arcadia
01-23-2006, 02:56 PM
Hey guys,
I'm finally at a point here in LA where I have the combination of an Internet
connection and enough free time to write a brief update - certainly a rarity.
I am not sure what you are discussing right now, because I haven't had time to
read it, but one thing very much caught my eye. Within three days after I
stopped participating, there were a substantial number of unsubscriptions.
Several regular members have cast their final vote on what is going on by
completely abandoning this list and all its content.
In the same breath, I have had private emails urging me to create my own journal
separate from the discussion group, and simply discuss what I wish to discuss
there, based on discussion group postings, private emails, life events or
otherwise. Some people do seem to want to just read more than discuss, and are
apparently not being spiritually fed enough by the other posts, and / or do not
have the time to read so many words, to warrant hanging on for the next two
weeks of my announced absence.
My guess is that if / when I go through the posts since I left, I will see
arguments continuing. Most members really are not that invested in these
arguments, and quickly lose interest if they have to read through them - pro
David, anti David, pro Drake, anti Drake, pro guidelines, anti guidelines, et
cetera et cetera. I don't know what the solution to this die-off might be, but
be aware that it is happening - and actually by calling attention to it like
this, I may inadvertently only increase the bleeding - I don't know. Ultimately
it is a question of free will and I shouldn't be too attached to it, but that's
not easy when there is such a sudden spike. Some of those who left were the
authors of very insightful posts in the past, I should add.
That being said, I'll try to assuage those still on the fence by tossing out a
brief update here regarding what I've experienced since leaving Kentucky, since
this is what I was told had been holding it together for the members who quit.
The plane flight to LA wasn't that bad, but I did sit next to a guy who insisted
on putting the arm-rests down and completely elbowing out the space on them at
the same time, consuming more of the overall real estate for himself and to hell
with what the guys on either side thought. He also could not sit still for even
30 seconds - knee jerking away, he had to either play his video game or tap on
his laptop. He also couldn't type more than about two words at a time without
hitting his backspace key two or more times in a row - almost a second-by-second
ritual that became very irritating very quickly. In many ways this seems to be a
typical LA personality structure, as I have discovered.
The car rental has turned out very well - I got upgraded to a bright orange
four-door when I voted for the full-gas-tank car, (which is the most
cost-effective if I actually drive all the gas out, hence lending itself to a
lot of "free" traveling time,) and once I learned my way around it, I enjoyed
myself immensely, though I do miss the power steering on the Buick. The Mapquest
directions to the conference were perfect, and truth be told, the freeways were
NOT anywhere near as bad as I had prepared myself for, mentally, over the entire
course of the last year. I expected people to be going top speed and staying
right on my tail, but in fact I felt very safe in these large traffic areas, and
the drivers all seemed to be very considerate, with a few notable exceptions. So
that was a relief.
My first stop was to the Anaheim Hilton, where I roomed for two nights with
Larry Seyer and attended the NAMM show, the largest conference exhibition in the
world. It was absolutely gigantic in size - the equivalent of four football
fields in length just on the main floor, with exhibits also on decks below and
decks above.
Every manufacturer of music-oriented products puts their ALL into the NAMM show,
and you could walk for miles and miles without even beginning to see everything
there was to offer. Drums, guitars, keyboards, pianos, brass, woodwinds,
amplifiers, software, hardware, techie stuff, DJ stuff, you name it... you could
walk for miles and just never stop seeing new and exciting things. I was beyond
impressed; I guess "dazzled" would have to be the best word. At times it even
made me sexually aroused - I'm not kidding. "Gear lust" was fired off to an
all-time high, but I still came out of it feeling very good about the studio
that I now have. By being in that environment and seeing what was out there, I
now KNEW how blessed I really was.
I actually had a fake 'tag' to get in without paying, posing as a TASCAM
employee named Bill, but I knew so much about GigaStudio, and Larry's
contributions to it with the rooms, and the bass and drum libraries, that I
actually played the "sales" role anyway, as "David with Bill's tag", and got
people turned on to the product. I could tell that the TASCAM people were pretty
tripped out that Larry brought his "cool music friend" to the NAMM show and he
turned out to be a very valuable asset on the floor when he was there. I almost
certainly generated sales for them by the things I said to people, simply
because I am so impressed with GigaStudio and did not at all mind sharing my
enthusiasm with others who were interested.
