But seriously folks, I was just sitting in the tub, listening to the rain outside, when suddenly I said eureka! What did I mean by that? I don't know, it's Greek to me. At least I restrained myself from leaping up and running down the street. You know the story, that old streaker, Testaklees, slipped by the sage-catcher by coating himself in ancient grease.

At least Eckhart Tolle doesn't do that. As far as I know. I have heard that he puts on a baseball cap and sneaks into Starbucks for an illicit coffee*. Anyway he's not philosophizing but spiritualizing. Just like all those guys in the robe and the beard and shaggy hair? And sandals?

Or bare feet. But Tolle wears shoes. And drinks coffee. Obviously a hard case. I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw a wazoo. Why, he not only doesn't wear robes but has neatly trimmed hair and only a tial beard. How spiritual could he be, looking like that?

I ask you. I'm not getting any answer. Is this thing on? Test. Test. Oh. You mean this is a print book? That is so last millennium.

* I got this dirt from Eckhart Tolle in the recording of 'Living a Life of Inner Peace'.

He says live in the now, don't you worry 'bout tomorrow, hey . . . no, that's a song. And the past is only a story that may be simply left on the shelf. Wait! Don't put this story on the shelf; you haven't read it all yet. Or have you? I read 'The Power of Now' about seventy-leven times. In a row.

So, just what i is a wazoo, I hear you asking. I don't really hear voices. But I do put on a baseball cap and dark glasses to get a cup of coffee. Not at Starbucks, in my own kitchen. And a false beard and a robe. And sandals. Or bare feet.

We suspect that reality may be something best avoided. But our attempts to avoid consciousness of the present moment create the problem we're trying to escape from. True reality is simply the here and now, without all the mental labels, regrets of the past and fears of the future that are only in our own heads. Just drop all that. Try it. Just for a minute. You can go back and pick up all that mental junk anytime.

Hopefully you will spend more and more time in the present, um, as time goes by. It is hard to put some of this into words. As in modern physics, reality tends to go against 'common sense'. We are the eyes and ears of the Universe. And the noses and throats of the Universe. And, of course, the wazoos of the Universe. Apently this marks the end of the no joke zone.

So I was walking in the woods and this deer stamps his feet and makes that call, bugling, I believe, and runs off with the white tail flashing. Maybe that's to distract from the does and fawns. Couple a days later I come along the same trail and the deer simply turns and walks away. As the buck walks away he says to the others, "It's just that human guy. He's harmless."

Okay, he said that with body language, not words. Had you going there for a minute though. What is the sound of one deer talking? And, while I was in the woods, a tree fell nearby, but I wasn't listening.

Mr. Inkspot just dropped in. He was under the window I put up to keep the rain off after noticing him get under the neighbors window during a thunderstorm. He won't stay in though. I seem to have acquired another new pet. The cutest little rat came out into the back room. I scattered some sunflower seed under the dishwasher for him. He ran under there after performing a skidding turn just like in the cartoons. Amazing!

So I'm wondering what to write next and I look out the front door and there are hundreds of blackbirds on the lawn. Yes, I love Nature. Maw Nature, I call it. More homey than Mother Nature. You must think this house is a menagerie. It isn't.

Tolle says all you need is a still. When you have a still, noises don't matter. What? Stillness? Oh. Tolle says all you need is a stillness. Then you can enjoy the moonshine. Until the hangover -- What? Wrong again? Why don't they go read his books and leave me alone then?

It's okay, I've taken my medicine now. When I walk in the woods I don't need medicine. I become an awareness floating along through the trees. Alert to every sound. Bird song. Bucks belling. Bullfrogs croaking. Wolves howling. Elephants trumpeting. Bees buzzing. Crows cawing. Cows cooing. Butterflies bellowing . . . Um, I seem to have drifted away there. Wildflowers winking? Okay, I'll stop. Loons laughing. Yetis yodeling? All right. Okay. I've got it out of my system. Where was I?

A house is just a big, permanent tent. We're all camping out in Nature. We must lose that feeling of seateness. It will kill us. Just as we treat people of other countries or religions as objects to be destroyed, we see ourselves as seate objects so that we imagine we can destroy Nature and walk away. But where would we walk to?

The world is Nature. We are small creatures scurrying around on the surface of the dry land portion of the globe. Nature, though not malevolent, can and will swat us just like we swat mosquitoes. Or you might say we will swat ourselves. So far we haven't quite become irritating enough. Maybe tomorrow.

Rats don't race. All other creatures enjoy life. They're not trying to "get somewhere". We're already there. Hang up your helmet. Remove your racing stripes. You're in the winner's circle where we all started out from -- the planet Earth.

