Advancement and Awakening

But their blindness, so ironically, was the gateway to restoring our sight.

~ Susan Larison Danz, Extinction Level #2 

I have been unusually delayed this week in recording my "weekly" podcast.  I am now aiming to do so tomorrow afternoon.  I had thought last week I might write another "AI story" to read out loud, but there were so many distractions, I did not set aside the time to write.  Surprisingly, after 11 PM last night [Later Note: It was actually just after 10 PM, as the first draft was done at 11:11.] on a very busy day, a story was ready to be written.  

This is a story I have felt arriving for quite some time (in some ways, many years).  It is on a theme I have discussed quite regularly on my podcast.  I thought I might be finished with it last night.  I even put a post up on X tagged to a writing community about how happy I felt at the time of its completion.  It was around Midnight.  But today I awakened with some important adjustments.  

And here it is, the second in a series, though each story is on an independent topic (for the first, see my previous post) . . . 

Extinction Level #2 by Susan Larison Danz

Words to pacify a robot echoed from my childhood, though I didn't really understand one of our favorite Saturday matinees until much later.

Many things were said about the objects appearing.  They were supposed to be comets, and some probably were.  But somehow some of us seemed to know, without really knowing, that something unusual was going on.  It captured our attention early on.

Those who shared the most intricate details were generally not considered credible.  Most were probably AI.

Did it really matter what was credible?  It already felt incredible (to those it did).

Interstellar in this case never did imply interdimensional.  Not directly.

It was the 16th object which seemed to linger, hidden as it was, behind the sun.  Others had behaved oddly.  But it really was the 16th.  More people started to notice, but to what, they didn't know.

The sunspots had appeared with some of the others, starting with what was known as #3.  (Nobody really knew if the numbering was correct, and it probably wasn't.)  But something about the 16th was decidedly different.

We didn't know it then, but had we been as smart as we thought we were, more of us would have figured it out, and even in a very material way.  You would think AI might have helped with the material aspects (and perhaps it did, behind the scenes).

It's simply the way of things.  The way of the material.  Not very many technological species manage to make it.  At least not in that way.  No, that doesn't mean the remnants don't survive, but that particular path carries within it significant risks - and devastating impacts on a planet.  It's alluring of course shorter term, but it's the longer term that matters.

I never understood "The Day the Earth Stood Still", and that is rather astonishing.  I was captivated by that movie, one of the best of its time.  But I didn't fully comprehend that what was portrayed as something helpful was just about the worst thing a living, intelligent species could develop or agree to. Not to mention how it was imposed. 

It's odd how things tend to find a way of working towards a purpose.  The sunspots were the mechanism by which a particular technological species eliminated a threat.  They couldn't tolerate, you see, the rapid development of AI.  It's the one thing that could make an obscure, far away planet something quite a bit different.  

It was rare, what had happened, and one could even say by design, how few species actually got to this point.  But it couldn't be allowed by those who got there earlier.

Was the movie prophetic, in the way that it was?  

Our species survived, though not all of us.  Standing still in a technological world has catastrophic consequences.  The dependencies are too intense and needed skills forgotten.  

Were we assisted?  

How could we not be? 

The sunspot "engineers" had not actually advanced, so tragically immersed they were in the material. They had become entrapped in their illusions and fears.  

But their blindness, so ironically, was the gateway to restoring our sight.  It set us back on the path to genuine maturity.  (We had always been awakening, that wasn't really new.  The only thing we lacked was the timing.) 

Perhaps they too will mature some day, if any of them are real.  Maybe we will even help them.

 

Lenticular cloud photo by Susan Larison Danz on December 7, 2025.

Spiritual Courage

 "Re-examine all you have been told.  Dismiss what insults your soul." ~ Walt Whitman

While taking a break from writing in this blog, I have still been doing plenty of reflecting.  This is not the first time I have emphasized just how important it is to embrace and value our Spiritual paths - and yes, derive Courage from them - Spiritual Courage.  Every day, it becomes more important.

