God implants in the hearts of his pupils a desire to advance his ends, but human agents are compelled to employ natural means. There are people who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. What God says is best, is best, though all the people in the World are against it. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. All of the little signs we instinctively register during a conversation—the muscle shifts and tensions in the other person’s face, eye movements and pupil dilation, pitch and speed of the voice—as well as the fluctuation in our own inner landscape—salivation, swallowing, breathing, and heart rate—are linked by a single regulatory system.  All of the function listed above are product of the synchrony between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system (ANS): the sympathetic, which acts as the body’s accelerator, and the parasympathetic, which serves as its brake. These are the reciprocals that the English naturalist and geologist, Charles Robert Darwin, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution spoke of. And working together, they play an important role in managing the body’s energy flow, one preparing for its expenditure, the other for its conservation. 

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for arousal, including the stand your ground or escape response. Almost two thousand years ago the Roman physician Galen gave it the name “sympathetic” because he observed that it functioned with the emotions (sympathos). The SNS moves blood to the muscles for quick action, partly by triggering the adrenal glands to squirt out adrenaline, which speeds up the heart rate and increases blood pressure. The second branch of the ANS is the parasympatheric (“against emotions”) nervous system (PNS), which promotes self-preservative functions like digestion and wound healing. It triggers the release of acetylcholine to put a brake on arousal, slowing the heart down, relaxing muscles, and returning breathing to normal. Feeding, shelter, and mating activities depend on the PNS. There is a simple way to experience these two systems for yourself. Whenever you take a deep breath, you activate the SNS. The resulting burst of adrenaline speeds up your heart, which explains why many athletes take a few short, deep breaths before starting competition. Exhaling, in turn, activates the PNS, which slows down the heart. One should pay particular attention to the exhalation, since deep, long breaths out help calm you down. As we breathe, we continually speed up and slow down the heart, and because of that the interval between two successive heartbeats is never precisely the same. 

A measurement called heart rate variability (HRV) can be used to test the flexibility of this system, and good HRV—the more fluctuation, the better—is a sign that the brakes and accelerator in your arousal system are both functioning properly and in balance. We had a breakthrough when we acquired an instrument to measure HRV, and later we will talk about how HRV can be used to help treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Polyvagal Theory (Polyvagal refers to the many branches of the vagus nerve or the pneumogastric nerve—which connects numerous organs, including the brain, lungs, heart, stomach, and intestines), provided a more sophisticated understanding of the biology of safety and danger, one based on the subtle interplay between the visceral experiences of our own bodies and the voices and faces of the people around us. It explained why a kind face or a soothing tone of voice can dramatically alter the way we feel, It clarified why knowing that we are seen and heard by the important people in our lives can make us feel calm and safe, and why being ignored or dismissed can precipitate rage reactions or mental collapse. It helped us understand why focused attunement with another person can shift us out of disorganized and fearful states.  Basically, we have to look beyond the stand your ground or defense methods and put social relationships front and center in our understanding of trauma. It is also suggested new approaches to healing that focus on strengthening the body’s system for regulating arousal are also helpful.  Human beings are astoundingly attuned to subtle emotional shifts in the people (and animals) around them. Slight changes in the tension of the brow, wrinkles around the eyes, curvature of the lips, and angle of the neck quickly signal to us how comfortable, suspicious, relaxed, or frightened someone is.

