Cafe Julia

I recently celebrated my birthday with a long-time girlfriend who incidentally has exactly the same birthday as me. Since turning 21, birthdays have been fairly unremarkable, for me anyway. But this year’s birthday feels like a milestone of heavy proportions. It brings with it a tangible sense of aging (like fine wine rather than good cheese, thank you.)

We lunched at the posh Café Julia in downtown Honolulu. Immediately after being seated we both confessed; Technically, we can still claim the ‘thirty-something’ title, but in reality we’ve crossed over the threshold into the we are practically 40 zone. OMG.

Physically, I can easily tell the difference between the two. For example, I’ve been playing tennis for twenty plus years, but only this year I notice I just don’t move as quickly as I used to. It also takes me forever to warm up…and warm down. No matter how much time goes by my achy muscles don’t ever seem to stop aching. And added to this constant ache is a new kind of pain–shocks of pain in the joints particularly in my knees and right shoulder.

Do I really have tennis shoulder? Do I really have arthritic knees? It’s possible. I mean I am practically 40.

After some amount of denial, I finally adjusted my tennis game. I have arrived at last at what I have been calling for the last two decades, ‘old-people’ tennis. For instance, I only serve with a quarter-swing versus the young 360 degree full-swing. Also, I am likely to opt for losing a point without even moving for the ball when I have already deduced it is unlikely I will make the shot. I prefer instead, to reserve energy for the shots I have better odds with. I’ll call this wisdom.

It’s not all gloomy. Along with my aged knees, and new-found wisdom, I also notice a hard-won fine grace that wasn’t there in the thirty-something era. Around the time of my birthday, an incident happened at work. One of the higher-ups gave us a speech about being 10% more productive without any increase in resources or so much as a strategy on what to improve. Long-story short, no one could relate to the boss on this one. And in fact lots of people were upset, angry even. Me, I was indignant. We’ve been operating under pay-cut conditions for the last three years due to the Great Recession and now this random speech?

I told my co-worker later, “I mean the guy can at least show up with a box of pencils or paper clips if he expects us to be 10% more productive. To say that we have room for 10% more productivity without really changing anything is to say we are currently slackers.” This reactionary dialogue went on and on despite saying repeatedly to myself, “Okay, enough already. Get back to work.”

But I couldn’t get back to work. I couldn’t just let it slide and move on. I felt compelled to voice what many of us were feeling. I finally decided I should send the higher-up an email.

During the course of writing this email, I struggled with my ego tendency to be self-righteous and condescending. I was right after-all and he was so out of line. My enlightened self intervened throughout saying, “Get over yourself and stop taking things too personally.” This is so much easier said than done.

In the end, I was successful in voicing what needed to be said without being judgemental. But you know it took a lot of effort to first calm down, and second to remove the idea that he deserved to be told-off. No doubt, I am and always will be a recovering self-righteous angry-holic.

He is not the enemy, nor is anyone else for that matter, not even drunk drivers. We are all people who deserve respect despite our misgivings. I thanked the boss for his efforts and for his well-meaning intentions. But I also let him know where I disagreed with him. It wasn’t exactly grace under fire, more like grace after incredulity, over-reaction and lots of huffing and puffing, but then again I am still only thirty-something. If such higher grace requires age in the four-decade range, I’ll take it even if it comes with arthritic knees.

Portal to Shangri-La (Photo: Naia Jones, 2013)

Indian Mughal style garden (Photo: Naia Jones, 2013)

The journey to Shangri-La is a marvelous trip down the rabbit hole into a garden of Eden that beckoned me to enter it and leave my mundane existence behind. As the portal to another world opened to me, I stepped forward without so much as a glance back. The grand garden fully surrounding me, instantly turned me into Alice-in-Wonderland.

The 1933 novel, Lost Horizon places the mystical land of Shangri-La somewhere far and unreachable in a place like Tibet. Today, our modern culture insists that heaven or Shangri-La can be found anywhere you are, even in smog-ridden Los Angeles.

My trip took me to my own backyard island paradise of Hawaii, which already sounds idyllic I know. But even Hawaii has a concrete jungle and higher than average bills to boot. So a trip to Doris Duke‘s Shangri-La was a welcome respite to the normal work-week routine. For over an hour, I escaped from the world of doing just as Miss Duke did every winter to her 6-acres Diamond Head estate.

Doris Duke and her father James Buchanan Duke (Doris Duke Photograph Collection)

Born on November 12, 1912, newspapers crowned Doris Duke, “the richest little girl in the world.” The only heir to her father’s tobacco and electric power fortune, Miss Duke lived up to her title at only twelve years old when her father died and left her what some estimate was worth 100 million dollars at the time.

Often portrayed as an example of the cliché that money can’t buy you happiness, Miss Duke seemed to always be in transit searching for something beyond reach. Well if money can’t buy you happiness, it can definitely help. Miss Duke spent a good portion of her fortune creating her Honolulu home and filling it with treasured artwork mostly from Iran. It was her sanctuary and she called it Shangri-La. Most other properties in the area only have a sliver of shoreline view, while the Shangri-La estate boasts over 500 feet of sweeping ocean and mountain views that could no doubt, peel away layers and layers of age and anxiety. 

Lush grounds lining the driveway (Photo: Naia Jones, 2013)

Today, you can take a tour of Shangri-La, which appears preserved in its original likeness. If you are in the Honolulu area, I highly recommend it. If you love Islamic art, Miss Duke’s collection of it in Honolulu is quite impressive.

From the moment I arrived on the gated estate I was transported from the desert like environment that is Diamond Head to a lush, verdant forest. The interior of the home is perplexing at times because of its stark contrast to its surroundings. The foyer for example, is dark and partially enclosed, but has the quiet graceful beauty of stepping into a church. It pays reverence to intricate, delicate detail, to symmetry, to geometric patterns, to light and color.

