May 2021 – Journaling Life's Sojourns

In Witness of the Ineffable

Grand Parenthood, Part 2

“Ineffability” is a word identifying experiences that cannot be portrayed in words spoken (or habits of mental concept, for that matter). Often, with my blog posts here, I am hard-pressed to find words to manifest and express what I most want to share with you. Therefore, let’s rely on real life experience! Nothing beats my own personal experiences with our grandson, Reed.

We treasured this past weekend — when time flew by for Melanie and me over a four-hour, ever scenic drive from our northern Colorado home to majestic Crested Butte, high in the Rocky Mountains.

We were about to be with Reed for three straight days — while, several miles away, his mom and dad (Evan & Isabel, our son & daughter-in-law) were attending a wedding ceremony (with Evan officiating), receptions, and other attendant events for two long-time friends of his.

Melanie & I took turns caring for our precious grandbaby bundle. Hence — for the several hours that Reed and I were together, just him and me — we saw each other’s fun on display — with wide eyes, flailing arms and legs (his!), and joyful smiles and coos abounding. All the while, I was conscious of innate, yet newly evolving (wordless) patterns of communication between us.

First, I took to mimicking his hand movements and facial expressions, while softly singing overtones to him audibly and visibly, for both his ears and eyes to perceive synchronously.

Next, I lifted one hand high above our heads with fingers splayed out and sweeping the air, like a floating bird. Ably, Reed followed it intently (so much so that his previously hard-chomped pacifier became suspended between his gums.) Soon, a second “bird” (my other hand) took flight, and both flew like falcons apace in formation. It was then that I saw his energy “mellow”.

With his nap time due and a growing song list from me, an exquisite quietude qraced Reed’s countenance. Actually, I can assert that I shared several mystical moments with a physically tiny tot, Reed, yet amidst a powerful Presence encompassing and sublimely enfolding both of us.

Still barely out of infancy at the moment, and in wonderment, sussing out this world’s many contrasts (amidst a baby soul’s wanderlust of hungering after Mommy’s unique nourishment), Angel-Incarnate Reed was now discerning through radiant eyes, reflecting deep pools of pure Being, so timelessly kindred to me that I found my soul transfixed in witness of the Ineffable.

And then, in the deepest stretch of the final night when Reed was still staying with us, I had a vivid dream. It was similar to a quite memorable vision in my past — a day after I had been sleeping endlessly for weeks while edging toward a so-called near-death experience. I remember this:

I was in a non-physical realm, witnessing (yes) ineffable emanations — currents of which I was acutely aware and deeply understanding (albeit far from anything mental or vaguely palpable).

Today, in quite distant retrospect, I can only attempt a few lines to depict the message thereof. Here they are:

“We have been with you on this journey for a long time now, embracing your divine heritage grounded in great wisdom and understanding in the way of Love, Light, and Life.

“You asked to be Here Now. And, with your every sojourn through time and space, you live your deepest longing: To Love and to Be Loved — through Living each day in the Fullness of Life.

“You have found Peace and safety with Us by listening to the subtle, clear wisdom streaming from Currents Invisible. Such profound Emanations speak to you constantly through us, your closest of friends: They encompass us all, guide us, refresh us, and show us One everlasting Truth that leads to all truths.”

That One Everlasting Truth I sense every minute of every day — Whenever I remember, then know (preferably always!) that I live in witness of the Ineffable, the Unspeakable beyond words — the inevitable unknown changes that are the only things that can be unequivocally counted upon to never change.

And most of all perhaps, steadfast assurance that any seemingly near-death experience is, in truth, an invitation to ascend — either Ascension to the “Sweet by & by Hereafter” or else, much more efficiently and conveniently “Ascending in Place” starting Now, while embracing this moment ever present, here on dear Mother Earth.

That is quickly becoming my inherent Lifestyle — amidst every precious day granted.

I’ll See You Around … ByeBye (only) for Now …!
— PenDell

Grand Parenthood

Melanie & I are now first-time Grandparents!

And we are over the moon with pride in our son, Evan, and our daughter-in-law, Isabel, as well as our ever-new reverence for Life, its cosmic movements of celestial proportions, and the emanations that Life actuates, so that incarnate Being is yet again fulfilled.

The baby is a boy by the first name Reed. The last I held in my arms an infant soul this small, it was when our daughter, Erin, was born. And Reed has a look as similar to me as I recall Erin’s visage was. Except he is a boy — unmistakably, as I saw at my first sight of him au naturale. (And Thank You muchly for sharing that mental picture with us!)

For certain, I already know that, in a very few months, Reed will be flying in my arms, like this:

This blog entry will be uncharacteristically short, because Melanie, Erin, and I are traveling over five hours to enjoy three days in Crested Butte, Colorado — a sweet mountain town that Budget Travel selected this year as a semi-finalist for recognition as America’s Coolest Small Town.

But I digress …
We are going as Grandparents (I like the sound of that!) to care for Reed, while his brilliant and beautiful parents attend (and Evan officiates) one of his good friend’s weddings. (We don’t mind at all!)

