Chapter 6

“You sure are crying a lot for someone who is happy,” Loxy said, after a spell.

“I know, right,” I said, wiping my eyes.

There were others sharing the park, but somehow, perhaps magic by Loxy, they seemed distant, as if Loxy and I had a whole bubble of park all to ourselves. It was profound enough that I was compelled to stare at it, looking for the flaw in reality that might give me insight. Loxy touched my hand, bringing me back.

“I don’t deserve to feel this way,” I said.

“Happy? Who does?” Loxy asked.

It was a reasonable question, and my brain went into sorting a list of people it believed should feel good. And yes, I was making a distinction between brain and mind. Brain is like an intelligent hard drive, it will list, and sort, and compartmentalize, but the mind was the user. Loxy interrupted my brain and brought me back to my mind.

“No, Jon, don’t make lists,” Loxy said. “Go higher. No one is special. Everyone is born and there is no guarantee of anything else, other than the promise of death. And much of what constitutes happiness is a matter of perspective, if not a completely manufactured conditional state.”

“I’m not feeling happiness,” I said. I had to stop to process what I said. That was accurate. “I am feeling good. No, more specific. I am feeling joy. OMG, and I have a headache. This is bizarre. I have a headache, I want to go lay down, and I am joyful! I still feel this sense of impending doom like my world is about to come to an end, and yet, I am joyful.”

Loxy touched my head in a magical way and the headache dissipated. I blinked. “Thank you,” I said.

Loxy smiled. “This sense of doom, do you suppose it represents ‘change,’ like the Tarot Death card, or do you imagine you’re about to die?”

I thought about her question long and hard, and didn’t have an answer.

Loxy just nodded, studdying the distant park-destrians (yeah, give me a break, it was the word I wanted, even though it’s not a word, and therefore not an accident that it’s there, which is probably better word than RK Rowling or JR Tolkien might summon, at least in terms of pronouncing,) as if an answer lay in their games and frolicking pets. When she met my eyes again, she seemed committed to explain something to me.

“Jon, I can’t track whether you will die soon or not. If you do, it will be not be due to a health issue,” Loxy said. “In regards to your ability to experience joy, well, you have always had that, but you have only recently given yourself permission to feel it.”

“Permission to feel joy?” I asked.

Loxy nodded. “Yeah, you know that list you were about to make, the one with the people you think are entitled to joy? Well, you didn’t need to think about it, you already have a list, and your name wasn’t on it. I am glad you made the distinction that what you are feeling is not happiness. Because, you’re right, it isn’t. Happiness sadness is a horizontal component, and anger apathy is the vertical component, and it is completely dependent on list making. Something good happens, you spike happiness. Something bad happens, you either spike sadness or anger or both. Your list for reasons not to be happy is so extensive that it is a testament to the state of your mental health that you can actually experience neutrality. Zero point neutrality is the only spot on this grid that allows people to experience a reasonable, normal range of emotions. If your starting point is at the plus end, well, you’re likely to get stuck in mania, which is not a productive happiness and can put you in harm’s way. If your set point is too low, well, you go too deep in a depression, you might harm yourself. If the set point is too high in anger, you blow up at the smallest things, attack others. If it is too low, you’re so apathetic that you accomplish nothing, including moving in a direction towards health. The ability to feel joy, well that is a continuum all to itself, and it is not dependent on external variables, as if adding third dimension to the graph we were just discussing. It’s like, right now, we’re in the park and experiencing sunlight, but even if the sky was cloudy, or dark with heavy rains, joy is still there because the sun is still there, and that is unshakeable. You can be dead opposite of the sun in the middle of midnight, and joy is still there because the sun is still there.”

Loxy gave me a moment to process what she was saying, and still, I returned to the concept, “Permission to feel joy.” It had a catchy ring to it, like it might be a book, and I wondered if I needed to google and copy right it before it was gone and poorly developed by someone who just liked the phrase, but didn’t want to build on it, but then I was like, everyone should have that, and let it go.

“You’re a magician, Jon,” Loxy said. “In truth, everyone is, but by being a student of magic, you get to use the title. You have begun to discern how important language is to the operation of magic. Your entire life is threaded with self-talk, the prime ingredient for all spells. Now, your initial self-talk was a complex equation of family and society, but was self-engaged in a dynamic way which is incredibly challenging to sort. There are some kids who are born so determined that they never hear the voice of family, much less society, and they go their own path and they live it well. There are others, actually most people, who take on the weight of what others or society expects, and they run with it. You are interestingly mixed, independent enough that you were able to move forwards, but sensitive enough that the wants of others affected you, whether that was a direct want or a perceived want is irrelevant. Conversely, by allowing yourself to be affected, you affected them. But anyway, your voice meshed with the voices of others and you created your self-talk. This was the script, verbalized and sub-vocalized, that would define your life, and you ran with it like a master level hypnotist, daily reinforcing your perceptions of reality. Since arriving at Safe Haven, you have stopped pushing your script. You still touch it, but overall, you’re letting go of that. You’re letting go of your lists. You’re giving yourself permission to experience the light of joy that is inherent in existence. No one deserves anything, Jon. Those who say they deserve something are actually manifesting the opposite for themselves. You could also flip the equation, no one deserves to suffer, but that also means no one deserves joy. Both are available in abundance. It is not rationed out, it’s just there, and you can tune into it, or you can shield yourself from it. And the biggest hurdle with experiencing joy, like being in the park under a friendly sun, is realizing everyone has access, but some people are under clouds and can’t see, and you may empathize with them or feel bad with them, but that is just you making clouds for yourself. You don’t have to suffer because they suffer, and maybe they need the rain, because that’s what makes flowers, but if you were to show them love and compassion, what you are actually doing is redirecting joy, reflecting sunlight to illuminate the world around you in a profound way. Joy is not yours to give, but it is given to you freely, and when you permit yourself to feel it, it raises the level of joy around you. And if there are other people who aren’t ready for joy, because their personal clouds are too thick, well, they will simply fade into the background. Kind of like all these people you see around us now, who are unable to penetrate the bubble joy you and I have around us presently.”

