Brian McTear to me

Feb 13, 2009

So you were brought up catholic too? Wow! Craziness! I went to catholic school til 8th grade.

I’ve always considered myself more spiritual than religious. Even as a kid, the politics and heirarchy seemed wrong. My dad would mumble curses about the priest and the pope during church, so I had that influence. As I grew up I became much more sensible, letting my own judgement about things, based on my own morals, my own sensibilities, trump the church and I think that by the time I was in high school, I was completely past catholicism.

What I’m really into is the creative power of the mind. I really love creativity, which of course applies to art and music, but much more so to things like “having a creative outlook on life”, or “creating your inner and outer surroundings”, etc. I think all my thoughts on time, for instance started with the Seth Material, but built into Seth’s approach to everything is this admission that we really each create our own rules and reality. So whatever I make up in my mind is mine to keep. It’s like Star Trek, the way they’ve created this world with systems, science, jargon, etc. To me that’s fun. So I’ve built and know and understand this whole reality that I don’t necessarily “BELIEVE”, but I get it and I can live in it and it’s a system that keeps providing consistent results.

And again, it’s fun. It’s fun to think that time is filing cabinet and really I am much more than just the physical me, that there’s whole parts of the greater, more complete being of which Brian is one small part (one spoke on the wheel), that I have “past lives”, “future lives”, and even other “concurrent lives”. I don’t know what they are, I don’t really seek out the answers, but it effects how I live and treat people, etc.

I really want to get back up and going with yoga. It is meditative, sure, but phsyically it’s so so good.

Well, some day let’s have a picnic or something. Bring a bagged lunch to Penn Treaty Park…. We’ll have a 6 ft rule. We can ask the Dr’s., too. See what the say. If they say no, we’ll figure out something.

Devin and were talking a few weeks ago about how there must be a “super nice” gene that CF people have. He said we both have it!

B

Brian McTear to me

Feb 22, 2009

I hope I don’t just seem like I’m spewing for the sake of spewing.

What do you think about life and death? Like, what did you say to him about this stuff?

(and it’s only been a minute or two since mentioning it in my last post, but I really like this idea of Brian and Bobby’s Life and Death Blog!… Two pen pals with CF who actually live within two miles of each other, and have a lot of the same friends. We could just post our emails!)

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 23, 2009

That is a crazy story. I’ve had a couple of experiences of “seeing” things, what I think were spirits. When I lived in Northern Liberties, the house I lived in was owned by this lady who had actually died in the house (I didn’t know this until after the fact). But one night I had fallen asleep on the couch and when I woke up I saw someone walk up the stairs, but not really walk, it was very quick and then just kind of faded away. At the time I was really tired and maybe I was just seeing things but Jen, my roommate at the time, had also had a similar experience (also unbeknownst to me at the time). The second time is saw something was in the hospital. I was pretty sick and not only was I running a little fever, but I was also on some pretty heavy duty pain medicine. Again, it was really late maybe around 4 a.m., and the nurse had just given me a dose of pain medicine. I dozed off for a few minutes and when I opened my eyes there were numerous (this is really hard to describe) “energies” in the room. I want to say kind of like lights or something. I couldn’t communicate with them or anything but it was like I was acutely aware of their presence. Both instances you can maybe chalk up to tiredness, drugs, or both, but those were the only times I’ve ever experienced something like that so while I don’t take them too seriously i think they are noteworthy nonetheless.

I had this other experience about six months ago (sorry i’m kind of rambling here). I had pulled some muscles in my back and after about two weeks I was still in really bad pain. I was just starting to turn the corner, but kind of at the end of my rope. Now, I wouldn’t say that I am a religious person, but a spiritual one, and over the summer when I was in the hospital (the same stay where I had the experience that I just told…) I got into the habit of saying prayers for things. I try not to pray asking for things, but just acknowledging my good fortune. But this night I felt like I was going to freak out so I just prayed for my back pain to go away and to be able to finally get some rest and to be able to experience normalcy again. When I woke up it was like my prayer was answered. My pain was SO much better and i could get around a lot easier. I don’t know what that all means, if it was just mind over matter, the natural course of my healing, or truly was an answer to my prayer. Maybe all three combined, but if something outside this physical world helped me then maybe I’m not so crazy after all. Like I said, my step-mom is Catholic and her mom and all of her mom-friends have a prayer list that they put me on when I’m in dire straights. This doesn’t make me any closer to the Catholic church per se, but it does make me believe more in the power of the mind.

If you are ever with Devin for a while talking about these things he has some CRAZY stories. I’ve wanted for the longest time to collect all kinds of these types of stories on tape and make an audio essay of sorts.

What if we did like a weekly blog post? We could each do every other week, so we’d do two a month. Maybe we could set it up so that we’re riffing off of the last blog post that we each make. And if we want to switch it up we just start a whole new topic. Totally like our emails…conversations.

Brian McTear to me

Feb 25, 2009

Those are pretty crazy stories. To me it all makes good sense, especially the prayer part. I mean, praying is essentially coaxing an outcome, just like being consumed with doubt is.

I’d love to hear Devin’s stories, too. I am going to have to hit him up for that.

Let’s do the blog. I’m in. I feel like I really want to riff, like you said, and really I feel pretty inclined to start with this email thread (ie, the past few weeks). It’d be great to talk about time, life, death, reality, dreams, etc.

I don’t really know how to start a blog. I recently started a tumblr blog, but that’s really short entries and someone actually did it for me… I’ll look into it.

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 26, 2009

yeah…with any free blog service you just need an email addy. the blogger one i use for my dream blog is really easy and connected right to my gmail account. what if we created a new gmail account and just did a blogger blog?

what should we call it?

Brian McTear to me

Feb 26, 2009

Maybe:

Life and Death with Bobby and Brian

or

The Nature of Reality

(as well as Time, Life and Death)

–by Bobby and Brian

No, I guess this will take some serious thought (although I kinda like that second one)….

B

Brian McTear to me

11/20/08

Just wanted to say hi! ‘Been thinking about you a lot lately. Hope you are well!

Love, B

Brian McTear to me

11/22/08

Amy and I have 7 cats. Nuts.

That’s an awesome idea. I could see a fashion craze starting around  that. Hold on to that idea if now is not a good time.

B

Brian McTear to me

2/18/05

Wow. We live right near each other. I live in Fishtown at Frankford and Oxford.

Yeah, I am thinking of looking into getting insurance through the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce or NARAS (that’s right, the people that bring you the Grammies….). It’ll mean spending some money that I don’t have… apparently the first year you have to pay and you get NO COVERAGE. Criminal.

If you want to get together at some point we should do it! I’ll ask the experts what kind of precautions we should take. I feel like our schedules will probably present more of an issue than anything else.

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

2/18/05

it’s a shame there isn’t the right healthcare coverage for people w/disabilties, illnesses, etc.. that are musicians, artists, and jobs of the like. IT SUCKS. but anyways, yeah i’d love to get together. maybe i can come out to check out your studio or something..