"I of my own knowledge…"

I found this quote on my friend Melynn Allen’s blog Breathing Easy. She is a talented potter, and so knows from experience what this quote really says.

To pour so much love and attention into something that comes to nothing– well, one laughs or cries or perhaps both.

“I came closest to understanding the heart of God one day when one of the potters opened his kiln after months of tedious work, only to find that every vessel had warped or cracked except one tiny cup which he picked up and held quietly in his hands. And he stood at the gaping kiln and cried.”

by Nell L. Kennedy, “Worthy Vessels”

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 20, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: Good morning.

Frank: I’m here.

Rita: We had decided to try this morning to see if it’s possible for Frank as he usually is, to be separated a bit more from the guys. We have no idea how this will work, but our intent was to see if I could talk to the guys with Frank playing off on the beach somewhere, or something. And Frank has some questions about whether or not this is possible, but let me start by asking to speak to the gentlemen.

Frank: [pause] Well, I don’t know what else to do but just respond as usual.

Rita: All right. Respond as usual, then. Let the interpreting or evaluating part slip away as much as possible and we’ll keep our eye on what is being perceived. We’ll see if that works.

We have some questions this morning from some individuals who’ve read the transcripts. I’d like to start with that if that seems okay. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 13, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: [helping Frank relax] … and you’re getting comfortable and relaxed and letting that happen.

Frank: Very relaxed.

Rita: Release all those muscles that are tied up with current events.

Frank: Psychic muscles.

Rita: Yes. Relax all the muscles that might interfere with our session today.

Frank: [yawns]

Rita: Put the ego in the box.

Frank: No! Never.

Rita: Up to you.

Frank: Ego’s an important part of this.

Rita: Well, while you’re in the box, maybe it’s not such an important part of it, because maybe that function is being handled out here.

Frank: We may not be meaning the same thing by the same word. Since about ’93 or ’94 I’ve always functioned with the energy [conversion] box wide open. I wanted to integrate everything.

Rita: You don’t have any sense that it’s interfering with –

Frank: Well, [yawns] if I did I would put it away. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, July 6, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

[I began the morning coughing, an ominous reminder of past problems with asthma which had been in abeyance – I had hoped permanently – as a result of the healing efforts of my little eight-year-old guardian angel Karis. Also, my hearing was much impaired.]

[begin transcript]

Frank: Rita, we might ask if there’s anything special about this being sick. It’s annoying.

Rita: Well, the part of you that’s feeling the symptoms, we’d like to have some help with that from the guys.

Frank: [clears throat] [long pause] [clears throat]

I can feel just where it is. [a pain, a hitch, in my chest] It’s localized quite in one spot. And the thought had come while I was lying here waiting that maybe I was back to identifying with Bertam again, and I’ll bet you he had TB in his left lung, at least. I don’t know what TB feels like, but this is quite localized. It’s not – It’s like a pain, like a knife pain rather than an inability to get enough air. It’s different. [coughs] Although the wheezing’s there too.

All right, I’m ready whenever you’re ready.

Rita: Do you feel up to doing some resonant tuning today?

Frank: [yawns] Excuse me. Well, let’s find out.

[A period of resonant tuning, quite strong and steady, a bit to my surprise.]

That seemed to help, actually.

Rita: Ok, just continue to relax for a few minutes and, remembering the guys’ definition of illness, try to ask for help in both areas, the mental processes and the physical. (more…)

 Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, June 22, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

 Rita: If you have something that you’d like to start with, we’re open to that. Otherwise, we’ll begin.

Frank: No, I’m all right. [pause] Or you meant, do they have something? No I don’t think they do.

Rita: All right then, one of the things that we try to do constantly in this work is to challenge our understanding of what we’re getting, and our last session was full of things that on their surface were not easily understood by us. Another part of this is that you guys may have noticed that we sometimes get so enamored of a metaphor, or an analogy, that we move toward accepting the analogy for the thing that’s being analogized. So what would be the main error or misinterpretation in using the metaphor of spools and threads? Is there some way in which we’re tempted to misunderstand that because we get too hooked into the metaphor?

Frank: Let us start by saying that your habit of recapitulating your understanding of what has been said, is an excellent one not only for you but – whether you can believe it – for us. Because in your recapitulation of your understanding of what we have been conveying, we will in our usual picky way say “well, that’s not quite that, or that’s not quite that” and it has the effect of putting the needle onto the record and telling us which place we need to talk about a little more. So, to the degree that you summarize what we have said, it is a good way not only to check your own understanding, but also to give us a jumping-off point for further elaboration or course-correction. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, June 1, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

A highly unusual session! I was very tired afterward, and spent much of the afternoon napping. This one was hard work, as you shall see.

[begin transcript]

Frank: For the first time ever, I feel the approving presence of Bob Monroe. Never felt his presence in the past ten years, or whatever.

Rita: Is there some more that you would like to say about that?

