Theosophy & Morse Code

The past few weeks have been so hectic! Yet also so rich with possibilities and glimmers of joy and a vision for greater potential and endeavors in the next few months. May 9th will be my last day at "the day job," with six glorious months of freedom to pursue some old and new dreams.

This Saturday, May 3rd, I will take the exam to get my first Ham radio license. This has been a dream of mine since probably the age of 9 or so, when my Grandpa Martin gave me his old Zenith Trans-Oceanic shortwave radio and a clunky old crystal-powered police scanner. Ever since then I have been hooked to shortwave radio, scanner radio, CB radio, and amateur ("Ham") radio (with offshoots into astronomy and playing with electronic kits). For years and years I was either too desperately shy to pursue the Ham license or too busy wandering off into other hobbies (Taoism & Chinese, anyone?). One of my goals this summer is to master Morse Code thanks to a really nice guy's excellent resource, so I can chat with people around the world and exchange QSL cards. Sure, people are chatting 24 hours a day on the Internet, but there is still just something magical about stringing up some flimsy little piece of wire and tapping out an esoteric language through the atmosphere on a few watts of power. It is miraculous!

Speaking of esoteric, I have also joined the Theosophical Society and look forward to attending my first local meeting in a few weeks. I feel a greater urgency to expand my search after the deeper truths in life, something that can't simply be found from sitting around at home reading books all day. You can have lots of nice thoughts and philosophical musings, but a genuine, deeply lived experience of the Divine is the ultimate goal in life. I sense an inner expansion of awareness, a desire to get out and find fellow-seekers on the path to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Life is so much more than what we perceive so superficially with our physical senses. I'm not talking about psychic powers or auras or flying through the air or things of that nature (not that I'm against such beliefs; but such things really don't resonate with me). I'm referring instead to an inner knowing, a divine spark in which you just know, deep down in an intuitive-heart way, that there is so much more to life beneath the surface. As William Blake famously said,

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

In a way there is an overlap between the mystical vision, of seeing the world, everyone and everything, with a new perception, and using Morse Code to communicate through our globe's invisible atmosphere, zipping at the speed of light across continents. Both require a new awareness, a mental clarity or vision. Both are like a newfound world, a new language, a new sense of self and other. Damn, isn't life so kickass fantastic and exciting?! Let's live every moment!

What makes you excited about life? Do you ever wonder that if you should die tomorrow whether you had truly lived? Life is always here, right now, in this present moment. The question is whether we can wake up to it in the now-moment or whether time will run out before we can fully realize it. I believe that is why we exist - to seek and find that answer.