Hey, Garth,

I am not a blogger and no online chatter, but when I found your site by chance clicking on Stumble, I found a person, not a bunch of slick window-dressing.

I'm so glad. Thanks for writing it. It lets me get in touch with someone I will never meet in the flesh, and see you in a way I might experience a real friend over the years. After about an hour on your site, I began to remember the Samuel Pepys diary, and how cherished it has become over the centuries for letting us meet a real person of his time, honest in his milieu.

Unlike you, I think we do reincarnate…I think this because I have strange bits of memories of times I could not possibly have seen in real life, although I have lived in several foreign countries for awhile. Because of those unaccountable memories and because I too test high on IQ tests, I began to wonder what other cultures have to say about reincarnation on a practical basis...like for instance, what the Tibetans tell about the bardo state, the holding station where you go between lives.

Their instruction in The Book of the Dead is pragmatic, much like your 12 rules to live by. It's not sweet and victim/victor oriented like Christianity. Mostly it's about how to leapfrog from one life into another without winding up stuck in muck. That means appreciating each individual and unique life as it unfolds to its end, not becoming just a rep or pawn or apologist for a system of some kind without knowing who you are. And endings are final exams.

But the test for each incarnation as the soul waits in the bardo state to leap into the next life is to crystallize the unique moments of the past one, turning each memory around to catch the light so that finally it glows instead of glowers. Your take on the memories of that past life becomes the springboard for the next. It's not the events themselves, but your take on them that counts.

If that is true, then your web site is a wonderful preparation for your next incarnation. It lets you examine who you are without window dressing, and lets me see what your soul really appreciates, and lets me appreciate it with you.

And hey, even if incarnation isn't true, it's still the same effect.
The web site makes a great tombstone motto.

In Italy they have these photos right on the tombstone - engraved on little sheets of metal, and looking almost holographic. With them, you see the person and not just a name or phrase.

But your motto is better, because in it we can see you far more fully, right in the round.

I need to start thinking about my own memorial, and this is a brand new thought for me.


Congrats and best wishes,
Katya