After another good run on the floor on Saturday, I went on to my Danish friend
Dorte's house, and she was very sick with the flu, so I took care of her for two
days, cooking healthy and outrageously tasty meals, buying oscillococcinum,
olive leaf extract and echinacea-goldenseal tincture, and offering a listening
ear. This definitely strengthened our friendship, which has been entirely by
phone for the last year except for about 2 hours that we spent together at the
Conscious Life Expo in LA last February. We are getting along famously in
person, after knowing each other so well from hours a week on the phone this
past year. In the course of these conversations, I clarified my intention to
significantly change my facial appearance to match the intensity of change that
I have gone through on the internal level.
Huh? That's a very fancy way of saying that under rather crude circumstances,
since you cannot bring razors through the airport anymore, I ended up shaving
off the mustache and beard. Dorte had these old-fashioned Japanese
straight-razors on a stick, used for shaving your eyebrows, and her normal
leg-shaving blades were all at the gym and she was too sick to go. So, after
going as far as I could with scissors, I did a bloody 1800's-style shaving job
on myself, and for the first time since before September 11th 2001, I am now
back to the au-naturel "baby face" where the Cayce resemblance really screams
back at me from the mirror. I felt the need to do it right away before I lost
the nerve, because once I second-guessed myself that would be it, and then it
would NEVER get done. So I felt the urgency of the whole thing, and carried
through with it regardless of interference.
In some ways the results of this move were very triggering, and I hated it, but
Dorte said I looked good, and on my own side of the fence I am working through
the revulsion that it creates in me as a vital self-acceptance piece. I do need
to deal with this and stop feeling so plagued by the fact that this really is
who I am. After all, this IS my face. Period. No orthodontic work or otherwise
is going to change that basic fact.
After five years I had aged under the beard, which was a bit of a rude surprise
- particularly at the corners of my mouth and a line that had formed above the
chin. Once it was over, I found myself looking more like the other musicians at
the NAMM show than I ever would have expected... a moderately unattractive male,
in some respects, who took that "less than perfect" surface appearance and
sublimated it into deep creative work, searching for something larger than
himself since nothing was ever just handed to him in this world. With his
creative and intuitive work, he compensated for what was not intrinsically
"given" to him, as it might be to others who look more attractive in the
conventional sense.
I really had to deal with how much I had grown the beard as a form of "armoring"
against the world. After Sabrina was hit by that car, and became so consistently
verbal with me thereafter, I did grow the beard as a wall that obscured my Cayce
resemblance and created some natural distance between myself and others, making
them less likely to recognize me (until the pics went online, that is,) and made
me feel stronger, more masculine, more able to defend myself.
Dropping the "armor" was harder than I thought, and my first impulse was to be
almost driven to tears with how "ugly" I was. In fact, the tears DID have to
flow, but my higher self had to conspire a means of getting it to happen that
was not directly related, so I would get it out, but more on that later in the
timeline. I realize now, after a lot of work, that my reaction is not because of
my face being ugly, but because of its similarity to Edgar Cayce and all that
this entails. So I'm working on that one.
The trigger came when I got TERRIBLY confused and lost, driving from Dorte's to
my director's house last night. I had a complete emotional breakdown while
driving on Sunset Blvd. and heading near downtown LA, realizing that I had made
a terrible mistake since I had NOT used Mapquest. This has happened enough times
before that it did not impair my ability to drive. In reality I was purging all
the emotions that were stirred up from dropping the 'armor', and on some level I
knew that. I was finally dealing with the reality of who I am, what I've come
here to do, and where it's all going, with this film. It was pretty
overwhelming, but on another level I did need to release it.
When I finally called Daniele for directions, it was past the time she had
wanted to go to bed, which had only further increased my regret, and I tried to
take down her new directions on my paper with an exploded pen - the only one I
had in any of my ensemble. There was so much extra ink just balled up and
dripping on the pen that I tried to shake it off, and ended up polka-dotting my
entire right hand with big, thick blotches. This made me look as if I had been
infected by some curious skin ailment. I did NOT wipe the blotches because I
knew they would only spread and stain more. I knew I was in a major initiation
and I wasn't handling it very well.
Then I was overwhelmed when I got here, because unlike having a separate,
isolated bedroom of my own at Dorte's, here I am smack-dab in the middle of
Daniele's office, which curiously resembles my grandfather's office from
Beverwyck, where they last lived when he was still alive. There was no sense of
private space. Papa could get quite abusive at times, as did Nana, and now I was
getting triggered - hardcore - by those memories. I felt absurdly threatened and
I knew it was all in my head. I talked to Dorte on the phone about it and she
tried to talk me down.
