Chris Stapleton’s “Cold” is on the speaker, Bluetooth on the balcony. Satisfying Huda beer just opened, has the old fashioned jugular-cuttin’ pull tab on top of the can. I have been researching and reading about HIVE today.
It is super exciting to join this community. I am a noob, and that is the reality. I am sticking magnets on the refrigerator door. Collecting shot glasses. Quaint stuff my mom used to do. Wish she was still here. Whoa, the lights on the balcony just turned on by themselves. Just as I wrote the sentence previous to the previous sentence. Just as I pushed that sentence’s period key. I got the chills. A sign she agrees with my creative foray into HIVE?
This is the second time that lights turned on without physical human initiation for me in the last three weeks. Last month I was in Hue, Vietnam. I would wager it was the most gray, rainy, damp, chilly, potentially depressing place on planet Earth during my stay mid-December through mid January.
I stayed at a homestay in Hue on the outskirts of town. During my first two weeks there across the street there was a traditional Vietnamese funeral taking place. I learned from my homestay hosts (lovely people, but content for a different post) that this mid-40’s neighbor died recently from a bad motorbike accident. It was sudden and sad for all.
Vietnamese funerals are long affairs and all senses are captive to them. This one took place at the home of the deceased. Across the road for the entire thing, I was unable to avoid looking down from my 3rd-story room’s balcony as much as I was unable to avoid the smell of the incense. There was a nearly constant chanting from monks. Sometimes I listened actively, sometimes I heard it passively, but it was mostly constant activity. I could see the attendees interact with this travesty in their own ways. On that same balcony I did yoga and meditation in the mornings.
I did one meditation that happened to be concurrent to some very intense monk chanting across the street. I even did several ohms with the monks in unison. My ohms were deep, matching the resonance of the monks. Those were some good ohms.
Then, from that night on, I noticed some strangeness on that third floor. Every morning I would wake with one or two things in my room moved from the spot they were when I went to bed. My yoga mat would be on a different spot on the floor, or the trash can was a couple feet to the right. Another day during the daytime the fan oscillated side to side without it even being on. The fan blades remained still. I would also get energy pulses, shivers, throughout my body up and down my spine from time to time. Things like that I noticed.
This leads me to the light turning on by itself. It was 3 AM. I was asleep. In a sudden, I was gently awakened by a wall light that I had never even used before inexplicably turning on. The darkness of the room was now light. Surprisingly, I felt unperturbed. My body started those spine tingles again. Without forethought I said in a normal voice, “you need to go now”. Within minutes, the monks started chanting across the street. Turns out that pre-sunrise morning was the time to move the body, or whatever was left of it. It was in ash as they burned it up previously. It was the final day of the funeral. I got up and turned the light off. I listened to the chants quietly in my blankets. I fell back asleep. The third floor strangenesses never occurred again after that.
Tonight the balcony lights turned themselves on. Should I add meaning to it, or assume there is some mechanical explanation for it? How about for my experiences in Hue? All I know is that I am here, and it feels meaningful.
I leave with a photo from a substantial night last night, now writing my next-day, post-balcony edits. I gained some Japanese speaking experience points and was introduced to a cool small club above a ramen shop. (There is no COVID here, #grateful 🙏)