Our mirror neurons register their inner experience, and our own bodies make internal adjustments to whatever we are ready to pounce on them or run away. When the message we receive from another person is “You are safe with me,” we relax. If we are lucky in our relationships, we also feel nourished, supported, and restored as we look into the face and eyes of the other. Our culture teaches us to focus on personal uniqueness, but at a deeper level we barely exist as individual organisms. Our brains are built to help us function as members of a tribe. We are part of that tribe even when we are by ourselves, whether listening to music by Paris Hilton, or that other people created, watching a Golden State Warriors basketball game at the Oracle arena or on television (our own muscles tensing as the players run and jump), or preparing a spreadsheet for a sale meeting (anticipating the boss’s reactions). Most of our energy is devoted to connecting with other. If we look beyond the list of specific symptoms that entail formal psychiatric diagnoses, we find almost all mental suffering involves either trouble in creating workable and satisfying relationships or difficulties in regulating arousal (as in the case of habitually becoming enraged, shut down, overexcited, or disorganized). Usually, it is a combination of both. The standard medical focus on trying to discover the right drug to treat a particular “disorder” tends to distract us from grappling with how our problems interfere with our functioning as members of our tribe. Every man, woman, and child will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty (Jehovah is the name some use) has spoken. All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of the LORD our God (Jehovah) forever and ever.  

Why should a man so carelessly cast away himself, by giving heed to a stranger? God does not desire the spiritual death of a sinner, however, God’s justice cannot let His mercy operate for the comfort of one person, as the divine grace is not divined to space. The evil that takes false nobility, by grabbing itself in the royal magnificence of good, rise up and listen to me; you who feel secure will tremble. The scoundrel’s methods are wicked, he makes up evil schemes to destroy the humble with lies, even when the pleas of the needy is just. However, the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds (TheDeedle.com) he stands. In this silvery World, the white snowflakes are my missing and blessing for you. Wish you stretch out your hands and accept my best wishes. May the flower of happiness be fragrant in your future days. Without rhythm, there would be no poetry; without colours, could there be life? May Summer endow you with magnificent colors, boundless hopes and a bright future. A door just opened on a street—I, lost, was passing by—an instant’s width of warmth disclosed, and wealth, and company. While I was lost in the happy bustle which this announcement produced in my charming household, Ryan was at one with me in thinking with intensity of the castle.  The case which has called him to Sacramento, California USA was not complicated enough to absorb all his attention, and he had the professional faculty of keeping a part of his mind free when its services were not required. Ryan recognized the fact that he was paying up, as there had always been a chance of his having to pay up, for the voluntary exclusions of his past.

The door as sudden shut, and I, Randolph, was passing by contrast most, enlightening misery.  Your eyes will see the king in his beauty and view a land that stretches afar. In your thoughts you will ponder the former terror. It seems not inappropriate to mention here the other celebrated national games of the Greeks. The first and most distinguished were the Olympic, founded it was said by Jupiter himself. They were celebrated at Olympia in Elis. Vast numbers of spectators flocked to teem from every part of Greece, and from Asia, Africa, and Sicily. They were repeated every fifth year in midsummer, and counted five days. They gave rise to the custom of reckoning time and dating events by Olympiads. The first Olympiad is generally considered as corresponding with the year 776 Before Christ, so they predate the human Bible and possibly their God. The Pythian games were celebrated om the vicinity of Delphi, the Isthmian on the Corinthian isthmus, the Nemean at Nemea, a city of Argolis.  The exercise in these games were of five sorts: running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the quoit, and hurling the javelin, or boxing. Besides these exercises of bodily strength and agility, there were contest in music, poetry, and eloquence. Thus these games furnishes poets, musicians, and authors the best opportunities to present their production to the public, and the fame of the victors was diffused far and wide.

The labyrinth from which Theseus escaped by the clew of Ariadne was built by Daedalus, a most skillful artificer It was an edifice with numberless winding passages and turnings opening to one another, and seeming to have neither beginning nor end, like the river Maeander, which returns on itself, and flows now onward, and now backward, in its course to the sea. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure houses, in undisturbed places of rest.  Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the favor of the king, and was shut up in a tower. He contrived to make his escape from the castle, but could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched. “Minos may control the land and sea,” said Daedalus, “but not the regions of the air. I will try that way.” He next equipped his son in the same manner and taught him how to fly. Past events are dreams in memory. You are the only being to imagine me. The waterdrops on green leaves are my tears of missing. My son, I charge you to keep at moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe. You will see those arrogant people no more, those people of an obscure speech, with their strange, incomprehensible tongue.  