Daniele fell asleep right after I got here, but the house was at 70, and I
discovered well over an hour after she went to bed that the bedspread was the
equivalent thickness of one thin blanket. So, even with my pants on, a
short-sleeved T-shirt and long-sleeved T-shirt, I was so cold that I could not
achieve sleep. This only further seemed to be a "trauma recall" of what my
entire life had felt like since I grew the beard for "protection." The lesson
seemed to be that I would HAVE to take care of myself, no matter what, adnd find
a way to survive.
So, finally I bit the bullet, got out of bed despite how much colder it made me
in that moment to be outside of the limited warmth that was there, and I put on
my long-sleeve flannel shirt and my jacket as well, then went back to bed. Only
then did I have enough basic warmth to achieve liftoff. It seemed that the
lesson was that rather than being a codependent seeking rescue from another,
like a woman (and we know how well THAT had worked out for me), I would have to
rescue myself, and provide my own warmth, even if "the world" had no warmth of
its own to give me.
It was very clear that all of this was triggered not so much because I had
created bad karma for myself, or anything like that, but more because I was just
going through a tremendous emotional shock from performing this "armor-dropping"
exercise that same day. Now I will be far more recognizable to anyone who has
seen the cover of the Reincarnation? book or my website, and more importantly I
have a more sensitive and vulnerable face once again.
Anyway, that seems to have been the big "lesson" of this whole thing, but there
are other side tangents to the story, so I will go on.
Daniele isn't back until 9PM tonight, so I do basically have the place to myself
all day today, and I will undoubtedly try to get more sleep after finishing this
little entry. Dorte and I did go see the place in Bel-Air yesterday, with my
newly fresh face capturing the wind and sun, and it seems like a great way to
get started, even if it does end up only lasting for a month. We saw another
place just two blocks away that was a two bedroom for around 1800 a month, at
the upper limit of what I had been willing to take on in terms of cost, and it
really had more space than I would even need - but it was nice. If I had enough
furniture it could be well worth it, as the structure certainly lent itself to a
feeling of bigness and privacy.
I did also remind myself that I MIGHT (I very much stress MIGHT) be able to take
on a certain number of clients per month once I get myself established at a
stable residence, and that has the added benefit of being an option that can
reduce any additional panic I might have of running out of money in what is
admittedly a very expensive area to live. Compared to the dumpy, slummy
atmosphere I felt in Venice, Beverly Hills was like paradise. I do feel that the
"energy" is better in areas where people are not dealing with grinding poverty
and desperation, the streets are cleaner and there are ample trees despite being
in a "City." People know, on some level, why it is worth paying extra to be in
these areas.
So, if I did take on clients again, I could possibly get my 'therapy instincts'
out in a form that was more conducive to quick growth on both sides, rather than
staying in that "head" more often. I realize now that if you stay in the
"therapy head" too much, it can really drag you down, and that was why I had to
stop doing it last year - it had become a personally unfavorable addiction that
kept me locked in "healing mode" rather than in creativity. Even so, re-opening
a wait list would, if I did it, create "demand inundation" once again, and I
have no idea what the solution might be to that obvious problem, except that I
would probably take on a certain number, perhaps 50, and then close it again.
In case there is concern about this, I would, of course, telegraph such a move -
you would hear about it well before it started, because as it is there are about
20-30 people who I bumped after I collapsed the whole thing in August, and most
of them would still want it if I were to get back into doing this again. I would
probably raise the rate to 200, since my cost of living has increased, and only
do about 5 a month, rather than 4 a week as I did before, since I now have the
film income to keep things going otherwise. Cayce's rate, by today's dollars,
would be 250, and many others with my level of exposure charge 300 or more for
the same type of service, so I do not feel this would be price-gouging behavior.
Dreaming someone else's dreams just over once a week would be vastly preferable
to doing it every other day like I was between January 2003 and July 2005.
Anyway, things are starting to shape up pretty well out here and I am not
regretting doing it. The weather in Kentucky was pouring rain and gloom almost
every day, and so cold that you could hardly go outside without bundling up. The
day before my flight, it had snowed and there was black ice everywhere, with
winds so harsh that you were constantly fighting the wind with your car as you
tried to drive along. By comparison, the sunlight and warmth out here seems like
a gift from God, and very energetically rejuvenating.
Well, I'm feeling really tired now, so I guess this is it. Tomorrow is our first
big meeting for the film since I got here, and it should be an interesting one.
I'll keep you updated as I get the chance, which may not be often but will
happen occasionally.