Foyer (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Lamp and ceiling detail (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

The ceiling in the foyer is of carved wood, custom-built and shipped from Morocco.

The Syrian room is completely enclosed and because of the comprehensive collection of Syrian artifacts from the marble floors to the salvaged walls, entering the Syrian room magically transports  you to an aristocratic home in the Middle East far, far away from the tropical setting of Hawaii.

Syrian room (Tom Street-Porter, 2011)

All of the outside spaces on the other hand, are breezy, filled with natural light, and best of all set against a stunning backdrop of Pacific ocean and Diamond Head views. I absolutely love the jali or perforated screens and Iranian tile work features throughout the home. If money was no issue, I would definitely surround myself with lots of both!

Central courtyard (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Jali or perforated screen (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Admittedly, I was more interested in the unobstructed ocean views and outdoor vistas than the art and I was not disappointed. Standing at its shore, Shangri-La lives up to its namesake as an earthly paradise isolated from the worries of the world. I could lose endless hours of time drinking it all in and rejuvenating my spirit. Happy Friday and happy viewing!

Tile gateway next to lanai (outdoor patio) (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Views off lanai (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Living room with open wall (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Playhouse/Guestroom (Photo from The Honolulu Museum of Art website)

Playhouse lanai (Photo: Tim Street-Porter, 2011)

Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450-1516)

Fantastic landscapes. A light at the end of a dark tunnel. Meeting loved ones who have already passed. If you haven’t heard these stories before from people who traveled to heaven while on the brink of death, you’re missing out on one of life’s greatest mysteries—what happens after we die.

Dr. Eben Alexander, a practicing neurosurgeon, heard many near-death stories from patients. Most of them suffered cardiac arrest, died, then came back with tall-tales of an after-life and an extraordinary place we call heaven. As a man of science, Dr. Alexander marveled at these ecclesiastic visions and even envied the comfort it brought to patients, but he dismissed all of them as fantasy. Then one day…it happened to him.

November 10, 2008: At age 54, Eben Alexander contracted life-threatening bacterial meningitis and nearly died. His brush with death was so severe doctors say his recovery, let alone a full recovery is a medical miracle. So what does the good doctor have to say about his near-death experience?

Book cover, Simon & Schuster, published Oct 2012

Eben Alexander can’t stop talking about the fantastic world he saw, the sister he met there, and the dazzling brilliant light amidst an inky darkness that has changed him forever. He’s been on Oprah and Larry King Live and on the New York Times best-selling list. What’s more, like his patients before him, he obstinately insists, even in the face of utter disbelief from fellow colleagues, that what he experienced is real.

Book cover, Thomas Nelson, published November 2, 2010

As a neurosurgeon, who taught at Harvard for 15 years, Eben Alexander’s story is aptly entitled “Proof of Heaven” whereas, the last head-lining story about heaven came from a little four-year old boy, Colton Burpo, so the title of his story is “Heaven is for Real”. As the titles reflect, stories about heaven come in different flavors and colors depending on where you grew up, your age, your religion, etc. But beneath the myriad colored surface of these stories is the outline of one cohesive rainbow. Like many other near-death stories preceding theirs and the many more to come, both stories offer the same glimpse of an after-life in an other-worldly realm.

This other-worldly realm isn’t physical. It is a realm of light and pure awareness. Eben says rather than having a body, he was a being of consciousness. Free from the limitations of physical eyes and ears and a slow brain, this being of consciousness has superhero like abilities. Beings can see from all angles at once, can move at vast speeds and can travel to places merely by thinking about it. Eben says he could “hear visual beauty” and could “see the surging, joyful perfection” of sound. As odd as these descriptions seem they are consistently odd in the same way and the people who tell them commonly struggle with our inadequate language to describe it.

Upon entering this other realm you are likely to reunite with loved ones who have already passed. Although Eben hadn’t met his younger sister in life (he was adopted), he met her in the after-life. She was his guide en route to heaven on the wing of a beautiful butterfly. The near-death literature indicates that families support each other in many lifetimes on earth and also meet in between lives…in heaven. These loved ones tend to greet you as soon as you cross-over and serve, as they did in life, as your comforting companions.

When encountering others in the after-life it is immediately apparent that in stark contrast to earth, no words are needed. The cumbersome use of language is replaced with perfect telepathic communication. People exchange absolute information quickly and remarkably without talking. As soon as questions form, the answers arise at the same time. Upon meeting his sister, Eben writes, “Without any words, she spoke to me. The message went through me like a wind, and I instantly understood that it was true.”

Eben Alexander

Eben struggles to adequately describe the vividness of this kind of information transfer. It is direct communication of the essence of something, like experiencing information versus interpreting it. This information, he writes isn’t “vague, immaterial, or abstract.” This information is “hotter than fire and wetter than water.” Further, the information is coded into your being and does not fade with time. Eben says, as a being, he absorbed volumes of complex information instantly and effortlessly that would have taken him years to understand on earth.

The concept of time in this realm is also notably different. The after-life realm is beyond time. People easily lose track of time and cannot quantify how long they were traveling toward the light for instance or how long they were in a particular space; it could have been minutes or eons or eternity they say. Totally bizarre. But the stories consistently mention these same bizarre time references.

Despite the unusual features of near-death experiences the people who have them categorically insist on the certainty or hyper-reality of it all, whereas uncertainties of reality are a regular part of our muddled life here on earth. Sometimes I have dreams that are so real I wonder if it really happened. Or I have memories of real events that after a while seem like just a dream. Other times, I have memories of real events, that are possibly ‘borrowed’ from the people who have shared their recollections over and over. But for those who have gone to heaven, absolute knowledge or a clear, unmistakable understanding of reality is a common theme.

Despite what can only be described as a dream-world, Eben writes, “I was absolutely sure of one thing: this place I’d suddenly found myself in was completely real.” He adds that life on earth is dream-like in comparison to the sharp, crisp reality of heaven, which often includes fantasy-like backdrops of verdant gardens and brilliant colors. Eben describes his journey as “the single most real experience of my life.”

