Example of Dreamquest Dreaming
Day 2
"2025-2026 has been such a magical time! Louise and I have returned to Texas after our December stay in our Santa Fe home. January and February were spent in Sun City and we are surrounded by friends. We love this community and my February performance of "A Guru Named Frank" is a sellout for Austin Classical Guitar.
$50,000 so kids can have music in school.
AA meetings, and the Sun City Jewish Community fuel my spiritual quest. Sun City Torah study is sublime.
I wrote a line in my song "Cross Your Heart" that went like this: "We have kept a promise, time has given us what vows can't do." That line calls to the fact that love becomes stronger over time, and ours certainly has.
I can speak Spanish understandably and continue to study each day. I have finished the studio work on my fifth CD.
My wife is impacting the world by helping scientist commercialize their technologies.
I am a fit 75-year-old man. My weight is 155 pounds, and I stretch and exercise every day. COVID-19 has been eradicated.
My G-d what a wonderful life!
I have written this in the year 2020. This is my 36th Dreamquest.
I am merely exercising my dream muscles as I spend each of 21 consecutive days imagining a period of time--sometime in the future. I have cut out piles of pictures that represent a time and space that looks much like these events. I try to imagine how my life will be shaped spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically and materially.
Is it probable that all this will occur on time?
Are these benchmarks that I will check off by working hard?
Are these daunting tasks?
Not probable-but possible.
I may receive bits, pieces, or parts or all of everything I have written. And if I do, as I do, I will celebrate the fact that G-d created the ether that allowed me to imagine and shape such a wonderful life!
Dreamquest 2020
Thanksgiving Day 2020 and this morning starts a day of reflection. Reflection and thanks for all that I have been given, all that has been taken from me, all that I have attracted to me, and all that is left behind.
I will start this day by writing on a lined sheet of paper the five areas of endeavor that shape my life:
Spiritual
Emotional
Mental
Physical
Material/Fiscal
And I will ask these questions:
"Have I developed a spiritual discipline? Has my spiritual discipline developed over the years? How has my life been shaped as a result of these practices?"
"Have I become more balanced emotionally? How is this balance reflected in my relationships with my family, friends, employers, and employees?"
"Am I a lifetime learner? Am I studying my subject? Am I pursuing music, literature, language?"
"How is my health?"
"Are my surroundings comfortable?”
“Am I grateful for the life that surrounds me?"
The first day of my Dreamquest is a day of reflection and gratitude to an unseen power for all that I have been given, all that has been taken from me, and all that has been left behind.
We Can March to Either Drummer
Good-bad, right-wrong, faith-fear, love-hate, positive-negative, dark from light.
All within the parameters of the powers of choice, that we as human beings have at any given time.
Rabbi Byron Sherwin (of blessed memory) once said to me that "G-d loved man so much that he gave him a power that even G-d did not possess: the power to choose wrong over right." G-d can't do that. Gave that power to Satan I suppose.
The power we are seeking in our quest is the power of positivity. The constant positive banter that tends to attract positive results.
Each morning, I set my positive intentions for the day with about 30 minutes of meditation, positive affirmation and the exercise of gratitude. In that 30-minute period of time I am on the side of faith, on the sunny side, on the side of calm.
My daily task, then, is to test each moment against the quiet that came in the morning. Will this decision lead to a calmer life or a more frantic one? Am I furthering the cause? Am I on the side of right? Am I maintaining my positive mental attitude, am I choosing a positivity bias? Am I helping or will I harm someone?
G-d doesn't have this quandary. Only you and I.
The Art of Saunter
Most of my life has been carried out in a dead run, dashing from point A to point B as fast as I possibly could. I'd rather a hare than a tortoise be. That's the way of life isn't it?
In my 70th year a very wise man, Dr. William Tullis ( of blessed memory), challenged me to "learn to saunter." He challenged me to take my dogs on a slow walk -- without a jogging app in my hand. No heartbeat monitors, no pedometer.
Learn to enjoy the journey, outcome be damned.
I thought to myself--slow down? That will be no challenge at all. Well I was wrong. But let me digress.
In a book of daily meditations, one that I've been reading for well over 40 years, I stumbled upon a small passage that suggested I learn to "go slowly from room to room."