Peace be with you -
- David
I'm finally at a point here in LA where I have the combination of an Internet
connection and enough free time to write a brief update - certainly a rarity.
I am not sure what you are discussing right now, because I haven't had time to
read it, but one thing very much caught my eye. Within three days after I
stopped participating, there were a substantial number of unsubscriptions.
Several regular members have cast their final vote on what is going on by
completely abandoning this list and all its content.
In the same breath, I have had private emails urging me to create my own journal
separate from the discussion group, and simply discuss what I wish to discuss
there, based on discussion group postings, private emails, life events or
otherwise. Some people do seem to want to just read more than discuss, and are
apparently not being spiritually fed enough by the other posts, and / or do not
have the time to read so many words, to warrant hanging on for the next two
weeks of my announced absence.
My guess is that if / when I go through the posts since I left, I will see
arguments continuing. Most members really are not that invested in these
arguments, and quickly lose interest if they have to read through them - pro
David, anti David, pro Drake, anti Drake, pro guidelines, anti guidelines, et
cetera et cetera. I don't know what the solution to this die-off might be, but
be aware that it is happening - and actually by calling attention to it like
this, I may inadvertently only increase the bleeding - I don't know. Ultimately
it is a question of free will and I shouldn't be too attached to it, but that's
not easy when there is such a sudden spike. Some of those who left were the
authors of very insightful posts in the past, I should add.
That being said, I'll try to assuage those still on the fence by tossing out a
brief update here regarding what I've experienced since leaving Kentucky, since
this is what I was told had been holding it together for the members who quit.
The plane flight to LA wasn't that bad, but I did sit next to a guy who insisted
on putting the arm-rests down and completely elbowing out the space on them at
the same time, consuming more of the overall real estate for himself and to hell
with what the guys on either side thought. He also could not sit still for even
30 seconds - knee jerking away, he had to either play his video game or tap on
his laptop. He also couldn't type more than about two words at a time without
hitting his backspace key two or more times in a row - almost a second-by-second
ritual that became very irritating very quickly. In many ways this seems to be a
typical LA personality structure, as I have discovered.
The car rental has turned out very well - I got upgraded to a bright orange
four-door when I voted for the full-gas-tank car, (which is the most
cost-effective if I actually drive all the gas out, hence lending itself to a
lot of "free" traveling time,) and once I learned my way around it, I enjoyed
myself immensely, though I do miss the power steering on the Buick. The Mapquest
directions to the conference were perfect, and truth be told, the freeways were
NOT anywhere near as bad as I had prepared myself for, mentally, over the entire
course of the last year. I expected people to be going top speed and staying
right on my tail, but in fact I felt very safe in these large traffic areas, and
the drivers all seemed to be very considerate, with a few notable exceptions. So
that was a relief.
My first stop was to the Anaheim Hilton, where I roomed for two nights with
Larry Seyer and attended the NAMM show, the largest conference exhibition in the
world. It was absolutely gigantic in size - the equivalent of four football
fields in length just on the main floor, with exhibits also on decks below and
decks above.
Every manufacturer of music-oriented products puts their ALL into the NAMM show,
and you could walk for miles and miles without even beginning to see everything
there was to offer. Drums, guitars, keyboards, pianos, brass, woodwinds,
amplifiers, software, hardware, techie stuff, DJ stuff, you name it... you could
walk for miles and just never stop seeing new and exciting things. I was beyond
impressed; I guess "dazzled" would have to be the best word. At times it even
made me sexually aroused - I'm not kidding. "Gear lust" was fired off to an
all-time high, but I still came out of it feeling very good about the studio
that I now have. By being in that environment and seeing what was out there, I
now KNEW how blessed I really was.
I actually had a fake 'tag' to get in without paying, posing as a TASCAM
employee named Bill, but I knew so much about GigaStudio, and Larry's
contributions to it with the rooms, and the bass and drum libraries, that I
actually played the "sales" role anyway, as "David with Bill's tag", and got
people turned on to the product. I could tell that the TASCAM people were pretty
tripped out that Larry brought his "cool music friend" to the NAMM show and he
turned out to be a very valuable asset on the floor when he was there. I almost
certainly generated sales for them by the things I said to people, simply
because I am so impressed with GigaStudio and did not at all mind sharing my
enthusiasm with others who were interested.
