A monthly e-zine that highlights the creative energy of over 1,542 souls exploring the work of Jane Roberts and Rob Butts.
Volume Forty Eight
In This Issue:
Reflections: Happy Tenth Birthday, Sethnet! by Paul Helfrich
Happy Anniversary Sethnet by Nardine Neilson
A Dream, a Question, and a Promise: Chapter 7 by Pamela Gibson
He Dreamt by Michaela Sefler
Reflections: Happy Tenth Birthday, Sethnet!
by Paul Helfrich
“What a long, strange trip it’s been.” ~ Grateful Dead
Looking back over the past decade, I continue to enjoy the adventures in consciousness Joanne and I agreed to pursue when we moved to Castaic, California to explore the Elias phenomenon (an authentic expansion of the Seth. See A Seth, Elias Comparative Overview, 2001) in January 1998.
Previously, I had been involved with online community building in my science museum work. So it was a natural move in May 1998 to volunteer to host the email list for Seth Network Int’l. Founders Lynda Dahl and Stan Ulkowski were all for it. We selected Onelist.com as a host since other conscious creation communities were using it to stake a foothold in cyberspace, and Sethnet opened its doors on October 1, 1998.
The dot.com boom was on, and the online community business saw merger after merger. Sethnet was grandfathered into eGroups.com, then Yahoo! Groups, where it spent many years. It was a lot of work to manage, as subscribers constantly needed help with the format and various ins and outs of using each new software platform. So I built a supporting website to help with that (see Appendix).
The initial rules of engagement, as laid down by Lynda and me, were simple. The idea was to engage “simple regard” for each other when posting. The list was self-organizing, meaning that it policed itself without much intervention on my part. Perhaps people were just so grateful, as I was, to have a place where birds of a feather could explore the Seth material, and communicate, share, explore, debate, and play.
One of the main characteristics of early Sethnet was a playfulness vibe (“if it’s not fun, then don’t do it”). There was also an air of experimentation. We held dream parties, and remote viewing tests. We did ice breaking – get to know you – activities. There was a sense of camaraderie, people volunteered information about where to buy used books, donated used books to each other, and posted quotes on various topics. We had Richard Kendall and Norm Friedman “visit” the list, and people asked questions, we sent them, and they answered.
Still, every now and Zen, someone would dive into the shadows and some flames would occur, but in 99% of the situations, it was just someone blowing off steam, and ultimately taking responsibility for their issues. The list would settle down and roll on.
In the early days I made it a point to individually greet every new subscriber who posted. It created an air of welcome and openness. I often used the metaphor that the list was like a beach – you never know what would come up each 24 hour cycle with the tides, and so the discussions ebbed and flowed according to their own natural rhythms. Many folks had expectations met; others didn’t, as everyone had unique issues and reasons for joining the fray.
Then, Stan passed away unexpectedly in February 1999, right as SNI was planning its second Elmira, NY conference. The list was only five months old, and Lynda announced she would shut down SNI after the June conference. Though she handed Sethnet over to me before its first anniversary, the list continued to grow in size and complexity.
In the process I intuitively learned to “splinter” various opposing energies off the list whenever strong personalities began to insist their interpretations were the only right ones, or demand things be run in ways that didn’t feel constructive to the whole list. There needs to be a certain focus and intention to guide the interactions, and when that changes you either refine and update it, or else simply splinter it off. It took me several years to perfect, and required constant feedback from subscribers.
Those who demanded changes were simply told in no uncertain terms to take their act elsewhere, start their own communities, and come back in a couple years with the benefit of actual experience and show us all how to make Sethnet better. In other words, I always took a constructive approach and sought the best advice on how to improve things on Sethnet.
Over the years a dozen Yahoo! lists splintered off of Sethnet. Most went the way of the dodo for various reasons, chief of which is that it takes nurturing energy to ground any group of people exploring the Seth Material, and a constructive system of checks and balances to promote growth and avoid stagnation. It also requires adequate knowledge of the material, which had grown to over thirty-five books by Jane, Seth, and Rob.
There’s an art to managing this process constructively, though feathers got ruffled, and egos got involved in the “my-way highway or else.” I always tried to take the temperature and feeling tone of the list into consideration when making these moves, seeking what the majority of subscribers were interested in exploring and learning about. As I often said, it was their list, not mine. My main function was to be “a guide at the side” in that respect.
But what led to these splintering actions were those strong personalities who wanted to create their own “ministry” – direction, flavor, angle, set of rules, or focus on a cult of personality to explore the Seth Material. And I continue to see nothing wrong with that. It’s all about vision, insight, and understanding one’s own purpose for being a “sage on the sage” and a “guide at the side,” and there needs to be room for a list owner to do both.
We need expertise based on direct experience with living the principles in the Seth Material combined with the ability to facilitate people’s explorations. I made it a point to have the best resources possible, including compilations of Seth exercises, Seth concepts, Seth/Jane books, channeling, a quotes database, etc. People explored compilations of material on the inner senses, laws of the inner universe, Seth’s creation myth, the families of consciousness, and more, all the while being able to dialogue about their own experiences with them.
We explored Seth’s map of All-That-Is and various practices in which to directly check it out for ourselves. No need for intermediaries. We each create our own lives, but never in a vacuum. So there’s simultaneous creation and co-creation as we dance together. It takes time and experience to muster the courage to explore by trial and error.
“This material is not for those who would deceive themselves with pretty, packaged, ribboned, truths – truths that are parceled out and cut apart so that you can digest them. That sort of material does serve a need, and there are many who give it and it is helpful for those who need it. This material demands more. It demands that you intellectually and intuitively expand it demands that you use your abilities.
“There are other ways far more difficult and you are not ready for those, but you are ready for the methods that I have given if you are willing to work. And yet by work, I mean a joyful endeavor, a spontaneous endeavor. You have simply to allow yourselves to be yourselves.” ~ ESP Class, October 21, 1969.
Put another way, we all have something to learn from Seth, we’re still unpacking his ideas some forty years later, and no one will ever have it all figured out. So there’s plenty of room for dialogue and debate. Thus, everyone’s welcome to voice their opinions and experiences as long as they stay on the constructive side, which by definition means to promote growth, development, value fulfillment and avoid stagnation. When the shadow side begins to dominate destructive opinions, flames, etc. result and they, by definition, are intended to hurt, maim, destroy, and marginalize.
So there was a learning process during the first five years in which I began to understand the complexities of the social dynamics, power plays, well intended helpfulness, and so much more going on in the subtext of the email traffic on Sethnet. We averaged between 30-100+ posts per day. However, this created a high signal to noise ratio, and many people wanted more focused conversations, but didn’t know how to go about doing that without imposing rules that would constrain the very creative impulse at work and play on the list.
Again, there was consistent effort on my part to get feedback from the list on what it wanted. List focus – thread focus – was constantly revisited, as some wanted more detailed Seth-related threads, and others just enjoyed polite social banter that had little to do with Seth per se. I realized that there was room for both, but it took time. I used a new feature – polls – to get feedback from the list. These were a lot of work, but the results were always helpful in discerning feeling tone, direction, and needs of the group energy.