This also is the adise, heaven, the Garden of Eden, when we choose to make it so. What are we waiting for? An engraved invitation?

Dear Humans,

This planet is yours, for now. Make the best of it.

Love,

God

There's your invitation. Now respondez, s'il vous plait.

You've heard them. Now. Not in the past. Not Hollywood. The extracted energy of ancient life forms liquified, powering visions of Tonka trucks for adults. At night, in the distance, you can hear the big beasts mourning their fate. All too soon they too shall sleep the endless sleep of those who are extinct.

Oops, almost slipped onto poetry there. Dangerous territory with slippery slopes leading to literary extinction. Mr. Mouse(the rat) just spooked the Mother Beast. She says we must get a live trap. (I insist on the live trap). Why not let the tiny thing be our guest?

Since she spotted the creature of the night I printed out what I've written so far. I await with bated breath her comments perspicacious. (Got from the library a collection of favorite poetry read by actors. That's why I started tawkin funny).

"Most Interesting," she said, "but I don't think we want a live guest." It's such a small creature. We had a cat. Ten solid pounds of live guest stomping around, bellowing for her breakfast. If the rat had only restrained its appetite till nine o'clock she would never have known, being an early bird herself. And a fish. We have a Siamese Fighting Fish. He's a non-combatant though. He was the cat's companion. They used to sit and stare at each other.

Sammy, the Siamese, is more of the contemplative type. He hovers motionless and stares into the light. He enjoys his weekly water change. A friendly follow. Quiet. Doesn't say much. Maybe he doesn't speak English.

House plants. Lots of house plants. Any more questions? Yes? You, in the back . . . Huh! What impertinence. No more questions.

I read 'The Power of Now' and thought, 'Oh, that's obvious. I'll put that into practice." And the next day would be totally lost in my usual chains of thought and emotion, in a bad mood and think, 'Wait a minute, what did that guy say in the book?' And read it again. Got to where I would put it on (on CD) and play it to soothe the savage breast at the end of the day.

Eventually I actually practiced the power of now and only occasionally lapse into the past, usually at 3 A.M. while waking and waiting and wondering what woke me and why, oh why, can't I sleep through the night?

That sentence stands alone. Who cares about sentence structure when we're on the verge of graduating from the mental to the spiritual level of awareness?

So I picked up a small stuffed animal and carried it into the den and said, "it's the mouse, I've caught him," and tossed it to her. We had a good(though nervous) laugh. Got to take frequent breaks from this here book writin'. 'S hard work.

Whew! Had to turn the heat back on. I usually turn it off around seven, as being such early birds, to let the house cool off before bedtime. But you, Reader, are keeping me up late with your incessant demands for more words. Do you know how many words there are in the average book? A lot, that's how many. A whole lot. (Maybe it is bedtime after all).

I know, I'll take my apple cores to the woods. The deer won't mind. I eat an apple a day to keep the doctor away. I see 'em sneaking up through the bushes around the house, brandishing their stethoscopes and fearsome blood pressure cuffs. So I quick! bite into an apple and they slink away saying, "Curses, foiled again."

Have you noticed animals acting however they want? A noted naturalist writes a respected tome on animal behavior and those rude beasts make the poor guy out to be a liar. Downright rude, I call it. Of course the animals say, "Those darned humans, very inventive sure, but a little closed minded. Bit of the idee fixe, no? We animals are not stuck in repetitious thought patterns. We have habits, sure. We go to where the food is, but if the food isn't there, we look elsewhere. Only a human goes back again and again to an empty well, such as finding fulfillment through intellectual endeavors, making money or attempting to control their surroundings. At least we animals don't do that."

What a madcap morning! First, no coffee made -- a cardinal sin (there seem to be more cardinals than usual this year. We see them not only at the feeder but waiting in line, so to speak, perched in the bushes and trees around) and my tiny house guest had broken into the bag of sunflower seed, leaving a trail of empty shells behind on the floor. What next? He'll probably leave the toilet seat up.

So I put the bag out back in one of those silly plastic chairs we never use. "But they were so cheap." that was me. I love a bargain. Little Inkspot is off his feed today. I'm sure he'll be okay. He's always been a happy cat.

Things are different, all right. Instead of worrying about the future, I try to improve the present. Why just today I got some dandruff shampoo. Wouldn't you know, my head quit itching on it's own. Maybe next time I'll simply intend to get the palliative. Then the condition, whatever it is, will clear up by itself.

We condescend to our little pets and yet they simply enjoy life while we stagger along under huge burdens of worry and dread and regrets and fears. They keep trying to tell us to relax and enjoy life. Why can't we be as sensible as our pets?