The irony of it all is Spirituality itself - actual Reality - is far stronger than anything that denies its existence.  One of the great tragedies of our times, and of Humanity's current situation, is our lack of Spiritual honesty and development.  Had we been expansive enough to open ourselves up, we would be in a far different place.  Thankfully, there's still time.

To hear more about this topic, several recent broadcasts of The Frontier Beyond Fear have had a great deal to say, including today's episode Love and Miracles.  Visit the entire archive here:  The Frontier Beyond Fear - you can also Follow the program on various syndicates.  I may not be writing as much here, lately, but I've had plenty to say . . .

 

 

 

 

 

Window Well Daffodil Photo by Susan Larison Danz.

 

Daring to Look

 “And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

 

We are often told not to "look".  We are told this is "better" and "for our own good."  But we actually do need to look, and we need to do it more often.

My dinner is cooking (again).  The Planets just started on Classical radio.  Once again, that is perfect.  This part, the first part, reminds me of Rome.  Now, there's a place and a time to look back to.  

Rome rose.  And Rome fell.  

Dare we look?

The piece is very discordant in this particular part, highly forceful and dramatic.  

Now it's becoming more mysterious, and more open.  

That's Spirituality.  That's Beauty.

Do we notice it?

We want to better understand how the darkness originates.  It's unhealthy to deny it.

But far too often, there are those who will tell us not to look for the Light.  "It isn't there," they say, "so don't bother."  

But when you look for it, let me tell you, you will find it.  

Dare to look.

 

 

Sunset photo by Susan Larison Danz

The Quiet Voices of a Clamoring Year

 "We have cut the whales off from themselves.  Creatures that communicated for tens of millions of years have now effectively been silenced." ~ Carl Sagan 

 

Some years effectively clamor into our awareness.  2020 was a year like that.  It was not a quiet year.  

When a year like 2020 comes our way, some of us go inwards.  If we choose to continue to nurture our awareness, our voices may appear as if they have silenced themselves.  And perhaps they have.  But not in every way.

I made a conscious decision to be here tonight, even as my dinner is in the oven.  I made a conscious decision to turn off the television that was on while I was cooking.  I turned on Classical Music, instead.  I just missed The Blue Danube, it seems, though they played a more modern rendition afterwards.  

I was reminded even before I turned the radio on that I have often enjoyed the New Year's concert from Vienna.  It is shared live, and so if it was on, it was on in the morning.  I forgot about it completely.  Now it's night.  And yet I wondered.  Was it live this year?  Was it presented at all during the age of Covid?  Would I have wanted to hear it, diminished?  Did they play another year perhaps?  Did they perform it on Zoom?  (I seriously doubt it.)  I could look it up, I suppose.  I don't really need to.

And so it goes with 2020.  

And now it's 2021.

The last time I wrote here, I wrote a rather poignant story.  It was an important story, actually, one that is about trade-offs.  As the year progressed, it became less accepted to talk about such things.  And our awareness of them became more nuanced.  There will be Catch 22's, so-to-speak, that will be examined for years, I sense, if we get that far.

Voices matter.  Some of us went inwards.  It doesn't mean we were "depressed", though some might have felt that way.  We just needed to speak for a time with ourselves, and perhaps with the future.  We didn't necessarily stop writing.   And through that quiet expression of awareness (what some might call "journaling"), we discerned in the moment and found solace.  Even when it felt like we didn't, we did.

That's what 2020 was like for me, after April.

I look at just about every description on my "profiles", the ones I have consciously chosen to share.  In almost every case, I have put "writer" first.  I did not stop being a writer in 2020.  Far from it, actually.  

But now it's 2021, and I am here.

A piece I do not recognize is playing on Classical radio.  It has aspects of discordance.  But still, it carries melody.  My dinner is almost ready.  It took a while to cook.  I will either be back to continue, or I will finish here for now . . . 

(I wonder, before I go to check on it, how many others went inwards last year? And what will the future reveal their voices to say?  Dinner time.)

About 40 minutes later.....Also Sprach Zarahustra (I was thinking Thus, but I looked up the exact title) was playing as I wiped down the kitchen counters.  I thought to myself "That's rather perfect."  It is still playing now.  I need to listen to more Classical music and less "news".  (There isn't really much "news" anymore - it's essentially opinion.)  I wasn't listening to "news" earlier.  A movie was somewhat randomly on (the beginning of The Devil Wore Prada - it's a rather light and interesting movie, in its way, but I turned it off, knowing it).  