Star Cluster, NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI, AURA

Of course, many near-death stories, these latest two included, have an encounter with God. It doesn’t seem to matter which religion or lack of religion a person has. Atheists, agnostics, Christians alike experience a light, a presence, or a figure dressed in robes who they are certain could be no other than God. The encounter often happens in a place described by Eben as an “immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting. Pitch black as it was, it was also brimming over with light.” The 17^th-century poet, Henry Vaughan, noted the peculiar expressions of near-death stories in his time. “There is, some say, in God a deep, but dazzling darkness.”

Before his coma, Eben Alexander could be described as a product of his pedigree, a highly educated scientist who had no evidence of and therefore, was completely skeptical about the existence of a God or a heaven. And yet, he is certain he was in the presence of God, although he hesitates to use the oft misconstrued word,  preferring to use the term, ‘Creator’ or ‘Om’ instead.

The pronunciation of Om, he says, is near to the deep resonating sound of God within “infinite space, infinite dimensions, and all of eternity.” Eben further describes Om as omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, and as the infinitely powerful creator of everything. If Eben was agnostic before nearly dying, he is clearly a changed man today. 

When asked what God looks like, Eben says God has no gender and is made of light–a light brighter than a million suns. This impossible to fathom description is common in near-death stories. The light they describe is so bright it should hurt their eyes, but it was easy to look at (presumably because beings are free from the physical limitations of eyes in this realm).

Many are told they will not completely remember what was learned in heaven once back on earth and that a required veil of forgetfulness shrouds our earthly minds for good reason. The forgetfulness is necessary for an authentic earth experience. It allows us the gift of free will.

This earth experience—our life has profound purpose. It is for this profound purpose that many near death bother to return at all. All of them say the last thing they wanted to do was return to earth! The comfort of heaven makes returning to our lives on earth a valiant act, one filled with a sense of duty. What is the profound purpose of life you ask? Throughout the ages people have pondered these questions. “Why are we here?” What is the purpose of life?”

The answer isn’t glamorous or very specific, but it does resonate with the heart. Stories about heaven consistently cite the same answer: love. Not the steamy, passionate love that often turns to jealousy and hate, but the unconditional kind of love that forgives everything.

It doesn’t matter so much whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a basketball star, or a parking lot attendant. It doesn’t matter so much how many trophies you collect, or how much money you make. What matters they say is using free-will to choose love above fear in any circumstance, particularly the difficult kind. Choosing to forgive others for causing you harm, for stealing from you or cheating on you for example, far outweighs any other conventional achievements. Too touchy, feely for you?

Eben Alexander writes, “love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm.”

Either you’ve dismissed this entire blog post as hogwash, or perhaps you have your own very real story about heaven, or maybe you are like me and don’t have any plausible explanation for these accounts, but are at the same time open to the possibility that these stories speak a very real truth. The stories are fantastic, as in fantasy-like, but they are cohesive fantasty.

After our bodies die, our spirits float up and away into a vast nonphysical realm beyond time, language, and even death. There we reunite with loved ones and the Creator of everything who resides in an immense, dark, yet comforting, void brimming with light. And finally, what is important becomes crystal clear. Love is a real energy that forms the basis of everything and our time on earth is critical for choosing it over fear.

For me personally, a big part of my life is learning to choose patience, kindness, compassion, ultimately love despite the chores and trials of daily living. This, I find, is much more difficult and less glamorous than obtaining an engineering degree or winning a tennis trophy, and at the same time it is all the more fulfilling. It is the reason for this blog and the reason I bother struggling with these words. Here’s to chores, love, and service!

Click below and watch videos to find out for yourself what to make of stories about heaven.

Related articles

• Larry King Now – s1 | e98 – Dr. Eben Alexander (hulu.com)
• Beliefs and Questions About the Paranormal (wiredcosmos.com)
• Dr. Eben Alexander, Neurosurgeon Who “Went to Heaven,” Offers Comfort to Families of Connecticut Shooting Victims (foxnewsinsider.com)

Solar flare composite image by NASA / JAXA

The world did not end in 2012. There was no magnetic pole reversal or solar flare catastrophe. But for one country at least, 2012 was a marked year of solar intensity and extreme weather. The United States (excluding Hawaii and Alaska) experienced its warmest year, by far, in 2012 since records began 118 years ago says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). NOAA scientists also say the new record significantly sets itself apart from the rest of the data, breaking the last record set in 1998 by a full degree versus the much more typical fractions of a degree. Higher temperatures translate to extreme weather as both record years are also tagged as the United States’ two most extreme weather years.

By comparison, 2012 ranks only as the eighth warmest year across the planet in a data record stretching back 133 years. Still, earth’s top ten warmest years all occurred in the last 12 years time indicating that our current warmer climate is a trend and one that is here to stay.

The question of whether the change is due to human activity or not may never be answered. But at 7 billion strong, human impacts can’t be ruled out; I mean, if tiny cyanobacteria can oxygenate the atmosphere in an astoundingly meaningful way (we would all suffocate otherwise), the signficant CO2 we pump into the atmosphere likely has a profound impact on the biosphere. Regardless, the question of whether our climate is changing or not seems unequivocally answered. The planet is running a high temperature.

So far in 2013, the southern hemisphere painfully proves the point. New South Wales, Australia began the new year with a record heat wave spanning seven straight days averaging more than 102º F (39º C). The new record is easily longer and broader in area than the previous record. Feeding upon itself, temperatures on the last day of the heat wave set another record for the hottest average temperature across Australia at 104.6º F (40.33º C).

Australian Bureau of Meteorology temperature forecast for January 13, 2013

In response to the new normal, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology increased its temperature range by 7º F (4º C) to include a new max temperature of 129º F (54º C). Two new corresponding shades of purple were also added. The new hues are already being used to forecast temperatures at Australia’s interior.