After another good run on the floor on Saturday, I went on to my Danish friend
Dorte's house, and she was very sick with the flu, so I took care of her for two
days, cooking healthy and outrageously tasty meals, buying oscillococcinum,
olive leaf extract and echinacea-goldenseal tincture, and offering a listening
ear. This definitely strengthened our friendship, which has been entirely by
phone for the last year except for about 2 hours that we spent together at the
Conscious Life Expo in LA last February. We are getting along famously in
person, after knowing each other so well from hours a week on the phone this
past year. In the course of these conversations, I clarified my intention to
significantly change my facial appearance to match the intensity of change that
I have gone through on the internal level.
Huh? That's a very fancy way of saying that under rather crude circumstances,
since you cannot bring razors through the airport anymore, I ended up shaving
off the mustache and beard. Dorte had these old-fashioned Japanese
straight-razors on a stick, used for shaving your eyebrows, and her normal
leg-shaving blades were all at the gym and she was too sick to go. So, after
going as far as I could with scissors, I did a bloody 1800's-style shaving job
on myself, and for the first time since before September 11th 2001, I am now
back to the au-naturel "baby face" where the Cayce resemblance really screams
back at me from the mirror. I felt the need to do it right away before I lost
the nerve, because once I second-guessed myself that would be it, and then it
would NEVER get done. So I felt the urgency of the whole thing, and carried
through with it regardless of interference.
In some ways the results of this move were very triggering, and I hated it, but
Dorte said I looked good, and on my own side of the fence I am working through
the revulsion that it creates in me as a vital self-acceptance piece. I do need
to deal with this and stop feeling so plagued by the fact that this really is
who I am. After all, this IS my face. Period. No orthodontic work or otherwise
is going to change that basic fact.
After five years I had aged under the beard, which was a bit of a rude surprise
- particularly at the corners of my mouth and a line that had formed above the
chin. Once it was over, I found myself looking more like the other musicians at
the NAMM show than I ever would have expected... a moderately unattractive male,
in some respects, who took that "less than perfect" surface appearance and
sublimated it into deep creative work, searching for something larger than
himself since nothing was ever just handed to him in this world. With his
creative and intuitive work, he compensated for what was not intrinsically
"given" to him, as it might be to others who look more attractive in the
conventional sense.
I really had to deal with how much I had grown the beard as a form of "armoring"
against the world. After Sabrina was hit by that car, and became so consistently
verbal with me thereafter, I did grow the beard as a wall that obscured my Cayce
resemblance and created some natural distance between myself and others, making
them less likely to recognize me (until the pics went online, that is,) and made
me feel stronger, more masculine, more able to defend myself.
Dropping the "armor" was harder than I thought, and my first impulse was to be
almost driven to tears with how "ugly" I was. In fact, the tears DID have to
flow, but my higher self had to conspire a means of getting it to happen that
was not directly related, so I would get it out, but more on that later in the
timeline. I realize now, after a lot of work, that my reaction is not because of
my face being ugly, but because of its similarity to Edgar Cayce and all that
this entails. So I'm working on that one.
The trigger came when I got TERRIBLY confused and lost, driving from Dorte's to
my director's house last night. I had a complete emotional breakdown while
driving on Sunset Blvd. and heading near downtown LA, realizing that I had made
a terrible mistake since I had NOT used Mapquest. This has happened enough times
before that it did not impair my ability to drive. In reality I was purging all
the emotions that were stirred up from dropping the 'armor', and on some level I
knew that. I was finally dealing with the reality of who I am, what I've come
here to do, and where it's all going, with this film. It was pretty
overwhelming, but on another level I did need to release it.
When I finally called Daniele for directions, it was past the time she had
wanted to go to bed, which had only further increased my regret, and I tried to
take down her new directions on my paper with an exploded pen - the only one I
had in any of my ensemble. There was so much extra ink just balled up and
dripping on the pen that I tried to shake it off, and ended up polka-dotting my
entire right hand with big, thick blotches. This made me look as if I had been
infected by some curious skin ailment. I did NOT wipe the blotches because I
knew they would only spread and stain more. I knew I was in a major initiation
and I wasn't handling it very well.
Then I was overwhelmed when I got here, because unlike having a separate,
isolated bedroom of my own at Dorte's, here I am smack-dab in the middle of
Daniele's office, which curiously resembles my grandfather's office from
Beverwyck, where they last lived when he was still alive. There was no sense of
private space. Papa could get quite abusive at times, as did Nana, and now I was
getting triggered - hardcore - by those memories. I felt absurdly threatened and
I knew it was all in my head. I talked to Dorte on the phone about it and she
tried to talk me down.