Not that we're sinking to the animal level. We're going above thought to the spiritual level. We all know about sinking below the level of thought, that's simply going to sleep. Above thought is a state of relaxed awareness. This is all in the books by Eckhart Tolle. I'm not plagiarizing his work, it's just that nothing has ever had such a profound impact on my life and I want to share that. I won't be angry if you drop this book right now and rush off to get his.

Wait! I was just kidding! Don't drop me! Ouch!

Guess I'll just leave the rest of these pages blank since everyone's rushed off to the bookstore. Oh all right, for those extremely few of you who remain . . . What would you like me to talk about? Speak up. Well, that's rather personal, isn't it? Went out to try to photograph Inkspot. I'll call him The Moving Cat. When he was very young he was never still. Now he naps but trying to get pictures of him with his eyes open . . .

Because I'm more relaxed, accepting the present moment as is, I'm more likely to go and do things to improve my life situation. And around the house I casually begin large jobs of cleaning say, or writing a book, without looking into the future and thinking what a lot of work it will be. Today I can only do one days work.

Going to Rosie's Restaurant. Not right now but in The Future. Which doesn't exist of course. They closed the bookstore downtown. 'Twas here when we moved here forty-two years ago. To me that was the main reason for going downtown.

Poor little Inkspot, he followed us into the front yard and looked around and went toward the porch with a lively step. Finally, he spotted Grandpa who was firmly ensconced on the welcome mat. Inkspot backed off fast. They have a cat spat going. Old Grumpy Gramps is an old alley cat with all the advantages of knowledge and experience. He's not at all nice, even to us, but we miss him when he goes a roaming.

Well, Patches came by for a bite, him and Inkspot used to play together but now it was all I could do to prevent a fight. The old macho thing of who backs away first. These cats show us how silly we are in that way. Of course they fight with claws and teeth whereas we have nukes and biological weapons. Still, we haven't actually i usedi0 nukes for a long time.

Now Inkspot's under the pine tree. Him and Patches love that tree. And he nestles in the pine straw we put around the roses and snoozes. Nothing like a cat to keep you guessing.

Have I mentioned 'The Power of Now'? Cats do that. Ever see one so still but when you get close you see those ears twitching around at every sound?

Inkspot went off his feed for a while this afternoon. He's been the best about that. He even prefers the dry cat food to the more expensive canned variety. I get the Iams brand of dry food. The others eat it but no other dry food. Was a cat at the k I would feed. They'll befriend you if you're patient. 'Cept for Grandpa Kitty.

We had meatless stew tonight. Mushroom flavored rice from Lipton, great northern beans, canned stewed sliced tomatoes, green pepper, onion; just add water and heat. I found it most toothsome.

That last bag of Iams was stale. They make a larger, paper bag and a smaller bag of plastic. I've gotten the larger before and it was rated two paws up by the local cats(mostly Mr. Inkspot who actually prefers it to wet food), but this one must have had a small hole that let the freshness leak out. Why am I telling you this? This is life. Whatever goes on in your daily life i isi0 your life. After enlightenment you simply enjoy it more.

There was a man at the drugstore just now complaining about some mistake on the amount charged him. They corrected it. You could see that was the greatest satisfaction in his life. Very sad that. Imagine being wrapped up in such a thing and the doctor tells you you have a week to live. Would you spend that week fretting over a little mistake on a bill?

And most of us do something quite similar. If not money matters then dogs barking, traffic, neighbor kids, that gosh darned Internet; any of this ring a bell? None of it worth fretting about on your last week of life, or any other week.

Plan out your last week of life. Let's see -- get in touch with spiritual side of self, forgive everyone, forgive self, walk in k, enjoy yard or garden, eat all the ice cream I want . . . think I'll start with that one.

Now don't just drop everything. Do your work, pay your bills, but in a casual way, just in case the doctor gave you someone else's diagnosis.

Okay, put down that spoon, you've had enough. There are other enjoyable things besides ice cream. What things? Well, give me a minute, um . . . Nuts. Was just having some chocolate covered peanut clusters and some almonds and mixed nuts. That's good. And coffee.

Eckhart Tolle drinks coffee. So it must be all right. Finally a guy that doesn't just eat one bowl of rice a day and sit staring at a wall in what for most of us is an uncomfortable position. All that put me off in the past. What I do is hike up and down hills in the woods. That's my meditation.

And cooking. I am leaning towards vegetarianism. Leaning about one degree from center. I certainly enjoy fresh vegetables. You know the fresh ones that come in a bag that's very cold? From the freezer section? It is winter, you know. I do chop an onion and a green pepper for most dishes.