DAY 13: 2 Minutes & 10 Seconds of Gazing
I have been doing this thing where I am trying not to wear my sunglasses anymore. In The Earth Was Flat Dwinell mentions that he no longer had the need for sunglasses after a while of sungazing. I thought about the unyielding brightness of the sun at high noon and about how I could barely keep my eyes open without shades or a hat or my hand on my forehead unless I wanted to stare at a gummy sidewalk all the way home. So I decided that going shadeless at high noon with blond hair and blue eyes sounded like it was almost a super power already, so I would start to build my arsenal of special abilities with that one. Dwinell’s book also mentions that the eye doctor’s who were interviewed for his documentary would more often than not say that wearing sunglasses can do more harm than good by weakening the eye and filtering out nourishing light. So in the spirit of experimentation and curiosity I am giving it a try with varied results. I have been at this for about a week and the first few days I had committed to this I carried my sunglasses around with me anyway just in case it became unbearable. I am blonde with blue eyes so I gotta be extra careful in situations like this. The sun is attracted to me, he’s totally into me, so you know, I’ve got to take precautions. Often in those early days I would inadvertently toss on my shades without even thinking about it. A few times hours went by. I would take my sunglasses off to read something and I’d squint and remember I’m trying to go without my sunglasses because the flood of luminous noonday sun reminded me. But even then I would involuntarily toss them back on as years of habit and muscle memory took over. I’d have to groan inwardly, remind myself that this is all in the name of science and blogging and magic and then I would muster my internal forces, call all hands on deck and make a conscious choice to do what I committed to do, to make friends with the sunlight. So the shades would come off, the brow would furrow, and decorum be damned the tears would start to roll. I wonder if I look distraught to the people who pass me by on the street. As I fight not to squint and keep my face relaxed I overcompensate in the other direction by holding my eyes intensely wide like a perpetually shocked mannequin. All the while a constant stream of tears falls down my cheeks from the lake building in my now puffy and red eyes. This is not even from a direct look at her, it’s simply from going shadeless in the afternoon. But I persevere because I remember that i couldn’t even gaze at the sun for 20 seconds without squinting and now I can look directly at it for over two minutes in the morning or the evening. So if my eyes can adjust to a sunrise and a sunset, they can adjust to this. Squinting is going to be a thing of my past. And if I can achieve that, then most certainly I can learn how to fly! Right? So I press on. Fast forward seven days and true to my expectations my baby blues are actually adjusting to the white bright midday light. I still carry my sunglasses with me, but they live in the bottom of my laptop bag instead of gripped by white knuckles in my hand. I am encouraged. I still look like a sad just-been-dumped gay boy when I walk the streets of West Hollywood, but it’s a small price to pay to be able to see every single thing in my experience more clearly than I could before. And that goes for internal things too, emotional things, non-verbal things. I am starting to be able to predict how others are going to react to the stimuli of their environment before they do react. I am seeing more clearly the cause and effect relationship between all things at all times. I am seeing patterns where I saw only the randomness of life. I am seeing methods where I used to see simply moments. And this new perspective, this tiny taste of what it means to see the future makes me calm. I am starting to let go of this deep unspoken fear that life is looking for any opportunity to blindside me with something. Instead I am starting to understand how you reap what you sow, and how our choices and actions and thoughts do truly create our experience. I am the author of my destiny and as I become more aware of that it fills me with peace. As I gaze at the sun, as I adjust to the midday light I find I am able to see more than I could before. There is another dimension to everything, the invisible aspect of each thing that is connected to the invisible aspect of every other thing. Quantum physicists