Harry Leo Duran, MD, Ph.D., MPH had a chance to go directly to heaven, so it appeared. Harry had received teachings and possibly an empowerment (he never elaborated) directly from the Dalai Lama in 1989 in New York City when he was working as a neurosurgery resident in Newark, New Jersey. He had “taken hand” with the Pir of the Nematollahi SafiAliShahi II when Harry flew to Delft in the Netherlands to attend a special dzikr in November 1998. Harry had studied sufism online with a sheik (never learned his name) who named Harry Ali. I was named Aliya by Sherif Baba in January 1998. We both had read EVERY SINGLE book published by Idries Shah.He read several tomes by Rumi. Bought dozens of books in ARABIC. Taught himself some Arabic, so he told everyone. He claimed he had read the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Harry had multiple Bibles, several Qurans, dozens and dozens of Roman Catholic prayer books and missals. He left behind two copies of the Horologian and several Eastern Orthodox primary texts. Several hagiographies and writings by the early Church Fathers. He had been baptised Roman Catholic by his parents and he had a full immersion baptism in a horse trough by Father Justin Havens in February 2012 at the Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Salt Lake City.
Harry had given alms. No doubt about that. He had supported Father Mark Kerr for almost three years. He always put money in the collection basket and when I was with him, he always bought candles – usually with my money, but when he finally started earning wages, he did open his own wallet. We both traveled to Rome with then Father Paul Tague (alas, he gave up the priesthood) with a small group of seven women from Jesus and Mary Chapel. We did the Way of the Seven Churches ON FOOT for three weeks.We sang in the chapel choir. Well, he sang, my vocal cords are shot, so I was the choir director.
BUT, BUT, BUT he tossed all those merits into the toilet – literally and fell into a life of unspeakable debauchery. Didn’t matter that he had received the Kalachakra empowerment directly from His Holiness Penor Rimpoche. He had also studied with other lamas. He received special blessings from Sheikh el-Haj el-Fakir er-Rifa’i Mehmet Sherif Çatalkaya and a group blessing from Pope John Paul II!
So, I wonder HOW he got across the River depicted in Buddhism and Hinduism, and in Greek Mythology, and in accounts of the afterlife by many who had near death experiences.
In the TV series Vighnaharta Ganesh, Gaynari didn’t get to ride in the boatbecause he had NEVER done a single good deed. Harry had done some good deeds, HOWEVER, every teacher I’ve ever encountered, (and every book I’ve ever read) insists that IF you are taught HOW to behave and HOW to live a virtuous life, and then you turn your back on everything you were taught and succumb to evil, those merits are negated. In the video I cobbled together, you will get to virtually experience what happens to those who sin. DO NOT start the popcorn maker. This is NOT that kind of fun video.
Hello my dears, the following text describes the characteristics and practices related to the behavior of Dervish and the principles of monotheism and mystics. I hope that each of you will write this text on a page of paper and read it every day. The truth has helped us and God willing. It has become the queen of our minds and become a part of our moral characteristics and deeds. O Ali help:
I insert here an article about who Ali is. You might think the above is a typo. It is not. Note, also, that Harry Leo Duran was given the name Ali and I was named Aliya by Sherif Baba.
First in practicing, there is the observance of eating, that is, do not eat a lot with drunkards and insane people. Do not sit on the table of the stingy and arrogant people intentionally do not eat what brings sugar, drunkenness, weakness, cruelty of the heart and superstition of the mind.
The second is the observance of sleep and sleep. Do not sleep with untested people in the same place. Do not sleep in the place of dishonest and accusations and the place of mad people and animals.
Third: It is the observance of words, useless words, rudeness, sarcasm, ridicule, purpose, flattery, lies, insistence and arguments. Do not say more than the value of the mind and what people do not believe. Do not listen to accusations, backbiting, sedition and condemnation of others. Don’t blame anyone for any reason, don’t talk about anyone’s hatred. If you say Ajmal and Abbreviatedly (sic), you should say:
In Sufism, the principle of deeds is to serve the elderly, and the respect for the rites and the payment of rights, maintaining the trust and durability of purity and trust in the matters of compassion with the people of politeness in the words of Ata in the position of meditation in response to sacrifice the poor, humility, with the elders, guilt in lust, in the size in the salary, opposition to self-sufficiency, progress in greeting.
