A Passing

I want to honor an important man in my life who recently died. I will call him Dave. Unlikely people come into our lives and they change our preconcieved notions of what it is to be human. Dave is one of those people for me. He was a Teacher of mine.

When I met him, he was a pretty cantankerous crusty sort of fellow. We used to argue about his practices of dumping bags of garbage on the side of the road "to give the road crews something to do." Or when he burned his plastics. Or when he would go on a rant about how if he owned land with Redwood trees, he had the "right," bygolly, to cut them down because he owned them. He was always getting in shouting matches with service people. He was pretty cranky, pretty controlling, used to yell alot.

Dave was a staunch Republican cattle rancher, a retired airline pilot. He loved to sit and "run the numbers," as he called it, on his cattle. He would constantly figure and refigure the feed, buying the marginal cattle no one wanted, cost of putting them in the feedlot at the end. He loved being the outlaw cattle rancher, doing things outside the norm but the only one making a profit. He had been invoved in over 55 Real Estate transactions over the course of his life. He hated the IRS and told me stories of the ways in which he rode the edges of deductions. His advice if you get audited? Mess up all your receipts and bring them in their chaotic mess in a box to the IRS. Don't take a shower or shave for a few days before your appointment, and make sure you have something small or middling to "give" them so they wouldn't look deeper. And finally and most important: go in with a cigar. That last one probably wouldn't work these days, but he swore by his system.

He was 65 when we first became acquainted. At that time, he had a high prostate count. He was gluten intolerant with Celiac Disease- got violently ill for a few days if he accidentally ingested any of it in sauces. Consequently, we had to be very careful whenever going to restaurants. I suggested that he try Tantric exercises for his prostate. At first he was reluctant, but then decided to give them a try when I told him his prostate count could go down. As he was scheduled to get a biopsy and did not like the idea of being stuck with a bunch of needles, he decided to give them a try. After six months of his dilligent practice, his count went down dramatically.

He got hooked. He started doing all sorts of Tantric and Taoist exercises. After about a year of practice, he became multi-orgasmic (!!). Then he started meditating and journeying, eventually working with a Native American Shaman. He studied herbs, even became the "Herb Expert," giving information and advice to his aging and ailing friends. His diet changed to a more healthy one. He even went to a workshop with me. Gradually, he became happy, laughed lots, was much more tolerant of people, opened his heart more. And it was visible. His family and friends would tell me he looked twenty years younger and that they had never seen him happier. He was calmer, open, gentle and caring with people in ways they had never seen him before.

Dave had bad lungs. He was always short of breath, but the last two years had been hard on him. During the time we hung out together, he had gotten much healthier with walking and going to the gym but a few years ago he started having more problems, started needing an inhaler. I was concerned that he would have to go on full time oxygen as it was getting increasingly worse. Dave had not done much smoking in his life, but had lots of trauma to his lungs from flying. He was also a Pisces. I've noticed that all three Pisces men I have known well have trouble breathing. Not sure what that's all about, but there it is.

He didn't die from his lung thing, though. He got cut off while driving and the accident caused his neck to break. He died after deciding to do surgery to increase the likelihood of a better quality of life. He wanted to live, but I guess he decided to go over the berm he always saw in his meditations...the one he always tried to avoid because he knew it was the place of his crossing.

Dave was one of my angels. He was not always an easy angel as his crankiness sometimes crept its way into our relationship. It wasn't always easy. But this man wasn't the only one who changed as a result of our relationship. He taught me in a very immediate and personal way that no one stays who they are in the moment and no one knows where they will be called. I directly that changing and shifting continues all through life, no matter what age, if we allow and invite it. Who he was when he died bore no resemblance to the person he was when we met. Even at the age of 65 he opened to Spirit and continued his journey until he passed. He meditated every day, going to his special place, sometimes going so deeply he would have to choose whether to come back or not. I think this man used those last years to truly open to his Spirit and that he succeeded.

I feel honored that he shared things with me that he had never shared with another human being. He had secrets of metaphysical experiences that he had held inside for decades, thinking that if anyone knew they might not let him fly anymore. When he told me, he shook violently with the intensity of the memories. I think I knew more about his life than anyone on the planet ever had. I cannot explain how it affects me to have people trust me like that. It feels like the highest Soul Blessing I can imagine to have people open to that level of nakedness and intimacy with me.

I've noticed something about vets that served before Viet Nam. All the ones I have known (and there haven't been many) have wanted to talk about their experience during that time in their lives. Dave and the others I know talk about it incessantly if we will listen. Even though Dave was 65-78 when I knew him, and his years in the Navy were when he was in his early 20's, that time in his life was the main topic. I could count on at least one story every time I saw him. Even with the 30+ years he was a pilot for a major airline, the Navy stories outnumbered the airline stories by a factor of at least ten. I am not sure what this is about, but for it to be the main thing on these vets minds for all these years, it's Important.

So because this was his most important time in life, I wanted to post a picture of a Navy plane from the time he was enlisted. I don't remember if this was one of the ones he flew because I never pay attention to those kinds of details. I used to drive him nuts when I would come home from a trip and not remember what kind of plane I had flown on. And he always asked.

I miss you Dave.