Moreover, once Yahoo! Groups grew so large that all members were subscribed to multiple groups, trolls started to use Sethnet for their own narcissistic agendas, feeding off the attention that their flames and titillations stirred up. Sumari can be quite the pot stirrers!
Some began to feed off the shadow projections, and became addicted to a steady diet of “shadow shit.” In the early days we said to just ignore what you didn’t like, and pay attention to what grabbed you. But the amount of shadow shit literally grew into a cesspool that couldn’t be ignored. There were calls for moderation, banning, as well as leave things alone. Some based on “Seth said,” some based on common sense.
By the summer of 2003 Sethnet had become a toxic mix of pathological personalities and well intended, loving, nurturing folks who couldn’t seem to create their own peaceful version of the list. Sethnet’s energetic gestalt teetered on chaos, and its ability to self-organize and self-correct became dysfunctional. I strongly considered leaving, but decided to facilitate the list’s need for new direction and focus.
During the process more people left, and new lists splintered off (some flowered, and some didn’t). A “great moderation debate” ensued during the summer of 2003. I used a set of polls, and worked tirelessly to communicate the results to the subscribers (see Appendix). This was a crucial time in the history of Sethnet, as it finally dawned on a slim majority of subscribers that there had to be limits imposed and enforced on the list.
The list voted to create a set of guidelines and use a group of moderators to enforce them via polls. I asked for volunteers, interviewed, and “hired” them in September, 2003. Though controversial, our subscriber list grew to over 1,300 by the summer of 2004, so we must have done something right! Besides people still had a choice to participate on other lists, but since Sethnet was the largest, in terms of subscribers and posts, it remained a focal point for the online community during this period.
Most complaints about imposing moderation on Sethnet turned out to involve people’s own issues with authority figures – corrupt authority figures. The key issue then became “who moderates the moderators?” In other words, what checks and balances were in place to prevent the abuse of authority? This is a legitimate and crucial question for any online community to adequately address. We did our best to communicate this as we developed and refined it, but the process was like driving down a road at 80 MPH while paving it.
Still, we – the first group of moderators – gradually evolved a governance system that remains in place to this day. We became a self-policing group who reviewed and voted on all moderation decisions and revisions to the guidelines; simple majority ruled. There are no unilateral actions, although moderators have the power and responsibility to interpret the spirit of the guidelines, when they are violated, and how to proceed. However, there is accountability for all decisions, and they are all documented.
Again, we discovered that 99% of the abusive situations could be nipped in the bud by private emails to discern the intent of the poster. If they don’t really give a shit, and are trolling for attention, they don’t respond. If they do, we dialogue and discern the problem and do our best to offer help.
We also discovered that Sethnet, specifically, is not a place for individual therapy. The list can function that way to a certain extent, but it is NOT a place to get professional help. So we gradually developed a list of conscious creation, Sethian therapists to recommend to people whose problems were becoming self-destructive or dangerous to others.
Remember that cartoon from the July 5, 1993 New Yorker when the Internet was brand new? It meant that people could take on all kinds of roles and personae as a mask to hide behind. It took us over five years to recognize various forms of pathology and interpersonal dysfunction that played out over and over on Sethnet until we put a stop to it. But we didn’t marginalize it, or sweep it under the rug. We finally understood that some people were out of balance, and in rare cases, seriously ill.
Things settled down by the summer of 2004, and the list moved on. Ironically, most Seth-based email lists had some form of moderation in place by that time, even those that claimed not to (which I call stealth moderation). During the fall, John McNally, one of the original moderators, created Sethnet Journal, picking up where Serge Grandbois left off with his short-lived Seth Journal (Serge’s attempt to continue Maude Cardwell’s Reality Change). But Serge’s journal was a print and subscription model, and John decided to make it a free ezine, and a monthly one at that, using the new blogging software that was becoming all the rage.
Four years later, Sethnet Journal is going strong with monthly articles, poetry, and art, along with notices for Seth-related websites, meeting groups, products, and services. All of this is done for free and on a volunteer basis. It has been an outreach project of love and service to the community, and I can’t thank John and all who’ve helped enough! They deserve a lot of credit and continued support (please send your articles, poems, artwork, notices, etc. to SNJ@newworldview.com).
During this time I also began to tire of Yahoo’s constant lack of technical support, and server problems that delayed emails, and even sent some into alternate realities never to be seen again. Paranoid subscribers even blamed the moderators, which is humorous only in hindsight. ? So in 2006 I created a new, custom version of the NewWorldView forums, which had been running in parallel since 2001, and moved Sethnet there. Besides, the NWV website had become home to the best Seth, Jane Roberts, and conscious creation related resources on the web so it was a perfect match. The new forums launched on September 6, 2006 along with a newly updated NWV website. Sethnet was now part of the first Seth-based Internet portal!
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to transfer the subscriber list from Yahoo!, so there was yet another transition period, but over the last two years our subscriber list has grown to over 1540! So again, we must be doing something right! The Seth Material remains our gold standard, but we also explore Elias, Kris, Rose, and Ken Wilber as well. I learned early on that “Seth in a vacuum” produced Sethism, a fundamentalist strain of Seth based mostly on “Seth said” as validity claim.
Also, there was precarious lack of critical thinking and discernment toward what was missing from the Seth Material (for instance, the shadow, energy centers, and nonduality), meaning that it’s not a completed body of work, and yet the fundamentalists treated it as such. Pretzel logic ruled the day. The same is true with Elias, Kris, Rose, and Wilber. You can’t study them in isolated fashion or you begin to see a groupthink based on what amounts to quoting scripture as proof of truth claim. This is what led me to explore Ken Wilber’s integral approach and become an integralist (I earned an Integral Certificate from Wilber’s fledgling Integral Institute in August 2007).
So here we are ten years later, and what a long strange trip it continues to be! Moderators have come and gone, and even been fired for abusing their authority. New ones continue to volunteer and add their melodious voices to the mix. We continue to create a safe and nurturing environment where people can explore altered states and develop their psychic abilities.
Thus far I have focused on the politics of Sethnet as I think they are very important. There were many lessons learned that have value for those interested in growing their own online communities to the size and scope that have been at the heart of Lynda’s and my vision for Sethnet since day one. And let me be clear, even though Lynda was only involved for the first year, her work paved the way and strongly influenced Sethnet’s direction from day one.
I have also loved hearing the stories over the years from those who enjoyed some part of their time on Sethnet, and now NewWorldView. So I’d like to finish with one about Lealonie Elliott, whom I just met at the Colorado Seth Conference, because her story is symbolic of the power that a healthy online community has to help, heal, and nurture folks during difficult times. Lealonie is one of those delightful personalities that always had something positive to say and offered her thoughts in helpfulness on the old Yahoo! Sethnet. It turned out that she was also going through a very difficult time of major life changes and depression. Sethnet literally served as her guiding light for months during that difficult time. To make a long story short, she eventually met her current partner, Ronnie Allen, through the list when she made a trip to Colorado, and now works in a job she loves (hospice care), dances, and pursues other creative endeavors.