Patience in problems and troubles, honesty with friends, loyalty to promises, dignity in ways, speed in goodness, stopping in revenge, insistence in obedience, seeking sincerity, wisdom in deeds, honor with guests, consoling with strangers, kindness with children, humility with the needy, preference over yellow, passion for kindness, gratitude for blessing, contentment for blessing, contented
This is the best way to go of truth, the one with remembrance, the sprain of chaos, orderly relief, banadan gentleness, rarely humor, kindness and kindness with children, escape from greed, abstinence of request, abundance in thought, fear of pride, remembrance of death, truth in account, silence of banadan, checking the sick, pity the weak, Supporting the oppressed, wanting to fast (fasting), consulting with the wise, praying in private, regretting of sin, trust in livelihood, timely reservation, advising the obedient, modifying the judgments, kindness with the partner, fairness with the one, staying away from the liar, forgiving the defeated, grudge against the oppressor.
If a person is always remembered about his humanity, no point of his goodness will be left behind. Never look for these qualities in others. The purpose of this writing is to transfer everyone to his humanity not to others. If you find yourself, you can do it to others. Yaft.
Baba Heidar, Pir Hai of Razavia Dynasty, Nemat Elahi Safi Alishahi Mahdia
Benebel Wen is an expert in cartomancy. Her research is impeccable and her vast knowledge astounds me. The other day, I decided I needed to find a better way to do Yes/No Tarot readings beside pulling just one card and reading it. I believe that reversals are part of the essence of tarot, although Eva Owsian who taught a class here in Spring Creek, Nevada told us she never uses them. I googled Benebel’s blog and found that she had already written a post about the three pile method.
What I did learn from Benebel was the source, or at least a source for what one can find all over the web about how to do a three pile Yes/No reading. HOWEVER, it did not, pardon the expression RESONATE with me.
What hit me while I was experimenting was to do the following. Keep in mind the Rider Waite deck has 78 cards. You need to pull 13 cards as fast as you can until an Ace appears OR the Magician!Out of the 78 cards there’s only one magician and four aces. As soon as an Ace or the Magician appears when drawing 13 cards, stop and start the next pile. When you reach the third pile, if none of these cards appear, read the meaning of that last card in relation to your question.
For example, did you ask about a relationship, career direction, financial situation, pregnancy, major purchase, of if you should move, etc.
Should I marry XYZ?
Two aces are a YES and the Queen of Cups represents a FANTASTIC partner – nurturing, in tune with your needs, loving, and caring. MARRY the person by all means.(By the way, I drew the Queen of Cups – I didn’t intentionally use her for the example. I asked which card would make a good example to use for the blog. Pretty amazing I think.)
If all Aces – GO FOR IT. Two Aces and the Magician – JUMP AT THE CHANCE
But Two Aces and any other card – read what nuance of the yes and WHY
NO Aces and no Magician – NO NO NO and forget it.
One Ace and two other cards – Not a great idea. Read the meanings of the other two cards.
I tried this with all the cards upright and it went faster. It doesn’t matter if the Ace is upright nor if the Magician is upright. Those are yes cards. It will matter if you want to add more complexity to the last card in the third pile to clarify why it’s a YES or MAYBEso use reversals if you want to.
Netflix is a company a lot of people hate for good reason. BUT even an evil conglomerate can sometimes be an unwitting tool of the divine. On December 9, 2022, Netflix started airing the Hindi dubbed version of Kāntāra. The film was both written and directed by Rishab Shetty who also portrays the main character whose name is Shiva – that’s like people naming their sons Jesus, but in this case, it has a lot more significance. Kāntāra was produced by Vijay Kiragandur under Hombale Films. It was not expected to become a global blockbuster.