call it the field of energy, Jesus called it The Kingdom of Heaven, Buddha says Oneness. I like to think of it as an energy net that we are all caught up in. And I can’t see the net itself, but I am starting to perceive the results of the net, the effects of the net. And the most outlandish part of all: the net can think and feel, and it feels pretty crazy about me. My vision has expanded. So I no longer think life is trying to pull the rug out from under me. How can life blindside you when you don’t have a blind side anymore? SIDE EFFECTS: I walk around looking like everyone I know just died because I’m not wearing my sunglasses in the unforgiving afternoon and it still makes me cry. BENEFITS: I am able to recognize
DAY 12: 2 Minutes of Gazing Part II – Outsmarting Clouds
I reached another milestone! Two full minutes of gazing. I keep thinking that every time we reach another minute it’s going to be an “event gaze”, like if gazing was a TV show then each of the minute marks would be a season finale or the episode when Heather Locklear joins the cast, or something. But it turns out that in both cases so far just the opposite is true. The one minute mark was obscured by clouds and thwarted, so the next day when I gazed for a minute and ten seconds I didn’t even recognize how far we’d come. Then today for minute two the clouds were up to their old tricks. The clouds and I gathered civilly, to watch the sun come up, and I thought there was plenty of room for everyone in this gigantic auditorium we call planet earth. But the selfish clouds wanted a better view and so even though they already had the front row they decided to stand up wearing huge hats and I just couldn’t see a thing. I would have thrown my popcorn on them if I’d had popcorn and could throw 40,000 miles. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t, so I just shook my head in frustration and moped back to the car. I couldn’t believe it. Again clouds had to conspire and on the day of two full minutes ta boot. But I had a plan! I was going to come back up here and watch the sunset. I would gaze for two minutes today, and I wasn’t going to let some puffs of evaporated water and pollution stop me! As evening rolled in I was fatigued and didn’t feel like making my trek up to the idyllic vista at the mountain crest. So I just moseyed out to my front yard and kicked off my shoes as cars whizzed by and passersby stared at the barefoot weirdo looking directly into the sun and crying. Two minutes felt easy, intoxicating, and it was over before I was ready for it to be over. But there was no hoopla, no mountain view, no ocean breeze, nobody else around. Just me and my milestone. SIDE EFFECTS: If you stay in your neighborhood to gaze, everyone will find out you are a nut job. BENEFITS: If everyone finds out who you are, you can finally just be who you are.
DAY 12: 2 Minutes of Gazing Part I – Clouds
I thought that doing my sun gazing experiment in Los Angeles would mean smooth sailing in terms of daily visibility; but relentless clouds over the last two days and some other shrouded mornings recently have made me realize the sun is playing hard to get. Nikki and I stood last night and gazed at brightly lit orange clouds because the sun would not reveal itself to us from behind the cumulus curtain. I realized then that I need to try and see the sun in the mornings because then I have two chances to feast on its energy and outsmart the weather. I woke up early this morning, and after the yoga & chanting session (which I fell asleep in) I made my way to our regular mountain top. Both Nikki & Brett are away in different desert locations so I am gazing solo for the next few days. As I was rounding the bend to the parking area the sky opened up just a little to sprinkle cool mist upon my face. I put Summer’s top up and made my way to our grassy mound despite the thick and discouraging tarp of grey covering me and obscuring the sun. As I stood there I tried to coax the clouds to part with my mind. I began to feel like they were ignoring me so I switched from coaxing to daring the clouds to open just to prove they could. I sensed that if they had fingers the clouds would be flipping me the cosmic bird at that moment. I regained my composure, reassured the sun that I was happy to come even if he couldn’t make it, turned and made my way back to my car. SIDE EFFECTS: Clouds can really mess with your gazing schedule. BENEFITS: I am learning to maintain my tranquility even when I don’t freakin get my way!