2013 Raging fires, photo by Dean Lewins / EPA

Combined with low rainfall New South Wales faced the highest ‘fire-danger’ rating possible–catastrophic. So far, more than 1300 square miles of land burned ferociously in what some are describing as tornadoes of fire. Bats, suffering from heat stroke, are falling from the sky. Gasoline is evaporating at the pumps. Roads are melting. Forget solar flare catastrophes. Austrageddon is happening now.

The record heat wave is the latest extreme in a string of extreme weather events. In 2011, Australia ended its decade-long drought with two years of heavy rain and flooding. And in 2013, the pendulum has swung again.

Like the chemical imbalance that mysteriously triggers one day in people with bipolar disorder, the warmer global temperatures seem to trigger a similar imbalance in our delicate weather system. Having breached a critical threshold, the weather now swings between two distinct polar ends of manic heat and drought conditions to depressing rain and flood conditions.

Left untreated the cycles will presumably become more erratic and more severe until perhaps nature will have solved its own problem; if indeed human activity exacerbates global warming, nature is on course for disrupting and taking civilization, as we know it, out of the picture. Everywhere civilization will either burn to a crisp or drown in a great deluge.

Hobbit homes in New Zealand, photo from freshome.com

As a species, we will survive such a bleak scenario, having adopted and moved underground long before the worst of it. When it’s safe to surface again, it will be the start of a new civilization, one that won’t forget to include nature in its design. Hobbit-like homes cut into grassy hills, powered naturally by the sun and the wind will sprout up all over the globe. People will eat locally grown food and bike or walk to work (alright maybe the last bit is just me dreaming of commuteless mornings).

2013 is so far every bit the turbulent, changing year that December 21, 2012 seemed to foreshadow. Stay tuned for more.

Related articles

• It’s In The Books: 2012 Was Warmest Year On Record For Lower 48 States (wnyc.org)
• Just How Off the Charts Was Last Year’s U.S. Heat Wave? (bloomberg.com)
• Off-The-Charts Heat Wave Brings Australia Its Hottest Average Temperature And New Map Colors For Temps Above 122°F! (thinkprogress.org)
• Australia’s Climate Bureau: get used to record breaking heat (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• Watch: 2012 Hottest Year on Record in US, Second-Most-Extreme Weather (abcnews.go.com)
• Mercury rising (economist.com)
• 2012 Officially Confirmed As Hottest Year On Record For Contiguous U.S. (huffingtonpost.com)

I had planned to stock-up on essentials before the end of the year, just in case. But I spent a few moments pause for a gut reality check sometime in October and the hair on the back of my neck did not stand up . So I carried on with Holiday festivities, business as usual. I shopped for toys and brand name hand soap, not cases of bottled water and bulk toilet paper. 

Since 2009 I had watched History channel shows about the Nostradamus effect–the theory that ancient prophecies from different cultures all converge to something dramatic near the date December 21, 2012. That day supposedly marked the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar and a profound Nostradamus ‘choice point’. Provocative and intriguing, I thought.

I read books, watched shows about ‘preppers’ building enormous underground living capsules, and tuned in every Tuesday for another History channel installment. Then I watched the film ’2012′ starring John Cusack and Thandie Newton. The story line was so far-fetched that it killed all the intrigue out of the 2012 phenomenon. Whole land masses ripped open. Volcanoes claimed the entire Hawaiian island chain. Sea levels rose to mountain tops. Bleh.

So on the eve of the appointed day I was not in China high atop some mountain waiting for the great deluge. To the absolute contrary, the fear of any sort of cataclysm long gone, I was on a camp ground in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii (yes, where there is an active volcano). Not only was I near an active volcano, but I was at sea level…in a tent. I had come full circle and treated doomsday like any other day.

None of the things of Hollywood’s doomsday scenarios came to pass. Surprise. Surprise. Kilauea volcano did not stir and the oceans did not rise. But here’s what did happen in real life: gale force winds blew amazingly for hours on end Thursday evening, all night long and through the wee morning hours. Part of the tent broke and we considered breaking down camp. But we hunkered down, reinforced the tent with rope and heavy rocks then went to sleep. I dozed peacefully at first, but as the night wore on it was impossible to sleep in a tent flapping violently about in what became the longest night of the year.

This turbulent wind continued through the day on December 21st. The strength and the constancy of swirling, sweeping, gusting energy was remarkable…and exhausting. Nothing could be taken for granted. Putting contacts on, cooking breakfast, sitting down. Everything normal and routine turned upside down and sideways and thrown around.

Finally, by late afternoon when most had resigned to living with the windy conditions, the winds picked up to a climax. Sand whipped at my bare arms and legs. Dust blew into my eyes. I saw chairs, beach balls, whole picnic baskets picked up and the contents carried out to sea never to return.

Backed up against a large tree for shelter with adrenalin coursing through my veins, I pondered the meaning of it all. One person shouted “It’s the wrath of the aina (Hawaiian for land)!” As little children screamed out of pure fright, I finally concluded with a certain sense of knowing that what I witnessed were the winds of change. It was a premonition of things to come. Everything normal turns upside down and sideways and thrown around.

By the next morning I could almost forget about the peculiar events of the past day. Hawaii was back to sunny, breezy paradise. Except the apocalyptic day was so remarkable that it’s left me with an indelible impression. For me, it reinforces the palpable energy of uncertainty in the air; the same uncertainty that so gripped the imagination of many all over the world and led to the 2012 hype in the first place.

Esoteric ancient books aside, it’s the uncertainty that comes with the increasingly bizarre weather we keep seeing. And the same uncertainty that comes with the economic instability of our times–16 trillion-dollar debt, high unemployment, inflated food and energy costs. Perhaps the Mayans got it right after all and December 21, 2012 marked the start of something significantly new, of wind sweeping change. Some of our old ways might be wrecked to shreds, but I am hopeful that new evolved ones will take its place.  I guess we’ll just have to see. Happy New Year and maybe Happy new era!