The similarity of those two commands? They gave me something to do, rather than some way to be. Bill instructed me to walk with no pedometer. Challenged me to wear no heartbeat monitor. My meditation guide suggested I move slowly from room to room. In both cases I'd been asked to take a positive measure that would lead to a calmer state. How do you perfect a difficult guitar passage? Move slowly on the fretboard. Very slowly.
And finally, clichés are clichéd because they're most often true: haste makes waste, the tortoise beats the hare, easy does it, a stitch in time saves nine, measure twice cut once.
Here Comes The Judge
Prejudice means judgment in advance.
A Bigoted person is intolerably devoted to his or her own opinion.
Prejudice comes from the Latin words that mean "pre" and "judge". We all have it; we wouldn't be human if we didn't.
It's also called opinion, that thing that is formed by our culture, by our experiences, by our environment, by our neighborhoods and schools. Where we live and who we live with. All of that shapes our opinions. It shapes the first impression.
I've felt the sting of prejudice. Let me tell you a story.
Now, I admit I'm a bit of an eccentric. I don't fall into a typical category. Not a graduate of any university, I barely made it through high school. I graduated from a trade school--local 1266. I've helped run a Ranch as a working hand. I also built a financial consulting business and had, at the time of this story, my own TV show.
I dress when I fly on an airplane. Oxford shirt, bowtie, chino pants, loafers, the whole thing.
I was connecting to a difficult flight out of Chicago one winter. Our connecting flight had been canceled three different times.
We were at the third kiosk being informed that that flight would not be in for several more hours. The airline employee was being bombarded by all kinds of fury. When she saw me, she grimaced.
When I got to her I made a point of smiling and saying, "Wow I bet you've had a hell of a day. Hey, if you can get me on another flight, fine. If you can't, that's fine as well." What she said next is my point. "Oh Gee, thank you so very much! You know when I first saw you I thought there is some asshole college professor just gonna ream me out because he hasn't been able to connect with his most important flight."
She then told me to standby till she cleared out the crowd, and she'd see what she could do to upgrade me to first class and get me out immediately.
Her grimace, however, told me all I needed to know about how she felt about nerdy looking college professor-types. Pre-judged, you see. We all have it.
There Was a Time
When folks were cordial to one another.
When manners mattered.
When there was a standard of dress.
When people danced to songs. Together.
When men were brave.
When standards stood.
When we shook hands.
When diplomats would negotiate
with citizens in mind.
When history mattered.
When literature was read.
When we were proud of our trades.
When apprenticeship counted.
When men tipped their hats and opened doors for women,
and women didn't mind an open door.
Old folks mattered.
When social distancing meant a first date.
Somewhere in the Gap
My life has been sculpted by a handful of men. And as I related to Dr. Matthew Hinsley stories about all these mentors, he asked me: "How did you know which mentor to follow?"
The answer to this question is somewhere in the seeking part. You see, two percenters* all seem to be (spiritual) seekers. And seekers seem to find answers in the gap.
Oh yes – the gap. Let me tell you about that one.
I was at a gathering in Bentonville Arkansas, and at the gathering there was a farmer talking about his experience with meditation. "His mornings, he said, often began surrounded by the reverberation of a diesel tractor as he accomplished his tasks around the farm. When he parked the tractor and shut it down, he said, there was a moment of perfect silence."
He called that moment of silence the gap, and explained that that was where he found the answers to his prayers. In the silence. In the gap.
What begins as a hunch gradually becomes inspiration, and that ultimately becomes a working part of the mind. Over time we begin to rely upon it.
The discipline of journaling, and meditation, prayer and quiet times. Answers to our prayers- somewhere in the gap.
*Those folks who seem to have the ability to use the power of humility. And humility is, by my definition, an honestly that is spiritually driven.
More Than Merely Pandemic
The flu is contagious. Coronavirus highly so. When contagion is spread throughout the world it's called a pandemic.Follow me here:I quote from Bill Wilson: "Fears set in motion trains of circumstances that brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we, set the ball rolling?"Suppose that anxiety (fear) is contagious. That fear, not flu is the greatest source of danger that we face in the world today. Suppose rage is caused by fear, and fear is created by rage. The cycle is endless.Let's end the contagion today. A vaccine made from a moment of joy that sets a positive ball in motion!