Stories like this make the vagaries of managing Sethnet over the last decade worthwhile. Seeing those lovely smiles reminded me, once again, why I invest so much of my creative energy in the NWV forums. They really help people, because they are properly designed and managed to allow anyone to explore the Seth material in a safe and nurturing environment that promotes growth, creativity, and fulfillment.
Sethnet remains our flagship forum, and is complemented by the Inner Visions Journal (focus on dreams, autotyping, and channeling), Kosmic Cocktail Lounge (general anything goes), and NAGEW (focus on creative writing). We are going to add a Rose forum in the coming weeks, and so we go, riding the waves of consciousness, exploring the “unknown” reality, and boldly going where few have gone before.
Thank you one and all. Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. It continues to be a learning experience, and I look forward to another ten years of exploring Seth’s ideas, and helping our international community to grow. I invite you to contribute to the forums, journal, and website in whatever way floats yer boat!
In love and service,
Paul H.
Appendix I - Props
There are many people to thank, most importantly the 5,000-plus subscribers who have come through and contributed over 110,000 posts. This list is for YOU!
Seth, Jane, Rob, and Laurel for making the Seth Material available.
Stan Ulkowski and Lynda Dahl for all their work with Seth Network Int’l.
Volunteer moderators: John McNally, Augustina Blake, Billie Petty, Serge Grandbois, Jim Ferrigno, Don Johnson, Sean Foreman, Carmen Silvers, and Nardine Neilson.
Sethnet Journal: John McNally (chief editor) and Kristen Fox (graphics) for consistently producing a quality ezine every month for over four years. And to everyone who continues to contribute their creative expressions.
Finally, to Joanne, my love and light, high desert Rose, and eternal Muse for working a day job all these years that gave me the freedom to explore the Seth Material in such depth. Sethnet would not exist without your love and support!
Appendix II - History
Here are additional links from NWV (Events => Past Events) that flesh out the history of Sethnet in greater detail:
Sethnet’s Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ~ many ask the same questions over and over. Great for new and old subscribers!
The Sethnet Email List Survival Guide ~ get the most out of this email list!
Richard Kendall’s January 18, 1999 Visit ~ Richard shares his perspective on attending Jane Roberts’s ESP class.
Norman Friedman’s May 18, 1999 Visit ~ Norman shares his perspective on Seth and Quantum mechanics.
Online photo album June 1999 ~ pictures taken by Rodney Davidson at the Sethnet Conference, Elmira, NY.
Paintings by Robert F. Butts June 1999 ~ more pictures taken by Rodney Davidson at the Sethnet Conference, Elmira, NY.
SethNet Group Dream 1 September 1999 ~ pages created by Annette Shacklett of the Labor Day Dream Party, Sept. 4, 5 & 6.
Remote Viewing Exercise March/April 2000 ~ Frank Webster’s fun idea, similar to what Jane and her ESP Class used to do.
A Letter from Rob Butts to Sethnet October 2000 ~ Rob’s reply to Annette Shacklett’s invitation to attend the Halloween Dream Party.
The Focus of this List ~ some thoughts from April/May 1999 on how to keep this list focused.
List Focus and Guidelines Revisited ~ a March/April 2001 interactive poll.
List Focus and Guidelines Revisited ~ a July/September 2003 interactive poll.
A Brief, Probable History of Sethnet ~ what/who gave birth to this group and why?
Sethnet Speaks, January 2006 ~ compiled by Paul M. Helfrich.
Welcome! September 2006 ~ intro to the new Sethnet on NWV by Paul M. Helfrich.
Happy Anniversary Sethnet
by Nardine Neilson
This moment in time joyous it be
Celebrating the 10th anniversary
Of Sethnet - yahoo! - the magic we do
When seeing it from our whole NewWorldView
Join in the chorus sing loud your song
Ten wonderful years this ship has sailed on
Golden the standard held to the light
Seth, Jane & Rob their truth to ignite
Our passion and purpose intentionally to
Inspire our bliss in all that we do
A Dream, A Question, and A Promise
By Pamela Gibson
Chapter 7
February 27, Monday
For the third and, I hoped, final time I waited on the hard wooden bench across the hall from the front counter of the Homicide division. The door beside the counter opened and my bloodshot brown eyes locked with Jeff’s steely grey ones. Neither of us spoke as I followed him down a narrow hallway to a tiny interview room where we faced each other across a vinyl card table. He glared at me with a gaze as frigid as the icy temperature in the room. Just as before, a tape recorder rested on the table between us. Without a word I handed him ten hand-written pages of lined yellow notebook paper.
“What’s this?” he snapped.
In a small voice I said, “I wrote it all out.”
He quickly thumbed through the pages, counting them, noticing that they were written on both front and back. “We won’t need this, then,” he said, nodding at the tape recorder. His voice was gentler now and I imagine he appreciated not having to interview such a recalcitrant witness.
Wordlessly he started to read my statement. What follows is a compressed version of the one I gave him: I’ve gotten my fear under control now. The worst thing that can happen to me is that Jaaku will send some of his criminal friends after me to put the hurt on me after he hears what I have to say in court. Just like he did to that soldier’s family.
I am part of the triangle of Jaaku and Vic because I was attracted to Vic, Jaaku was attracted to me, and the two of them were friends. Even if you draw lines between our three apartments, it forms a triangle, each of us living only a few blocks from the other two.
Jeff raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips, nodded and continued reading:
I already told you that Jaaku told everybody he saw me having sex with a Navy fire captain in the alarm room. There actually was a Navy captain talking to me after midnight only a few weeks after I transferred from the Navy Fire Department dispatch office to Hennessee. The captain’s red chief’s truck was parked in the parking lot, Jaaku must have seen it, and then spied on us through the alarm room’s small back window. We were just talking but that wasn’t juicy enough to gossip about. That’s why he made up his sex story.
It was legitimate for that fire chief to be visiting me. He’d just secured a house fire where someone had gotten badly burned and he was all wired up and wanted to talk to somebody. That’s how it is with the guys sometimes after a gruesome emergency; they need to talk. I’d worked with that chief before I transferred from the Navy and he knew I was working mids so he popped in. I heard him radio his dispatch office that he was at Hennessee Fire Department so they knew exactly where he was.
I teach yoga part time and Jaaku must have fantasized that I’m as flexible as a rubber band because he told the firemen that my legs were all the way back behind my head when he saw me with that Navy captain. He also said that he looked through the back window after midnight and saw me doing yoga and tai chi in the nude. It’s true that I sometimes do yoga stretches or tai chi when things are slow and I’m trying to stay awake on the mid shift. Jaaku takes one little speck of truth—that I was talking to a Navy fire chief in the alarm room, that I do yoga— and twists it into something perverted—I’m having sex on the floor or I’m in the nude. That’s his way.