DAY 11: 1 Minute & 50 Seconds of Gazing
The sun is so gentle and easy to look at in the evening, it’s like she’s a whole different person. My appetite is changing. I eat in the morning and want nothing until evening if I gaze at first light. If I don’t gaze in the morning I am hungry by 2:00 and when I gaze in the evening it’s as if the food is causing my body to reject the sunlight. I don’t want to give up food, but the sun might be forcing my hand. I signed up for this quest to heal my gums and my asthma and to learn to read minds with a little bit of telekinesis on the side. I did not sign up to lose my perfectly honed palate and appetite for thin crust brick oven pizza, thank you very much! I feel tricked! The sun lulled me in with her thrall these first ten days, having only the most mild effect on my appetites. I was eating less, and less often. Not necessarily healthier at this point, but my hungers were changing subtly. I would go from breakfast to dinner with more energy than usual and then find myself suddenly starving at 6:30, and that would be the first I’d thought of food all day. Which is not like me. I know how to enjoy a good binge, and a good baguette, so these were definite, but welcome changes. Over these last 3 days however, now that the gazing has passed the one minute mark the effects on my appetite for food and my body’s reactions to the foods are becoming more pronounced. The sun hooked me, and now comes the catch! We don’t lose our appetite, the sun is going to take it from us whether we like it or not! When I gaze in the morning on an empty stomach I am filled with sunlight and it would seem, energy, for the entire day, with no nausea and a twinkle in my eye. When I gaze in the evening just after dinner I feel an ache in my head like something in me is pushing back at the light trying to enter. And when it’s over I am hit with a subtle wave of nausea as my stomach rumbles. I can get my nourishment from the sun or from the earth, the sun seems to say, but not both. What does this mean for my body? What will a life be like with no appetite and more energy? Will I ever have lasagne again? These essential questions were burning in my mind as I wrestled with my current nausea and with the sun. My nausea meant my theory was true: If I gaze on a full stomach it makes me nauseous and my body seems to reject the light. You see I had just eaten taco bell about ninety minutes earlier. I know what you are thinking, that the taco bell alone could have made me nauseous. While that could be true I want you to know my stomach has been thoroughly conditioned to accept taco bell and the feeling I experienced this evening was a repeat of the last two nights when taco bell was not a factor. I’m going with blaming the sun! I am not ready to give up food. I am not ready to give up dinner parties and Sunday brunch. I don’t want to resist the diminishing of my appetite, I just can’t imagine never tasting another french fry. Undeterred, I will simply gaze at first light and enjoy a nice meal at dinner. When the clouds thwart me in the morning I will endure the nausea until I can’t endure any longer. I will sip the sun, bite the bullet, and enjoy my meal. SIDE EFFECTS: I become nauseous if I gaze on a full stomach. BENEFITS: The process of adding ten seconds a day to condition our eyes truly works and 100 seconds is easy when a week ago 30 seconds was hard.
DAY 10: 1 Minute & 40 Seconds of Gazing – The Second Sunset
I watched the sunset from the top of Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles tonight. Nikki was a few feet down the grassy slope taking cell phone pics of moments and moods and beautiful things while Johanna learned how to use the new easy timer app on hers. This is Johanna’s second time with us so she is gazing for 35 seconds, and using a timer of her own now. We arrived early and waited for the white hot chewy center of our solar system to melt down into a smoldering and manageable yellow that would just pour easy down to the back of our eyes and into our brains and necks and gums. The sky began to darken, and while the full circle could still be seen lingering in the sky, we gazed. All the regular characters of giddiness, addiction to the light and not wanting to look away were present for all of us, again. And the sun was gentler, and much easier on the eyes; the quality of light at sunset is different than at the start of the day. It winds you down, tells you to relax and brings you peace and comfort. During the day it tells you to perk up, to love life, to conquer, overcome and to play. It is the same energy, it is love, it is heat, it is home. But it has a different quality about it as it rises than as it sets. My eyes burn less and don’t squint at the evening sun. In the morning it wakes me up with a splash of cold water and a playful yet startling slap in the eyes. There is something humbling about rearranging your life and schedule so you can follow the sun around, as Nikki puts it. I am starting to see what she means. We see the dimming scrim that twilight drapes over our reality just a short while before sunset and we all drop what we are doing, check our watches and begin racing toward the mountain top with nothing but a slight shade of difference in the quality of sunlight as our cue. The sun has trained us. He peeks over in the morning; I race to see his face. He casts the grey hue of evening over my environment and I drop everything for one last look. He is Pavlov, I’m his dog. Nikki was right, he commands humility. But as I experience more this fascination and curiosity and inspiration that is growing inside me I realize that the sun doesn’t demand such a state from us, he does not command it or insist upon it. He awakens it; something humble that was already stirring in our core. So we scramble to see the sun before she slips down behind the houses, behind everything. SIDE EFFECTS: I felt a little nauseous after we finished tonight with a dull ache in my forehead. BENEFITS: I am learning discipline as I commit to a daily ritual.
DAY 8: 1 Minute & 20 Seconds of Gazing
I gazed solo today for the first time since we started. Brett had morning obligations so he gazed again from the patch of dirt out in front of the yoga studio. And Nikki, well, she was running a little behind schedule. I found myself alone at the peak of our grassy mound atop the canyon watching out of the corner of my eye as the sun began floating higher and higher and shining brighter and brighter. I tried to wait for Nikki but I could wait no longer. I set the timer and looked straight up into the ball of flame. The sunset last night was so dim and gentle that I found my eyes again having to adjust to the brightness of the morning sun. The sun is definitely a morning person because it’s as if he just hops out of bed fully awake and ready for the day, like those cheery “suns”-of-bitches we all know who just hop out of bed awake and already looking showered and refreshed. At sunset he was yawning and tired and the brightness winds down as the sun sinks low. In the morning it’s like the sun opens it’s eyes and there isn’t a trace of grogginess or adjustment in it, it’s all the way on! By seventy seconds in I was starting to involuntarily squint and whatever little tiny muscles are housed in my brow and cheeks began to pulsate and spasm, not in a painful way, just a little stressed and wiggly. I am realizing that each day I can stay relaxed for almost the entire gaze and about the last 10-15 seconds I am finding myself adjusting; I imagine that the canals from my eyes to my brain are stretching and expanding. It’s as if the sunlight is a snow plow and its pushing its way further and further into my body each day as I stare longer, clearing the road of all the toxins I eat, the lies I believe, the grudges I hold and all the fears I don’t even see. The last few seconds each day becomes a strain as the plow has come up against the snow bank from the previous day and has to push harder to get through. My eyes are being conditioned. My body is being conditioned. The rods and cones inside my eyeball seemed to barely be able to take twenty seconds of gazing a week ago, and now I can stand tall, arms wide for well over a minute with no trouble at all. I am being conditioned, I am starting to think, to become ready to love my life and those in it without any conditions at all. The sun is teaching me about unconditional love. “Be yourself, no matter what that means” the sun seems to say to me, “and I’ll still rise and set and love you every single day.” So as the solar energy charges my solar plexus I think again about how that’s a little ball of sun deep inside of me and that I can be like that too. Be yourself, and I’ll still be there, shining through my eyes, and loving you, without reservations, without any conditions at all. SIDE EFFECTS: The last few seconds seem more difficult as the sun penetrates deeper than it did the previous day, I squint through tears. BENEFITS: My eyes seem stronger. What I couldn’t do a week ago (stare for a minute) I can do easily today. The sun is leading me toward freedom step by step by step.
DAY 7: 1 Minute & 10 Seconds of Gazing Part II – The Sunset
I watched my first sunset tonight since the gazing adventure began. Nikki and I, and our friend Johanna made our way to the beach this afternoon, plopped ourselves down on some beach chairs in the sand near a small cafe playing tropical tunes and waited for the white hot ball of fire to settle down just above the ocean so we could gaze. The pile of clouds that blocked the brilliant blistering ball from our eyes this morning were nowhere to be found now. We had a clear view of the vista of sand and ocean all the way to the sun. As it hovered low just above the horizon it began sinking faster, as if all of a sudden the sun realized it was late for a dinner date and started rushing. So I quickly set the time for one minute and ten seconds, we dug our bare feet deep into the sand and began our gaze. Our friend Johanna gazed as well for her first day and braved the blaze for a daring twenty-five seconds. I am starting to realize that the tranquility that pervades me after each gaze is almost immediate and happens every single time without fail. The sun was white hot when we arrived to the beach around 4:30, and it became a flickering candle glow of deep gold by the time we were chasing it with our eyes as it sank below the horizon. The gaze felt more substantial today for me, I think due to the lengthening sessions. Seventy seconds is brief in the scheme of things but it feels like a long time to stare at the sun. More happens the longer I stare. The sun opens itself to me. Each day when I stare the brightness fades away after a few seconds and then a pulsing ball of inviting warm hearth light is left floating in the sky, almost taking on the appearance of a slightly brighter version of the moon. About halfway through the gaze the sun began to change. It started to become transparent, as if it was no longer a ball of fire deep in space, but a puncture in the sky, a window into an entire universe on the other side of the cobalt sheet that covers us, and you can enter that other universe from the hole up there that we call the sun. The yellow light recedes and it is as if that disc is a perfectly round hole that has been cut out the fabric of our sky and the bright yellow is light emanating from the other world that is pouring through the hole. Again it was hard to look away. It take as much discipline to break my gaze once I begin to look as it does to get myself to the hilltop in the morning in the first place. As we drove home from the beach we were being cradled by the usual giddiness. Watching the sun rush off to his other appointments was a great way to spend the day named after him. This isn’t just any Sunday. It’s the Sunday that we caught a glimpse into another world. SIDE EFFECTS: I noticed today that I am actually eating less. Not less junk food necessarily, but much less often. I have breakfast and then I don’t even realize I am hungry and should eat again until late evening an easy ten to twelve hours later. This is has been happening for a few days but I only just became fully aware of it tonight. BENEFITS: A surge of tranquility and giddiness passes from the sun to me each and every time I gaze.
DAY 7: 1 Minute & 10 Seconds of Gazing Part 1: Cloudy Sunrise
As Brett and I were leaving our morning yoga & chanting session we saw above us an incapacitating helmet of grey, an ominous barrier mocking our attempts to gaze. We knew from our thwarted experience yesterday morning that a trek to the top of the canyon would not intimidate the clouds. At best it would be a stroll into the fresh air; at worst we could end up with a foot full of dog poop and cactus thorns. So we set our minds to gaze today, for the first time since we began our quest, at sunset. I am reading a book called “The Power of Your Subconscious Mind” by Joseph Murphy, and in it he calls the small ganglionic mass of nerves at the back of our abdomen our “abdominal brain” or our “subconscious mind,” and it’s located in our solar plexus. The idea is that our subconscious mind tends toward harmony and has the power to manifest our desires into physical reality and heal us. That sounds an awful lot like the claims made my NASA and fellow gazers about the effects of the sun itself. So I’m thinking our solar plexus, which houses our subconscious mind, is like a miniature version of the sun radiating inside us. It is a spark, inside my gut, giving me my gut feelings and illuminating me and guiding me from within. Solar energy is the fuel for my intuition. I think when we are sungazing we are charging up our brain as a by product because its right behind our eyes, but the real goal, the coveted result, is to get to light deep into the rivers and canals of our body so it travels down into our center and charges up the solar plexus, which is a charge to our subconscious mind. Sunlight nourishes and makes grow. The goal of gazing for 44 minutes at the end of the nine months, according to Dwinell in his book “The Earth Was Flat: Insight into the Ancient Technique of Sungazing” is to make sure and expose all of our blood to the solar energy because forty four minutes is how long it takes for all the blood to pass behind the retina. I imagine this light charging each blood cell which in turn carries that energy deep inside me to the small cluster of brain cells in my gut named after the sun. The light comes from the sun deep in the center of our solar system, enters through my eyes and travels back home to the sun deep in the center of my solar plexus. As above, so below, as within, so without. The clouds usually bring with them a sense of melancholy or foreboding fragrance of failure. Now I look at the clouds and smile because they can only keep me from gazing upward at the sky. But they can’t stop me from breathing deep, closing my eyes, and gazing at the sun that lives at home, deep inside of me. SIDE EFFECTS: It’s been two days without so much as a wink from the sun. BENEFITS: I will be seeing a sunset today.
DAY 6: 1 Minute of Gazing (sort of)
Nikki, Brett and I made our way to the tip of our grassy mound at the top of the canyon, laughing, and happily anticipating the one minute mark of our gazing adventure. One minute would be a milestone, a point along the journey worth celebrating, and a gift. We were so involved in our own excitement that we made our way to our cactus covered corner of earth without so much as a the slightest whisper of a jist that the sky was covered in dirty grey cotton rain makers. As the minutes ticked by and began crawling toward 7:00 am we realized we were being stood up. The clouds had gathered in the night and conspired to hide the sun from our view this morning behind a think, unyielding wall of smog. I was disappointed more out of habit because you are supposed to get disappointed when you don’t get what you were expecting like this than out of any real feeling of dissatisfaction. It was a feeling of disappointment in name only. Kind of like how Elizabeth Windsor rules England in name only. She has no real power and my disappointment had no real power either. The three of us were laughing and singing ditty’s as we danced carefully around the cacti and hoped in vein for a parting of the clouds. What is going to happen if we miss a day? What will we do on cloudy days in the future? Will I find a way to stare past blocks of city at sunset, or do I call a mulligan and just go for a minute and ten seconds tomorrow? As these questions swirled around inside I felt a feeling of sensational bliss. There was no panic. There was no need to actually answer these questions. We are on an adventure and I heard somewhere before that an adventure isn’t really an adventure if everything goes just how you plan. I felt like Indiana Jones. We didn’t even get to stare today, but the act of making my way to the mound, and yearning for the suns burning called the giddiness toward me yet again. As we walked back to our car, with the minute of gazing still out if front of us waiting to be achieved, I found myself feeling as victorious as I would have if my eyes had feasted on yellow rays for 60 seconds. I didn’t get to look deep into the suns’ eyes today, but somehow, even without the face to face, it’s energy had reached me, as if it had sent me a letter of regret that it couldn’t be there in person, but wished me well anyhow. I’m starting to realize that even if I can’t see it, the sun is always looking at me, kid. SIDE EFFECTS: Clouds exist and have no regard for the schedules of human beings. BENEFITS: The sun is stronger than clouds.
DAY 5: 50 Seconds of Gazing
Today all three of us were together again for the gazing. Nikki and I introduced Brett to our grassy mound and we all settled in for the near minute of gazing. I forget to mention that our grassy mound is covered in cacti and passion fruit vines, but I became fully aware of that fact this morning as I pulled my sock off and smashed the bottom of my foot into a cactus pedal. At first it felt like a mild prick but then I looked down and found twelve, count them, twelve long prickers sticking out of the bottom of my foot. That’s when the panic set in. I began to yelp in horror and grabbed Nikki’s shoulder because I couldn’t set my foot down until I had pulled all these monstrous earth daggers from my sole. A few of them even drew blood. Once my foot was clean, and Nikki and Brett were done giggling at me, I set it trepidatiously on the earth, ignored the mild sting to my body and my ego and got ready to greet the sun. Brett told me later that it must have been the acupuncture that I needed. I could have accu-punched him in the face, I’d prefer to have my acupuncture done in a cozy room with candles, incense and a nice lady playing Gregorian chant as she gently warns me before every needle goes in. The cactus had absolutely no bedside manner. Once the fifty seconds was over I blinked myself back to earth, wiped the lubricating tears from my brightening eyes and let out a refreshing breath of triumph. Nikki and I looked over at Brett who was still motionless, wide eyed and hooked in. I told him to stop and he said he could go longer. I told him how the sun was addicting and he just said good with a shoulder shrug and wouldn’t or couldn’t look away. I saw him experiencing today what I went through on day three, the sun pulls us in and says in a warm tone “make yourself at home.” And that’s just what Brett was going to do. After a few more seconds he heeded our admonitions and broke his gaze. The sun has us hooked. Brett describes the initial few seconds of the gaze as an intense brightness that suddenly explodes outwards in a ring far around the glowing ball and then disappears, leaving a gentle globe of fluttering candle light behind that becomes easy to stare at. He describes his excitement to me because everything he has been hearing about the gazing has proven true in the first week and first minute. It does get easier. It is possible to gaze deeply at it. It does charge your emotional body with excitement and bliss. And so the expectation of where this potential can take us is limitless, it stretches as far out into the universe as the sun’s light stretches out to us. Brett and the sun are in a courting phase. The sun is wooing him and he is being wooed. I catch them stealing glances at each other throughout the day, and on occasion he sheepishly confesses to me that he peeks at it even at high noon and any chance he gets. Seeing their love affair validates my own journey. The gnawing feeling that I am being totally, hilariously, crazy is undercut by my two gazing partners, who approach this experiment with a merry childlike wonder and faith that strengthens my own. When I entertain thoughts of how dumb this all is, or how it puts me on the fringes of society, I just remind myself that society is currently insane and I’ve been having more fun out here on the fringes than I ever did when I was chasing the typical American dream. I’m chasing my own dreams now, and you just can’t put a price on that. SIDE EFFECTS: A cactus may stab you twelve times in the foot. BENEFITS: 1. My partners seems to be going through the same things, so the sun is breeding an intimacy between us. 2. The indescribable experience of internal expansion is still happening. It’s hard to put this into words. The sun is putting an armor around me, making me less sensitive and more sensitive at the same time.
