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The Spanners Series books include ten Volumes. This Changes Everything is the first of its ten volumes. Others add to the series besides me, via the recently-developed interactive novel- and book-sharing publication modality on the many worlds collective web (mwcw), Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and many other social networking sites.
This Volume has the first stories to be made public that tell of the original official contacts between the MWC and me, and then, other Spanners.
In all Volumes, I and others explain how MWC contacts, The Transition and the MWC individuals themselves as well as their formal interventions alter our experiences and all of us. My son, Zephyr; my nephew, OverSeer in covert and Special Operations (OSOps), Moran Ackerman, Chief of the Psi-Warriors; other nephews and nieces; my sisters and sister-in-law; my brother and my mother (see Appendix E for Family Tree); and, Esperanza Enlaces, my Media Contact, enjoy telling their stories. My lover/husband/not lover/not husband, Epifanio Dang, also contributes, because I ask him.
Espe says, "That's great. I have that, now. What about your POV? Can you go into that here?"
"Sure."
My point of view is rooted in Buddhism. I am already a practicing Buddhist of many years before the MWC formal contacts with me begin. I live most of my adult life out of the “mainstream” of USA majority thinking and lifestyles which I will explain further as it becomes relevant. You may already understand how my Buddhist practice and beliefs color my perceptions, thinking, and feelings about every experience, especially if you are paying attention to the other writings about the MWC, its philosophies and methods for living.
If you do not know the ways that being a Buddhist frames my life, shapes my views and inspires my heart, please read more about Buddhism as your interest may dictate. Or, glean what you are able from my rendition of this amazing and unique part of our shared history. Besides me, the MWC chooses many Buddhists to be among their contacts. There are excellent reasons for these choices that do include our Buddhist understandings.
"Perfect," Espe says. "Exactly what people want to know. Next, talk about how your being an 'outsider' frames your perceptions and how that status leads the MWC to choose you as their first overt and ongoing contact."
"That might be harder, but I'll try," I say.
It is often the case, as stories and “real” life converge with these truths, that those who, like me, are somewhat isolated, unusual, or off-beat, usually are also the ones who become the somewhat reluctant or accidental leaders. History and future occurrences repeatedly show us to be originators in many scientific, social and political movements.
In fact, I hear many times that, if you want this job, you’re wrong for it.
Well, I do not want to be the Chief Communicator; so, I must be right for it. I accept it, I get used to it (mostly), but many times each week I do not want it.
Espe says, "Thanks, Clara. I think it's important for people to know that last part, especially. What about your timulting skills? What can you say about those?"
"I can say a few things. Let me do that, now."
Because we all now know that quantum physicists, Buddhists and many others are correct in presuming the existence of the multiverse and workings of simultaneous time, there are, of course, infinite versions of this part of history. Also, many of us now know a lot about the past, present and future ourselves, even as we exist primarily in the present, via learning to or being around those who can timult.
But, in late 2012, very few of us who are aware of the multiverse experiences are viewed as credible. We mostly keep our beliefs to ourselves or call our ideas “theoretical” and “unproven.”
Case in point: well-regarded and famous physicist/author/TV personality, Brian Green. Except for ridiculed clairvoyants or semi-approved scientists in paranormal research institutes (e.g., Dean Radin, Institute of Noetic Sciences, near here in California), very few assign positive value to knowledge of the future and past gleaned because all time is simultaneous.
My knowledge, experiences and beliefs in the above may be another one of the reasons the MWC selects me to visit overtly. I get “previews” that prepare me.
"That is very helpful, Clara. Next, we want to go into your background, your status and living situation BPC, right before they come. Can you run that down here?"
"Here we go."
In December of 2012, I enter my seventh year of living alone, after having lived with at least one and sometimes up to nine other people (some children) for over thirty years prior to this.
I live in a somewhat rural area (next to a cemetery on one side, a vineyard on the other, and across from vineyards and apple orchards). There are three houses in addition to mine nearby: one is my landowners’, right behind mine; one is set further back, between our land and the cemetery’s; the other is set even further back, beyond my landowners’, and belongs to the vineyard. There is a middle school within shouting distance (I actually hear them shouting as they play sports), and a small business up the street that sells orchard-type food from its small farm and lunch business across from the cemetery. There is traffic but it is occasional rather than steady. Joggers, walkers, dog-walkers and cyclists pass by, but not most of the time.
I’m not alone, exactly, but it often seems as if I am. I usually stay home all day when I do not have an outside job, except to go out to swim; many days, I do not talk to anyone. When I do go out, I might pass the time without speaking to anyone I actually know or to anyone at all. Until I become the CC, I am somewhat invisible when out in public. I like it like this.
"Good," Espe says. "Now, contrast that with years before you're in California. People want to know about your earlier life, too."
"All right."