Jaaku used to invite me over to his apartment, lots of times. I never would go. I used my boyfriend Abe as an excuse, saying he wouldn’t like it. Jaaku had met Abe at a fire department party and shook his hand, which Abe told me later he regretted after I told him how crazed Jaaku was. Jaaku thought it was cool that I had a local boyfriend. He used to say, “You all right, Pam. You ain’t one of those wahines who think you got to be white to be right.”
Jeff looked up from my writing to ask, “Did Jaaku and Abe know each other?”
“No.” I said.
Jeff resumed reading: Once, when Vic and Jaaku were talking to me in the alarm room, Jaaku asked me if I ever invited another man over when my ‘old man Abe’ and I had a fight. I told him no, that I was completely loyal to Abe. Several times Jaaku asked me to go ‘cruising’ with him and Vic. I would answer, “Go cruising with you two perverts? No way.”
“Yeah, we’re perverts,” Jaaku would say, and nod his head up and down. “Yeah, that’s right.” He liked it that I called them perverts; it was a badge of honor to him and a joke to Vic. But I only used the “p” word when Vic was hanging with Jaaku so he wouldn’t imagine I was singling him out or ‘crossing’ him.
When people started coming to me and telling me what Jaaku had said about me and the Navy fire chief, one of the firemen, Jimmy Broz, came to me privately and warned me about Jaaku. Jimmy told me about Jaaku trying to shoot him when they went pig hunting, about Jaaku sending his thug buddies to beat up a soldier’s family, and about Jaaku stealing the station video center. He also told me that Jaaku put a dead fish in Assistant Chief Bob Henderson’s desk drawer as a death threat, Mafia style. Bob just thought it was somebody’s stupid prank; he didn’t understand the symbolism until I told him what it meant. Anyway, right from the start, I knew that Jaaku was a liar and a thief and that he hurt people or arranged to have them hurt.
When Jaaku semi-apologized after spreading those lies about me, I pretended to accept his apology because I didn’t dare tell him I knew he was lying. After that, I suppose he figured I was his friend because he started coming into the alarm room when I was by myself and telling me stories. I used to wonder why he told me all this stuff. I had a local boyfriend and since Jaaku’s local, too, maybe he thought he could confide in me.
Or maybe he was trying to impress me. I don’t really know for sure why he told me stories but he told me quite a few. He also told the firemen these stories and more but I doubt they’ll fess up to you. They’re too scared. Just like I was.
Anyway, Jaaku told me he’d cut Bob’s brake lines when the chief promoted someone else to captain. “Because Bob’s da chief’s boy,” Jaaku said, “and dat fat buggah get da chief’s ear, hey, no lie.” Incidentally, I told Bob that Jaaku told me he was the one who cut Bob’s brake lines. But Bob was sure his stepson had done it and Jaaku was claiming credit just to make himself look big. Everybody knew Jaaku wasn’t above claiming responsibility for a crime he didn’t commit if it put him in the limelight. Because he craves attention like a drug addict craves a fix.
Jaaku also told me that story about having a soldier’s mother and two brothers beaten up by some of his syndicate ‘bruddahs.’ And he told me about the time Chief Jacobs threatened to terminate him for some wrong doing. Jaaku acted out pointing his finger at the chief and yelling, “You terminate me, I’ll terminate you!” and then slapping him four times across his “Tweety Bird” face. Jaaku said the chief was afraid of him and that’s why he didn’t fire him. Because I also heard this same story from some of the other guys, I believed it. Later, I found out from a fireman who actually saw the incident that Jaaku had only pushed the chief’s finger down when the chief pointed his finger at Jaaku and scolded him. That was Jaaku’s way; take a small incident and blow it up to make himself look like a bad ass.
Jaaku also told me he’d stolen the station’s video-audio entertainment center and sold it at the swap meet, and that he set fire to his truck in the cane fields because he couldn’t afford the payments and so he could collect the insurance money. And he told me he used to drive the getaway car for his criminal friends when they pulled off break-ins and robberies on the Windward side.
And Jaaku told me stories about things he might do in the future. He used to say he would set fire to the station or plant a bomb in the chief’s office if he didn’t get smart and promote him. Once I told him my landlord was threatening to charge me extra rent because my boyfriend was spending so much time at my apartment. Jaaku told me he’d set fire to the landlord’s house if I wanted him to. I told him no thanks, I wasn’t that mad at the landlord.
Both Jaaku and I disliked a bad-tempered sergeant, Sergeant Omiya, who worked in the extinguisher shop. Rumor had it that, after Sergeant Omiya retired, he would come back to work as a civilian assistant chief at the fire department. We dreaded the thought of having old Omiya as our permanent boss. Jaaku said, if that ever happened, “No need worry, Pam,” because he would “accidentally” reverse the crash truck into the assistant chief’s bunkroom when Omiya was sleeping there.
It was impossible to tell the truth from the lies in the stories Jaaku told. Usually there was a little of both but sometimes every bit of it was lies. He used to act out how he fought fires in Vietnam. Like an ‘air guitar player’, he would become an ‘air hose fireman’, showing me how he grabbed the charged hose line and put out fires while ducking the falling bombs. A few weeks ago, I found out that Jaaku had never even done one tour in ‘Nam. But a lot of the things Jaaku claimed to have done actually happened.
Last July, my boyfriend Abe and I split up and he moved to the Big Island. Jaaku found out Abe was gone when he heard about that double date I had with Vic—for awhile it was the talk of the station, thanks to my big-mouthed fireman friend Red. When Jaaku asked me about Abe I lied, saying Abe would be coming back to me as soon as he made some decent money, that he was just working off island for awhile because he’d finally landed a job that paid well.
Abe did come back to visit me and his family a few times. I always played it up to Jaaku, acting excited, saying he would soon come home for good. I felt reassured when Jaaku would drive by (he only lived a few blocks away) and see Abe and me loading beach stuff into my car in front of my fourplex. I felt safer that Jaaku knew I wasn’t alone, at least not all of the time.
After my double date with Vic, Jaaku started giving me lots of compliments. He would say, “Hi there, pretty lady!” and told me I looked slim, trim, and beautiful. Sometimes he swore he was going to lose weight and start working out with weights because he knew women admired men with muscular builds. Men like my boyfriend Abe. Men like Vic.
By the way, Vic was always trying to get Jaaku to lift weights with him at the gym. Jaaku would promise to meet him there but never showed up. He wasn’t one to work for something; he totally lacked discipline. Once I gave him a copy of a diet from the Mayo Clinic because he said he wanted to lose weight. The following shift he was back to eating junk food. When I asked him about it, he said, “Aah, too much bother. Da wahines like me the way I am ‘cause I know how for make ‘em feel good.” Jaaku was definitely an instant gratification kind of guy.
He was also a gross guy. The firemen told me that he used to sniff the secretaries’ chairs after they left for the day. That he xeroxed his bare behind and passed it around for the guys to see. I just can’t imagine why anyone would want to look at something so ugly.
