CHAPTER INTERLUDE VI
Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log, Clara Describes Her Earlier Timulting Experiences
April 1, 2013
Being able to see parts of the seeming future ALT [According to Linear Time] begins for me at an early age and continues, more often during high fevers. My clearest and earliest memory of this skill is from an experience at the age of 9 ½. On yet another sunny day in Kirov, let's go to wintry Bayonne. I need the change.
It is mid-December in Bayonne, MO, 1963, which has a much colder winter climate at that time than now. My older brother, Tommy (becomes Dr. Thomas Ackerman, M.D.), and I develop fairly severe cases of pneumonia and are bedridden at home, sharing a sick room to keep us away from our younger sister, Cassie (almost 4).
The previous summer, Tommy and I attend a wonderful summer camp for the first time, Camp Cedar, on the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. The annual camp reunion is scheduled for later in December, during school vacation. I can’t speak for Tommy, but I am missing camp terribly. Since home life is quite fractious to the point of abusive, the harmony and pleasures of camp beckon daily. I am aching and impatient to recapture the feeling of being at camp and to see my camp friends and favorite counselors at the reunion.
The reunion is about a week away but we are both still very sick; I can’t take a breath without starting a coughing fit and I have a fairly high fever most of every day. During the claustrophic confinement, I keep trying to picture the reunion, imagine who might come and how fun it will be. But, when I try to envision it, all I keep coming up with besides snow flurries for the reunion day is a white, blank space. I think about the reunion and anticipate being with my favorite people, but I can’t “see” anything else about that day.
As the day approaches, my mom keeps checking on us and shaking her head when I ask about going to the reunion. Finally, the day before, she tells us that we are still too sick and cannot go. I am devastated, sobbing and angry. But, I do feel very sick, and, I know she is right. Every time I try to "see" the reunion, I still get that white, blank space.
One of the reasons that I know my mom must be right is that the white, blank space I keep getting, instead of “preview” pictures, for the upcoming event, means I will not be there. Somehow, my lack of reunion images comforts me, preparing me for the disappointment.
I don't say anything to anyone about my pictures or lack thereof. Tommy, age 10½, is very angry, protesting and coughing as he argues with our mom. I save my breath.
The day arrives. Flurries come and go. We don't go anywhere.
From that experience and others after it, I grow to understand that when I want to determine the status of an upcoming event, I get one of three types of experiences:
1) white, blank space means “yes,” the event occurs, but I am not there;
2) clear pictures, “previews,” with me and others I know in the pictures, mean it is happening and I am there;
3) black, blank space means the event is going to be changed, e.g., canceled, not able to occur, postponed, etc. : no one is there at the appointed time or place. It's not there.
I later become able to refine this ability further. I become able to determine if certain people will be at an event or not, or if spaces “open up” in a seemingly full roster, to allow wait-listed people to be moved up, to be admitted.
When I am doing pre-registration or planning attendance for an event, I use written lists. The names of people who are scheduled to and are attending, wherever their current placement on the lists might be, “light up.” The names of those who are canceling or unable to attend go dim or even disappear. This skill is very handy when I am managing registration or deciding whether to purchase a nonrefundable ticket for myself or others. These abilities are in the realm of “clairvoyance” or “precognition.”
Another, related skill I develop is to “see” if I will be somewhere by looking at photos of property, buildings, interiors or exteriors. The operating method, here, is more difficult to explain. I just know if I’ll “be there,” a lot or ever, just from sensing how I feel when I hold or look at the photos. Psychometry and psychoscopy include these abilities.
Even more reliable becomes another psychometric ability. I am able to know if I’ll live somewhere, take a particular job or frequent a certain place often. This operates by my having an opportunity to be at that place in person. Then, by standing or sitting somewhere I would have to be many times in the future if I do eventually live, work or hang out there often, I tune in to an inner sense. If the place feels “familiar,” I know it is a place I’ll be coming to a lot; if nothing “pings,” nothing feels “familiar,” I know this is not the place.