The will is placed in the soul, and who can enter there but he that created the soul? What are the comprehensible terrors of man compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God? When your judgments come upon the Earth, the people of the World will learn righteousness. Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprighteness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the LORD. O LORD, your hand is lifted high, however, they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them. My love falls into your sea, splashing a beam of blue moonlight, and this moonlight floats my heart. Your love-lit eyes are like sparkling stars, dispelling loneliness from my heart. Wish you a bright future and not forget me. If life is a flower, love is the honey of the flower. May your future be as beautiful as flower and as sweet as honey. In that day, the LORD Almighty will be a glorious crown, a beautiful wreath for the remnant of his people. He will be a spirit of justice to who sits in judgment, a source of strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. And these also stagger from wine and reel from beer: Priests and prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions. All the tables are covered with vomit and there is not a spot without filth. Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To child(ren) weaned from their milk to those just taken from the day school? 

 I felt a clearing in my mind as if my brain had split; I tried to match it, seam by seam, but could not make them fit. The thought behind I strove to join unto the thought before, but sequence raveled out of reach like balls upon the floor. These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore, once more, I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish. The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have eyes for evil will be cut down—those who with a word make a man out to be guilt, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice will be vanquished. Woe to the obstinate children, to those who carry out plans that are not mine forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. However, Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace. Who has not found the Heaven below will fail of it above. God’s residence is next to mine, His furniture is love. Are friends delight or pain? Could bounty but remain, riches were good.  

Fate slew him, but he did not drop; she felled—he did not fall—impaled him on her fiercest stakes—he neutralized them all. She stung him, sapped his firm advance, however, when her worst was done, and he unmoved, regarded her, acknowledged him a man. Finite to fail, but infinite to venture. For the one Albatross that struts the shore many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature nodding in navies nevermore. Who never wanted, –maddest joy remains to him unknown; the banquet of abstemiousness surpasses that of wine. Within its hope, though yet ungrasped desire’s perfect goal, no nearer, least reality should disenthrall thy soul. The LORD will cause men to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail. The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his scepter he will strike them down. For wise and good reasons, God made the knowledge of Himself scarce any otherwise attainable by us, than that of the existence of other beings absent to sense. The devil may work against us, but God sense us men when we want them. The high official gave their orders to a middle class of functionaries and middle-ranking priest, whose task it was to ensure that their superiors’ orders were carried out by such specialists as soldiers, scribes, junior priests, craftsmen and artists, who were paid for their services not in money but in food and other goods. Egyptian society had a distinct hierarchic structure that is often symbolized by a pyramid. Titular owner of all the lands, quarries, and mines in Egypt, head of government, supreme commander of the army, chief of the priesthood and sole intermediary between the gods and mankind, the pharaoh was all powerful. 

The Winchester Mystery House

Those who tour The Winchester Mystery House will discover a beautiful mansion where ghostly hound howl occurs on stormy nights. This is one of Santa Clara’s oldest homes where spirits whisper to guests. Come and experience an architect’s dream house that turned into a home for the undead. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Talk of love making people jealous and suspicious—it is nothing to social ambition! I used to lie awake at night wondering whether I could get time and money enough. I hope you managed to make yourself comfortable, father? Is it not a jolly little house? It is such a blessing to have a few quiet weeks with you. Your hair is wonderful. However, you have told me so little that I can only guess what has been happening; but in the rush are alive, and there is no time to keep on hating anyone without cause, and if that woman is still nasty enough to want to injure you with other people it must be because she is still afraid of you. From her standpoint there is only one reason for being afraid of you; and my own idea is that, if you want to punish her, you hold the means in your hand. There only thing I can tell her is to find a new man to fix her eyes on because if she keeps coming around you, she will perish like a thief on the streets of Oakland, California USA.  