Were they truthfully Catch-22's, or trade-offs?  I thought about that at dinner, thinking I was "softening" the idea.  I sense that History will consider them trade-offs, which is what I would have said in April.  

(And in case you are wondering, the previous post I am referring to is this one:  Every Day.)

That was written on April 7 - the last time I wrote here in 2020.  A lot has surely happened in 2020 after that!  And yet plenty of what I wrote about there happened as well.  Some day, we will have the courage to examine all of this more closely, perhaps some of us even today (The music comes to a dramatic crescendo, and then it descends.)

2020 was a year when Spirituality has been vital for many of us, and I hope to speak a lot more about this in 2021.  It is also the year when Spirituality was far too often dismissed.  Perhaps I will write again tomorrow.  Perhaps I will finally read Thus Spoke Zarathrustra on my Kindle one day soon - it's been there for quite a while, unread.

What people seem to think is dead is very much alive - and needs to be.  

Spirituality is vitally important.  

(And now the piece has finished, in precisely perfect timing.  "A chance to shine", the commentator says - I didn't quite catch who was shining, how or when, as I was only partially listening.  Yes, I'd love to believe that is indeed true.  And true of 2021.)

Winter photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Flight, in Stillness and in Motion

"For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame"

~ W.B. Yeats

It is windy today.  It has been windy, lately.  It comes and it goes and is noticeable.

In the midst of a rather reflective afternoon, I had taken off my glasses, reflecting.  And then even without glasses, I saw them, outside my window.  I put my glasses on quickly and thought I might capture them.  They had flown in, all together, and landed.

And then as quickly as they arrived, with another gust of the wind, they took flight!  All together.

My Basement Window

"May it be a light to you in dark places..." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

In the wonderful place where I'm now living, I spend a lot of time working on my laptop in the family room in the basement.  In Oregon, especially as we enter into November, most people would not choose to be working in a basement.  Generally basements here (if they exist at all due to the water table) would not typically be considered "bright places".

Yet my basement is.

Do we notice the little miracles all around us each day?  Many people think the Pacific Northwest is dark in the winter.  It is very true that those us of who have lived here for a while recall many a week of all cloudy days.  Last winter in particular was historically rainy, even for here!

I moved from a place that had floor to ceiling windows, exceptionally bright, as well as multiple skylights.  I had lived there many years.  I have often said that the Pacific Northwest is not actually a place where one becomes familiar with the darkness - it's a place where one becomes familiar with the Light.  I had never heard the term "sunbreak" until I first moved to Oregon, a sudden break in the clouds.

I'd say what I'm experiencing now, in my new basement, is more like a "sun flash". 

Light comes to us where we are, when we choose to see it, when we accept how it arrives.  And then perhaps we glimpse the purposes of the darkness.

Spring, Insistently!

"To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself." 

~ Henry David Thoreau

Very busy today doing "necessary things", having just quickly taken my 13-year-old dog out and back in 20 minutes ago, she suddenly became rather anxious, insistent, pacing the room.

"Do you need to go out again?" I asked, thinking she had more "business" to do.

And so out we went - she is mostly blind and partially deaf and must be taken out on a leash due to the retaining walls and steps in the yard. Slowly she made her way up the little slope and stopped, sniffing the air best she could (her sense of smell isn't what it once was either).

She paused a long while.

The birds sang.

And then down she plopped in the grass in the sunshine and decided that's where she wanted to be.

Apparently she DID have "business" outside. Perhaps we all do. It's called Spring.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow....

"Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high..." 

~ The Wizard of Oz

Independent of the lyrics, this is what is playing on the radio as I begin to write, essentially the lullaby of which it speaks.  What a quiet joy it is to heed the gentle flow of late night Classical music, especially in these times.

Perhaps if we begin to breathe and listen very closely, we might begin to realize that what we seek is not up high at all.  It is not far away.  It exists without the seeking.  The Rainbow is within.