My favorite place to check is a bathroom because I know if I am going to spend any significant amount of time in a building, I definitely sense the bathroom as “familiar.” I am a frequent bathroom user, especially before the age of 53 (when I finally have a hysterectomy), due to horribly heavy menstrual periods and frequent urination. If the bathroom feels strange, dead, silent or otherwise un-energized, I know I am not there often, or at all, after my first day. If there's a mirror above the sink or on the wall, I look into it and see other versions of me if I am going to be there a lot over time.
Sometimes I can just stand or sit somewhere and “know.” If I am “scheduled” to be there often in the future, I am bombarded with images of myself and others coming and going across or near that spot, actions I take in or near that spot. Feelings of movement, activity and importance flood through me. If it is not “hot,” I know that this area, or possibly this entire building, are not important to me in the future.
A few times, I seem to be wrong in my assessment. This usually happens when the place I am taken to, say, for a job interview, turns out not to be the place I’ll actually be spending a lot of time in because the office I do end up working in is actually elsewhere. Or, if the building itself is not the most-used building, the bathroom I use at the interview is not the one I frequent often. I learn to ask, “Is this where the person who takes this job works?” and use that answer to determine the validity of my assessment.
I can also usually tell if someone I am just meeting is going to become important to me by shaking their hand or touching them elsewhere (appropriately, of course). If we are to be connected in important ways, pictures of our future encounters flash in my mind and/or I feel that deeply familiar feeling when we touch. It doesn’t always feel “positive,” but it resonates strongly. If this person and I do not have a strong connection to be made in the future, the physical contact might feel still, silent, neutral, unfamiliar, slightly pleasant or insignificant. It might not mean I never see them again; only that we aren’t destined to be very important to one another: not a lot of karma.
I don’t usually recommend or make decisions, myself, based on this precognitive intuition. What usually occurs is that the decision is not up to me: I am not offered the job, the rental falls through, the group that owns the property won’t be a group I continue to be involved with, the business ends its lease and moves prior to my coming on board, the group splinters apart. Knowing in advance of my lack of “connection” helps me not feel too disappointed, hurt or surprised when things turn out the way they do.
STORIES:
FRIEND: Once I go apartment-hunting for my friend, Franco. As we tour a possible place for him, I ask to use the bathroom. As I am sitting there, I "see" his multicolored robe hanging on the hook behind the door. I emerge and tell him to take it. He is already leaning in that direction so he doesn't disagree. Several years later when I'm visiting him there, I go to use the bathroom and that same multicolored robe is hanging right on that hook. He purchases that robe in the prior month.
BOSS or LOVER: The first time I shake hands with this man who is about to become my new boss, I “see” images of us rolling around, naked, in bed, obviously having sex. At the time, I know nothing about him, having just met him. I have no intention or desire
to have sex with him. It is most disconcerting. As we work together over time, we become quite close emotionally. He is a very touchy-feely guy, though, and I have to tell him on more than one occasion that I do not like to be touched (not true, but it gets him to refrain). During our first year together, he begins to separate from and in our second year break up with his live-in partner of ten years. I have developed strong feelings for him by then and, combining those feelings with my initial “previews,” I begin to imagine we might be together. Soon, though, I know him much better and do not want to be with him. The sexual tension and emotional intimacy between us become untenable but he refuses to acknowledge the nature of the problem. We are enmeshed; people begin to call me his "work wife" and talk about us as a couple that "needs to do it" or get some therapy. Since we don't do either, I have to leave this job, even though I really like it and am quite good at it.
FRIEND or LOVER: My somewhat new friend (at the time), Epifanio Dang, is at a gathering with me. He picks and then hands me a flower. As our hands touch, I “see” a series of images that come so quickly I have to replay them, later, in slow-motion, to review what they contain. Three of the four images show circumstances and events that turn out to become part of our immediate future (although I do not know that at the time, obviously). In these, we are involved in similar gatherings, as friends. But, in the fourth, we are lying together, in bed, clearly on our way to sleep, spooning after making love. It is due to this image and during the continuing of our friendship during which I “see” many more intimate, future images, that I begin to develop deeper, passionate feelings for Fanio and want to be with him. I wish these images to be forecasting our future…. So far, not.
However, many times, the images I am “seeing” do turn out to occur. I rely on these skills more and more as an adult, but tell very few people about them. I just seem, to most people, to be someone who “guesses” well or who is “lucky.” I take chances that turn out okay. As I get older, I become less protective of my “secrets” and more willing to share my abilities and assessments with certain friends or co-workers, particularly if they ask my opinion as they are about to decide whether or not to do something.
