Memorial video

Since this blog is my personal recorder of information and my thoughts, I thought I'd post the memorial video of my grandmother that I created that was played at her memorial service.  How long will she be in my major thought pattern and dreams?  Likely till that trumpet sounds, a foundational figure in my childhood.  It's a video of pictures that tells the story of her life from her childhood days to her last Christmas in 2012.  I also included a video of the last five Iversons of my Grandma's generation taken in the early 2000s.  If only I had these kind of videos for my distant ancestors...oh wait, I do have one!  I'll also post a video showing my Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Rothwell, my Great-Great Grandma Lucy Hoch, and my Grandpa and Grandma Rothwell in their younger years.  The video was mostly filmed in the 1960s.

Reflections of the Upcoming Winter

The past few weeks have been progressively getting colder here in Choibalsan.  The green leaves of summer have turned their color, and nearly all of them have fallen.  The air is crisper, and the days are shortening.  Everyday I watch the sun set further and further southwest.  I remember in my Environmental Science class learning about the sun’s changing path in the sky, never fully moving east to west, outside of the equator.  The skies are full of wonders and endless discoveries.  The sensation of the approaching winter is growing day by day.  Winter brings a calmness to the environment, as both man and creature find their place in warmer shelter and plant growth halts.  It’s going to be a noteworthy winter, my first away from my family and close friends.  It’ll also be the first since the loss of my Grandmother.  The holiday season brought the many birthdays of my sister, my brother, my mom, and my Grandma, besides the family gatherings at Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.  This season will see a new memory with the reflection of the old.  When it’s over, previous traditions will be placed further back in the subconscious.  Memories are valuable.  They must not prevent us, though, from moving forward.  Today is a new day.

As the noise in the background turns to whispers the mind is left in an environment of vivid creativity.  The upcoming season is one with the highest depression rates amongst uncontrolled minds.  We can easily become addicted to negative thought patterns if negative thoughts dominate the silence of winter.  When one has taken control of the mind, dis-identifying with it, one has gained the power to manipulate their mind to the highest positive benefit.  With the events of the last year and the fact that I’m living alone, now is the time to put this truth to the test.  I have prepared for this experience. 

The last year or so I have discovered the power of thoughts upon first awakening in the early morning hours.  Things seem so clear to me, and my intuition is elevated.  One night last week I awoke in the middle of the night.  As soon as I awoke the reality of inevitable death fell upon my mind.  It scared me.  I’ve thought about it many times before, especially this last year with Grandma’s death.  I’ve always viewed death in a positive light, understanding the beauty of the circle of life.  But this night I experienced a darker reality:  someday I’m not going to exist, my thoughts, my feelings, my mind, and my body.  My memories will disappear.  It’s a relentless fate.  No one is spared.  This world will no longer be our home.  My Grandma left.  So did my Grandma Rothwell.  My Grandpa Iverson and many other friends and family throughout the years have left their loved ones behind.  The feeling of fear shook me.  Death felt like an overpowering source and I a helpless soul.  Thankfully, it didn’t last long.

I don’t wish to justify my belief in a “light at the end of the tunnel,” though I do have such a belief.  I wish instead to focus on what I do know through my own experience and be true to myself and what this night awakened in me:  a response.  I want to exist.  I want to live.  I want to breathe and experience and love.  The years will creep up on me.  Before I know it I’ll be laying in that bed, doped up on morphine and oxycodone, in labored breathing surrounded by my loved ones who will move on.  But that time is not now.

I am alive.  I am breathing.  I am not dead.  What am I supposed to experience in this life before I return to a non-physical, non-emotional, and non-thoughtful existence?  What do I want out of this life? 

I want to experience what I can’t experience when I’m dead.  I want to experience life at its extremes.  Whether it be the low negative occurrences or the high positive involvements, all are gifts to my self-inquiry.  There are many emotions to be lived:  happiness, joy, depression, anger, sadness, wonder, and falling in love (along with many others).  There’s no way of knowing these highs and lows unless we experience them for ourselves.  I read an article last week that said women fall in love on average seven times before they marry.  I don’t know where this information came from.  I assume if this is actually a fact that the same would apply to men.  The romantic view presented in Disney movies of falling in love once with our soul mate and living happily ever after is quickly removed through experience.  I can account for this myself, as I’ve experienced the emotional high of falling in love more than once.  Why is falling in love so appealing?  Because it tunes into one of the highest frequencies in our emotional self.  By leaving this frequency, of course, comes a rough decline that could easily send one into a low experience.  That is a chance lovers are willing to take.  

