I am doing exactly what I would be doing... because time doesn't matter. Our souls re-clothe themselves in other skins and wrestle/dance with the angel Karma. Do we have to keep the same body in order to me "immortal"?

True communication is when offer to help, provide for, or be there for someone else and follow through,

First, I'd have to change out of my uniform... after that, I would have to throw my energy into a viable third (Green) party whose platform would include anti-war legislation. I would have to create art that would deflate the mythology of war... war is propogated by heroism and the belief that war is just and necessary. We have a long war to go before this is disproven. Trust me, I will do my part.

Breathing... I was born and lived through my teens sickly and asthmatic. I received a book detailing the outer order ceremonial work of the Golden Dawn, and Israel Regardie was kind enough to outline a series of breathing exercises. I learned the I always breathed without my diaphragm, as a reflex to avoid inhaling the cigarette smoke that I grew up around. Breath, because of its relationship to circulation and the solar plexus (our emotional throne), is responsible for so much of our well being. The more open your breathing, the more mindful of the way you change your breath patterns based on situation, and the more you can develop deep cleansing techniques that keep you centered, the more open you are to yourself and others.

Pride, tribe, lanuage and fear.

I want to be remembered for breaking the chain of dysfunction that has bound my family to the rock of ignorance.

I am growing in the sod laid by my religious studies professor 12 years ago. The final assignment for the class was a Zen riddle:

"An elderly gentlemen, a successful farmer in his village, is celebrating his birthday in his usual busy manner. He is too busy for a party, and is so successful that he doesn't feel the need for pomp or gifts. The villagers gather together and lay a gift on his doorstep: a baby goose in a glass bottle. The villagers thought that the gentleman farmer would take the goose from the bottle once he found it and appreciate the beauty of the presentation. Instead, although grateful for the gift, he was much too busy to care for the goose and left it ine bottle until one day he discovered that the goose had gotten so large that its beak filled the bottle neck and poked out from the tip. The riddle is: without harming the goose or the bottle, how do you remove the goose from the bottle?"

I fought hard with the riddle and in the fight i discovered that I was stricken with the illness known as the Philosopher's Disease. I thought of oil, a diamond cutter, and many other possibilities for extricating the poor gose. Each time, my professor shook his head and told me that if we were in Japan, he would beat me soundly with a stick.

I ended up solving the riddle. I won't publish the solution. I discovered that I was the riddle, and the more I thought upon it the more I became the gentlemen, the villagers, the goose, and the bottle. I had an ego investment not only in the solution, but in the question.

The lesson that my professor taught me follows me like a fool's knapsack. So when I think about my growth, I have to remind myself that no matter how I flower, I remain a seed in a field surrounded by other seeds in various stages of sprout, bloom, and wither.

Take care.

I wake up at 4:30 AM, have a cup or two of green tea, and go to the gym. When I get home, my child will still be asleep and I will make love to my wife. Once my daughter wakes up, I will cook breakfast: omelettes and english muffins. We will then pack up and spend some time at the beach. I will teach my daughter to make a sand castle with a plastic cup. I will then teach her to knock it down.

Afterwards, we'll take a trip to the library, and they'll finally have the collected works of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Henri Bergson for checkout.

The rest of the day would be spent at home with playtime, naptime, and dinner time leading us into a new moon evening with a clear view of the stars.

I have at least two a day, one with my wife, and another with my child.

Yes, I do believe in destiny, that thread of fate and predictability that ties the universe together like an etheric shoelace. Humanity is still largely at the mercy of unconscious processes, and now we deal with the twin function of a patriarchal control system (civilization). Between those two massive pressures, there is very little room for free will.

I am not saying that free will doesn't exist, but that there is a lot less of it than most people believe. I might even go so far as to see that acts of free will are what we would instead call "grace."

When I have performed divination through Tarot , Astrology, or the I Ching for myself and others, I can see those forces of destiny operate through the individual. Almost all of us are compelled through life by impulses and cravings that have no foundation in conscious reasoning. Individuation is the slow and steady application of free will into life. I know this all doesn't sound terribly romantic, but once you can see how little control you have over your life you can begin the long road to freedom.

Disclaimer: Don't begin that road by signing your soul away to a cult or New Age Technique of the moment. "Be a lamp unto yourself."