In earlier parts of this life, while raising Zephyr and working with Franco in New England, I am a somewhat public figure. Many thousands of people know and recognize me when they see me (from dozens of public performances, professional presentations, community friendships, hundreds of students from teaching dozens of classes, etc.). The houses I live in and share are the hubs of activities, parties, gatherings of many kinds for over twenty-five years.
"Okay. Now, more details about your life right before The Band comes."
"Sure."
Since 2002, in California, I am relieved to develop a much “smaller” and less public life. In comparison, I hardly know anyone and almost no one knows me.
I have mostly non-local friends and family I communicate with regularly, but not every day. Most people I know have no idea what I do all day while I’m not working.
Here is what I am doing: I am looking for work (I check job boards frequently, and apply to about 2 – 4 jobs per week, most weeks) and occasionally have interviews. I read physical books, the local newspapers and some online blogs or news. I play word games on the computer while I watch TV shows (I do not have cable TV) or movies online or while I check and respond to email. I check, respond to and update Facebook and LinkedIn. I meditate. I do household chores and errands for physical survival and necessity. Every other day, or about five or more times/week, I go swimming. I nap. I cook. I play piano. I sing. I listen to NPR. Then, I write.
"That's a great picture of you. I like the images it evokes. Thanks, Clara. What else can you say about your writing?"
"A lot."
I find out, in the first week of first contact, that some of the MWC members actually read my dissertation (among the dozen or fewer beings who have). Turns out, the term I coin to describe the concept, a label I give to the flexibility of social identities, especially gender and sexual orientation, pleases them greatly.
Most of their species change gender quite frequently, kind of along the lines of Ursula Le Guin’s characters in The Left Hand of Darkness [Copyright 1968], who go through “kemmer,” which is a kind of breeding-readiness or heat/estrus during which each partner selects his/her procreative physical gender depending upon m
any factors.
Yes, in case you’re wondering, Ursula is another Earther the MWC contact early on who isn’t permitted to disclose it. If you read her novels and essays, from about 1966 on, you see traces then obvious pieces of the MWC’s philosophy, information and history in almost every one. I love finding this out since she's one of my favorite writers.
The MWC also likes the way my research validates how important a sense of safety and interpersonal (interspecies, really) connections are to maintaining optimal mental health, which leads to higher flexibility in social identities. On many planets throughout the multiverse, species interact across species a lot more than on Earth, having learned to communicate among themselves and even to co-habit happily even better than Earthers do with our household pets.
Turns out, Douglas Adams, renowned author of the radio show which becomes a “trilogy” of five novels, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (copyright 1975 – 1992) is correct: dolphins are one of the MWC’s representative species. They actually want Douglas to be their first public contact (he, like Ursula, is a secret one for decades), but they wait too long and he is not available in his author’s body in 2012 (we mourn his untimely death in 2001, at 49). More about dolphins (and other cetaceans) later in this and other books in this series.
"That is great, Clara! I like hearing about those other authors and their MWC secret contact. So do our readers/viewers. What else do you want to give them about your background?"
"Social identity, I think, is next."
My "social identity scorecard" looks like this: I am raised Jewish (a minority in the USA during my upbringing); I am a practicing Buddhist (a minority almost everywhere around the globe); I spend most of my adult life partially disabled (car accident in my last year of high school leaves me with an impaired leg); I am female (an oppressed majority across the globe); I am an active bisexual (have primary relationships with both men and women, but not usually simultaneously); I am Caucasian (still a majority in the USA and a powerful ethnicity in the world in 2012); I am extremely well-educated; and, even when unemployed, I am primarily middle-class. Many of these identities help with my “credibility.”
Apparently, as I find out gradually, having a mixed minority/majority status is one of the great “levelers” for humans. What that means for Earthers is that those of us with that experience are much more likely to attain and maintain peace, acceptance (beyond tolerance) and understanding. Ursula Le Guin describes in the book I mention previously, in which EVERYONE can be and/or has been or is a “mother,” that the planet in her novel has eliminated war. How? Because mothers rarely give consent or stand quietly by as their offspring are sent to be killed in some random or rich-persons’ wars. When everyone has children, no one wants to send them to die.
Similarly, there can’t be a lot of discrimination, or even ANY, if everyone belongs to one or more “minority” social identity, and most of these identities are impossible to disguise. This premise forms the foundation for my favorite Intervention of The Transition, Tinting: being made to appear mblue, red, or shades of purple.
The MWC’s overt contacts and Interventions remove unnecessary human disguises. Bruce Coville, author of “Am I Blue?” (copyright 1994), writes a short story which has such a great fantasy concept that the MWC decides to make it into reality in 2014. The supposition of the story is that, overnight, what if everyone who is even slightly bisexual or homosexual turns some shade of blue on their skin? What if the stronger the minority sexual orientation identity in the person, the darker the shade? The result in Coville's short story is much the same as the outcome of the MWC’s most fascinating global “Re-set”: almost everyone turns some shade of blue, red or purple starting February 3, 2014.
