Universal Chit-Chat
I’m always talking. Ba-ba-ba-GOCK. Ba-ba-ba-GOCK!! Yeah. Chicken squawking. — Joni Mitchell, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Talk To Me
My neighbor Christie is the nosiest neighbor in the world. I swear she measures my grass to the inch to let me know when it needs to be cut.
I posted a stimulating thought piece on the solar system, and she said to me, “What are your plans Wednesday, Ruben? What are you gonna learn?”
I almost threw my grande nitro cold brew in her face, but my crafted drink was way too expensive to waste on her. After settling myself and taking a foamy sip, I told her, “I am going to a class at the botanical garden in the next town over. The instructor is teaching us how to make damiana spirits.”
I had no idea what damiana was. I kind of knew what spirits were. In my head, spirits were a 100-proof liquor sending your spirit to the great beyond. But when I sat down in the kitchen classroom with strange mirrors above the stove, I noticed something a bit odd.
In my mind, a class to brew herbal alcohol should bring in 21+ folk from every demographic. Apparently, the only demographic that cared about this practice was women about 5 to 10 years older than me.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I have always liked older women. But it was odd to be the only other guy in the class.
We were all there, smelling herbs, listening to this herb guru tell us extracts and spirits are really good ways to preserve nature. Spirits end up being chemically equivalent to their source even decades later.
The teacher gathered us around the stove and showed us his setup. A simple mason jar filled with damiana leaves, alcohol, water, a rubber gasket, and a copper tube connecting the mason jar in a pot of boiling water to another jar. Seemed innocent enough.
When he was done, he had distilled several vials of a clear fluid in a glass dropper topped bottles. We went back to our seats, and were told to make an entry in our spirit journal of all the flavors we could taste when we got a drop of the damiana spirit under our tongue.
Under the tongue is an important detail because it is the area on the body quickly bringing the good stuff in spirits/extracts into the blood stream.
The ladies to my left and right took extra drops on and under their tongue and were moaning and giggling minutes later. I was going to skip this part of the lesson after seeing their reaction, but the woman to my left leaned into me, laughed, and said, “Say ahhh.” I said, “Uh?” and got a couple drops under my tongue and three on my face.
What happened after that was a little hazy, but I remember a lady in the front of class asking what the medicinal benefits of damiana were. The dude said, “Oh, it is mostly used as an aphrodisiac.”
A lady from a different table came to ask me a question and hugged me so hard I blacked out. When I woke up, there were police taking some women away in cuffs, group chats were leaked, bails were posted, and when the details of the restraining orders were sorted, I was done with this whole “learning on Wednesdays.”
What did this fluid taste like that made the class go into free love mode and leave the poor instructor covered in lipstick? All I can say is after chewing the leaf, tasting spirit was like sipping the director’s cut history of the plant in one sliver of a second. I could taste the root, the weather worn leaves, the stoic stems, the snobby flower petals, nectar from the heart of the flower, a bit of drool from a plump bee, and something else like a sweet perfume cocktail garnished with Saturn’s ring.
The universe is always talking.
It talks, but it doesn’t always make sense to us who are still under the shackles of time worry and fear. The universe will send important information directly to us, but in a sandwich, so you have to pull apart each layer to understand what is going on.
It tries dreams, phone glitches, odd messages on freight trains, sometimes if its desperate enough it will use your mother-in-law.
The universe speaks with synchronicity. It times events in such a way it catches you off guard. If you aren’t journaling, reviewing your day, or paying attention, you will miss it.
I remember at work years ago, the company would routinely post pictures of new employees on the website. I noticed one day a photo of a nice looking woman was on the new-hire site and a day later she poked her head over my cubicle wall with a question. The universe doesn’t care if you are ready or your hair is combed. It will try to get your attention.
The universe will give you a vivid dream. But the details are so extraordinary you think the communique is a cohesive message. But sometimes it is flattening various details separated by days that are part of a larger story. I had a dream I was in the third floor Russian museum with a Chinese family on a tour and we all looked out of the window of the third floor and saw huge sculptures of someone’s ancestors carved into the mountain. The further up we looked the more mountains we could see with the mountains getting as tall as we could see. I thought it was a projection of some sort and looked around the room, but it was all real.