 And my longing for shelter and security was intensified by the passionate desire to triumph over her, as only wealth and predominance cold triumph over her. As your son and representative, I at least present an invulnerable front to my enemy. As she walked beside you, shrinking in every nerve fro, the way in which your look and tone made free of her, yet she told herself that the momentary conflict and pain and suffering she caused was an endurance of your mood and the price she must pay for her ultimate power over you, she tried to calculate the exact point at which concession must turn to resistance, and the price you would have to pay be equally clear to you. However, your dapper self-confidence seemed impenetrable to such hints, but behind closed doors, you had an abortion of emotions and promised to terminate anything that reminded you of her.   

My blood tingled with the grossness of the rebuff; but she got checked the first lead of your anger, when you told her that she has no one for herself to blame if you gave her the impression that she was even worthy of life. Her word-play was always too quick for you, but you caught on to what she is doing, and closed the door in her face telling her that was the final good bye. If she ever talked to you again, the police said that you both would be ruined behind bars because what you have done to your son and they are sick of how you do not spend time with him, but he worships you. Let me pause for a moment, your behavior has raised eyebrows and people want to show you and tell you how you did him and made him feel. However, your son is not allowed to do anything without your permission. You keep him held hostage and no one ever gets to spend time with him.   

I have seen so many draw close to your son and seek his attention, he was so sad he made the angels cry, but you watch as he falls down like rain. And when he reaches for you, it seems as if he reaches in vain. It is just not fair, this thing called loving. When he stands there, you act as if you feel nothing. He would have done anything for you, he still loves you, and he adores you. All day, to keep from falling apart, he spent the evenings laughing with two women. That harlot you were running with damn near killed him. He is more in love with you than he was this time last year; you have to face that the situation has changed. You may not be as desirable as you once were. People see the pictures that harlot posts, and they believe the stories about you, but your son does not want to believe them. Stop the tracks and state facts. How they gone be talking trash, they act like you just got up in it, you been with that boy forever. These women and some of the men have split personalities and are schizoid, and in a hysteria.  

Well, why should they not hear your reasons for doing it, then? We are neither of us such new hands that a little plain speaking is going to hurt us. Having concocted the illness as a fiction, I was drawn to the fact that these women have been feeding your son poison and exposing him to things he is allergic to and slandering him to end his life, and they have almost accomplished their goal several times. This alteration between stupor and activity, interspersed with anger displayed by these women is an illness called Folie Circylarie. Suffers experience a circular rhythm of mood, a cycle of mild depression, rage, and random bodily activity, interspersed with anger, hate and loss of rational thoughts, some men also suffer from it and they attack your son without cause. Folie Circylarie is a form of hysteria and manic depression by the independence of the mood periodicity from outward circumstances. The disease is impossible to interrupt without hypnosis.  

The Winchester Mystery House

From clanking and wailing in The Winchester Mystery House and strange lights to eerie voices heard on a tape recorder left on overnight, there are hundreds of haunted rooms in this Victorian mansion. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

I hate to see you cry, my love is by your side. I run, but I am running to you. You will not see me cry, I am crying inside. In this World, no matter how many more years I will live and how far I will further travel, what I can never forget is your encouragement and expectations. In these special days, my dear God, how I wish I could once again listen to your endearing inculcation…God, your youth is beautiful because it likes prosperous spring willows, gurgling spring, surging waves and galloping wheels. I wish you are young forever. A heart lack of attention requires most Sunshine. God, how many times you comfort me with your warm big hands. I will cherish and treasure your love and your deep feelings forever. I will never forget your love, when I am in low spirits, it is you who push black clouds off my heart and bring me lovely Sunlight. God you warm every pupil’s heart with fire-like intensity of the beautiful on a Summer’s day, while recreating in the fields. Countless hearts are guided and encouraged by you, even your back was watched by ardent eyes. I am your Albatross guiding you in this White Squall, no need to be Little Boy Blue.  