Daniele fell asleep right after I got here, but the house was at 70, and I
discovered well over an hour after she went to bed that the bedspread was the
equivalent thickness of one thin blanket. So, even with my pants on, a
short-sleeved T-shirt and long-sleeved T-shirt, I was so cold that I could not
achieve sleep. This only further seemed to be a "trauma recall" of what my
entire life had felt like since I grew the beard for "protection." The lesson
seemed to be that I would HAVE to take care of myself, no matter what, adnd find
a way to survive.
So, finally I bit the bullet, got out of bed despite how much colder it made me
in that moment to be outside of the limited warmth that was there, and I put on
my long-sleeve flannel shirt and my jacket as well, then went back to bed. Only
then did I have enough basic warmth to achieve liftoff. It seemed that the
lesson was that rather than being a codependent seeking rescue from another,
like a woman (and we know how well THAT had worked out for me), I would have to
rescue myself, and provide my own warmth, even if "the world" had no warmth of
its own to give me.
It was very clear that all of this was triggered not so much because I had
created bad karma for myself, or anything like that, but more because I was just
going through a tremendous emotional shock from performing this "armor-dropping"
exercise that same day. Now I will be far more recognizable to anyone who has
seen the cover of the Reincarnation? book or my website, and more importantly I
have a more sensitive and vulnerable face once again.
Anyway, that seems to have been the big "lesson" of this whole thing, but there
are other side tangents to the story, so I will go on.
Daniele isn't back until 9PM tonight, so I do basically have the place to myself
all day today, and I will undoubtedly try to get more sleep after finishing this
little entry. Dorte and I did go see the place in Bel-Air yesterday, with my
newly fresh face capturing the wind and sun, and it seems like a great way to
get started, even if it does end up only lasting for a month. We saw another
place just two blocks away that was a two bedroom for around 1800 a month, at
the upper limit of what I had been willing to take on in terms of cost, and it
really had more space than I would even need - but it was nice. If I had enough
furniture it could be well worth it, as the structure certainly lent itself to a
feeling of bigness and privacy.
I did also remind myself that I MIGHT (I very much stress MIGHT) be able to take
on a certain number of clients per month once I get myself established at a
stable residence, and that has the added benefit of being an option that can
reduce any additional panic I might have of running out of money in what is
admittedly a very expensive area to live. Compared to the dumpy, slummy
atmosphere I felt in Venice, Beverly Hills was like paradise. I do feel that the
"energy" is better in areas where people are not dealing with grinding poverty
and desperation, the streets are cleaner and there are ample trees despite being
in a "City." People know, on some level, why it is worth paying extra to be in
these areas.
So, if I did take on clients again, I could possibly get my 'therapy instincts'
out in a form that was more conducive to quick growth on both sides, rather than
staying in that "head" more often. I realize now that if you stay in the
"therapy head" too much, it can really drag you down, and that was why I had to
stop doing it last year - it had become a personally unfavorable addiction that
kept me locked in "healing mode" rather than in creativity. Even so, re-opening
a wait list would, if I did it, create "demand inundation" once again, and I
have no idea what the solution might be to that obvious problem, except that I
would probably take on a certain number, perhaps 50, and then close it again.
In case there is concern about this, I would, of course, telegraph such a move -
you would hear about it well before it started, because as it is there are about
20-30 people who I bumped after I collapsed the whole thing in August, and most
of them would still want it if I were to get back into doing this again. I would
probably raise the rate to 200, since my cost of living has increased, and only
do about 5 a month, rather than 4 a week as I did before, since I now have the
film income to keep things going otherwise. Cayce's rate, by today's dollars,
would be 250, and many others with my level of exposure charge 300 or more for
the same type of service, so I do not feel this would be price-gouging behavior.
Dreaming someone else's dreams just over once a week would be vastly preferable
to doing it every other day like I was between January 2003 and July 2005.
Anyway, things are starting to shape up pretty well out here and I am not
regretting doing it. The weather in Kentucky was pouring rain and gloom almost
every day, and so cold that you could hardly go outside without bundling up. The
day before my flight, it had snowed and there was black ice everywhere, with
winds so harsh that you were constantly fighting the wind with your car as you
tried to drive along. By comparison, the sunlight and warmth out here seems like
a gift from God, and very energetically rejuvenating.
Well, I'm feeling really tired now, so I guess this is it. Tomorrow is our first
big meeting for the film since I got here, and it should be an interesting one.
I'll keep you updated as I get the chance, which may not be often but will
happen occasionally.
Peace be with you -
- David