If you do not know this about me, now is the time for me to confess that I am aHUGE fan of foreign made supernatural themed films and TV series, preferably with subtitles. I can’t stand dubbed films and avoid them, but in this case, the actors are speaking a language called Kannada – the official language of the state of Karnataka in Bengaluru, India. I love to see characters from other countries and time periods and scenery and architecture and food. When I logged into Netflix and saw the ad for Kāntāra, I clicked with delight. I NEVER expected a film to have so much power, nor did I ever expect to get blasted on an etheric level from a film! I took several nights breaking it up into 30 minutes at a time because it was that intense, and I wanted to stop a scene and look up to find a background story to help me make sense of what was happening. The film is VERY VERY fast paced and the subtitles fly by. I rarely have a problem speed reading subtitles but the action-packed acting plus reading forced me to stop and replay a scene just to catch my breath.
HOW fast paced is it, you ask?Shiva hanging on to water buffalo tails in a race called Kambalablew my mind. There are slow motion segments of the race where you feel the mud getting in your own eyes. And then there are the fight scenes – a lot of fight scenes.
And a scene that at first gave me pause and when I went to research it made me REALLY pause.
In it the character Mahadeva, portrayed by Prabhakar Kunderas a blacksmith and a seer, steals the scene. He and Shiva are seen smoking something and getting “high”. What I did not expect to learn was that they were grinding up ANTS – yes, ANTS.
Now you might ask, so what? Well, Lord Shiva, also called Mahadev (see the names of the characters above), has long been associated with
HALLUCINOGENS
And this is where the Notorious Doc pops back up. The late Harry Leo Duran, MD, PH.D., MPH, was a board certified Addiction Medicine Specialist AND a drug user! He boasted about using LSD and DMT and mushrooms. And he used to yap about Lord Shiva ingesting mushroomsboasting that he was a SHIVA devotee – NOT!
AND, it gets weirder, trust me.
The Notorious Doc had a boar tattooed onto his torso, paid $5,000 for a taxidermic boar’s head at Stitched inside the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, paid Chris Ihle to create a boar in LEGOs for him which cost $3,500, and boasted on Grindr that he was a BOAR who was into pig play.
And it is a BOAR that appears in the film, but this boar is a supernatural boar and it protects the villagers. This boar is like the avatar Varaha. For a CGI depiction of how Vishnu manifested Varaha check out Episode 1005 of Vignaharta Ganesh! Lord Vishnu emits an essence that is then inhaled by Lord Brahma and exhaled out as Varaha as Vishnu’s third avatar (I’m still working on the series – don’t worry, I’ll resume work on the avatars).
I was surprised to find Sadhguru talking about the film!
Here is some context
Each village has a bhūta for whom an annual kōla is held, each household is also associated with its own bhūta, and even some castes have their own tutelary bhūtas. The numerous bhūtas are closely related to and also embody the wild, dangerous, and fertile aspects of divine power — originating as apotheosized local heroes or the spirits of wild animals dwelling in forests — which eventually came to be grounded in the larger umbrella of the Hindu pantheon centuries ago through their association with the gaṇas and bhūtas of Lord Śiva or Īśvara or absorbed into the tenets of Śakti worship or mahātmya traditions.
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The ceremony mainly involves two central participants, the vaidya and the patri, wherein the purpose of the vaidya is to rhythmically beat the dakke (drum), and sing and dance, in order to completely attune the priest-mediums or oracles1 to sublimate his/her personality and permit for full possession by the spirit being invoked. When invoked in the prescribed manner, accompanied by all the ritual offerings and other arrangements, the patri or mānye or māni moves into ecstasy and gets “possessed” by the concerned divinity. Priest-mediums, belonging to the Nalike, Parava, Pambada or certain other prescribed castes conduct the ritual, with the patrons often being local landlords. (https://brhat.in/dhitiblog/cinemareview-kantara/)
BUT never fear, this rabbit hole is DEEP – so DEEP, I almost couldn’t climb back up!
I only just found The Ranveer Show when I went searching for videos about Nagas. The interview I was watching ended and because I was still researching Kāntāra, this next video was recommended. And now to send the readers on a FULL hard U-Turn back to where I started. Mind you Rishab Shetty did his own stunts in the film, so watch it and your stomach will already be flying around when you watch this next clip!