LORD, you have established peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. LORD, our God, other gods have ruled over us, and in your name we have accomplished honor. They are now dead; they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them. You have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land. We have not given birth to people of the World. However, your dead will live, their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the Earth will give birth to its dead. Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of Earth for their sins. The Earth will disclose the blood shed upon her, she will conceal her slain no longer.  Once one has gained friendship, hardship and agony will decrease and mirth and happiness will increase many times. Friendships had the expertise and observation of the best doctor the diligence and discretion of the best nurse and the care and patience of the best Father. The seed of friendship with my father, God, is deeply embedded in your heart and mine. When Father’s Day comes, it will bud into a flower of fragrant lilac and vanilla, that will belong to you and me.

The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have eyes for evil will be cut down—those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice. No longer will your son be ashamed; no longer will your face grow pale. What you have left with me is a beautiful reminiscence and what you have impressed in my mine is purity and friendship. When I suggest a toast of vintage cranberry juice in my memory to you, I am the first to get drunk. If we say that the father is to be an evergreen tree, he then must be watered with the water welling up from my heart, his son; if we say that the father-son bond is to be a never withering flower, the Sun will shine on it rising from one’s heart. As your son, I am able to make your tree of life evergreen. With this tree and my presence, I will comfort you when you are moody; I will make your life fraught with luster. I appreciate your personality very much which is like a minor, you would rather be broken than distout faces. Trickling sluggish river flowing to the White Squall, it will exist forever although losing the Albatross itself.  

You dedicate yourself silently without leaving fame, but the value of the Albatross and life will exist forever with your career. You are the best-looking man to ever exist with your soft pillow lips, almond shaped blue eyes, perfectly architectured face, well balanced and symmetric, golden hair and golden skin that reflects so handsomely in the Summer Sun. Oh, Dear God, why do you rush away from me and not stay for awhile and delight in a meal and mirth. I have opened my heart, house, mind, and body to you.  Revenge and rehabilitation might be mine and a stroke—there was something dazzling in the completeness of the opportunity. I am standing silent, gazing away from you down the autumnal stretch of the deserted lane. And suddenly fear possessed me—fear of myself, and of the terrible force of the temptation. All my past weakness were like so many eager accomplices drawing me toward the path their feet had already smoothed. I turned quickly, and held out my hand to you, God.  At any rate, you engaged me so long that the sweet words were being handed when I caught a phrase on my other side, you never avoid the heaviness of big mountain, you never despise the shallowness of the pool, you are stead as rock and look storms as the real God in my study and life. I acknowledge the God you are and will stand in awe of the God of the Universe, Earth, and Sacramento. My worship is made up of your lips and heart and the rules you taught me—facing the World with a soul. You can make it so real because you cannot deny you have blown my mind, and when I see you, God, I just do not want to let go. Do not let go. 

By experiencing the pairs of opposites, suffering ceases. When distressed arises, ride opposing thoughts back into reality. By reversing instability into stability, from refusing into nonrefusing, suffering is relinquished. Through disidentification, the pairs of opposites cease their noxious effect. By reversing the pairs of opposites stability and the release of suffering are quickly achieved.  This happens very often with vocational goals. The man works year after year striving to become president of the company or become important and prominent in some other way. When he gets there, he expects to experience all the satisfaction and the glamour associated with that level of achievement: The genuflecting by employees, luxury cars, a plush office, the titles, and labels, along with the exclusive addressed. However, what he finds is all of these things are superficial. Whatever ideas, assumptions, and images have been used to construe an ongoing sense of expected reality will be projected as the life space and experience of what you believe to exist identity or self-image. What is considered reality is an image of the past that is being maintained as much as possible by selective attention. It is this projection of the past that dissolves as we express our true personality. Being present is not static and is not a circular repetition of the expected. One might experience such moments as a breaking through of energy, as freedom, or as insight and clarity. The viability of emotions of self-negativity, shame, doubt, resentment, rage, and anxiety dissolve as the self that requires these reactions and expectation no longer is maintained and carried forward. The release of that self is not the result of new beliefs, but an openness in which no predetermined belief is required or presumed. What is key to change is not new constructs for thought, but release of the thought constructs that determine reactions, feelings, and requirements for a separated self-sense. The intent to cause something to occur requires the intentional self-center. The dropping away of that basis for a familiar and anchored belief-structure is spontaneous, not a continuity or a strategy. Suffering in the form of physical tension related to self-doubt, shame, and anxiety are quite real in workaday effects.