Days later, I bump into a group of Chinese scientists in passing at a building owned by a Russian company. They asked for directions, but I was new to the area. A week later, I am wandering through Vermont, and the Green Mountains had a larger-than-life feeling. They weren’t as tall as the ones in my dream, but they were as grandiose. Almost as though they were imparting their gift of stillness the longer I stopped to admire them. I am still trying to figure out the messages in this particular dream.
Abraham Hicks would say, the universe is your waiter. You give it a vibration or feeling and it will bend all reality to make sure your current reality matches. Even using words like “I set the intention to have a divine day” can do magical things.
Solomon says in Proverbs wisdom cries in the streets. I imagine if the universe is chilling with wisdom on the block, she is doing a freestyle battle against anyone who dares to challenge her.
Why is this so important? Who cares about these little and large universe love notes anyways? And is it seriously possible to imagine a scene, have a feeling, and the universe summons a black Tesla Y with silver trim to self drive to my driveway?
Well, not exactly.
There are a few things I found that can get in the way of the desirable level of universe comms literally giving you winning lottery numbers on license plates.
Energy Balance and Harmony
If your life is out of balance. Spending too much time focusing on one area and not enough on another. Or if you have fears, traumas, or fantasies playing over and over in the stage of your mind (more on this in a future post) then you aren’t gonna see the universe's performance.
A lot of times I see myself, despite trying to diversify how I spend my time, I gravitate to what is more or less a 4 hour Twitter scroll-a-thon.
I am intentionally leaving out a word starting with a “cha” and ends with a “kra” but it is just an energy source. And yes it can backed up like an energetic traffic jam. But it can be cleared as well.
Each one of these energy centers is like an individual brain. They each have their own frequency, and when they are aligned and balanced, they influence the flow of energy in the body, contributing to overall health and well-being. — Joe Dispenza
Situation Static
Many times, we are just information junkies, or doom scrollers, and we don’t have a practice to train the mind to be still and in the moment. It takes a bit of work, but some can even stop meditating and just keep enough awareness to notice when the universe breaks silence.
We are in the no-judgement zone here. And I get monkey brain as much as any other bloke, but it is always good to ask why. Why are my thoughts darting so much? What is so important that my attention can’t be here now?
This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. — Alan Watts
Open Heart
As you get older, you’ll have more and more ammo to use against anyone and everyone. Because, for lack of a better reason, people fuck up. Institutions fail you. And sometimes noisy neighbors slip up. I mean literally slip and fall while pretending not to stare at you through their window.
You have a choice in these trying times.
Either you can be a librarian for all the faults and failures ever, or you can be the incinerator.
Well you can’t burn a failure yet (trust me I have tried), but you can see if maybe the universe is talking through that sticky situation. And figure out a way to laugh and bring light into the situation so you can move on.
Love is a weird thing. I used to think the perfect partner to love was forgiveness. But a better pair is acceptance. You acknowledge whatever shitty situation you find your self in and try to laugh about it. Then if you have the energy see the importance for the unpleasant thing.
Perfect example. I was wandering around my kitchen trying to get a drink in the dark. After spilling water on the counter and my pjs, I turned on the light and a greedy-ass mouse was trying to smuggle a dusty piece of bread across my kitchen floor. I have no idea how the entire slice got on the floor, but that little thing thought it found it and was about to have a thanksgiving dinner in one of my walls.
When it ran (they always run!), I picked it up with a paper towel and threw away that crusty bread. After frantically cleaning the entire house, I thanked the mouse for finding the bread I probably would have missed. Lord knows, I don’t need some moldy bread in some hard to reach crevasse.
Acceptance makes you grateful for the thing in the now, then (if the stars align) it opens you to love.
Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists. Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world. — Eckhart Tolle
What you resist, persists. What you accept, transforms. — Carl Jung
Despite all that can go wrong in life, Wednesdays still have a good learning vibe. It is great day for meetings, research, brunches with friends, and yes, even kibitzing with the universe.