About 10% of human Earthers turn a deep indigo, scalp to toes, everywhere, no skin left untouched, meaning they are 100% gay or lesbian; the rest range on the sexual orientation color continuum from navy to pale blue. This leaves about 10% of humans their original skin color, unless they are also gender queer.
If so, since the MWC adds in the red spectrum to signify gender continuum placements, some turn a shade of pink to maroon. Some stay the way they started, signifying that these are the ones who are exclusively heterosexual and cisgender. A great many turn a shade of purple, meaning they are both gender and sexual orientation queer in some way or another.
The skin coloration’s meaning is immediately broadcast via Espe, me, the MWC and Bruce (yes; another Earther they visit prior to visiting me).
A brilliant MWC addition, to guarantee that there cannot be “mistakes” claimed or Hollywood make-up artists' helping with hiding the color changes, the change in skin tone stays for ten years and is made apparent in every newborn for ten years (through 1/1/24).
Those with slighter variations on the physiological gender identity that their chromosomes and/or genitalia seem to dictate turn shades of lavender, violet, mauve, with no obvious reason for these variations. This forces people actually to talk about these identities with one another. Asking questions becomes a part of the way humans get to know each other because no one can make assumptions about the ways people choose to live based solely on their skin's coloration.
Shazzam!
No more discrimination based upon gender identity or sexual orientation. realizing that orientation does not dictate behavior, many religious bigots leap in (themselves blue, pink or purple, which is hilarious) to try to mandate "resisting the pull of the demon homosexuality" and other such nonsense, but the numbers of those Tinted are too large. No one listens to these obviously blue (and often some shade of pink or purple) ranters.
Rapidly, all the rest of the United States and other countries not yet enlightened enough to do this already pass the gender-neutral and transgender inclusion laws governing marriage, employment, housing, schooling, healthcare and the rest. Long overdue, in many people's opinions. So do all other governments and social groups follow, year after year, until there are no pockets of serious sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination left on Earth.
Hallelujah!
These are the last human social identity discrimination barrier walls to fall. I love that they dissolve relatively easily even though Fraggers and Trenchers have such trouble letting go of their concepts and biases. These hypocrites and bigots change, kicking and screaming all the way, many of them brightly colored!
Espe says, "Clara, that is an excellent explanation of the Tinting intervention, its consequences, and your personal connection to that. Thanks! Let's go on to other Transition changes."
"You're welcome. Sure."
Between 2013 and 2020, one by one, the walls between and among humans come down due to the MWC’s assistance, creative interventions, human adaptability, Sequestering (Qing), Re-set, Return/ ReInvolvement and somewhat natural deaths [See other Chapters and Appendix C for explanations]. These are the main events and outcomes of The Transition for all new MWC members, Led tells me.
Communication between humans and other species increases astronomically (pun intended). All the “pet psychics,” zookeepers, naturalists and others who work with and love animals learn or improve the most quickly; the rest of us follow. Temple Grandin and her followers are hailed as heroes for knowing for a much longer time what it takes the rest of the humans to realize: all beings have emotions, thoughts and motivations that go 'way beyond "instinct." Some humans, even in 2041, are still “species-deaf,” but usually there’s someone around to interpret or they can use their fish.
Another shout-out to Douglas Adams for our fish. By late January, 2013, we each get our own InterPlanetary Communication System, known colloquially as fish (thanks to Douglas Adams' books in which he introduces multilingual, internal translators as "Babel fish") which we can use for on-the-spot translations and interpretations for interspecies communication on Earth as well as off-planet (as we get the appropriate destination apps added).
"What else do you want people to know?" Espe prompts.
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"About the other helpful books and the authors," I say.
In 2013, many science-fiction and fantasy writers, in addition to those I already mention, go public as having contact by MWC members before 2012 to help Earthers adjust to all of these changes. The MWC then releases a required and supplemental reading list, uploaded to everyone’s electronic readers automatically and placed in every school, university and library around the planet.
The books, stories and nonfiction on this list guide many Earthers to understand better how the multiverse actually works, what the MWC knows that most of us do not know. We need help to mature as a species enough to take our rightful places among the other species.
Most of us want to be full-fledged, able members of the MWC ourselves. Think of this reading list as the bibliotherapy that helps us to do this.
Espe asks: "Any last thoughts, here?"
"Yes," I reply.
Most Earthers are adapting well, even feeling happier due to the changes the MWC helps occur.
I offer this prayer: May this pervasive happiness, increased peace and harmony persuade even the most intractable Fraggers. May the Trenchers who won’t give up all be caught and Qed. May the Psi Wars be brief in every timeline.
"That's a wrap," Espe says. "Whew. That's a lot. I think I need to break that up into segments."
"I can help. Let's have tea."
"Tea sounds great," Espe agrees.