Do you have a doomsday story? I’d love to hear about it.

The Higgs what? Exactly. It has also been famously called the ‘God particle’, not that that helps any. Reading the news articles, I am told this discovery is a momentous event, the biggest scientific discovery of the 21^st century in fact. I must point out that we are only in the first 12 of 100 years in the 21^st century. So this discovery is more momentous than completing the Human Genome Project back in 2001 and presumably anything else we might discover in the next 88 years.

Needless to say the breaking news did not interrupt my Fourth of July holiday none whatsoever. If you’re not a physicist and you live in a society that cares more about material results (you know stuff you can see, eat, touch, gossip about kind of stuff), this momentous event about discovering something no one can see (not even with powerful microscopes), unsurprisingly leaves the rest of us nonphysicists asking, “So what?” 

It wasn’t until returning to work (where caring about the news is a useful distraction) that I first heard about the momentous Higgs Boson discovery. Oh sure I heard of the project before and even the ramping up about a possible announcement that same week. It had something to do with a very expensive and enormous instrument, the Large Hadron Collider it’s called.

Photograph from Boston.com, by Maximilien Brice (c) CERN

The instrument accelerates two particles to extremely high speed (almost light speed), then allows the two particles traveling in opposite directions to experience a spectacular, albeit tiny, head-on collision. The high-energy collision is so spectacular it is likened to a mini Big Bang. This mini Big Bang is explosive enough to break apart the fabric of the universe including a particular invisible energy field, that we think exists, but otherwise have no proof of. Alas analyzing the aftermath of the explosion for evidence of this hypothetical energy field is the whole point.

It’s like living in the ocean and not being able to see water as a distinct entity. Instead, we theorize that we are surrounded by a field of water and in order to prove it we spend 15 years and ten billion dollars building an enormous facility and equipment for a special explosion that will allow us to glimpse at one separated water molecule for a fleeting moment in the ensuing fray. (I can see why the discovery was so important for those involved. If it wasn’t the biggest discovery of the 21^st century, it would have been the biggest losing bet of the 21^st century.)

Instead, by way of the analyzed data of numerous mini Big Bang explosions over the course of four years we gloriously glimpsed it—one separated unit (Higgs Boson) of the larger Higgs field we live in, but cannot see. It’s all a little too little perhaps for the average person to see what the big fuss is about. It takes the rest of us nonphysicists a while to glean meaning from such work and this blog over two months after-the-fact is my own attempt.

Physicist Peter Higgs. Photograph by Murdo Macleod

The hypothesis, as proposed by Peter Higgs some 50 years ago, is that a field of energy, the Higgs field, pervades the universe everywhere with uniform strength (unlike gravity fields that are weaker with increasing distance from its source). The existence and proof of such a universe permeating field does seem remarkable and up until this July 4th we could say it’s possible that no such remarkable field exists.

This field is physicists’ best guess for explaining how particles like protons and neutrons obtain the property of mass. Mass apparently is not an intrinsic value. This point alone is worth noting. Without mass, particles and anything made of particles, including you, would behave more like light photons, which have zero mass and travel at light speed. Fantastic image.

But of course we all know we don’t move at light speed and we even have the propensity to be essentially motionless on a couch, for example in front of a television hours at a time. Mass is the only reason we can move at slower speeds (and alternatively the reason we cannot move at light speed). It is in short the reason we have this physical world we live in. If mass is not intrinsic, we know there must be a mechanism for it; the question was what mechanism and the best guess (now more of a certainty) is the Higgs Field.

The Higgs field interacts with particles in a way that gives them the property of mass, slowing their velocity. Light photons, on the other hand, do not interact with this field and therefore have no mass. If you remember the periodic table, hydrogen, at the top left corner is the lightest atom with an atomic mass of one. So hydrogen interacts with the Higgs field, but very minimally compared to other atoms like the more massive oxygen atom further down the table. Of course whether we discovered the Higgs boson or not, the periodic table remains the same and life goes on. And maybe that’s why we are mostly left with saying “So what.”

Personally for me, the discovery of the Higgs Boson and therefore the implied existence of the Higgs field means there exists an invisible medium enveloping everything from the smallest of particles to the largest conglomerates, imparting mass to these objects via a profound and continuous interaction between the seen and the unseen. It means that the existence of other such profound, difficult to detect, fields is more likely than before. For example, if not the Higgs field, then it is possible some other field (call it the Intention field) permeates everywhere in the universe and is responsible for supernatural phenomena like a pyschics’ ability to read people’s intentions.

Omnipresent, uniform, profound, fields of energy? This is the stuff of God-like proportions. Maybe the Higgs boson reference as the God particle is fitting after all and supports the belief that science and spirituality converge. From where I sit the discovery is as large a discovery as the light bending proof of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It makes the idea of another important all seeing, all knowing, all loving energy field a bit more real than before. Regardless, the declaration of the Higgs boson is, to generalize and to give literal weight to otherwise similar ‘fluffy’ statements, a declaration that unlike Independence Day, by way of a mysterious unseen field of energy permeating everywhere in the universe, we are all in fact connected.

Three years ago I discovered the secret to life. I was elated and on a high. Nothing could bother me. I felt free and as light as Dandelion seeds completely absent any resistance and taking flight easily whichever way the wind blew. Things that used to infuriate me just didn’t anymore. It simply wasn’t worth my energy to feel rotten and miserable. The secret I learned is that our energy is a precious commodity, even more precious than gems and diamonds.

The euphoria came because it wasn’t just a theory. It was knowledge infused into the very cells of my body. I was a superhero who went out into the world unable to spend my precious energy in any way that was wasteful. I could be sitting in dead stop traffic on a hot day and I was literally thinking, “Oh well, what’s on the radio?” When I found a song I liked, I sang gaily in my own little content, Buddha-on-the-mountain-top, nothing-can-bother me world. Complete strangers could be rude to me and I could react without a sliver of defense, offering a compassionate smile even, and forgiving them for not knowing the secret. With my smile I wished and hoped for them, they would one day come upon it just as I did. In the meantime I could still love them. I could love everybody, even my enemies.

