Montpelier at 12:so AM.   In the middle I did a great deal of listening to Deepak Chopra,    had many great conversations with Diane.. Came home to my kids.. had dinner out with Gabe and his friends, 

and watched Max film some of his main scenes from the Voices movie.  

Nate steals my car

Jorrdan looking like jordan

Josh relaxing in his van

Jordan looking not like joran

Random music guy

Nate

Merideth and Dayne

Scott the avenger

The scene above the trestle

Quite on the set !

Nate and dayne (She’s telling him she’s pregnant)

Slumming

The fiming scene from down below

Max and merideth as Justin and Cassie

The mural below the trestle in Justin’s camp

Justin’s camp

Max and Diane

Max being Max (I’m so proud of him !)

Max in his ‘home’

More slumming

I don’t have the energy to try to fit all these elements into a sane narrative. I still have much thinking to do to integrate the messages we hear in the Deepak Chopra seminar we attended.. There was much to take in.. It was truly transformational for me.. though it’s  main message was pretty subtle. I  promise to try and extract what I really heard form  it tomorrow.. If I do that, can I get off easy tonight ? Let me take the cheap shot of most authors and stretch my posting tonight with a quotation.. This one’s from T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ …   I like it because it almost ends with a ‘bang’

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I love you all. I love you too Sam..
-me

 

I’m sitting in the Café at Omega at around 6PM. While Diane takes a second yoga class for the day. We did one together this morning at 7 which was really nice

 

There’s a long line in front of me waiting to get Deepak Chopra’s signature on the armful of books this guy writes.   The book store here is absolutely packed with books he’s written.. more than 30 if my count is right..

nd even so.. the two I wanted.. The Return  of Merlin .. and  The Way of the  Wizard   are no longer in print.. I have no idea what they are about.. but I’m drawn to their titles as I search for my own internal wizard. I ordered them online.. but  Dr. Chopra signed a piece of paper for me to stick in them when they arrived.. that will do. I also gave him a SamStone. He’s a very, very cool guy. I’m certain he’ll do soemthing good with it.

 

At this point I’ve been listening to him for about 10 hours and I really have come to respect him.. I never knew what to make of him.. … I’ve always thought of him as a pop icon of sorts..  . I never realized how learned, articulate and funny he is. He’s obviously read widely and deeply from all the major religions.. Listening to him is such a pleasure.. he has such a diverse background in science, and religion.  His message is a synthesis of all three. He was raised a Hindu, went to Catholic schools, wrote a book on the Jewish Kabala, just  published a Book on the Buddha and is writing one now on the teachings of Jesus.   One thing I took from his talk today is that all the worlds religions are speaking to the same truths.. Yet.. I got the feeling that he also  thought that organized religions put unnecessary limits and bounds on personal choices about spirituality. He talked  about the wisdom of insecurity  and the need to embrace uncertainty.  ,, a lesson that has been driven home to us deeply by Sam’s passing.   

 

Note that Chopra is considerably smaller than Diane’s head !

Diane’s very pretty back.. I spent several hours contemplating it today.

The Man has the secrets of the universe on his Lap Top

The building we’re in today

The day passed very peacefully.. it was beautiful weather and we managed to get a nice 4 mile run in during lunch. I really love being here with Diane. It’s like going away to summer camp for us. We’ve been on such a journey in these past 9 months.. Our love for each other has made it possible for me to survive.   We are truly soul mates in every sense of the word.  

 

The food has been amazing on this trip.. quite a bit better than the last time we were here.. and it’s all vegetarian..   We took some great walks around the campus today. My favorite spot was the meditation center.. We put a SamStone in the wall there…  and wrote his name in gravel

 

The meditation sanctuary

The face rings a bell

Speaking of SamStones, we noticed that the one we put in the Japanese garden was no longer there…  which actually makes me happy. Our intent is for people to pick them up and spread them around. We put another one there on the Buddha for the next finder.