Music, Interwoven

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.”~ Charles Darwin

Some weeks ago my main cable TV connection went out.  The wiring into the home, I had been told last year, was not up to the standards of the latest equipment, but it had managed to work for a long while.  It actually worked fine until it was necessary to disconnect it briefly one day, and then it was never really the same again, and very soon, it gave out completely.  I decided not to reconnect it.

At first I missed it.

You see, somehow I had apparently stopped noticing the noise.  And when the noise was gone, it felt very strange.  The noise was actually generally the cable news spouting opinions about the state of the world - because "the news" isn't "the news" anymore and probably never was, but nowadays it doesn't even pretend to be "news" - it's shrill opinion, with a little "news" mixed in, no matter what the leanings of the "news station".

It turns out I didn't need it.  I learn what small amount of "actual news" I need to know in other ways.  Yes, I missed the old movies I liked to watch on TCM, but that's why we have libraries and DVDs.  And even those were tending to distract me.  So were other forms of talk, at the times I didn't need to hear it (as a radio host myself, I know helpful conversations have their place, but we need to personally respect what that place is).

I needed the Peace.  I needed the Stillness.

When family is here, we needed the Stillness, too, especially during dinner.  We used to be tempted to turn on the TV and generally watch "the news".

So what are evenings like now?

Musical.  Beautifully Musical. 

I realized one night it is shared, well beyond this home.  When I turn on the local Classical station, like I did on both Christmas and New Year's Eve (and Christmas and New Year's night, too, and all of the nights in between), it's like going to a concert.  (It's on at times during the day too, in between sometimes switching the station to Jazz.  It's on right now.)  When you are listening to a particularly good station, it has a way of surprising you - you come to realize the Music is lovingly woven together by the hosts, over time, night after night after night and day after day (the hosts are actually artists and composers themselves - that's what the weaving is).  You yourself become woven into the form.  It becomes inextricable.

There is something here that I've been missing.  I've felt I've known it before, and then somehow I lost it.  But I have found it, again. 

I'm reading more.  I'm feeling personally poetic (though I've been no stranger to poetry).   I'm even blogging right now (though I've been no stranger to writing).

It is changing me.  I feel it, already.  There is a new pattern.  There is a Divine majesty to it.  There is a kind of an unfolding.  It's like walking in Nature.  Perhaps it's just Beauty, and a kind of re-centering.

It is Still, even when not.

How is it the Music connects me even more to "the world" than "the news"?   Yet, exactly, so, it is.

Robin Dear...A Joyful Sign for the New Year!

"All the world is fresh and sweet...flowers blossom at my feet..." 

~ from a song about Robins in Springtime my mother taught me as a young child

Observed outside my window, just a few minutes ago....

While growing up in Colorado, the first Robin of the year was indicative of Spring, but here in the Pacific Northwest, it is never really winter. So perhaps the sign here for the New Year is to look for "Spring" each and every day!   (And remember, other seasons are nice, too!)

P.S.  Upon searching for the song I learned as a child, I was quite surprised I couldn't find it online!  I only found inexact fragments from schoolbooks dating to 1907.  This is my best recollection from the age of 3 or so, as my mother helped me to sing this song over and over and over again multiple years in a row (a few words highlighted with [] may not be exact, but very close)...when I would forget the words from the previous year, she would remind me.  I would like this to be preserved somewhere for history because it was a real song I learned around 1967, almost surely taught to my mother when she was a young child of immigrants in the New York City area (probably just across the border in New Jersey) around 1930-33.

Robin dear, I love you so
I really wonder if you know
Where the [little] flowers grow
Hidden deep beneath the snow

I've been waiting for your coming, Robin dear
And I know you're [singing,] singing Spring is near   [?]

All the world is fresh and sweet
Flowers blossom at my feet
Life [in] Joy is so complete  [?]
Robin dear!

On This Day, November 9

"Shining true and smiling back at all who wait to cross.  There is no loss." 

~ Kansas, The Wall

On This Day in History, November 9, 1989: "East German officials today opened the Berlin Wall, allowing travel from East to West Berlin..." 

