Stonebeam 18: Open Letter to Class of ’67: Hive or Thrive?

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 18, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 25 December 2020

This is one of those open letters that’s taken me several attempts to get close to feeling right. If I were in that old Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell movie His Girl Friday, there would be discarded crumpled up typewriter sheets all over the floor.

Second, and related, I don’t want to stand out as a square peg unless I have to.

Third, I have a special fondness for my now-70-something-fellow-cocaptive_kids (i.e. forced to be there by the compulsory government-school system) with whom I was thrown together in a warmly structured suburban middle-class high school in a Leave it to Beaver/Ozzie and Harriet would-be Land of Oz.

And I don’t want to lose that 50-year-reunion-kindled fondness with several of you.

Still, let me take you through a story of our youth that haunts me now. Raise your hand if you haven’t seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the original 1955 version. [Spoiler alert!] Remember the scene toward the end where Dr. Miles J. Bennell and his restored sweetheart-beauty, Becky Driscoll, are on the run and wind up in the cave?

They manage to shake off the townsfolk-zombie posse on their tails, and are struggling to stay awake so as not to be turned into pod people themselves, when they hear this ethereal melody of voices. Miles goes to check it out and is horrified to find these voices are heralding an agricultural operation producing thousands-MORE PODS.

Miles rushes back to the cave, where Becky has fallen asleep. He’s carrying Becky, resuming their getaway to the highway, he stumbles, she exclaims that she can’t go on. He kisses her right there with mud puddle residue all over ‘em. But the true love of his life has TURNED… into “an alien being bent on his destruction.” [End Spoiler.] Continue reading →

Stonebeam 10. Taking out the ‘Noise-Mind’ III

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 10, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 19 November 2020

Continuing from NM II:

“You already have it [“peace beyond understanding”].
Your mind is just making too much noise.”
— Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (1999)

Where I left it in II was with a passage from the PON on the practice of keeping some of the attention for all your daily actions in your inner body, so as never to lose touch with your own Field.

What you’ll find is that if you’ve been used to ‘mind’ running on automatic, as I have, for years, it’s quite difficult to change your ways… to keep your attention partly always into your living, breathing body. Stick with it, the noise-reducing result is well worth the clock time. You’ll start feeling life. Presence power.

A side benefit is you won’t be frequently wondering what you went upstairs for. J

The inner body attention retention practice is on page 97.[1]

Tolle describes a few other spiritual practices in the PON:

Simply ‘watching the thinker’ — pg 15. Tends to stop it, thus the noise.
Give full attention to a task — pg 17. Also gives ‘mind’ a quiet rest.
Focusing consciousness on a feeling — pg 33. No judgment, again mind rests.
Listen to the silence between sounds — pg 85. Portal to Being, deep quiet.
Going into the inner body — pg 93. The deep sea beneath the waves.
Flooding your body with consciousness — pg 103. Bestows silent, alert waiting.
Be aware of the space surrounding things — pg 113. The Field, ref. Thrive II.

Continue reading →

Stonebeam 3. Invasion of the Je Ne Sais Quoi Snatchers

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 3, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 31 October 2020

Most Americans of my Baby Boomer origin (born 1946-1964), and a few die-hard science fiction fans afterward, remember the short classic movie of 1955, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. Outstandingly thought provoking!

[Briefly, from outer space comes a life form that takes over a mind-equipped species (humans in the movie) in a process of absorbing the mind-souls of individuals—into giant seed pods that become a duplicate of the humans’ bodies while the target persons sleep. (Yes, the process presents a number of logical problems, call it poetic license.) The consciousnesses of the newly formed pod-bodies merge into a collective-brain ϋber-consciousness called the Democrats, kidding; no, the new organism at the individual level IS rather like a communist “ideal society:” no self-identity, no emotions, no ambition, no necking and petting with your girlfriend at the drive-in theater… pure soulless, sexless collective brain.]

Whew! It’s actually a bit of work to put the synopsis to words. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Stepford Wives (1975)

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Brian Wright

“Day” to the 2004 version’s “Night”

Directed by Bryan Forbes

Selected Cast
Katharine Ross … Joanna Eberhart
Paula Prentiss … Bobbie Markowe
Tina Louise … Charmaine Wimperis
Patrick O’Neal … Dale Coba
Mary Stuart Masterson … Kim Eberhart

Joanna faces a dilemma. On the one hand she can go along with her husband—who’s already bought the new house—and kids, leave their apartment in the noise of New York City, and take up residence in the bucolic community of Stepford, Connecticut. Or she can say no.