One might find that one’s energy is so drained that there is no energy left over for one’s personal life; his relationships are impaired because he is too tired to even enjoy a favorite recreational activity. However, once we are conscious of what we are choosing, we can achieve the goals effortlessly and easily. Picture the kind of person you want to be and surrender all the negative feelings that prevent you from being that. Holding on to one’s values is essential to controlling one’s emotion and other, baser instincts. When people choose the dark side, they lose all connection to their values. However, once one connects with his values once again, including the value of a parent protecting and loving a child, he sacrifices himself to save his son and they both survive and prosper because of the loving act. This kind of cooperative process and altruistic behavior is related to the individual’s levels of oxytocin, a hormone usually associated with love and compassion. People who experience love and compassion towards others are more likely to have higher amounts of this hormone oxytocin. As a result, they are also more likely to be altruistic and cooperative to help others. It is possible that through one’s love for his father, a young man can activate whatever humanity is left in the father’s heart, which will help him. For an association to work, there usually does not need to be any vulnerability or deep self-disclosure, though it will probably function optimally if some heart is brought to it. A man also needs to develop intimacy with the younger versions of himself, recognizing them when they show up, and compassionately relating to them without losing himself in the World view. Now here we are, so close yet so far. Have I not passed the test? When will you realize, Baby, I am not like the rest? There is just one life to life and there is no time to wait. 

Awareness becomes seemingly split from itself when it conceptualizes a position in here looking out at there and remembers experiences in terms of my pain that I was unable to avoid and my pleasure that I tried to keep. This split is not a really occurring fact, but is an apparent perception constructed attributing location and object-significance to self. An emotional sense of pleasure, for further illustration, associated with bodily experiences, feelings of belonging, or being recognized by others is fit into a self-image. A sense of what constitutes emotional pain may be associated with experiences of rejection, abandonment, rage, neglect, or abuse. The psychological split is healed when pain is neither retained nor defended against psychologically.  Pleasure is neither sought nor rejected.  To assist an individual in understanding the direction in which one might move, in making the decision for a particular direction, and in acting on it requires that the helper understand the obstacles involved. We assume—almost without qualification—that the other will have mixed feelings about getting help. Part of the person wants help and part does not. Part of the person looks forward to coming and part does not. There are no easy answers; there are no pat solutions; there is no great messiah who is going to make everything all right by magic or majesty.

There is no quick or easy way to work through a person’s ambivalence about receiving help. Feelings both of wanting help and resisting help are required to be respected. One may move in the direction of health by integrating experiences that have been avoided, but is fully healthy when rejection and acceptance are not options.  To the helper looking on in another’s life, the direction may be obvious. To the person struggling with his own situation, direction may be far from obvious. The security operations by which one maintains oneself in the face of the demands of the environment are not easily modified. Anxiety has a way of crippling an individual’s ability to respond. The more fully the helper enables the sufferer to clarify conflicts within oneself, resistance to securing help, and hostility against the person trying to help, the easier it will be for everyone involved. Perceptions of lack are investigated, understood as constructed, and resolved when there is neither need for something from outside nor retention of self-image kept inside. One does not add self to World, nor remove self by withdrawing from the World as a result of such an opening.  We have to be sensitive to the World views that others hold. On the level of acceptance, because of the major change in the way we perceive others, we now become aware of the inner innocence behind the frantic, fear-driven struggles that have obscured it in ourselves and in our neighbors, friends, and family.