We have an opportunity to witness the thrills of life.  We create every experience.  Though certain emotions can lead to darker times, it is often through these experiences we gain the greatest realizations.  Before every mountain is a valley.  Through my darkest months many years back I awoke to a world I didn’t know existed, one grander and more beautiful.  Life became a mystical wonder.  I felt I shed the layer of a manmade view of God and came to know God myself.  “All things work together for good.” 

Two weeks ago I watched the movie “Yes Man.”  It’s about a man who was going through hopelessness after a divorce.  He always said “No” to new experiences.  He lost the respect of his friends and was living in a routine of grey.  After going to a self-help event that encouraged him to say “Yes” to new experiences, he began using the word when opportunities presented themselves.  His life soon transformed, and it became exciting.  He reached a new height of life.  I believe this movie had a great point:  saying “Yes” to experiences.  

Our bodies and our minds are mere vehicles for our experience here on earth.  The only constant is the soul or spirit, which is distinguishable from the mind and always present, always reliable, and always the same.  We must use our vehicles when they’re in good shape to maximize our life experience and travel to unmarked territories.

This winter I will go through a new experience of a similar holiday occurrence.  The winters get really cold here, and I’m curious to see how the Mongolians adapt.  They’ve been doing it for thousands of years.  I have started a new workout routine that I’ve maintained.  I’m constantly reading, writing, and preparing meals for myself.  I have new-found respect for my mother, seeing how she cooked for the family steadily for nearly thirty years.  If you want variety you have to put some effort into it.  It’s not easy to find a store that serves you hot food or already-made dishes around here.  I cook for myself out of natural ingredients, and I’ve developed the virtue of patience doing so.  With the developing skills of cooking and giving massages I may start the bidding for a wife here real soon.  Right!  So maybe that’s not a top priority right now.  “Boardwalk Empire” has become my new favorite show.  Nucky Thompson is my hero.  How he pulls off the long shots of survival leaves me in awe. 

I’m newly motivated with a five-year plan to pay off all my debts, buy a used vehicle and camper to where I can travel throughout the States, teach, make a trip to Minnesota/Wisconsin, traverse the mountains of Peru, begin my Masters degree, watch my brother play his last two years of high school sports, and buy a hostel in Central America.  I’m teaching 10 classes a week and have helped establish an English club with my Mongolian counterpart.  We are setting up an English competition and Halloween party next week.  I’m curious to see how Mongolians make this holiday.  Oh, and basketball will be starting next week.  I predict LeBron will win his fifth MVP trophy and another NBA championship.  It doesn’t matter to me, as long as OKC is beat.  I really wish Brandon Roy hadn’t had knee problems.  He would have probably been the top shooting guard in the NBA today.  Someday my Sonics will return.  I’ll be at their first home game at the new Sodo Arena when they retire Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, and Ray Allen’s jerseys.  I’ll be holding up a sign acknowledging David Stern of his grand accomplishments and standing reputation in Seattle.

The Sound of the Universe

The Sound of the Universe
Song written October 2013

Verse 1
C                                      
The trembling thoughts they shake me
Em                    F              Am
The heart indeed breaks me down  hurls me around       
C               
The tears fall from my eyes
Em                     F               Am    G
Life gone breezing by and by   destined to fly
             
Pre-chorus
Dm                   Am
Ages passing me by   visions descend from the sky
G                              C
Dogmas evolving  words of the mind   seen through the eyes of the died
Dm                  Am
Eternal presence within  beneath the layers that been
G                               C
Rightly the witness  timeless existence  fading of illusion’s claim

Chorus
C                 G
Fall asleep      close your eyes    and keep
                     F
Your undying song    that will last through time
C                       G
Breathe in deep      free the thoughts that be
            F                            C
Attending the peace   the sound of the Universe

Verse 2
C       
Each day a new appeal
Em                                      F                              Am
Fresh dreams appearing real so real   the world that will change
C       
Drift far beyond the night
Em                              F                   Am      G
Earth turns ever refined in time  and I am the same