This might have been the time to say no.

Well, she decides to go along to get along, though not particularly happily (it’s clear Walter isn’t getting his desired water supply).

In first scene of The Stepford Wives, at their new digs a statuesque doll-like neighbor lady delivers a casserole to them. Then with a perfect smile and after some unblinking smalltalk, the neighbor lady turns and strolls back as if she were part of a wedding procession. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Brian Wright’s Days of Golden Memories, 1

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Brian Wright

8: Even as Baby Boomer children, we grew up so fast…
Brian R. Wright

[Link to Episode 7]

Note: These columns are a series, I will make into a volume of my memoirs. You may follow the links at top and bottom of page to go to preceding or succeeding episodes. The series starts here. {If the [Link to Episode <next>] at the bottom of the column does not show an active hyperlink, then the <next> column has yet to be written.}

The ages 6 to 11, corresponding to 1st grade to 6th grade, respectively, are a blur in retrospect. You can see from the way I framed the first sentence that the mandatory school environment became a defining part of my ‘Wonder Bread’ years. It doesn’t take very long, even for the more independent minded, to succumb to the standardized BIG worldview we were all being injected with… and expected to conform to. As director Christof says about Truman Burbank in the movie The Truman Show (1998):

“We accept the reality with which we’re presented.”

More about the Conformity Legacy as we go. I do remember my first grade teacher’s name, Miss Wood. I considered her quite pretty, slim, etc., but she was more insistent than my kindergarten teacher on the rules and sticking to them. In kindergarten and first grade, we had sleep ‘rugs’ for class-all-in-one napping—I disdained all such naps. We were also instructed on occasion to sleep at our desks with our heads down. One day, I demurred. Miss Wood came over to my desk and tried to force my head down, none too gently either. I hauled off and hit her on the arm. She then slapped me a good one on my cute little face; I complied. Next day during the floor nap I looked up her dress. 🙂

Thankfully, my life was rich outside of the forced-school setting. The photo above-right shows my brother Forrest (~6 years old) and me (~7) with a large box kite that Dad had helped us to make, and then fly into the bright Kansas skies. I tell you it was quite an operation for that sail area, requiring a steady eye and a firm grip on the custom-made spool, with sturdy twine. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Truman Prophecy (2015), Excerpt #1

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Brian Wright

From chapter ‘Curtain 1: Golden Rules’

[Excerpt from The Truman Prophecy,
due for publication 12/25/15.]

The three of them set up the second Monday in December, once more at the Indie Coffee Shop.

Chance noted, “How fitting that the name of this place matches a shortening of the name of our life form dawning: Independent?”

“I like the abbreviation ‘the I’s,’ better,” said Sean.

“The I’s have it… 🙂 ,” chided Katie.

“Good stuff,” remarked Chance. “We’re already going straight to the core of the Big Picture I’ve been striving for, and what I wanted to discuss today…

“… namely, my novel and all my related work presents the central idea of ‘the Independent’ as a new being rising from the ashes of the Collective, declaring its presence and withdrawing it from the old life form.”

“And by doing so, ending it [the old form],” furthered Katie. “Until now our liberty colleagues been more or less beating around the bush… so many grappling with the strings and chains… rather simply than casting them under foot and walking to the light.” Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: Truman Prophecy Context

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Brian Wright

Identifying the Gordian Knot and focusing on its undoing…

Please forgive me for airing out my thinking before actually cutting significant chips. Two reasons for this: 1) I find I think better toward solving problems when posting via writing as an open letter, and 2) I want to assure those who helped me to crowdfund After 9/11 Truth that I haven’t forgotten them—that I still plan to honor my revenue sharing scheme as sales become substantial. Indeed, part of the reason for launching the Truman novel is to stimulate sales of my Truth book, then naturally lead into activism in the Toto Worldwide Foundation I’ve envisioned.

You may read a teaser draft short of the penultimate chapter, “Declaration Eve,” of the book here.
Then a couple of weeks ago I assembled a kind of analysis of social context that gives a reality to the fictional activity… here.

Continue reading →