Frank: Well, I started by expanding my rebal [Resonant Energy BALloon, a Monroe concept] to the extent of the black box, and then to the room and then to where you and Skip are, in other words, expanding out among the whole building, and then I wound up expanding backwards to when he was building the place. [pause] I had just a sense of him smiling, you know. Like, “this is what I was doing. Keep doing it.” [yawns] No words or anything.

Rita: Is this important to you, the approval?

Frank: I never think about it one way or the other, it just happened. It feels nice that I’ve got it, of course. [pause] And we can always go into “am I making this up” [laughs] but I really don’t think so, because it was out of left field. [yawns]

Rita: Have you any interest in asking Bob questions?

Frank: Well, I’ll follow wherever you want to go. If you have something to ask him, go ahead. [pause] My method of operation here is really sort of an active receptivity, so it’s easier if somebody else is providing direction. (more…)

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday morning, May 25, 2004, Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

Rita: Good morning, Gentlemen.

Frank: Big smile.

Rita: This morning we’d  when Frank is ready we’d like to move ahead with Frank’s list of other lives. Would you like a little more relaxation time first?

Frank: I would be okay except I can hear that surf [Hemi-Sync] in the background.

Rita: It will be gone in a very short time.

Frank: Yeah, we’ll be fine then. [yawns] [laughs] You may recognize that sound.

Rita: Yes, seems familiar.

Frank: [yawns several times] All right, we’re ready.

Rita: Very good. In our last session, we asked questions about the life of Bertram. Frank has some anxiety about this process that I’d like to talk a little bit about. He is concerned about identifying time markers or place markers and the possibility that he’s wrong about some facts. What’s the best way for him to deal with this? (more…)

Perhaps we should call this session 2 ½ because it was done at Rita’s house, without the black box and without Hemi-Sync, but in the midst of the ten-session series.

Edited transcript of a session at Rita Warren’s house, afternoon of Sunday May 16, 2004.

Rita: This is May 16^th, 04, and we’re doing a session at the house.

I’d like to start by asking about the gentlemen. It seemed as though initially we were asking quite general questions about the composition of the group and the nature of the group, and the information we received at that time was quite general and more aimed it seemed at getting some distortions out of our minds about what the group was.

I’d like to know if there’s anything now that you can say about the group that would give us more information. We did get the information that Bernard was part of the gentlemen group. Are what seems to Frank like other lifetimes or other resonances also represented there?

Frank: [pause] Sure, because remember you’re connected to everything else by way of your completed being, and the closer the resonance to you, the easier it is for you to bring it back. These resonances can come because they’re of a similar composition, either emotionally or vocationally or whatever, or they can come because you have a particular history, let’s say, with them. Those two usually go together, but not always.

So that you will be by one means or another connected to everything else in the world, but some routes are longer than other. You will have lifetimes in which you were part of a bundle that had markedly different composition, and will seem somewhat alien to you, and it might even seem antagonistic to you. Some of its values and some of yours will directly clash. (more…)

Second of ten sessions in 2004

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday May 11, 2004, beginning 9: 30 a.m., Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren at the microphone, Frank in the black box.

[pause]

Rita: As we move into the process this morning, move very slowly, if you can, relax, let things happen, let the connection be made. Just let be. Accept the process.

Frank: Yes, I’m willing to wait the whole time and nothing happen, if necessary.

Rita: Very good. If you feel that you want to talk during this process, that’s fine, otherwise, we’ll just be silent and let this happen.

Frank: [yawns] [long pause] Getting an image of some kind of light fixture or candelabra or something, suspended below a dome in a church. Hugely high dome; suspended a long way.

Rita: Have you seen this before? (more…)

A little more than two years went by after the last weekly session with Rita, and then we did another series of ten sessions in the Monroe Institute’s black box, with both Skip Atwater and Rita Warren in the control room.

This time I am posting one post per session, so that you will be able to read any given session at once rather than waiting as previously for further sections to be posted. This is the first posting  of ten.

Edited transcript of a PREP session in the Bob Monroe Lab at TMI held Tuesday May 4, 2004, beginning 9: 30 a.m., Skip Atwater at the controls, Rita Warren accompanying him, Frank in the black box.

Skip: Okay, I’m going to skip right over to the focus 10 frequency. [long pause]

Frank: It’s hard to describe what I’m seeing here. A bunch of cars outside a fast-food place, and I’m conceptually running my hand from right to left over a ribbed piece of metal, I don’t understand it. [pause]

Skip: Sometimes in these states it’s not so easy to figure out or analyze, but you can simply let go and ask guidance, “what is this experience?”

Frank: Mm-hmm. [pause] It’s connected with the series of classes I took with Michael Grosso; that’s where we went to eat afterwards.  [pause] Strong sensations in my palms, now. [long pause] I’ve already checked in with Bertram [English monk from the 1200s] and Joseph [Egyptian priest from long ago], just because I like their energy. Different kinds of monks.

Skip: All right, as we move on to the next set of frequencies, it’s been suggested that you might want to pick up where you left off before [in the series of PREP session in late 2000] with the concept of “a place to stand.” Now a place to stand. So I’m going to make the frequency changes and just see if this is an area you’d like to investigate. (more…)