And it is in this interview with Shri Rajarshi Nandy, a Sadhaka and an adherent of the Sanatan Dharma, a speaker, columnist, and author of Hindu spiritual practices, which confirmed that the deities REALLY did come through in the film! Listen to the presentation. Nandy minces no words. THIS was REAL tantra!
Nandy firmly believes that “some shift” has happened. Both Ranveer and Nandy feel that this movie could not have been made up until a few years ago and Ranveer said he felt he never would have even dared conduct such an interview until very recently. Nandy saw that people in Calcutta, after watching the movie ORGANICALLY started putting their hands together in pray.
AND he then says
THERE IS SOME SHIFT THAT IS HAPPENING AS IF SOME OF THE OLD GODS ARE WAKING UP!
SO, it’s not just me and handful of friends. I have friends who insist they SEE deities and speak with them. Squirm if you will, but that’s what they tell me. And mediums who see spirits – of dead people, fae, dragons, you name it.
To continue Nandy goes on to say that if a deity blesses a creative endeavor, out of the ordinary success happens through the transmission of the shakti of the deity and THAT is what I felt when I finally watched the last 20 minutes of the film. I felt the SAME jolt I have felt when I’ve received darshan. The same HI – I’m HERE kick inside my mind and the same SEEK and YEA Shall FIND feeling. A sense of URGENCY to dig up everything and immerse myself and connect the dots.
Watch the movie. In January 2023, it’s supposed to be dubbed into English if you can’t stand reading subtitles but I urge you to watch this version. It’s awesome. It’s SPELLBINDING, and it’s got a lot of teachable moments squished between martial arts scenes and life in a forest village. A MYSTICAL forest village – hence the title kāntāra
Amandeep Singh is one of, if not the most interesting humans I have ever met, and I’m thrilled to call him my friend.He lives in Jalandhar, India and we talk “on the phone” through Facebook Messenger. I live in Nevada so that’s the Pacific Time Zone and Amandeep lives in the India Time Zone. Surprisingly, the audio is far superior on Facebook than it is on my cellphone!
Amandeep is a Wizard and Joshua P. Warren is the WIZARD OF WEIRD! Because it is essential to pay attention to synchronicities, I felt I had to take advantage of the opportunity to study with Josh andwear the “Tesla” pendant and bracelet while meditating using Amandeep’s violet flame sigil.
On November 28, 022, Joshua P. Warren offered his video course for only $99. PayPal lets you pay for purchases over $100 over a period of six months, so I took advantage of the sale and also bought Josh’s Purple Energy Kit which came with a 78-page PDF. I am only displaying a screen shot from the front page. If you want the book, order the pendant from the Curiosity Shop.
LET”S JUST SAY IT WORKS! If you go back through my blog, I wrote that I had to go to the urgent care for injections to treat GAMEKEEPER’S THUMB. For the past few months, I feared I’d have to go back for another set of injections – and let me say those needles go way under the skin and into the tendon and are enough to make you faint.
WELL! I don’t have to. I first started wearing the bracelet on my left wrist because I’m right-handed, but the other day I switched to my right and the pain is GONE!
Now back to Amandeep.
NOW do you see the synchronicity?
And if that wasn’t enough to show a connection across time and space, remember my blog post about Maa Baglamukhi?
I didn’t know Amandeep existed when I posted that. He didn’t know I existed either. We didn’t meet on Facebook until a month had passed.
So, when Amandeep posted that he had made this video, I flipped out. TOTALLY flipped. out. I had been trying since 2014 to get someone at the temple to respond to me in English. I had several exchanges but they were in a mix of Hindi and broken HELLO and I gave up.
Amandeep introduces the tour of the temple in English and then switches to Hindi so speakers on both continents can follow along.
And to back up in time, on June 9, 2021, I got an invitation to attend a Purple Flame Meditation. I took this screen shot at the time.
Click on the screenshot from my Facebook post and it will take you to the 15-minute Violet Flame Meditation.
And although I no longer have the polaroid, or I have no idea where it is, when I had my photo taken with a Kirlian photographer, I was surrounded by deep blue orbs and I looked a BIT like this photo. Everyone gasped because I was violet. Yup. And purple is my FAVORITE color!
