All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

      Screen shot: Googlemaps.com

PENDULUM DREAMS:

How I've survived the Covid pandemic (so far)

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Nothing but Lies

Words and Music by Jim Robbins

Lies, nothing but lies.
Lies from the left, lies from the right.
Lies about goodness, lies about evil,
Lies that make my throat sore.
Lies that make me feel safe.
Lies that make me afraid,
Lies about life, lies about death,
Lies, nothing but lies.

But now I have a key to unlock
The mysteries of the past,
The secrets of space and time,
A key that dangles
From a delicate chain,
A weapon that cuts through deception,
A sacred tool that spins the truth.
I am letting go of all the lies—
The veils just keep falling,
So now I know a truth
That no one will ever believe.
I know a truth that no one will ever believe.

Lies, nothing but lies.
But now I have a key to unlock
The mysteries of the past,
The secrets of space and time,
A key that dangles
From a delicate chain,
A weapon that cuts through deception,
A sacred tool that spins the truth.
So now I know a truth
That no one will ever believe.

PART ONE

   A few weeks after we first met, Amber gave me a pendulum.  Below a jade weight, a silver pentagram dangled at the end of a delicate chain, and according to Amber, the pendulum would answer any yes or no question that I might ask. She showed me how to “program” the pendulum by commanding it to spin clockwise if the answer is “yes” and counterclockwise if the answer is “no,” and I soon experienced some startling revelations. According to Amber, my soul was answering the questions: Directly connected to the Source, the soul has access to far more information than the incarnated personality, which is limited by the five senses as well as by space and time.

   I should warn you: beyond this point, you are unlikely to believe what I say. 

   I have experienced more than a few alternate realities, and my pendulum has helped me to understand them.

   Unfortunately I have to rely on maps to help me explain several of the alternate realities, one of which reveals the inscrutable disappearance of a significant physical feature, a highway through the foothills.

   Notice, at the top of the map above, 180 from Fresno, CA, where I live. Just before you reach Grant Grove Village on 180 you can turn right onto 245 and head south. I once had a friend who lived in Miramonte. When I visited my friend I would usually take 180 to Miramonte. I never, however, headed south of Miramonte on 245.

      Googlemaps.com

   Below Badger is Junction 21. I should emphasize again that I have never traveled the stretch of 245 south of Miramonte or north of Drum Valley Road until a recent trip, which I describe below.

   My wife and I in springtime would sometimes take the scenic drive east from the valley into the foothills on Boyd Road, which connects with 245 where the above map shows "Bear Creek Candles, temporarily closed." My wife and I would then often head north a few miles on 245 to Drum Valley Rd, or Drive 152, a narrow road represented on the map by the faint squiggly white line above Aukland that loops back down to the valley. My point is that we never headed north on 245 above Drum Valley Rd.

          Googlemaps.com

Close up of Loop

   (Thank you for bearing with me. Please explore googlemaps.com in more detail if interested.) 

   Sunday is my day for adventure in the foothills. One Sunday recently I asked my pendulum where I should head, and by going through the usual process of asking yes/no questions, I finally figured out that my soul wanted to travel into the foothills on Boyd Rd, then north on 245. That day, therefore, I ignored the turn off to Drive 152, something I have never done before, and continued north on a treacherous section of 245 that weaves toward Badger. After awhile, tired of the winding road, I stopped at a restaurant perched on the mountainside called Baker Mountain House. As I sat in my car in the parking lot trying to figure out if I should continue, I noticed nearby a sign for Junction 21 (J21) south. I thought that perhaps my soul knew of a remote area that I could explore, so I asked my pendulum if I should head south on J21. The answer was "yes." I hoped to find more Native American village sites in the foothills but encountered too many houses and ranches in the area, so I after a few miles I turned around and headed back, thinking that maybe I should have ignored my pendulum and instead continued north on 245. Disappointed, I headed all the way north to 180 and headed west back to Fresno. I could not understand why my pendulum had wanted me to drive that tortuous section of 245 or to explore J21.

   The next day, I checked googlemaps.com and realized that over a decade ago I had driven south on Junction 21 three times, once with my wife and twice by myself, to the Kaweah River, but from some other point miles south of the restaurant perched on the hill. I was confused because no other road connected 245 with J21 south of Baker Mountain House on the satellite images.    

   To my great astonishment, my pendulum insisted that the following Sunday I should travel 245 south from Boyd Rd to Woodlake and from there over to J21, this time to head north, which I had never done before. Since my pendulum has so far never steered me wrong, I followed my pendulum's directions on my next Sunday adventure. 