I’m not exactly sure how long the euphoria and perfect execution of this secret lasted. I just know today, some three years later, it’s not so easy anymore. I’m no superhero with special powers. I am normal. Even with the secret to life, three years of traffic is enough to wear anyone down with a job and chores to do and people to take care of and deal with. I find myself reacting quickly these days and cursing as I wonder out loud why the other driver is going so damn slow.

And I’ll tell you what’s harder about the day after enlightenment than before. Now, I have no excuses. Now, I know better. Now I get it. I get why people say that knowledge is power. When you know better, it forces you to do better, even if it requires more effort and you feel tired.

Three years later, people say rude things to me and it’s definitely not automatic that I react with compassion and enlightenment. I’m just another person with all the same issues, only now I know better. What’s automatic to me is to sarcastically put rude people in their place by being smarter than them. But as soon as I rely on my old defense something slaps the back of my hand and says “Tsk, tsk, tsk. This is not a good use of your intellect.” And I have to breathe deeply and give myself a mini time-out. Imagine that. Internalized knowledge forces me to self-inflict time-outs as many times a day as necessary.

Growing up my mother expected me to be the better person because I knew better than my twin brother. I knew better than to engage in childish spats over attention or achievement. I distinctly remember replying to her that it wasn’t fair to expect me to do better just because I could. I’m just a kid I told her.

Well I am definitely not a kid anymore. That excuse just doesn’t cut it. The day after enlightenment is not a ticket to bliss. It is an everyday effort, sometimes struggle to do better because now with every cell of my being I know better. So I trade laughs with a like-minded co-worker.

Along with our day job we share stories of the real work in our lives. We talk about the things that irritate us like dishes in the sink, step-children who we don’t quite know how to discipline, partners who take us for granted, co-workers who insist we owe them more of our time. We ask ourselves and a higher power to please help us find more patience. And we laugh with compassion when we utterly fail at being kind or understanding as we try to discern the path to ever more patience. It’s very humbling and not so euphoric, but here it is today’s concentrated effort to be better, simply because I know better. I find if I take a time-out as the day begins to remember the secret to life, I find a glimmer of the superhero I was on the day I discovered it.

But I did get a close-up look of Niihau once and even spent the night there just offshore on a fishing expedition with my father. All I saw was the uninhabited side and it really wasn’t all that memorable. At night there is even less to see (obviously since it’s dark and I already mentioned we were on the uninhabited side). But the one remarkable thing about complete uninhabited darkness is the sky. There are infinitely more stars in the night sky than you will ever realize living in a Metropolitan area. And as we lay down staring at this remarkable night sky (because there really was nothing else to look at) my dad told me stories of an earlier trip where he and his friends hopped ashore.

They merrily drank cans of beer at the edge of the Forbidden Island, as it is otherwise known, until they were greeted by a great Paniolo (that’s a Hawaiian cowboy for the uninitiated). Per his story, this great Paniolo, riding around on horseback of course, was a muscular giant who used no words. He didn’t have to. Crushing one of their beer cans with his bare hand was all the exchange they needed to promptly get going, not that my Dad and his friend understood Hawaiian anyway (Niihau is the last place on Earth where Hawaiian is the primary language).

As for the other main islands, I’ve been to them all. I grew up on Kauai and now live on Oahu. I’ve visit friends and family frequently on Maui and the Big Island too. I even visited Molokai once (on another fishing expedition with my family). Molokai is an island perhaps best known for its use by the Kingdom of Hawaii circa 1860 as a quarantine area for people suffering from Hansen’s disease. And, probably the only reason Molokai is even known for that (since banning residents to small islands isn’t exactly a shinning example of humanity) is because of Father Damien, the one shining example of humanity in that whole Molokai ‘leper colony’ business.

Unfortunately, Hawaii cannot claim Father Damien as its own. In all of Hawaii at the time he was the only one who volunteered to care for Hawaii’s Hansen’s disease sufferers and he traveled all the way from Belgium to do it. Belgium, by the way, is farther away from Hawaii than all of the United States and Canada as well as Asia. After 16 years Father Damien himself died of the disease. Now that is remarkable.

Back to the inspiration for this post. According to the media, Lanai recently exchanged property owners and the proud new owner is Mr. Larry Ellison who actually owns 98% of the island rather than the entire island. Like I said, I’ve never set foot on Lanai. The closest I’ve gotten to Lanai is looking at its hazy outline from the island of Maui. There are public roads there, but no public transportation. I don’t expect Larry Ellison’s purchase will change public accessibility very much.

There was a conversation, naturally, that went around the office the day the news broke and it went like this:

“So Larry Ellison just bought Lanai.”

“Right. Who’s Larry Ellison?”

“I don’t know. Some guy from California, the CEO of Oracle or something.”

Even though the people having this conversation presumably know little of what Oracle is (other than that it is a big, important software company), we continue with the conversation because it doesn’t really matter how Larry Ellison obtained enough money to buy one of the Hawaiian Islands so much as the notion that somebody could and would spend hundreds of millions of dollars doing so.

Someone poses the question, “Can you imagine buying an island when there is a guy struggling just to buy a 600 square foot studio?”

A 600 square foot studio in Waikiki, by the way, runs for around $350,000 and that doesn’t include the land underneath. Larry Ellison by contrast just purchased ~137 acres or so of pristine Hawaii real estate.

“Well Larry Ellison isn’t like most of us,” I quickly say, not really knowing how much Larry Ellison isn’t like most of us. According to Forbes (because I Googled it later), he is third richest in the U.S., behind Bill Gates first and Warren Buffet second.

I further add, “If that struggling guy wants to buy an island, the same American dream is available to him.”