Negativity which we see in a person or in society is really due to blindness, ignorance, and unconsciousness. This inner innocence, once it is perceived in others, is also perceived in ourselves. All that we did was done because we just did not know any better at the time, we would have done it a different way. It seemed like a good idea at the time, we might say. We see that same blindness operating in others, and we can look past their character defects and see the innocence within. Once we see our innocence, there is an identification with others and a loss of feeling alone and stressed. We are able to see innocence even behind the rashest and apparently undesirable behaviors. We look inside an individual and see the frightened soul that just does not know any better. We are aware that, if provoked, it will surely retaliate. In acceptance, it is possible to forgive our own past, as well as that of others, and to heal past resentment. It is also possible to see the hidden gift in past events about which we have been resentful—including their possible karmic significance. We have to learn to create a different context from which to view the past so we can heal from it. Then we will feel secure about the future and can move on to the levels of love and peace.   

The Winchester Mystery House

From the lingering spirit forever working in the Grand Ballroom and the band of children prowling the garden to the lights on staircase, The Winchester Mystery House is truly haunted. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

If our dead fathers somewhere and somehow live, why not our unborn sons? For backward or forward, eternity is the same; already have we been the nothing we dread to be. The prophecy that the Duke of Suffolk will meet his death by water turns out to be an equivocation on the forename of his assassin, Walter Whitmore. When it presents real characters and events, usually changes their names in the interest of discretion. When Hamlet presents a dramatization of his father’s murder, he calls the victim Gonzago and implies that any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. In comedy, which thrives upon confusion, to mistake a person is to get his name wrong. Mistaken identity can be tragic as well as comic. There is no grimmer scene in Julius Caesar than the one in which a certain Cinna—an innocent man, in fact a poet—is confused with Cinna the conspirator and found guilty by nominal association. This was the first and strongest factor. It included very heavy emphasis on the perspectives of failure, loneliness, punishment, and pain in that order. It also included heavy emphasis on death as unknown. The combinations of individual failure, interpersonal loss, and painful demise add up to the experience of dying and the fact of death as being tragic.  “I am Cinna the poet,” he plaintively cries, but it makes no difference to the angry plebeians. “Tear him for his bad verses,” then they shout, and hustle him away to his death. What is in a name indeed! It can operate as a disguise, when a character is engaged in eluding identification, such as Cesario, Bellario, or Sebastian. It can thereby show a sense of decorum, as with Florizel, the flowery prince of The Winter’s Tale, who is addressed as Doricles in the pastoral episodes. Again it can show a sense of humor, as with Feste, the festive clown of Twelfth Night, whose mock-priest is addressed as Sir Topas, presumably after the mock-knight of Chaucer.   

Death! Must I be not, and million be? Must I go, and the flowers still bloom? Names, then, are matters of personal taste to which reactions can vary. There was no thought of pleasing you. On that night in the orchard, at any rate, before the lovers are overtaken by the swift fatalities they have challenged—is a nominalist. This is to say, I believe in the immediacy of experience and the uniqueness of individuals rather than in the classes, categories. Death with Confidence—this was the second strongest factor. It included very heavy emphasis on frequency of church attendance and the perspective of an afterlife of reward. It also has included some emphasis upon the perspective of death as unknown, with a slight indication of women holding this combination more than men. The combination of institutional religious involvement and individual religious expectation suggests a confidence in the present that is anchored in eternity. Death as inevitable—this is the third factor produced a very heavy and virtually exclusive emphasis upon the variable of age. There was a slight negative correlation with the perspective of forsaking dependents. The more antiquated the person, the less death was likely to be seen as abandoning children. Death comes to most eventually. After Giacomo Migliavacca’s death, his son James, became a director of the Bank of Italy, later the Bank of America. Another son, Laurence, took over the family winery. With the death of the Angelina in 1921, last member of the immediate family, the once proud mansion sank into a genteel decline standing empty. The second and third floors were divided into small sleeping rooms to house Mare Island employees. Among them was Anna Wurz and her family who complained often to Jess Doud, now executive director of the Napa County Historical Society, that the house was haunted.   

