This weekend marks the 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and as someone who lived in "West Germany" during the Cold War, and who sat on the border of "East Germany" as a young soldier in the U.S. Army, I felt compelled to post this reminder of just how significant that single … Continue reading When The Wall Fell
Recently, I have been reviewing the collections of photographs and other memories from my journey of discovery which began more than forty years ago now, and several pieces of the puzzle have started to be filled in with particular memories, which have sparked new levels of awareness about just how important some of the events … Continue reading A Teachable Travel Moment
As the ever-changing fall weather begins to manifest into cooler nights and milder days, this particular change of seasons nearly always finds me looking backwards in time. The inspiration for this rearward journey has its roots in both my personal history, and in the relentless search for understanding that has occupied me for decades. It … Continue reading Three Hundreth Blog Post; Falling Back
Over the course of nearly a decade of consistent effort and tenure here at WordPress.com, I have dedicated much of that time to the exploration of our very human nature as it relates to our experiential awareness of existence as a sentient, self-aware, and yes, spiritually-imbued creatures. In the interest of promoting and encouraging those … Continue reading Poetry, Prose, and Probity
After a tumultuous series of experiences in late 1973 and early 1974, and after a sufficient amount of time had passed to regain my bearings, I was able to complete my advanced training in Massachusetts, and was reassigned to a duty station in Monterey, California for training as a linguist. I didn’t know it at … Continue reading Tumultuous Transitions
Watching out my window this evening as the sky slowly abandoned the light of day, fading slowly into twilight, my heart was following along as the sky darkened. In some ways, my heart knows me better than my mind. Within the realm of thoughts and emotions, thoughts have always seemed to eventually defer to my … Continue reading The Fading of the Light
Reflecting back over the years of my life now has taken on a wholly different character and sense of urgency. Each time I sit down to write these days, I am reminded by all of the objects surrounding me that the accumulation of years has also resulted in an enormous accumulation of memories and souvenirs … Continue reading Forging Ahead
When I began this blog in earnest back in January of 2011, my general goals were to share my decades-long journey of personal development, to express what I had learned while researching the nature of the events which occurred in my youth, and to invite my readers to join me in considering some of the … Continue reading Looking Back and Looking Forward
The actual quote from Dostoevsky’s “Notes From The Underground,” goes as follows: “And yet I think man will never renounce real suffering, that is, destruction and chaos. Why, suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though I did lay it down at the beginning that consciousness is the greatest misfortune for man, yet I know … Continue reading Origins of Consciousness
“Every human being, and every human mind, has roots that extend indefinitely far back through time…the consciousness of the individual is inextricably tied to the consciousness of the whole…Everything in nature is actually connected or implicated with everything else….(and) Whether we like it or not, consciousness has a persistent habit of intruding into all our … Continue reading Genes and What Really Matters
John's Consciousness 