To sum up, you can send Amandeep a Facebook Messenger greeting and tell him you just read this. You can purchase all of Joshua P. Warren’s amazing manifestation tools on his website. And you watch the Violet Flame video for free!
I was recently asked “WHO ARE YOU? What the person wanted to know was why I should be introduced to someone, I felt was a great rishi – aka sage, saint, a person who has obtained what the Eastern Orthodox call theosis – a merging with the divine.WHAT did I want? Nothing, I replied. I just want to say, HI! That was the short answer.
The long answer is:
I don’t want anything other than to bow and say Hi! haven’t seen you in 5,000 years! How have you been my friend! Glad to see your soul is residing at Mt Kailash! Please send my love to everyone. I am eternally grateful for them saving my life so I have the chance at moksha or at least a few years of happiness before I get sent back.
For you see, when a great sage resides in our world he/she could be seated at a banquet table after giving a teaching surrounded by alcolates, but his/her soul is also, at the same moment, seated in adoration or meditation or chatting with GOD – or the GODS. That’s a concept few grasp.
Similarly, there have been saints, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (Curé of Ars) for example, who could see that a person was both in the church yard and in HELL at the same time.For those who do NOT believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls, or rebirth, or heaven, or hell, the concept is much harder to grasp. Some Tibetan lamas and tulkus have the ability to look at you and see superimposed all, or a great number of your past, and possibly FUTURE lives. It’s one of the abilities of a siddhar – review my previous posts please.
I can’t tell you WHO you were, but I can tell you if I once knew you and approximately when and where and if I liked you or not.So, I was happy to be sent a photo from my friend in Jalandhar, India of his guru. And I INSTANTLY felt I had to say HI – How HAVE you been all these thousands of years? You look well! In fact you achieved what few humans have ever achieved! How COOL is that?And that’s it. He’s busy. I’m kinda busy. I can’t visit in person. I’ll probably never get to visit in person. And that’s okay.
BUT WHO AM I?
What journey have I been on? Roller coaster, bungee jumping, carnival ride that’s what.My mother was born into a uber strict Methodist family with an aunt who married a Dutch Reformed and a few cousins that had converted to or married into other Protestant sects. She HATED the local minister, so when she married my father, who had been born into a Presbyterian family with a grandfather who had been an agnostic, she insisted on getting married in a brief ceremony with no frills with only her parents and her sister in the chapel in the rival congregation in downtown Westfield.
I do not know why I was not baptised right away, but they did get me baptised into the Methodist Church when I was four months old. I attended church, joined the choir, played the organ once or twice, and got confirmed. BUT my dad and I just didn’t buy the narrative.The first rumblings started in Sunday School when the teacher mocked the ancient Egyptians for believing that humans could come back as crocodiles. He mocked their beliefs with such hubris, that I got up, pretended I was going to the ladies room, and never returned.I distinctly remember murmerring under my breath BUT THEY DID! Reincarnation IS the truth.
My mom was psychic. She once saw her uncle who had died from a burst appendix standing at the foot of her bed yelling at her because she wanted to kill herself. She had a bully for a boss at what was then known Socony aka Standard Oil which would become Mobil Oil which is where she met my dad before WWII ,but never dated, until after the war.My mom could tell who was on the phone even before it rang. She was telepathic and oddly enough, having spent almost her entire life engrossed in the Methodist Church, she believed in reincarnation!
My dad was a genius and psychic. He was Mobil Oil’s financial statistician until they made everyone over 62 retire. A few months after he was forced out, they called him up. They had hired THREE Ph.d.s and none of them could figure out how to generate the annual report. My dad told them to pound sand. I adored my dad! He was a champion chess player, polo player, all round athlete, funny, crack shot, and my mom nagged him so much, I used to take him with me to audit classes while I went for my masters. We’d meet for lunch and take the LONG LONG LONG way home through the country where he’d want to stop for donuts or ice cream or take a detour just to avoid going home. And yet, he adored my mom – go figure.He was born in 1904 and she in 1917. They didn’t marry until it was almost too late to have children at all. The first baby was born stillborn.