I guess I just didn’t care to play along with the poor-rest-of-the-population-who-can’t-afford-to-buy-islands-let-alone-a-600-sq-ft-studio game. I don’t hold it against Larry Ellison just because he has riches beyond what I at this moment could only dream of obtaining. Ever optimistic, I hold on to the ideal that if I really wanted that much money I could get it. So I don’t have as much money as Larry Ellison does because I choose not to. I am a real piece of work I tell you.

Anyway, we go on to discuss the details of owning an island as if we were Larry Ellison, but we do it and completely fail to grasp the concept of having that much money.

“I wouldn’t buy an island,” someone else says then asks, “Why would you buy an island when people already live there?” Lanai currently has about 3000 residents. “There’s water utilities and roads to worry about.”

Enough said. Why would Larry Ellison worry about infrastructure. First of all, only civil engineers worry about such things. (Did I mention my day job is in civil engineering?) The man has enough money to buy Lanai to the tune of 500 million dollars for goodness sakes. If infrastructure is a problem, he would hire a team of civil engineers to worry about it and his team would probably come from California, rightly so.

Still I can’t say that even if I had all that money, plus maintenance too, that I would buy Lanai. Instead, I would start a visionary project for the people where I live and aspire to be a grand philanthropist like the first two ranked billionaires on the richest Americans list. I wouldn’t blankly give it away though as another of my co-workers suggested Mr. Ellison do with his blatant extra millions.

I would spend it in the same visionary way that helped me obtain all that money in the first place. For Hawaii, that means I would build energy self-sufficient homes, restaurants, whole buildings and resorts even, because energy is a bit problematic in Hawaii (and well California too). We still largely depend on foreign oil here in Hawaii when don’t need to. We have abundant resources in wind and sun that could be cultivated with enough money, like say 500 million dollars. If I could reduce the cost of living and do it responsibly in a novel way, I’d spend the extra millions without reservation.

But I’m not Mr. Ellison and I don’t have 500 million extra dollars to spend as I like (not that I couldn’t one day if I wanted to, right?). Yesterday’s Star Advertiser headlines included this one, Residents in the dark about sale of Lanai. Apparently, Mr. Ellison has forgotten his manners and not properly introduced himself to his new tenants.

So I offer to shed some light for these residents who are hoping for change that will stimulate the community and job growth. Mr. Ellison has a penchant for expensive toys. According to a Forbes article, Is Larry Ellison’s $500 Million Hawaiian Island The World’s Most Expensive? Mr. Ellison spends his money on things like luxury yachts (his comes complete with a basketball court and wine cellar), yacht racing teams (he spent $100 million and successfully won America’s Cup), cars, jets and now an island possibly more expensive than any other recently purchased island. Incidentally, Mr. Ellison also has 4 ex-wives.

I’m not judging the man. He absolutely deserves everything he has (and doesn’t want to have). I’m just not sure what he’s looking for, but I am pretty certain it’s not what he can do for Lanai. So unlike Niihau whose owners are related to the original transaction with the Kingdom of Hawaii and whose owners somehow manage to preserve a piece of Hawaiian culture from that era intact, Lanai is likely to be a luxury vacation spot complete with all the frills that a lot of money can buy, but it won’t be for tourists. It will be for its owner and whoever he wants to share that with. I just don’t see Mr. Ellison buying into this venture as some sort of responsibility to a bunch of people he doesn’t even know. Sorry. If I were wrong on this I think he would have at least said “hello” or something by now (1 week post purchase) to the 3000 or so residents of Lanai.

What would you do with $600 million dollars if you had billions more to spare? Buy luxury toys or give back to the people somehow? There really are no wrong answers. It’s just a matter of what makes you tick.

Well my ego just refuses to let that one go. Today, my ego can concede to staying calm despite another driver cutting it off. And sure my ego is much better at forgoing being right in the name of peace. But relegated to useless, destructive, mind-chatter? Now that is going way too far even if awareness of something else gives everyone the blissful peace they yearn for and rightfully deserve. 

Yes, the ego goes haywire on occasion (or often, if we let it) and rather than respecting our boundaries and our differences, the ego in the haywire scenario tends to place uncalled for emphasis on said boundaries and differences. So alright, the ego is something we have to learn to live with (like an ice-cream eating habit), but ignore it and demean it?  What an illogical, erroneous idea! Sorry, there goes that quick-to-judge ego of mine.  

That we can talk about our ego separate from some other part of ourselves is true progress today. There is our task-oriented ego and there is our nothing-matters-but-right-now soul. Yah, technology and iPhones are great (really great), but our evolved awareness of ego today is truly the crowning of humanity. What does this crowning mean for us, exactly?

What does it mean to have both a wise soul and a useful, albeit somewhat unruly, ego. As it turns out, the meaning of our dual lives is literally in our own heads.

Our brain reflects the fact that we are an entity made of two distinct parts with opposing personalities because it is an entity made of two distinct parts with opposing personalities. The left-hemisphere processes life according to ego and analyzes numbers, learns languages, and applies logic, while the right-hemisphere perceives the world as our soul and specializes in creativity, intuition, and big-picture concepts.

The main lesson our brain offers us is its design and function. Here it is, the profound lesson for the week: the opposite parts work together. Linked by a superhighway of communication (the corpus callosum), the left and the right–the ego and the soul, work seamlessly together to perform even the smallest of tasks, like reading this post. They do it so efficiently that we take it for granted the parts are not only separate, but opposite too.

And that’s because opposing characters are typically associated with heroes and villains–Batman and the Joker, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. But in the brain the opposing parts aren’t used for battle. The opposition is for maximum range; the farther the two ends, the wider the rainbow in between.

This is all well and good; so long as the opposites play as a team, we’d have a rainbow of a life. But in a world that places emphasis on the results that our ego produces it’s easy to see where we go wrong everyday and where our rainbow loses its colors. It’s also easy to see how our natural reaction to an over-emphasis on ego is to swing excessively back the other way, like a driver who over-corrects after crossing the center lines. But in the end, center is where we want to be and the ego is as necessary to maintaining that center as is our soul.