   I had the overwhelming feeling that something was absurdly wrong, which only increased my curiosity. 

   When my wife and I were still together, I'm pretty sure she would have objected to taking 245 north to Baker Mountain House, only to head south on J21--which ends up being an unnecessarily long, nauseating journey to the Kaweah River. Other routes are much more direct. As I mentioned, before that previous Sunday, I had never driven on that section of 245--trust me, you would remember if you had. I had also never seen Baker Mountain House or the ranches and farmhouses on the northern end of J21 before.

   As I headed north on J21, I remembered the stream in the rural area. At one point, however, after the yellow stripes disappeared and the road narrowed and the hill became much steeper, I no longer recognized my surroundings. I continued north anyway, determined to find a road connecting J21 west with 245. When I finally reached Baker Mountain House on 245, I realized that I had either somehow missed the connection--or it no longer existed. 

   I carefully checked the satellite images on googlemaps.com again, searching for anything that might have once been a public-access highway connecting 245 with J21, without success. I could only find on the satellite images faint dirt roads weaving through ranchlands--treacherous private roads winding up and down, but definitely not connecting 245 with J21.

     Googlemaps.com

   My wife and I had often traveled Freeway 99 through the Central Valley, then onto 201, then over to 245 to Woodlake and beyond that to the North Fork of the Kaweah River. The only explanation for me at least of the inexplicable disappearance of the highway was that there was once years ago a connection with J21 where 201 connects with 245 at Elderwood, but there is absolutely no evidence of some former connection. I have found pounding stones in the foothills in satellite images, but I could not find anything resembling a former  asphalt highway. If I am right, the question remains: Why would anyone bulldoze miles of a perfectly good road when he could simply put up a gate?

   I traveled J21 south one more time and during that long, careful search, I could find no connection between the J21 and 245, nor could I, for the life of me, remember how I got to the point of J21 where years ago I must have turned right three times, heading to the Kaweah River--as if my memory had been totally wiped. Nor could I remember any part of J21 north of a certain point. I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that a rancher had purchased the land and bulldozed miles of road, but inexplicably I couldn't remember where the highway was--even though I have developed a keen, almost photographic memory of everywhere I travel because I am always searching foothill areas to find potential Native American sites. I can even tell you where I have seen certain birds and where different wildflowers bloom each year. I remember seeing rare wind poppies on a J21 embankment one year, for instance.

   I still can only make conjectures as I gaze again and again at the satellite images. I finally asked my pendulum about the conundrum. I asked it if God can change reality any time, and the answer was "yes." Which gives new meaning to the saying that faith can move mountains.

Baby Blues Eyes in Cracks of an Unused Asphalt Road near Pine Flat Reservoir

   Around the time of my search for the connection, my wife, after thirty years of marriage, had moved away to Florida. I sold my house to free up some money for my new life as a bachelor and ended up purchasing a condominium in a building that on the outside resembles a five-star hotel. The units are attractive but the hallways occasionally make me feel like I am residing in a desolate hell of my own making. Since I didn’t have any friends, I started attending a New Thought Community Church, and there I met Amber at an “Illumination Meditation” meeting. Though approaching the end of middle age, I had hoped at least to develop a friendship, if not a lasting romantic relationship, with a spiritually inclined person. Like me, Amber chewed on New Age philosophies, but the last thing I wanted to do was break up her marriage, especially since my wife had hooked up with an old flame who had dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. He had fled to Canada when they were eighteen, and she found him online over four decades later. He hadn’t hesitated for a moment to break up my marriage, and I certainly didn’t want to be in any way like him.
   I have survived more than a few paranormal experiences, or what some might call alternate realities. Some of these experiences were quite terrifying, and I was hoping that I might receive some insights and advice from members of the meditation group. At first I was reticent, but during the second Illumination Meditation meeting that I attended, Bran, our teacher, guided us through a remote viewing session. First, we all imagined ourselves experiencing the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, paying close attention especially to the different sounds. Bran then told us to go back in time several days before the attack. Suddenly I envisioned people in what appeared to be white hazmat suits planting explosive devices in the buildings. Bran fixed his gaze on me and mentioned that hazardous waste teams were ostensibly cleaning up asbestos contamination in the buildings at the time. He asked if I had noticed the logo on the hazmat suit. I told him that it looked like a light-blue, incomplete circle. He nodded. Amber blurted out that she also had noticed the logo, as well as little gray men scurrying around people who were planting the devices. To my surprise, Bran smiled and claimed that a secret government agency had worked with aliens to bring down the World Trade Center.