OMG, there was so much here and I was eating it fast wanting more, like eating a whole a chocolate bar at once, which is the American way of doing so, as opposed to taking a bit and letting it melt in your mouth and savoring it. Loxy was so beautiful. She was radiating.

“No, I am reflecting,” Loxy corrected. I didn’t pursue if she had hear my thoughts or LT communicated to her. It was just right.

“I love you,” I said.

“I know,” Loxy said.

It wasn’t the first time I had heard this concept of joy and self talk, but it was likely the first time I was accepting it. One of the champions of this concept was Shad Helmstetter, and his book ‘What to say when you talk to yourself.’

“So, my self-talk is like self-hypnosis,” I said, testing the pathways to determine if this is a map that can overlay my present map, like a transparency overlaying topical features to reveal hidden treasures, or was I, once again, needing to blow up my map and start over.

“You are not sure you believe it,” Loxy said.

I gave her a smile that also communicated that I was a little skeptical, but not because I didn’t believe it was possible, because clearly Placebos worked for some people, enough pharmaceuticals have to rule it out in the production of medicines, but for me, I was the guy who would go to a comedy show and try to get the hypnotist to pick me so I could prove I couldn’t be hypnotized. Consequently, I was never the guy picked, and I suspected it was because the master knew I wouldn’t be hypnotized and so he picked people who were more willing to submit, which also made me wonder if the participants were just actors trying to convince me that this is a real thing. I know its real thing. I have seen people operated on without anesthetics, the pain completely controlled by hypnosis and the power of the mind. And, perhaps that was what I did when I went to the dentist and I turned off my brain to pain so the doctor could do his job without the use of numbing agents.

“You want proof,” Loxy said.

“That would actually be nice, for a change,” I said.

Loxy sat up straight, folded her legs under her as if she were about to engage in some heavy lifting meditation exercise, and I almost expected she was going to float me like Jedi floating stones. Her gaze was intense, palpable. I shivered.

“Intense,” I said.

“Jon, I am going to make you orgasm without physical contact,” Loxy informed me.

“Fat chance,” I laughed. Yeah, I know, I remembered the anti-love potion session, but I was clearly drugged and not in my right mind. No matter how serious her gaze was, I doubted she was going to move me…

“Jon,” Loxy interrupted my internal dialogue.

You know that ear-gasm you get when you stick a q-tip in your ear and your whole body shakes. I experienced that. It was kind of freaky, just because it was unexpected, and I had to rub my ears to appease the itch.

“That’s a nice trick,” I said. “But that’s, technically, not an orgasm.”

“Jon,” Loxy said, speaking softly, intently, unaffected by my protest.

If you have ever been to a Broadway musical, you might know, regardless of the musical, there is always this overall buildup to one particular chorus or melody which becomes the climax of the show. For me, it was Cats, and when the full song of ‘Memory’ came around and it arrived at its completeness at full voice and full volume, it sent shivers up and down my spine, which is very similar to the Kundalini effect. That’s what I experienced with Loxy uttering my name just then. Clearly, Loxy was cheating and using magic.

“I am immune to your sorcerous ways, Lady Vader,” I jested, an impromptu attempt to break a spell. Could you see her in a Pink Feminine Darth Vader suit?

She smiled, amused, and whispered just loud enough to be vocal: “Jon.”

The gentleness of her voice sent dewdrops rolling down the blades of grass, sparking as they splattered against earth. The vibrations was like applause, a reverberation that I felt inside was as if standing next to a speaker with the base up, or better, being at the base of Niagara Falls, standing on a stone so that you could feel the pulse of the Earth.

“Have you hypnotized me without my permission?” I asked.

Loxy leaned in close, as if she were going to kiss me, but pushed past my field of vision to my ear. I felt as if I were immersed in an ASMR virtual experience, that being an autonomous sensory meridian response, which describes an experiential phenomenon that isn’t necessarily sexual, but many people have utilized it as a pathway in that direction, but it is meant to be highly sensual, and quite frankly, I don’t understand why we make so many distinctions between pleasure and why we can’t just be open to experiences without fear or the need for labels and shouldn’t we want people to feel good?

Loxy parted her lips, a subtlety I could hear as she hovered over my right ear. “Never without permission,” Loxy whispered. “You cannot be compelled to do something against your will.” She pulled back so that her eyes and nose was prominent in my field of vision, and then slowly dove past me going towards my left air. Did she just sigh? My scalp sent lightening tingling down the sides of my body as if someone had poured water over my head. “It’s all hypnotism,” she said. “Jon!”

OMG. I lay back in the grass. What is this? Loxy hovered over me, going back and forth between ears, “Jon, Jon, Jon.” It was so intense that I wondered how I have ever tolerated physical sensations, because if a whisper could do this, was I missing out on a whole new world? Would a carrot actually taste sweet if I never ate processed sugar, the difference between snapping your fingers and setting off a nuclear explosion? Loxy allowed me to recover. I stared up into her eyes, the sun behind her giving her a surreal, golden aura.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Loxy shivered, leaned in, and kissed me. We kissed, eyes open. Then she said, normal volume, “Come on, let’s get to the prep rally.”

“You wouldn’t rather keep doing this?” I asked.

“The rest of my life, but we’re going to the pep rally,” Loxy said.

She stood up, gave me a hand up, and when I was on my feet, the park and the patrons of the park returned to normal. Clearly, my bubble had burst and I was back to normal, mundane mode of operation.