Pen and all,

In an attempt NOT to steer the conversation away from the topic completely because this that I have to say slightly ties to it - but not knowing where exactly to up this, I'm going to try to balance this post.  Here I go.

Spirit lessons.  I think I'm a little conceited that I've spent my life "privately tutored" in this way. LOL.  I shouldn't.  One should not feel pride over it, but there it is. My daemon.  Say hello, daemon.  *daemon waves*

I *like* having formulated my personal philosophy on how things work by watching and listening only to find the same things in a scroll some elder wrote ten thousand years ago. I *like* it because then I feel it's true and validated.  Although I don't discount what others tell me - by no means do I know everything and with good reason - it just feels more real when the lessons cóme to me in this way.

I personally feel that before picking up a book, students should spent two or three years on a mountain writing down their own observations with as little a philosophical foundation to filter them with.  Then, after that period of time, they are to discuss it for a year amongst their peers.  

This part would be very tricky because people discussing things for the first time are apt to flame wars.

After a year of that, they are to be slowly filtered in with the jaded and sarcastic old folks...like me!  But only a little at a time in order for us not to kill them.

Now this would be the tricky stage, because some folks don't get beyond their "me me me" stage as quickly as others.  So you watch them.. because development should go according to personal growth and not some stupid chart.  You would know when they were ready to be considered sarcastic and jaded, too.  

That's when the REAL discovery could begin... that's when they could safely open a book someone else had written and not be blind-sided by the information to the point that their brains would be numbed past personal thought.  One of the top prioritiesin my life has always been to avoid that, so I spent many years conditioned by circumstance until one day I was almost past the flame-war stage and the reading began.

There are many benefits to it... but I'm lazy and wanna stop typing. This is a serious digression from what I'd cóme here to type about.

Once upon a time I had asked for a vision (which is how lessons from the spírit ties in here). I received it.  It had everything... me being prepared for a wedding (theme of mose of my visions), me afraid of the end result, wandering around apowwow, the brightly colored dancers and the various camps within the camp.  It's a long story.  

To wrap up, I decided I wanted to go "home".  Home wasn't where I grew up, mind you, but I was going. I walked away from the powwow to the leftinto a city, where the streets were too tiny for cars. I witnessed police brutality there; a young girl was in a truck preaching my words, screaming "am I not the sacrifice? Am I not the sacrifice?"

By this time I had gained a companion I could not see... and I was afraid, because I saw the military in the shadows about to strike.  But I was the only one who could.

So rather than be brave I went behind the crowd to get away.  Stupid me.  And my companion followed me.  we walked up a fire escape.  

Walking down was my old Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Blakenship.  She was wearing spring green and very thin, tiny and frail.... ooollld.  She was being helped down by a girl I knew was her granddaughter or great-granddaughter.  I said to her, "You don't want to go that way, Mrs. Blakenship.  You wíll be sad by what you see."

But she went on, and I climbed ever up. I reached the top as the police in the square beat these teenagers who had been listening to bloody pulps.  the one thing I remember about the mass of bodies were the tattoos. So many tattoos.

Marks, you know.... that thing you see me twitch over occasionally.  They were all Marked.

And then I knew I could find my way home... so I started to walk that way... that's when I woke up.

So. I went to the store and saw Mrs. Blakenship by chance today. She's 72 yrs old now... plump and healthy.  And something in my mind said, "ah, so. It's not time yet."

Cuz my spírit lessons have time markers, wot?  

There. I've shared. Gonna go... uuh.... do.... something.... else.... now.