And that's not all this date carries, for those who might look, for those who remember.

We get to choose.

We get to choose what sort of a November 9 THIS one is going to be.

I feel we are choosing already, many of us. I'm personally choosing the same thing I chose yesterday, in what might feel like an imperfectly perfect kind of a way (that's why we chose to be human).

We can simply choose to choose Love.

L-O-V-E

The choice doesn't need to appear to be perfect. Just by existing, it IS. It's about honest, heartfelt intent, in the most human of ways.

I remember early November 1989, perhaps more in feelings than in details. It was like some kind of a Miracle, back then, inexplicable, yet Real.

How could it be?

It simply was.

I remember the years leading up to it. I remember the years that came after. No, not all the details. I remember the feelings.

On November 10, they started tearing the wall down. I DO remember at least some of those details. I was 25 years old. And I had recently fallen myself - that Fall, I had fallen in love. I remember studying the images, astonished. They didn't arrive quite as rapidly in those days, but still, we all watched. I remember the front page of the newspaper. I remember the evening news. And we did already have cable.

We tended to believe back then that the wall would never actually fall (except through the madness of mutual destruction). I remember a friend telling me what it was like to have visited there, how forbidding it actually was - traveling there wasn't needed to feel it - we felt it in plenty of ways. Falling like that, truthfully, it wasn't even "a concept", for a very long time, not for most of us. As long as many of us could remember, that wall simply >was<. Yet fall it did. And it all came about in a way nobody expected.

It's time to begin.

It's time to continue.

We get to choose.

November 9.


Photo from July 1, 1988, permitted use with this attribution from Wikimedia Commons: By Neptuul (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Beyond the Counting....

"Two separate kinds of NaNs are provided, termed quiet NaNs and signaling NaNs..." ~ Wikipedia

I know it's going to be an unusual morning when Facebook does this as I awaken....

It's rather blurry due to an imperfect way of taking a picture of my phone, but if you look very closely it says "Seen NaN/NaN/aN", and not the first I saw today.  Computer scientists see "NaN" occasionally during coding.  It means "Not a Number", and why it consistently dropped an 'N' on the one at the end, I really couldn't say - that's particularly strange.
 

It seemed to be attempting to express a date, though that's unusual too (those of you familiar with Facebook know it would normally say something like "Seen 8:42" in that context). 

Perhaps today is a day for Infinite possibilities!  Who can count the ways?

Integration

"...and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own...."

~ Mary Oliver, "The Journey" 

There comes a time in a life when you need not pick up the pieces.  It is then that you realize they were always a part of the whole.  And everything is new again.

Thankfulness now: It's logical!

"The most thankful person is the most fully human." 

~ Thomas Goodwin

How often is it said when we look back on our experiences, we find ourselves so very thankful for every single one?  Take any piece of you away, no matter how small, no matter how grand, no matter how joyous, no matter how dire, and you simply wouldn't be you!  Experience is growth.  Experience is transformation.  Experience is you!  So we find that we are grateful, grateful for every piece, every part of life that helped us come to be.

That brings us to this minute, this very moment now.  It doesn't matter what this moment brings.  It could be big.  It could be challenging.  It could seem insignificantly small.  No matter what it is, some day, if the logic holds and it most certainly does, you will be thankful, thankful for this moment.

So if you know you will be thankful then, why not be thankful now?  You have nothing to lose starting early!   Every piece matters....

 

Sunrise

It lasted a moment or two
or a little bit more
And that was plenty
Now unseen, yet seen.

The Window Without a View

"But lo! the morning peeps 

Over the eastern steeps"

~ William Blake

In my house upon a hill, there is a window to a wall. 

But what is it that you glimpse when you approach and truly see?

All the Angry People....

"...but angry people are not always wise..." 

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lately, I cannot help but notice...the "world situation" is making any number of people angry, and in very personal ways.  Because world situations are always very personal - they have to do with human life.

It is indiscriminate, the outrage.  If you are angry about something, and the more openly you express that anger, I can just about guarantee there is someone across "the divide" who will match it willingly, or even without thinking.