Until this book comes out, I do not give most people any idea about the sources of my knowledge or guidance for decisions. Unless it’s very important or could have adverse affects if I do not help others, I keep my “previews” to myself.
However, in one instance, I’m glad I reveal my insights.
In the summer of 2000, I am living in southern New Mexico as a member of my Buddhist sangha [the community of teachers and students, meditators/ practitioners, Sanskrit]. Most of us are very poor, having a hard time finding employment in and around the small city nearest the rural ranch the sangha members have purchased because the region’s economic base is quite small and depressed. Many of us arrive already in debt, having credit cards and/or student loans to repay.
One of the sangha members, Heather, hears about cash-accumulation schemes entitled (this time around) “The Dinner Party” and “Women Helping Women.” She gets very excited about these opportunities to acquire “free” money, fast, because some of her friends are getting a lot of money (receiving, for their $2000 or $5000 investment, at least $20,000).
On this monsoon-season rainy day, we're stuck inside. Flash floods are happening all over and our little road and driveway are creeks. Heather and other friends are taking advantage of this captive audience to try to get some of us to invest.
"C'mon, Clara! It'll be fun! We get to meet some great women and get a lot of cash, too!" They seem giddy with the gilded images.
"Purely on the foundations of logic and law, pyramid schemes are bad ideas," I tell them.
"Oh, please!" Heather says, laughing. "People do this all the time! My friend in California already got $10,000 for her investment, and so did three of her friends. They are due to get three times that! We're missing out!"
"What about other pyramid schemes, like 'Airplane'? That swept through the New Age communities in the 1980s. Some people cashed out, but most lost their investments and their pride. It just doesn't work, mathematically. Everyone cannot get paid out. Since you know that, going in, it's unethical to do it at all."
They say nothing. I play my trump card: "It's against our Refuge vows, not to harm!"
"I really need this," Heather pleads, getting teary at my accusations. "You can't understand how much I need this!"
"Clara, you're such a worrier. Just do it. It's not that much money to put in, and you could get rich!" another promises.
Their foolhardiness is going to get them into trouble. I can feel it.
"All right. What are the names of these leaders we are supposed to contact?"
When they tell me, I clear my mind and tune in. I picture myself calling one of them on the phone.
Right away, I “see” a photo in a newspaper of what I realize are those named and a few other women who are majorly involved. The photo is of their arrests. They are being led away in handcuffs.
"Listen," I say, "You cannot go forward with this. Those women and many others involved are going to be arrested. You could go to jail! Please take this seriously. I refuse to invest."
Because they know I am in deep debt, my refusal is what impresses them the most. Luckily for them, my revelations and consistent refusals to participate stop them.
The photo I “see” and describe to them is published more than two years later than the day I tell them about it.
When the story breaks, in 2002, Heather sees the photo. She calls me to thank me for having stopped her and others from investing in 2000. I appreciate the call since I do not subscribe to that paper and do not hear about these arrests on the news, even though I am living in northern California by then.
I try to obtain permission to print the photo from my "preview," but capitalism prevails. I refuse to pay the ridiculous price they assigned for the "license" to use it. So, look it up, if you want: Sacramento Bee, Jay Mather, photographer, from October 3 or 4, 2002.
I’m not trying to convince anyone of my special powers or abilities. These are well-documented at this point. This is meant to explain some of the other traits or experiences I have which contribute to my being suitable to be liaison to the MWC.
Having these unusual experiences for most of my life probably means I am less freaked out by having aliens' holos in my home and their knowing who I am.
I also want to give some “street cred” to my capacity to anticipate or “see” some things about the “future” so that writing this first draft in advance of the coming events does not seem quite so implausible. I do not have “previews” of most moments (there are gazillions of them, right?), but the ones I do have often turn out to occur.
Funny, though: I do not have any specific “previews,” before February, 2012, of the MWC, The Band or my time with them, even though MFH and I are together for most of my Chief Communicator term in several timelines. I timult Fanio and me, all over the 'lines, but no aliens. Interesting.