 

We even found a wise looking Zen Woodchuck

It’s now about 100 PM.. we had a great dinner then went in to watch a movie that Chopra made of  his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success..    While I really liked the book, I did not care very much for the movie.. which seemed to me to concentrate on the success part of the title. It was a bunch of vignettes describing how various business people had found success and meaning . I recall the book doing a better job of describing the main ideas of finding the possibility posed by every situation.. good or bad. .. the need to give of yourself freely.. the need to be able to receive graciously, the  need to pay your karmic depts.  and the need to find your true purpose or dharma  .. Finding and aligning with your Dharma  he said,  allows you to accomplish almost anything with little effort.     I know that ease that comes from doing what you love and what you think is right.

 

Before the movie,the  guy from the audience entertained us again with an impromptu concert on a Peruvian clay flute  and a didgeridoo. It  was really amazing.

The Oaca ?

 

The Diggery-dude

Ok.. that’s all for tonight..   We’re going to go out and look for meteors from the Persied shower.. It’s supposed to peak tonight and tomorrow .. it’s a bit overcast.. but with luck we’ll see some.. and think of Sam..  More tomorrow

 -me

 ps.. I want to apologize if any of the bumper sticker photos I posted yesterday offended anyone.. the sticker do not (all) represent the views of the managment :-). On second reading.. some of them might have appeared hurtful. That was never my intent.  .. I was just including them to let folks get a feel for the local politics.

 

Sometimes our lives seem almost magical. . There is so much happening in our lives right now.. yet somehow it all seems pretty calm and still.   Calm and still is a funny way to describe 60 people showing up at your house at 7:30 to begin shooting a movie.. but that’s what happened this morning.     By 9 AM, the house was full of cast and crew hauling lights, hooking up generators, drinking coffee, putting on  makeup, rehearsing, setting up props, etc.. Our house is going to be the setting for scenes in the bedrooms of the characters Vita (Annaleise) , Sara(Sophia)  and Daria (Ruby) . Over the past 3 days Debra and crew have transformed three rooms in our house  into the quintessence of teenage girl chic. It’s amazing the attention to detail they have in setting the mood for these three different characters.

 

I did my best to stay out of the way as they set up and began shooting.  I Had decided to take a half work day because Diane and I are headed back to Omega to do another seminar ( Deepak Chopra  ) this weekend.. I had a morning full of conference calls… which I was on.. but kept having to go outside to talk.. it seemed every time I had something to say it was ‘QUIET ON THE SET !’ (they really say that !) .   Here are some pictures from the morning shoot..

 

Merideth getting coiffed

Max post coiffing.. looks pretty cool this way

Vita’s room

Ready for the shoot

Willow and Ruby

Controling the light in the room

Andrew getting dolled up…

The result

Abotu to shoot

Look at all the gear !

 

 

It would have been fun to  stay and see the rest of the day’s shooting .. but Diane and I had to scoot in order to make the 7:30 beginning  of the seminar here in Reinbeck.  As we were running out, Raye’s mom Mary , uncle Bill and her garndmother showed up. I think Bill and I have a certain similar look.. what do you all think ?

Seperated at birth ?

We made it just in time to see the beginning of the seminar. There were tons of people checking in at the same time as we did.. so we barely made dinner before it closed.. The food was absolutely wonderful and all vegetarian.. they have one of the finest hot sauce collections I’ve every seen.. We wolfed down a big plate of homemade Indian food and went to the opening talk. I can already tell that I’m going to enjoy it. Chopra is a very interesting man.. well read, very thoughtful, and very funny.   I’ll  pass on any nuggets I find really good.

 

 I apologize in advance for the shorts posts I may make for these next 2 days.. bandwidth is hard to come by here.. and I want to spend the time listening rather than typing.. I’ll do my best.   More tomorrow.. G’nite all.. Namaste  Sam !

 

-jc

 

ps.  Here are some of the bumperstickers I saw in the parkign lot of Omega.. Not many Republicans here  I’m afraid 🙂