Our children are grown now and ever-maturing (as are we). And we see our “empty nest” continually overflowing with Life’s new adventurous perils and payoffs. In short, what a Consummate Blessing Life Truly Is … My Chariot Awaits … Layta …

Climate is Everything

Our current world is seen by many to be on fire — not only at the molten core of the planet itself, but also close to our physical home bases on Mother Earth, as well. Her “skin” (the earthen surface on which we live and breathe) is presently inflamed due to intense, “psoriasis-like” human doings and misdoings — toward which the Earth Mother has her own kind of natural, inherently powerful “autoimmune” responses.

A World on Fire *(Photo by Annice Lyn for TIME)*

Such is pictured (above) in this mural that artist Red Hong Yi created out of 50,000 matchsticks. It represents how the global climate crisis connects all of us. Hence, it leads our imaginations toward the vast global scale where the pandemic could well lead us to a better, greener world.

In that same vein, on this week’s cover of TIME magazine is a large-print title, CLIMATE IS EVERYTHING. And on the attendant topic line, it observes that “As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s becoming clear: In every aspect of what comes next — how we plan, build, sell, educate, legislate, move, and create — our unified work is to address climate change.

The lead query in a similar article in the latest edition of Sierra (the national magazine of the Sierra Club) is this: “Will a Circular Economy Save the Planet? — The vision of an industrial society in sync with nature may have us spinning in circles.”

That perception, as best I can decipher it, draws a picture of a “circular economy” that is inspired by nature’s capacity to eliminate waste by transforming it into renewed fodder for its naturally integrated ecosystems. For one huge example, redesigning industrial manufacturing where the lion’s share of materials are used and continuously reused can dramatically lessen harmful environmental impacts.

Yet meanwhile, amidst the omnipresent Macrocosm, Earth orbits around one of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. Although our planet is, by no means, at the center of the cosmos, there is cause to think of Earth and its myriad life forms as being singularly special.

Supporting evidence comes from the details of our planetary circumstances, as well as from observations of certain fundamental constants in nature that appear to be “fine-tuned” for the existence of life.

Is Earth’s Life unique in the Universe? To know, in the end, whether Life exists beyond Earth, one must come to terms with the nature of one’s own significance here and now. Hence, any of Creation’s primeval elements like Climate, are essentially “closer than hands and feet” in the experience of us, each and all.

That, as a matter of course, begs the fundamental question, “What is the nature of my own personal “climate”, one moment to the next? Is my life’s every element part and parcel of the manifest expressions of Love, Truth, and Life?”

Living full-throated answers to such compelling questions is my full time occupation and deepest desire.

All the while, the Ever Unfolding Journey of All Journeys Continues …

An Everyman’s Esoteric Adventure

An “everyman” (or every-woman) is one of the many people on Mother Earth who think of themselves as ordinary. And an “adventure” is an exciting journey or activity on which “ordinary” people can and will enjoy quite an extraordinary experience.

And the relatively small number of people who have gained specialized knowledge, expertise, and/or interest in “The Esoteric” can also be quite accomplished adventurers themselves …

The word, “Esoteric”, is widely and arbitrarily used by many to identify several diverse fields of inquiry and rarefied pursuits, distant from the lives and concerns of many ordinary people.

Are such impractical elements far removed from your experience?

If they are not that distant from you (in fact, they might even be “closer than hands and feet”) — Then you may want to ask yourself: Are you, by chance, so self-consciously reticent. or otherwise ill at ease, that you shrink away from identifying or associating with them — let alone practicing in such fields? Well then …

Please relax, and be fully assured that any of your close-kept secrets are safe here. (And to be clear, this specialized “note to oneself” was once smack dab in my own wheelhouse!)

Another exploratory question to ask is: “When did I last read something that was almost impossible for the mind to grasp? Recently?” (Food for thought, perhaps …)

I have had some intriguing experiences of late. They tend at times to appear at around 3am-ish — when I (like most other locals) am more asleep than awake.

It seems to be a prime time nowadays when I entertain a recurrent set of dreams where I adventure into a foreign land, whilst trying on a new language. At certain times, I recall (with sublime indifference) that newly foreign tongue being my earthly “everyman” vernacular.

All the while, I deeply feel at home with the ineffable vibratory currents which I perceive perfusing my soul like a fine oil. There, I am gratefully aware of a new “Knowing” that is “Me” — beyond any acquired knowledge, academic logic chains, subconscious instincts, or persistent habits of concept.

That inner “home base” of the Soul is mine alone; It is solely for me to tend, keep, and encompass. Self-judgment just does not exist there — where it would have zero time & space to breathe & breed, when it certainly has no need to do so.

Then, when I awaken for “real” — relatively early, amidst another morning’s fresh new dawning (on earth) — I find myself freed from memories that chronologically defuse back in time (starting with yesterday’s work memos scrawled on bits of scrap paper, now destined for the recycle bin).

Now fully cognizant, spiritually awakened, and deeply refreshed, I behold Myself as a humble & inherently kind Everyman on Earth — having been royally treated to an esoteric adventure …

All in a Creative Day’s Play amidst the Eternal Present Moment … What a Blessing Life Is