Once Jaaku burst into the alarm room where I sat alone and blurted out that he’d really like to make love to me. I looked back down at my crossword puzzle, hardly daring to breathe. I wanted to say, “In your dreams” but of course I didn’t. I just prayed that he’d disappear. When I looked up a few minutes later, he was gone.
Later, I told a fireman who works on the other shift, Keith Nakama, what Jaaku had said. Keith and I sometimes discussed Jaaku because Keith grew up across the street from him and knew his family. Keith frowned and pointed his finger at me, “You’d better stay away from that guy.” But how in the world could I stay away when I was trapped like a captive bird in the cul-de-sac of the alarm room?
Sometime in September, Jaaku’s tales switched from true crime to grossly obscene. His stories got more and more explicit and, about six weeks after they started, I became so disgusted and despondent that I had Assistant Chief Maxwell kick him out of the alarm room.
Thinking back on it now, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Jaaku had been given a temporary, 90-day promotion to captain. He really wanted that promotion. In his own mind, he was convinced he was going to get it, that it was a done deal, even though he’d been told it was only temporary. He halfway believed his own lies, that the chief wouldn’t dare promote someone else because he was afraid of repercussions from Jaaku. A few weeks after he was booted out of the alarm room, the management demoted him and promoted someone else, this time permanently. That was around the middle of last November.
I had my last conversation with Jaaku the day before he went on leave on December 30th. He slouched against the alarm room doorway since he was forbidden entry. His shoulders were slumped and he wore an expression of bleakness like a Halloween mask. Jaaku, depressed. I loved it. He told me he was taking a long leave from the fire department and was going to try and find another job, as a security guard. I fervently hoped he would leave for good but suspected I’d never get that lucky.
I slid into my survive-Jaaku mode, which mandated that I keep up the pretense of friendship lest he think me an enemy. “Security guards don’t get paid much,” I told him. “Even without that promotion, you’re making good money, more money than my boyfriend Abe makes working construction.” I told him Abe used to work part-time as a security guard and it only paid $7 an hour. Jaaku said that Chief Jacobs was just using him. “Using you, too, Pam.” He added that he was fed up with this ‘fucking’ place.
Sometimes when Jaaku told me stories I tuned him out because I knew that so much of what he said was lies and exaggerations. But I did take note when he pantomimed blowing someone away. He’d make his hand into a pretend gun and act out shooting, making a bullet-whizzing sound through his teeth. So he did have a murder fantasy.
It amazed and puzzled me that Vic and Jaaku were pals. So different and yet they were friends. They used to hang out together at work and, from what they said, after work as well. They were as opposite as the North Star and a black hole. I don’t think either one of them saw the other as he really was. I imagine Vic’s quirky sense of humor drew him to Jaaku because he thought Jaaku was hilarious when he told his slapstick tales in his inimitable, exaggerated style. Some of the other guys thought so, too. Jaaku was an extraordinary pantomimic; a regular show stopper. For his part, Jaaku probably liked to go clubbing with quiet Vic who, despite being shy with strange women, was a chick magnet. The gossip around the station had it that loquacious Jaaku sometimes scored with the barflies who couldn’t make time with Vic.
I don’t think Vic understood Jaaku’s sinister side, not even when he confronted him on the morning of his death. Vic thought about taking his gun but must have decided he could reason with his friend instead. And of course he didn’t know that Jaaku had a concealed .357 magnum stuck in his waistband at the back of his trousers (my theory.)
Vic couldn’t fathom that his buddy would really shoot him down. Jaaku couldn’t lay the same fear trips on him that worked on the other firemen because Vic was the kind of guy who, if he felt fear, confronted it rather than ran from it. Just like he confronted emergencies. Vic probably figured Jaaku for a funny little guy who liked to act big; I doubt that he believed Jaaku’s threats. Even if Jaaku was threatening to ‘blow’ him away, Vic probably thought it was just more of Jaaku’s hot air. However, Vic did take it seriously enough that he considered taking his gun.
For Jaaku’s part, he knew Vic could beat the stuffing out of him and he was probably terrified of that. He was also jealous of Vic’s good looks and muscular build. To Vic’s face, however, Jaaku acted like they were the world’s best pals. Vic was so straight forward himself, I don’t imagine he suspected otherwise. Especially since Sam Tolofa didn’t clue him in that Jaaku got off on pointing a loaded gun at him under the table while they talked and joked together.
Almost everybody in the station caught on to Jaaku’s true nature after they were exposed to him for a time, and eventually most of them tried to avoid him. But I think Vic was finally getting it and wanted to break the bonds of friendship. I don’t know that for sure but I do know Jaaku would have considered that kind of action the worse kind of double cross. He never would have stood for it.
I also know that, in those last six weeks before he was killed, while Jaaku was on leave, Vic metamorphosed into a different person. He was as happy and high energy as ever I knew a man to be. During that time, it was pure bliss and joy for me when Vic was on duty. We had long talks and joked and laughed and it felt like manna from heaven, that he was my friend.
I thank God for those six weeks working with Vic and for the respite from Jaaku that loosed Vic from the chains of Jaaku’s dark, forbidding—and yes, evil—influence. We played like children, grew closer than kissin’ cousins, and laughed ‘til our sides hurt. My oh my, did we ever have fun! Those were sweet hours indeed. After he died it struck me that the soul of that big-hearted man must have known it would soon be free of earthly bonds. He died at the height of his strength, a joyful and radiant spirit. I’m grateful for the closeness we shared during his last days. But I miss him terribly.”
I sat quietly, my chin resting in my hands, and watched Jeff’s gray eyes scan page after page of my written words. For the first time in a long time I felt relaxed, my conscience finally clear. My mind meandered over this and that and fell into a voidness, a receptive state where I become like a radio receiver, open to incoming signals; a natural state for me when I’m relaxed. A thought popped into my head, loud and distinct, like a broadcast from some other dimension but spoken in Jeff’s utterly authoritative voice, “This man wanted to rape Pam.”
The voice was so clear that I looked at Jeff to see if perhaps he’d spoken the words that still echoed in my mind but his attention was obviously riveted on the pages before him. “How odd,” I thought, “and untrue.”
The icy air from the air conditioner caused goose bumps to form on my arm. Chicken skin, the locals would say. I shivered. “It sure is cold in here,” I said.
“It sure is,” Jeff agreed, not looking up. I watched as he finished reading the last page of my statement. He placed the sheets of paper down on the table, looked at me, raised his eyebrows and said, “This is what you wanted to tell the police?”
I nodded and wondered what he’d expected.
“Your statement is very complete,” he said. “Some of this you told me before but that’s all right.”
“I wanted to tell you everything this time,” I said.
“It’s in the hands of the police now, Pam.” His voice was gentle. “Now, I’d like you to initial each page.”
Jeff placed the sheets of paper in front of me a page at a time. As I initialed each one, I felt his intense gaze boring into me. When I had finished he said, “I’ll hold onto these, if I may. Thank you for coming down.”