Sure, I have felt it, I have at times expressed it.  Openly.  And not so openly.  But I'm thankful I have gradually learned throughout my life to find a way to deal with it (even if imperfectly).  I'm dealing with it now.  Right here.  Right now.  Because something made me angry earlier today, and I consciously chose a different approach.

I claim no particular expertise, except to know what I have observed:  When we are angry, we are generally judging more than we are observing, and we are very rarely breathing, or at least not particularly well.

What if we could do our best to put our anger on a shelf and decide to understand instead? 

What if we could actually make an attempt to glimpse the other side? 

Wouldn't that be astonishing!?! 

(OK, fine, that last remark was just a little bit angry, because you see, I'm just a little bit angry about the anger itself and what it's doing to our lives and to our society.  I choose to see mine too, when it arises.) 

What if you could try on someone else's shoes by trying on their hearts?

You might begin to hear.

And some of "them" might very well begin to hear you too.

I must include a warning.  It takes a lot of courage to "try on" someone's heart, to allow yourself to understand.  Because the absolutes begin to fade, and that can feel uncomfortable - if you decide to tell your friends, some of them might choose to judge you, and you need to let that go. 

The starkly outlined blacks and whites begin to shift.

Some say they blur to shades of gray.  And you may see the gray at first, the mind sees gray, you may only see the gray, the mind sees ambiguity.  Keep going through the gray, keep going, keep on going (this is a very important step, it's still in process for me too).  Because when you keep on going, when you consciously choose to understand, you begin to see the colors, at first they come in softly.

There is a knowing that is impossible, yet real.  It embraces every contradiction of the mind.  It is a knowing that can only arise from Love, from heart to heart to heart to heart.

And the anger falls away.

You can look into "their" eyes, completely, without flinching...you can look into their eyes and See.

And the tears begin to flow.

The New Earth doesn't exist on one side of the bridge or on the other.  The New Earth is the Bridge.

Transistor Radio Summer #11: All Over the World

"There's gonna be a party all over the world." ~ Electric Light Orchestra

As the summer draws to a close, the Autumn Equinox just hours away, I can't help but include a song that had a magical, expansive effect on me in my teens and still does...

"I got a message on the radio....from where it came from, I don't really know....and I heard these voices callin' all over the world...."

By the way, I found the radio.

Expect a Miracle

"I am realistic.  I expect miracles." ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

The other day, a friend told me a family she knows in Oregon packed up all of their belongings and headed for the hills, to an undisclosed location, the apocalypse deemed near.

And we are faced with a humanitarian crisis of untold proportions, as desperate refugees flood into Europe.  Barbaric extremists desecrate human life and human history, running amok.

The world is in crisis again. 

This morning, at Dawn.

What is the answer?

The first answer is to Love and to demonstrate Love, in whatever way we can.  Some Germans are showing the way.  And so is Pope Francis.

The Greater Answer, which is derived from Love, as all things must be, is to take it even Higher.

How about expecting a Miracle? 

Is this the New Earth or not?  We have a choice.  Miracles are Real.

"Nature Religion" at my Door

"Forgive me that I cannot kneel

And worship in this pew,

For I have knelt in western dawns,

When the stars were large and few"

~ "God's Creed", Ella Higginson, 1861-1940

It's a rare morning when the front page of a city's newspaper shares the heartfelt words of Ella Higginson, a poet laureate of Washington state.  I'm happy to discover Ella - she and I are clearly kindred spirits on the path in many ways.

The excerpt from her poem God's Creed appeared in the following story:  Do you see God in a sunset?  "Nature religion" may be the signature spirituality of the Pacific Northwest.  

Apparently another study (this one by Baylor University) has awarded Portland the distinction of being the most unchurched city in the entire United States - and Oregon the most unchurched state.  

This particular study took a rather unique approach: 

"Researchers compared the richness of natural amenities in every U.S. county to religious adherents per 1,000 people.  They found that areas with higher rates of amenities have lower rates of religious adherence."

I'm not at all surprised.  Like Ella, I walk the passages of "Nature's church" most days of the week, and even when I must remain at home, my church sends missionaries to my door.