BOTH my parents loved mythology and oddly enough, they loved all things paranormal. Again, I have no idea how this was not frowned upon, but they bought me a ouiji board and used it with me, runes, a palmistry kit, numerology kit, a book on graphology, and they let me use my babysitting money to buy every Erich von Däniken book as it was published. My dad gave me his copy of Will Durant’s Ancient Greece, his childhood copy of the entire Sherlock Holmes collection, several copies of Mika Waltari’s books, and his copy of Hendrik Willem van Loon’s Lives. Oh, and Plutarch, and Gibbons, and Bertrand Russell, and Ivanhoe!
They indulged my passion for ethnomusicology, ancient history and colonial and/or Victorian decor! They even drove me to New Mexico and dropped me off at Salmon Ruins for the summer which is where I met the 17-year old who would end up dying with a tattoo with the letters “Notorious Doc” burned into his flesh. My aunts paid for piano lessons and travel. My mother’s mother’s cousin gave me his entire mineral and crystal collection when he went into a nursing home. Each relative had a hobby or passion and each wanted me to be as excited about photography, coin collecting, stamp collecting, butterfly collecting, bird watching, shell collecting, opera, ballet or a composer or a foreign language as they were. so, I learned all kinds of things – English saddle, figure skating, ballet, folkdance, how to card wool, pottery, you name it. It was great.
And I think they would be happy to see me today despite the abuse I’ve endured.Yesterday, Mary Turner Thomson contacted me and said she was ready for me to upload my 74,001 word Tell All Book to start editing. YES, a book I started writing the day after I unlocked my late husband’s phone on November 16, 2021 is now with a world class international best selling author and publisher to be edited. THANK YOU Mom for subscribing every summer to Weekly Reader!
BUT WHO AM I?
Well, for what it’s worth, I spent three different summers on prehistoric archaeological digs. I attended a lecture by Margaret Mead, Jane Goodall, Richard Leakey, shook hands with Michio Kaku after he presented his Hyperspace theory on campus, interviewed Yoshiaki Omura (bi-ring testing)in his apartment next to Columbia University, and then spent three days in New York at training session on electroacupuncture, and spent time with several other amazing geniuses.
I did my doctoral dissertation on the impact of non-Western medicine on the biomedical model. I’ve studied a bit of qigong, a bit of Ayurveda, did a conference presentation on curanderismo, was the lead speaker on virtual reality at the 1998 Computers in Libraries Conference, presented my dissertation at the NIH in 1995, and I have received empowerments/or or one on one instruction and blessings from:
Pema Norbu Rinpoche, (1932-2009) the eleventh throne holder of the Palyul Lineage of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. I consider Penor Rinpoche my root guru because he named me and gave me empowerment in the Kalachakra, Dzambhala, Amitabha, Phowa, Manjushri, Refuge, Bodhisattva and Vajrayana vows, Lonjong, and Shamatha and with whom I connected after the dedication of the Enlightenment Stupa in Poolesville, Maryland in 1998.After all the incredible teachings, everyone was mulling around and visiting. I, on the other hand, wanted to get one more glimpse of my guru before he left. I went out front and watched as his immediate entourage got the cars ready. I turned and up walked His Holiness. I bowed as low as my poor back could handle and kept my head down with my hands in prayer position. I did not break into a sweat. BUT I was mortified. Instead of walking past me, he came up and stood so that had I stood up, I probably would have bumped my head into him. It’s very embarrassing to say this, but my head was level with his lower waist and I held that position for what felt like an eternity.
I wanted ONE last glimpse not an up close personal, OMG we’re within each other’s personal space and we’re both sweating in the summer sun experience. To this day, I can still feel how mortified I was and yet I could feel his energy and he was just as jolly as the LAUGHING BUDDHA! His cousin, Venerable Bhakha Tulku Rinpoche, did something I’ll post about when I get around to talking about remote viewing. OH YES, I got to spend two days with him, also in 2001.
Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo(1949 – ), a tulku, and reincarnation of Genyenma Ahkon Lhamo (First Throne Holder Vidhyadhara Kunzang Sherab (1636 – 1699)’s sister)
Sheikh el-Haj el-Fakir er-Rifa’i Mehmet Sherif Çatalkayanamed me Aliya at the end of the first dhikr I ever attended in a dance studio in Times Square in February 1998.