“You’re welcome.” I wanted to apologize for not telling him everything earlier but the words formed a lump in my throat. Wordlessly, I followed him back down the narrow hallway and out of the front door of the homicide division. Neither of us spoke as I turned and walked away.
February 28, Tuesday
For the first time since Vic’s murder I felt relaxed. My head hit the pillow at about half past midnight, and I slept soundly and woke up feeling well rested on the stroke of nine the following morning. Working the swing shift, 4 p.m. to midnight, on the previous night had been an exercise in futility. Just after sunset, in my after-hours capacity as the Civil Engineering dispatcher, I waded through an endless string of wrong phone numbers and obsolete standby lists before, finally, making contact with the emergency plumbers. A broken main water line had flooded flight line housing’s ground floor apartments and I had to call in lighting crews so the plumbers could see exactly what lurked inside the giant hole they diligently dug in the middle of the street.
The combination of nonstop, frantic and irate phone calls lighting up the switchboard—wives demanding to know how soon until they could flush their toilets and bathe the kids—and radio traffic between myself, watervac and light crews, firemen and plumbers, left me oversaturated with too much work and too little time to do it. “If Vic were here,” I thought more than once, “he would have rushed in to answer the phones while I handled the radio.” Oddly enough, part of me felt removed from the whole fiasco. The serenity that had flooded over me after I told Jeff the whole truth about Jaaku and Vic remained intact.
Tuesday was my only long day off, a full 24 hours. In preparation for that night’s midnight shift, I usually tried to sleep as much of the evening away as I could. But now the day yawned long and unfettered before me, and I yawned with it and stretched like a lazy cat. A breakfast of granola, papaya and yogurt banished my hunger and I was looking around for something to do when my eyes fell on my newly-acquired stack of Vic’s phonograph records.
The names of many of the musicians were familiar to me but most of these albums were not. I played some of his Stevie Wonder and Chuck Mangione albums and grooved to the music. Then I listened to Steve Winwood’s “Arc of a Diver” album. Wow! The songs seemed to have been created just for Vic and me. The music compelled me to dance and I connected to and resonated with the music and lyrics: “…my mind in sky and when I wake up, daytime and nighttime, I feel you near, warm water breathing, she helps me here.” I fell into a fantasy about Vic’s mind being in sky now and both of us warm water breathing, him a Scorpio, me a Pisces, and me feeling him as close to me as my skin.
“Slow down, sundown,” Steve sang, “coming down too soon…here’s to all the strong ones who don’t care if they win, the kind I’ll never see again.” And me thinking, “Strong one, in your prime, your sun went down way too soon.”
It was raining hard with a south wind gusting so I’d shut my jalousie windows to prevent rain from blowing into my living room. In spite of the closed windows, a cool breeze sprang up and swirled through my living room, making my wind chimes bounce, the dancing rods tinkling metallically and melodically together. Energy that felt like a surge of electricity shot through me and an Alice in Wonderland feeling captured my heart. Instantly I knew. The breath of God; certainly no earthly wind this. This was the sparkling energy essence of Vic.
We danced together to the music he loved, his unique and characteristic blend of playfulness and joy sparkling in the highly charged air. I metamorphosed into a semi-permeable membrane that absorbed the powerful, loving force of his energy.
Beyond rationale or fantasy, a knowingness that this miracle was real filled me with joy. Dazed with wonder and awe, I fell to my knees and thanked All That Is that He had allowed Vic to ride on the wind and “mosey on in” to my living room and straight into my soul. That spirit wind filled me with a joy and certainty that Vic’s energy embraced me. My heart chakra opened wide and my cup overflowed as I merged with Love.
He was gone as suddenly as he had come but he left a residue of certainty behind that would always keep me safe from the fear of death. Never again would I conceive of death as an extinction of beingness. They say experience is life’s best teacher and I could truly echo Jimmy Hendrix’s question, “Have you ever been experienced?” with his answer: “Well, I have.” In the same way that I hate to wake up from a delightful dream into a drab day, I longed to stay connected to Vic in whatever astral world he was in because it made me feel so joyful and alive.
February 29, Wednesday
Shortly after I arrived home from working the mid shift, a phone call from my realtor informed me that the apartment I was buying would close on March 11th. Good news indeed; I’d thought it wouldn’t close until May 1st. I called Mom and Dad, who had promised to loan me $2,000 toward the $5,300 down payment (I’d saved the rest). After I gratefully accepted Mom’s offer to fly out and help me set up house, I peered into the large, dark storage space beneath my stairwell and brushed aside the cobwebs that stuck to my hands like sticky lace. I pulled down dirty boxes that stank of mildew from the top of ceiling-high stacks, wiped them down with a damp rag, and prayed that spiders and centipedes had failed to penetrate masking tape and cardboard.
Then I bent my knees to the transport of a seemingly endless number of boxes up the stairs, boxes full of stuff I had no room for in the tiny studio I now occupied. Five p.m., the time for my pre-mid shift nap, found me still cross legged on the stained and cigarette-burned brown living room carpet, sorting through stacks of sewing materials, papers, books, dishes, and other mundane and sundry items. “Only one week and four days to go until I’m my very own landlady!” I announced to the messy piles of loose papers and sewing scraps strewn over the carpet, chairs, couch and table.
My mind scanned the events that led me to the big step of buying my very own apartment. The memory of the palpable fear that had stuck to me like superglue through the dark nights of the previous November and December sent a shudder snaking through me. At the time, I thought my fear stemmed from knowing that a rapist was on the loose in my neighborhood—the Makiki Rapist, they called him—who always attacked women that lived alone.
But even after he was caught I still shook in my shoes on the countless nights I arrived home from work half an hour or so past midnight. I’d run up the unlit stairs to the isolated, dimly lit walkway in front of my apartment, frantically poke at the keyhole with a key that shimmied in my shaking hand, and strain for the sound of footsteps that might soon, I feared, be slapping up the stairs. Even when the door was locked behind me, my heart would pound like a big brass drum as I thought about how easily someone could kick open the flimsy front door that didn’t even have a deadbolt, or break jalousie windows and climb in. Although I’d glued the glass into the metal frames so an intruder would be unable to silently slide glass out of frames and enter, no one would have heard the sound of breaking glass over the traffic noises on nearby Ward Avenue.
The fertilizer of fear had spread over me and I’d resolved to look for another rental when a fireman who sold real estate part time planted a seed of hope inside me. He told me about the Hula Mae mortgage program for low income, first-time buyers such as myself. I started looking at properties. It was discouraging. The condos shown to me by various and sundry realtors were either far more expensive than the $50,000 loan I could qualify for, were in slummy neighborhoods, were leasehold, or were as tiny as my present studio. Then my parents put me in touch with Cathy Baldwin, a family friend who sold real estate.