Night after night, the Wurz family, occupying the top floor—formerly the ballroom—was awakened by the sound of footsteps approaching them on their stairs. Opening the door, they were confronted by darkness. There were other sounds too: laughter and old-fashioned music. The Wurz family wanted nothing more than to leave, but housing was in short supply during the war. Death with courage is the final factor and showed a fairly strong emphasis upon the perspective of death with courage and the variable achievement. The perspective of death as a natural end also appeared with some emphasis in this factor. The courageous quality may be secular, humanistic, or religious, I am inclined to believe, but represents a focus on meeting the experience and the fact in contrast to the more confident focus on the beyond. When the World conflict ended, the house stood empty. There were other owners, but no one ever remained long. Many fine Victorians have endured similar cliffhangers in recent years only to quietly give up the ghost. However, the Mgiliavacca house is not just another Victorian. Not only is it an integral part of the Napa Valley’s living legend, but it possesses a spirit that stubbornly refuses to vacate the premises—despite the fact that the building itself has been moved twice. This reveals the complexity of death as a symbol. It has multifaceted meanings. Death sharpens the tension between there is still time and there is no more time, that is, the cutting off of possibilities, lost opportunities, unfulfilled experiences, the loss of power to participate in one’s own destiny. It discloses the personal and subjective element behind the objective reality and event.  

Death is inevitable. Death can be tragic. Death can be met with confidence anchored in a serene beyond and a certain present. Death can be met with courage anchored in a substantial past and a heroic present. In 1833 Giacomo Migliavacca was born in Italy. Then they moved to the United States of America, when he was a boy, he settled in Napa, opening a small grocery store in 1867. Soon the store was known for its fine wine selection and before long Giacomo Migliavacca was creating his own varieties. What began as a bathtub venture grew and prospered, and in 1880 land was purchased and a winery constructed. Giacomo, his wife, Marie, and their children—eventually numbering thirteen—lived upstairs.  In 1895, work began on their impressive Queen Anne mansion, a lighter, airier design which developed as an alternative to the starker, more Gothic lines of the classic English Victorian. Constructed of the finest materials available, the house reflected essential Queen Anne elements—rounded tower, steep gabled roof and varied textures—at their loveliest. The upper two stories were imported Italian slate shingles over redwood sheeting and the prominent corner turret had a slate roof and curved windows. Stained glass windows were another prominent feature.   The first floor consisted of a front parlor, sitting room and reception hall complete with a coachman’s corner, where visitor’s coachmen awaited their employers. An oak staircase led to the second floor with its center hallway, five bedrooms and full Victorian bath. The third floor was designed as a grand ballroom. All trim was hand carved, with the exception of the hand carved oak reception area. The details and quality of materials make modern architectural duplication desirable, but virtually impossible.   

The house became an easy mark because of its isolated riverside location. In 1970, the property was purchased by Napa County for a mere $20,400.00. Benicia did not want a potential fire trap—least of all one with a ghost. Vandals and looters working with Napa County used chain saws to remove the staircase and light fixtures. Many preservationists questioned whether a professional demolition job was not preferable to a low, torturous death. Jackals of the were literally tearing the house to pieces, and demolition was scheduled, but bureaucratic roadblocks shattered that evil plan. In 1975, Tom Connell purchased the house and relocated it to another lot close to its original location.  Full of confidence, Tom Connell predicted that the mansion would be fully restored within six months. In reality, the project took three years. Often work ground to a total stop, the building standing forlornly, smothered by scaffolding, interior was gutted. However, Tom Connell’s perseverance paid off. Today the Magiliavacca Mansion is again a showplace and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Once more, the building radiates Victorian splendor—through the top floor is no longer used as a ballroom, nor do coachmen wait in the front hallway. Divided into seven offices, the mansion now houses a myriad interests. Laughter is anything but eerie, cheerful voices echo through the halls, brisk footsteps are heard, but at night….well no one ever really lies to work too late….(The Migliavacca Mansion 1475 Fourth Street, Napa.) Despite the current notoriety of the topic, people still anxiously avoid facing death.   

 The Winchester Mystery House

Come tour The Winchester Mystery House and allow caretakers to reveal the secrets hiding behind these 2,000 doors. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/