His Holiness Sheikh Baba Heidar, akaHazrate Pir Maulana (Mawlana) Safi Ali Shah II, Pir of the Nematollahi (Nimatullahi) Safialishahi Sufi Order Mahdia dynasty)d. December 2016 age 68. He was suffering from cancer when I was introduced to him in 1998. Very sad.
I did not study with my friend Cesar, a 5th generation curandero. Instead we worked together on projects and he introduced me to the late Elena Avila who I spent two days with. He also invited us to attend a kapuli meeting and a Native American Church ceremony and to crawl inside a replica of a pyramid the kapuli had built way way out on the outskirts of the city in the middle of nowhere. The only invitation I wasn’t able to accept was to attend a sweat lodge ceremony on a remote reservation near Ely, Nevada. Other than that, I’ve been there done that.Scratch that. I have never, ever smoked, nor ingested, nor injected ANYTHING NOTHING. One reason why I was not welcome at parties in the seventies or eighties when I most young people party.
PLUS THERE”S MORE!
I was baptised in a Tridentine Latin Mass to the then father Joseph, who is now a bishop, on a St.Ignatius Discernment of Spirits 7-Day Pre-Vatican II Society for Saint Pius X SILENT retreat at St. Malo in Estes Park, Colorado in March 2003!
But the late Notorious Doc threw a fit and dragged us off to the Maronites AFTER we spent 3 weeks on a Way of the Seven Churches Pilgrimage to Rome in May 2003 with then Father Paul Tague.ON FOOT mind you.
That’s where I met the now infamous convicted felon, Father George Chaanine, who had just started the process of preparing me for confirmation when he left El Paso, went to Las Vegas and almost killed the soprano in the church choir!
Instead I got confirmed into the Maronite Church by Monsignor Victor Kayrouz (Click on the photo for a bio and a video tribute) in a church located at 915 N.. Florence. The old church was in very bad shape, but it served its purpose and an organ and pews had been rescued from the St.. Teresa of Avila’s mission when it closed. Not long after the Christmas services in 2004, Harry’s rage turned on the Maronites and be yanked us out of that parish!
Side Note: The Notorious Doc flew into a rage one day while I was practicing the piano to prepare for church services. The Karams had asked me to be the church organist and this triggered him. He destroyed several of the piano’s hammers and the pedal on a 1904 Mahogany Grand Knabe. One of my prayers is to have the piano restored to its former glory.
But Harry Leo Duran was not done yet! He had both of us baptised in the Antiochian Eastern Orthodox Church in Salt Lake City in a HORSE TROUGH in February 2012 on a FREEZING cold day when the church’s boiler wasn’t working soo there was NO hot water much less tepid for the FULL IMMERSION adult baptism- not quite as bad as water-boarding, although it kinda resembles it!
To summarize, I have studied Gnosticism, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism,Taoism but not as much as I would have liked, Hinduism, curanderismo, been instructed in the history and doctrine of the Methodists, Roman Catholics, Maronites, Eastern Orthodox, Wicca, and whatever seemingly crossed my path.
I have hung out with DEVOUT UBER DEVOUT Catholics, VERY involved Maronites, spent weekends with Tibetan lamas attending sand mandala constructions, bowed before a giant peyote seated on a large chair in the open desert, banged on a singing drum from Ghana and learned out to make a Tarahumara drum in a three day workshop, skated in an ice show, performed piano recitals on stage, played the violin in the college orchestra, danced on stage in a dance ensemble, ridden a horse on the trails on the Malcolm Forbes estate as a guest, toured China in 1987, driven all over Texas, Nevada, and Utah all by myself on back roads which I do not recommend. Had a Bigfoot encounter – although I did not get to see the juvenile, I did hear him.
And dealt with a ghost or ghosts.
I’m sure I’ve left something out that might offend someone dead or alive, but that’s a brief summary. OH and I saved a man’s life if that countsand banished a demon in a nursing home.
I am not special. But I do make for an amusing conversationalist at dinner parties which I avoid like the plague.
Now back to my regular posts. But some of you DID ask.
Librarian's Guide to the Multiverse! 