I told her what I was looking for and she must have listened closely because the very first apartment she showed me was ideal—a large one bedroom, fee simple, on the first floor of a three-story building in a rural part of Wahiawa Town in Central Oahu. It was 18 years old but well kept and sturdy, made of concrete block, cost only $53,000, and had a security alarm system to boot. That I would be safe even though I lived alone was the deciding factor. And the size—820 square feet compared to the 450 square feet of my studio and the cramped quarters of the apartments I’d been looking at prior to this—made the space seem massive.
“I adore it, Cathy,” I told her. “And I love it that the sliding glass doors in the bedroom and living room open onto patios where my potted plants can grow.” The huge Paper Bark Eucalyptus trees in the front, the country air, the quiet streets, the Myna birds and robins hopping on the grass underneath the Plumeria trees, delighted me and I thought, “Home at last.” She was happy, too, at the quick sale, and bought me a housewarming present of new drapes for the bedroom to replace the worn, see-through ones hanging there.
The following week, in mid December, I signed the papers, put ten percent down, and waited in anticipation for May 1st to arrive. On a chilly January morning, when Vic popped into the alarm room to give me a break after a C-5 emergency, I told him all about it.
“It’s really neat,” I told him. “The interest rate’s only ten percent so I’ll only be paying about $500 a month. And that includes the maintenance fee—only $56 dollars. Cheapest in the state.”
A wistful expression filled his face. “Aww. You’re moving out of the neighborhood.”
I hardly thought of the high-rise, high crime district of Makiki as a neighborhood, so his words surprised me. But he obviously did, and his positive outlook charmed me. That he even cared touched me and I offered, “When I move in, I could have a housewarming party. I’ll do it if you’ll come.”
He smiled and said, “Okay, Snake, it’s a date” and did his cool-dude strut for me. Then he told me he had to “mosey on out” of the alarm room and get to work now. The picture of him performing that strut, acting silly, exuding energy and so alive, filled my mind. I sobbed in the midst of all my junk and thought, “Never, never, never. Gone, gone, gone.”
I laid my head down on some cotton cloth and propped my feet on a stack of books. How could I pack, feeling like this? I wondered why I’d fallen so suddenly out of yesterday’s euphoria into today’s depression and chided myself, “You know Vic’s soul is alive and that’s the only part of us that’s real. You know it!” Another part of me answered, “Yes, but he’s not here and I can’t see, touch or hear him. And his spirit probably can’t hang around here very long. And I miss him.”
The disparate voices inside me wrangled back and forth and sapped me of any desire to continue packing. Later I tried to sleep but couldn’t do that either. The long, slow hours of the midnight shift found me red eyed, struggling to stay awake, and wondering why All That Is was putting me through this. “Maybe,” I told the whirring and whirling reel-to-reel tapes in the back of the otherwise silent alarm room, “just so I can find out how it’s all going to shake down.”
March 3, Saturday
I always welcomed the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday day shift because it gave me the chance to catch some extra zzz’s the night before. I looked forward to not having to struggle to stay alert on day shift like I often did on mids. After dispatching emergency electricians to a downed power line, and typing up the manning card and a couple of fire reports, the switchboard and radios ceased their ringing and chattering.
I welcomed the silence and the chance to mull over the events of the previous two days. Vic’s sister Barbara and her husband Tom had accepted my invitation to come over to lunch the previous Thursday, so I’d packed like a creature possessed that morning and cleared enough space for all of us to sit comfortably at my dining room table. It was an emotional get-together, with Barbara telling me stories about Vic when he was young and me talking about the good times we’d had and thinking of the good times we would never share again. We laughed and cried and I think all of us were grateful for the chance to connect once more before they returned home to Pennsylvania the following day.
On Friday, at Barbara’s request, I drove over to Vic’s apartment house and met Norma Walker, the seventy-something, spry, sharp-witted woman who had been like a grandmother to Vic. She stood about five foot five to my five eight and gave me the once over with sparking blue eyes that looked like they didn’t miss a trick. I introduced myself to “Mrs. Walker” whereupon she flashed me a friendly smile and said, “Come right in, dear. And call me Norma.” She gestured toward a tan and cream-colored couch that filled most of her tiny living room. I recognized it as Vic’s.
I kissed her on the cheek, Hawaiian style, and sat down on the couch as she settled into a straight-backed chair with an embroidered cushion. “Barbara, that poor dear, gave me the couch you’re sitting on,” Norma said. “I feel like Vic’s loving arms are wrapped around me every time I sit there.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, how I miss that kid. He was just like a grandson to me. He used to smell the bread I baked and he’d walk down the stairs and knock on my door and say, ‘Do I smell something good coming from down here?’ He’d sniff the air and of course I’d give him a loaf, the big tease.”
Barbara had mentioned that Vic told his parents about Norma: “She’s a lot like Grams, a spit-fire but sweet.” After her husband died the previous September, Vic drove her around town, ran errands and picked up groceries for her after work.
“I always baked extra goodies for Vic. Oh, I loved that kid!” Norma said. “To have him shot down by that little worm Jaaku is just too horrible.”
“Worm-what an appropriate name for Jaaku,” I said. “I heartily agree. I’ll never get over it either. Vic was such a great guy.”
“And so good looking,” Norma added. “My sister used to say, ‘He’s such a doll.’ And I’d say, ‘You call that big man a doll?’ But he was a sweetheart. He was so good to me and you don’t find many young people who are courteous toward old people these days.” Tears filled her eyes again. “After my husband died last September, he would always ask me if he could drive me somewhere and if I needed any help. Such a considerate young man.”
I told her that Vic was my dear friend, too, and that work was just like a morgue without him. She smiled and said, “You’re nice and tall and pretty, too. Were you Vic’s girlfriend?”
I told her no but that maybe I might have been if we’d had more time because we were very close and I was crazy about him.
“You would have made an attractive couple,” Norma said. “Oh, it’s so nice to meet someone who loved Vic the way I did!”
Norma warmed me with her no-nonsense, motherly ways. I left her cozy apartment with a loaf of wonderful-smelling, freshly-baked bread tucked under my arm. We exchanged hugs and phone numbers and agreed to keep in touch.
When I arrived back home, my mailbox held a letter from Mr. and Mrs. Lazarrini. I waited to open it until I sat at my kitchen table with a slice of Norma’s homemade bread lying on a paper towel beside me. It read:
Dear friend of Vic’s,
We can’t really write what we feel at this time over losing our son Vic, but Barbara told us about meeting you and you and Vic were good friends. I’m glad he had an extra sister over there to look up to and we thank you for being a friend of his.
We will really miss him and his phone calls home, and just to hear his voice made our day when he called. He was a wonderful son and we loved him and were always so proud of him. We have only happy and wonderful memories of him.
We had a Memorial Service for him at our church where he was baptized. He had many friends here even though he didn’t get home often. It was just April of last year he was here with us and I still can’t accept it that he is gone and I know I never will. A part of us will always be over in Hawaii.
God has been our strength and such a comfort to us, and we are so thankful for the prayers of our friends and loved ones.
