Cara wanted to marry me, badly. I had sensed her growing anger for months. In attempts to make me jealous, she had begun to leave the top button of blouse unbuttoned and began to mention other men. Saturday night as we sat in my car, I told her a couldn't see her any more. I had a premonition that something awful was about to happen and intuitively I knew I had to get away from Ground Zero. But she reached over, put her hand on mine, and said, "I need you." We had agreed neither of us would have ******* with anyone else while we tried to work things out. I capitulated. I stayed at Ground Zero.
Sunday, Cara came over for a swim before we were to go to a company picnic in the evening. As she dried off after the swim, she lifted her leg and i saw her bruised *****, the most painful sight of my life. I knew I had not bruised it. It was such a painful sight, I unconsciously instantly repressed it. We went to the pinic, but after about 20 minutes, she said she wanted to leave and go to her own apartment. We drove back to my complex and gave her a kiss before she got out of my car to get into hers. I suppose I had kiised her a thousand times or more (we had been great lovers until she began to get angry about my reluctance to marry her), but that last kiss was the most awkward kiss of my life. She left and I got out of my car and began walking toward my studio apartment. Then I began to start weaving as I walked. I made it to my apartment, opened the door, and immediately sat down on this little sofa. It was then I remembered seeing her bruised *****. Instantly, as I looked up in the left-hand corner of my little living room, I saw a dark rectangle form with rounded corners. It had rows of small spirals in it. Slowly, the dark rectangle descended from the ceiling and enveloped me. It was the worst feeling I think I ever had had. I remember touching the palm of my right hand with my left hand. My palm was clammy.  I picked up the phone and called her. She answered. I said to her I had seen her bruised her bruised ***** and I asked, "Did you go to bed Saturday night with that guy?' That "guy" had just moved into her apartment complex. Cara said, "I don't want to talk about it" and hung up. I called her right back, and as I screamed "Cara, tell me! I have to know!" I could feel something--I'll call it energy--welling up my spine into my head and coming out of both eye sockets an arching core of pure white light. I could see them. They were about 4-to-4 1/2 inches long. Then I went into shock.  She hung up again. I slammed the receiver down so hard, I broke the phone. But I was able to call her a third time and said, "Cara, tell me. I have to know." "I've already told you," she said. I said, "Cara, Cara, Cara" then hung up. Within a week, I flew back to Topeka from Phoenix. It took me six years to recover from this extraordinary trauma. Dr. Twemlow, a Menninger pschiatrist, who had spent time in Tibet, said I had experienced an involuntary Kundalini arising. Many yogis spend their entire lives trying to induce a voluntary Kundalini, which they believe will bring them enlightenment. An involumtary Kundalini arising result in polar opposites of a voluntary one. I experienced many of these aberrational symptoms.  Excruciating pain that traveled to all parts of my body was the worst. Some die from having an involuntary Kundalini arising. I obviously didn't. It was the toughest journey I have ever taken. I don't know if I gained even a scintilla of enlightenment. But you never know....

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

I live my life with aperçus. Formal education seems to be de rigueur, but when it comes to living my own life, the one I need to live, the one everyone needs to live, it is not a fake existence to placate others thus becoming an apostate to myself, but always being true to my real self.  Aperçus guides me. What I decide, where I go, what I do, all are decided by my intuitions. The process is unconscious. It’s like a great running back. Gale Sayers come to mind. His magical moves that resulted in long touchdown runs, twisting and turning at the precise instant, all were the results of his intuitions. Truth emanates from aperçus. Follow it always.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

We begin our journey helpless. We cry. We crawl. We slowly begin to walk and talk. Then we play and try to say to others what we see, what we feel. We spend too many years placating others, our parents, our teachers, our significant others. We then choose a job, perhaps a profession. Was it what we wanted or what we thought others wanted for us? Often, we get married, but for how long? And children? Are we wise enough to have them? The years, the decades, go by. Our life's path is tortuous. So many decisions to be made. Did we make the right ones? In most cases, we have done our best. A short while ago, we were young. Now we are old. Were we true to ourselves and to others, or did we sell out to be accepted? Before we can ascertain the answer, we die, but we do go to our funeral, albeit in a casket or as ashes in an urn.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

It came late in life. Poor no more and Peace on Earth forever. I spoke with everyone on Earth. They all became my friends. The poor, the crippled, the forgotten, all of them. We had a party, a worldwide party made beautiful by all the colors of skin. We danced different dances. We ate different foods. We shared different customs. We all prayed, each in his and her own religion. It was a festival of togetherness. All eschewed all weapons from guns to bombs. The air we all breathed was fresh and clean, as was the water we drank. It is possible to awaken truth, that all are sacred and divine. Live your life with love.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I once had a friend whose great-grandfather was a partner of J.P. Morgan. My friend had grown up in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was a good man, and you wouldn't have known he was heir to a vast fortune, except for his anamnestic autos. In fact, he eschewed the affected life. He was an organic farmer outside of Lawrence, Kansas. I mean he really was a farmer. He was up at 6 and drove a tractor til sunset. He and I would get together from time to time eating tapioca pudding at Denny's and, of course, chatting. The one idiosyncrasy that gave away his untold wealth was anamnestic autos. To the side of his modest farm house was a field within which were old antique cars spread out as if they were cattle, but they were not. There was an Alpha Romeo, a Horsch, a Lamborghini, a Maserati, and a Ferrari. My friend would get an impulse to buy a certain antique car, and because he had the money, he'd buy it. But then after enjoying it for a time, he literally put it out to pasture. The scene reminded me of a painting by Salvador Dali. He never talked about his fortune, but he often ordered a second tapioca pudding.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

We spend roughly one third of our lives asleep. What does that mean? I suppose that means different things to each of us, things that are different, but at the same time, in all cases integral to our lives, variations on the same thing, if you will. Freud thought that one-third was the most important of all three. Many of us find our dreams are meaningful, not necessarily in a clinical way, but in a personal way, and therefore meaningful nonetheless. Perhaps surreal is an apposite word to use in the latter cases:  former girlfriends, in my case, appear in many of my dreams, sometimes erotically, other times in a symbolic way it seems. Other dreams appear enigmatically, ones that are hard to tell what their import is;  they are not unlike clips from Ingmar Bergman movies. Some people say they never dream;  my guess is that they do, but for unknown reasons, they unconsciously repress them all, easier, I suspect, for them for various reasons. Pedro Calderon de la Barca wrote LA VIDA ES SUENO (LIFE IS A DREAM). Perhaps he had the answer.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks