hello from the mountain

[ganjagolfer]

as a young boy, while other kids were riding around on bicycles, i was wanting to attach my wagon to the back of their bicycle and be pulled around. from these and other signs, i knew i was not of the western hemisphere but of india

when I learned of my father's being in india as a member of viceroy lord louis montbatten's flight crew, i asked him if he recieved the blessings of a holy man for me to be his son as clearly i was not of this hemisphere and he said the only blessings he ever recieved were from the prostitutes and so my birth in the west was the fruition of those blessings

my family was big on the pig and other meats of which it was required that i eat as well and so half-way thru the meal, i would fill my mouth up with meat and ask to go to the bathroom where i would spit it out in the toilet and then i would come back to the dining table and put the remaining meat in my mouth at the end of the meal and be excused from dinner where i would then spit out what was left which has left me to muse that the prostitute who blessed my father was a vegetarian

other signs that I was not of this hemisphere was an early interest in tight underwear, a living god, yoga and meditation

my spiritual growth was nurtured early on by my grandfather, a preacher with saintly adoration amongst the community

the awesome beauty of it all was contemplated in long hours playing golf as a boy through wind, rain, snow and heat, no getting bothered by cranky country club members at those times. left behind it all, when graduated for high school and lived the next seven years in an advaita vedanta yoga ashrama.

so as you all may be ruminating, i am a mystic, spoken of in your fabled tales of old. i inhabit a topography that is not easily conveyed to those of you encased in 3-d reality

and yet to not see that i am very much human who reaches out to you through time and space to hug and to hold is not to understand that which i am

[ganjagolfer]

my grandfather, the reverend george mckinley

i grew up in a small town along the appalachian blue ridge mountains
my grandfather was a minister in one of the town’s churches

i grew up with the impression in the innocence of my childhood
that because he was minister in the church, somehow he was able to talk to god

i smile upon remembering times had as a young boy which seemed to be not so much about his ability to talk to god but his ability to talk to me

and to the day he died when i was thirteen, he only ever talked to me
and somehow god was never a part of the picture

through many years to this day i have met complete strangers who have told me stories of how my grandfather visited them or someone they knew in the hospital

and sat and talked with them
as it seemed it was my grandfather’s favorite thing to do

to walk hospital halls and visit the sick and the hospitalized
and whether he knew them or not, just simply talk and chat

and told of how this brought them comfort and dissolved the pain
and even doing this long into retirement

later on i learned the truth as an adult that one can merely declare oneself a minister of god and it does not necessarily mean you can talk to god

but now, with each person i meet to this day who tells me
of how my grandfather brought comfort in his visits

and how he was a wonderful and loving and kind person,
i know my grandfather was talking to god