I know Vic is in God’s hands and enjoying all the blessings that God has promised each of us but it’s hard to accept it. I keep asking, ‘Why, Lord? Why Vic?’ I can almost hear Vic saying, ‘I’m okay, Mom. I’m free, like a bird.’ He always told me, when he rode his motorcycle here at home (he would go riding out on the country roads) that he felt free like a bird.
I always told him that he was my favorite son. He would laugh and say, ‘I’m your only son,’ and on the birthday cards and Mother’s day cards he sent he always signed them, ‘Your favorite son’ or ‘Your sunshine kid’ and I look at them now and know he was the sunshine of my life, besides our daughters Barbara and Eva and their families.
Forgive me for telling you all this, but after Barbara told me what a wonderful girl you were I feel like I’ve known you before this.
May God richly bless you and keep you in a very special way, and thank you again for being one of Vic’s friends and adopted sister.
Sincerely,
Vic’s Mom & Dad
I put my head down on the kitchen table and cried.
Later that same day, on the swing shift
Between phone calls and standbys, I pondered the question Vic’s mom had posed, “Why Vic, Lord?” It was a question I fervently desired an answer to. I thought about it some more while writing Vic’s parents a long, newsy letter telling them everything I could think of that would help to clarify for them the events leading up to Vic’s tragic death. I promised to write or call the moment I learned anything new. I’d just signed my name to the letter when a group of firemen descended on the adjoining assistant chief’s office to talk stories and smoke. I closed the door to try and keep out the fumes and the sound of their voices, and to give me time to think.
Hours later, a soft knock on the closed alarm room door startled me and for one terrified second I thought, “Jaaku!” as I flashed back to those days of locking the door to keep him out. A look through the peephole revealed Red smiling through his freckles so I flung the door open.
“Are you escaping from the cancer sticks behind closed doors?” he asked.
“Yes.” The office next to mine was empty now but still reeked of smoke. “And remembering things I’d rather forget.” He asked if I needed a break and I said yes and asked him if he’d found out anything about Jaaku’s bail at the previous day’s bail hearing.
“It’s still set at $50,000. The prosecutor’s office told me the same thing Chief Jacobs said—that’s unusually high for a murder case.” Red frowned. “It ought to be at least a hundred grand.”
“For that worm, it ought to be a million.” Such a great name for Jaaku. “Surely we don’t need to worry, though. No way Jaaku could come up with $50,000.”
“He’d only have to come up with $5,000—ten percent—in cash. The rest would be collateral, if he could put up something worth that much. Say, like his parent’s house.”
My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding! Only $5,000 cash and he’d be walking the streets? But Jaaku’s mom said her husband wasn’t backing Jaaku up, right?
Red nodded. “So maybe they won’t put their house up for him.”
“Let’s hope not.” I stood up so Red could take my place at the console. “After all, what’s to stop him from doing what he set out to do in the first place?”
“That’s right, Pam.” Red folded his long, lean body into the red office chair and swiveled to face me. “What’s to stop him from coming out here and shooting some of us down now that he’s already a murderer and has nothing more to lose?”
Pamela welcomes feedback on her story. Please feel free to email her at lyricpam1@yahoo.com
Since “Vic” was murdered, Pam has written numerous versions of songs inspired by that tragic event. The first versions were titled “Resurrection,” then later “Angel Hero,” and later still “Angel Heroes.” Pam thought you might be interested in listening to the first version of “Resurrection,” co-written with talented singer songwriter Shelley Miller (check out Shelley’s website at http://www.shelleymiller.net/ ) This version of “Resurrection” was completed in 2004 and can be heard at Pam’s SongU.com website: http://www.songu.com/yearbooknew/index.aspx?ID=340
Please keep in mind that this song wasn’t professionally demoed. Nevertheless, Shelley’s lovely voice comes through loud and clear.
See the April issue of SethNet Journal for the first chapter of “A Dream, A Question, and A Promise.”
HE DREAMT
by Michaela Sefler
He dreamt, as he sat
by the side of the road,
the burdens of the times
upon him.
And new beginnings,
he ponders,
for the promise from the heavens
still resounds in him.
And speculating on the mundane,
he aspires beyond,
knowing that beneath his feet,
is possibility still.
The skies are still bright,
and those moments bound;
unravel,
as he ponders.
As wisdom holds,
the cup of merit
is raised once again,
in adulation.
Michaela Sefler is a metaphysical poet living in Montreal, Canada. Her poetry is spiritual and esoteric and her poems allude to ancient ideals. In her poetry, she draws on ancient writings, to convey a message of hope, and survival describing present realities in the light of ancient truths.
She has six published compilations of poetry. Still true, A fortress in my heart,
The sun is hot, Through the ages, and Seven stars. Healing tree.
http://msefler-inspiration.net
msefler@vdn.ca
Michaela's seventh book To Summon Angels will be out in January with Redlead Press an imprint of Dorrance Publishing.
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Dale Evans is an Intuitive & Psychic Coach and Energy Worker who has been studying, teaching, and exploring metaphysical phenomena for over 40 years. Her teachings incorporate direct personal experience in order to foster and nurture self-acceptance and trust in one's natural abilities. Dale is also a published poet, newspaper reporter, and freelance journalist whose work is seen in print and on various websites, e-zines and online journals. Visit her website at http://www.itallbeginsnow.com/Home_Page.html
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The photographs you see below were created by Shirley in her studio, and not through electronic manipulation. Each photo is available in 5x7 or 8x10 and includes a poem that goes with the photo.
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The journey of the self is
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Free Seth CD from New Awareness Network
This CD contains additional Seth excerpts that are not on the sethlearningcenter.org website)
This CD contains selections of Seth speaking on a variety of topics along with explanatory notes by Rick Stack, former student of Seth and Jane Roberts and President of New Awareness Network.
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Sethworld - A board game based on the Seth Material
Explore your beliefs! Stretch your imagination! Delve into your dreams! Challenge your creativity!
Seven years in the making, I am so pleased to be able to offer you SethWorld - The Game of All That Is! SethWorld is a totally unique game, the first metaphysical board game based on the Seth material - maybe the first metaphysical board game, ever! It is designed to explore and uncover beliefs while having fun. There are no winners, no losers, and NO RULES! A 24-page pamphlet included with the game gives a probable framework for play, 6 sample "moves," and a glossary of 61 concepts.
SethWorld -- You've never played anything like it!
WHAT A COINCIDENCE Understanding Synchronicity In Everyday Life
by Susan M Watkins
Overview:
What if all those seemingly insignificant little What a coincidence! moments you've experienced were actually connected, were part of a larger, more complex coincidence story?
What if they were hinting at something very personal and important about yourself—and about the workings of human consciousness?
Would you listen?
Susan Watkins does. For more than 35 years she's been documenting and studying the coincidences that have happened in her life. What she's discovered is that seemingly simple coincidences—thinking of an old friend and their calling seconds later, for example—are often pieces of larger, more complex and meaningful "coincidence clusters."
A former newspaper reporter and the author of five books, Watkins has always been intrigued by coincidences—what they mean in our everyday lives, and in the grander s