If we can follow the model of our brain, we can use our dual personalities to obtain the best of both worlds and live a rainbow of a life. Sure the right-hemisphere allows us to interpret the world as “one and all is well”, but the left-hemisphere makes sure we don’t forget that we are individuals and that we need to get up (off our yoga mats) and carve out an individual niche for ourselves in this wonderful world. And okay our left-hemisphere–our ego, produces results, but where would we be if those results did not relate to everyone else in the larger, ‘we-are-all-connected’ scheme of things?

In one of the most viewed TED talks, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, shares an inspiring story about her very unique experience with the two sides of herself. She personally attests to where we would be if we had no ego. She literally lost hers one day after experiencing a severe hemorrhage in the ego-processing center of her left-hemisphere. And although it hurt, she says losing her sense of ego allowed her other side—her soul to completely dominate and it was absolute bliss, a total trip to Nirvana.

But as peaceful and joyful as Nirvana is, Jill Bolte Taylor would have surely perished that day if it wasn’t for her ego, who managed a plan to dial for help, and who saved her life when her soul was blissfully willing to let it all go. Ultimately both the ego and the soul together make up this complex entity we call a human being, and maybe nobody alive knows that better than Jill Bolte Taylor. But if you can take her story to heart, the ego plays an important role in our life. So when you feel the need to restore balance for yourself amidst our result-driven society, don’t take the easy way out and let your ego take the rap. Literally give your ego a rest for a bit; let your soul travel to Nirvana for a moment (or two) and go revel in the smell of a flower or something.

Related articles

• Three Entities Within? (responsiveuniverse.wordpress.com)
• Taking charge of how we experience life (mindfulbalance.org)

Either I am a grand puzzle master or just cuckoo. In hopes of the former, I step back today, to take stock of what I have so far. And in the spirit of blogging, I document that process here for sharing and for camaraderie to enforce that I am that grand puzzle master—someone who makes and solves puzzles at the same time rather than some crazy person! I’m crossing my fingers on that one.

Upon committing to blog, I delightfully find a whole community of WordPress bloggers connecting with each other in an art that seemed lost. Here in the blogosphere I can peer into the innermost thoughts of others and glimpse at what it is people care about most. Personally, I like it better than Facebook where I tend to view the results, the images of people having a good time, busy doing this and that, and smiling the whole way. Somewhere in there I miss the conversation and laughing at ourselves for how we aren’t perfect. Life isn’t picture-perfect; it’s journey-perfect and sharing that journey is what interests me most.

Here in the blogosphere, I have met Suzan of Life with Instructions who knows we have control over our lives and that together we can learn the how of it (even if we might stumble a bit along the way).

And just the other day I met the synthesist of Synthesist Chronicles, who like me, is fascinated with connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated fields of study in order to explore new territory. Pondering the questions of the hearts of people, spurred on by a slight dissatisfaction with current affairs, suits me very much.

As for my own blog and journey, I set out to journal about the subjects I find most fascinating, hoping to discover something new, preferably profound—the Holy Grail or the answers to the questions of life or simply to find love and laughter.

Who are we? Why are we here? I need the answers to be more than the mundane chores of life. As I do laundry or scrub the bathtub I need the answer to be more than the things we have to do. As I sit at my desk-job every day, I need the answer to be more than a decent way to earn a living. I need the answer to be that we are not here for comfortable complacency; we are here to delve into that slightly uncomfortable place of creativity. As I struggle to choose peace over being right, I need the answer to be that we are here to learn how to choose.

So far, amid the chores and heart-break of life, I think I have found the Holy Grail the primary answer to the questions of life. It turns out to be a matter of the heart and something we all need–love and laughter. Fortunately we don’t have to search high and low for love and laughter. These are choices we make with our very own hearts. The choices to love and to laugh are the only ones I’ve found to be worthwhile.

That’s easy enough to say. But when I look back (and even going forward), I’ve lost my way many a time, comparing my achievements with those of others or hating people for not being the way I expect them to be. In the last five years, I’ve dealt with a broken marriage engagement and the loss of my dearest mother. Both events called for some serious soul-searching…and ice-cream…and laughing through tears with the best girl-friends a girl can have (thank you, you know who you are).

In my searching, the subjects I studied and continue to study are: near-death experiences, metaphysics, the genius of creativity, the paranormal, quantum mechanics, religion. Yes, at the tender age of thirty I had something of an existential crisis. Traveling through that crisis I emerged calmer, less angry, and dare I venture to say wiser too. From my studies, I am convinced that science and religion converge and I am curious about how.

If we can live through life’s turmoil and still be able to hold-up the Holy Grail of love and laughter and say cheers to it all, we will have it—the twinkle in our eye that knows what life is about. That life is about the journey and learning how to choose. In all of our moments we choose between the dark side or the light. And if we are still smiling at the end of the day, and at the end of our lives, we know we have chosen mostly wisely.

These choices have direct physical impacts on our reality, affecting even the smallest of energy. As Einstein famously remarked, reality is merely an

Image uploaded from lydiakang.blogspot.com

illusion. And there is evidence to the idea that we play an important role in deciding what that illusion is. We choose whether we see the cup half-full or half-empty. Also, from the well-known double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics, how we choose to see an electron affects our real perception of it. It’s possible that our choice collapses the many simultaneous options available to us before decision into a definitive, measurable reality precisely at the moment of decision. And if that’s true, how we reconcile religion is how we reconcile our realities. If you are optimistic and choose to see the world through the lens of light and love, the electron’s, the matrix, reality itself, moves accordingly, and you see the glass half-full.

Of course I haven’t completed the puzzle yet and just as a reminder to revel in the journey, I’ll leave it at that—a work in progress for now. Cheers.