Sunrise, 9/11/09. 

A friend of mine knows a number of people who felt strange and awful before 9/11, who had terrible premonitions and visions and yes, I too dislike prophecy.  I think we all need to be very careful and more than a little skeptical whenever anyone says, "I saw it coming," or "I had a feeling something was going to happen."  

I admit, however, that at the time I was as much caught up in the psychic frenzy as everyone else, grasping at emotional straws, seeking anything that in the panic might give the illusion of control over the uncontrollable.  For a long time afterward, in fact, I was on my friend's call list.  "How are you feeling?" he would ask in a tone of trepidation occasionally mixed with something else, a sweet note of pleasure I suppose you could call it, the kind that comes with that tingling sensation you get whenever you have a secret you can't wait to tell.

"Why?" I would ask in reply and in anticipation.  "What have you heard?" 

Sometimes he'd tell me, and other times -- during the build up to one of the wars, for example, or on one of those nights right before the election results were announced, or during the stifling hot days of wild fire season -- before he spilled his news or hot tips he would first make me confess to any and all paranormal experiences, psychic headaches or disconcerting dreams I might have been having.  I would oblige whenever I could, but in terms of predictive accuracy, I am sure that of all his informants, I scored especially poorly.

To tell you the truth, however, my friend rarely had anything to divulge you couldn't just as easily have found out with a dose of common sense or a close reading of the current issue of Vanity Fair.  Don't misunderstand, I do believe there are people out there with real gifts, who can see more than the rest of us and who have the ability to penetrate the heavy veil of time and space.   But it's a tricky gift to be saddled with, trust me.   As a friend of mine who can talk to the dead has confided in me, it's not much fun. 

"There's a reason the dead want to talk to you," he explained.  "It's inevitably about unfinished business, unrequited desire, unsolved mysteries.  You try having lunch while someone insists on showing you full color crime scene photos.  Talk about losing your appetite.  They're not a happy crowd, the dead who want to chat, generally speaking.  Talk about a buzz kill, you know?"   

I'm sure you see his point.  As for me and in marked contrast, my abilities if any are low grade and erratic at best.  As for my reaction to these infrequent moments of insight and intuition, I tend to alternate between the ruthlessly pragmatic and the blatantly magical.  That is, I either struggle to remain rationally and firmly on the ground or else take flight in pure fanciful swoops and dives of imagination.   For example, that speck in the picture of the sunrise from the other morning?  There's a point around dawn when it seems as if all the birds who are awake start heading east because of the way the light angles and throws into relief the odd earthworm, unsuspecting mouse, stray french fry or other breakfast snack waiting to be pounced upon.  And so what do I decide to do on sudden impulse but try and capture the falcon which, in my heady spiritual moments, I've "realized" is my animal totem because he likes to sit on the steeple across the way and keep an eye on me until I blink or look away.  You see what I mean?

Something else happened recently too, when my guru was last in town.  There I am, having gone to receive her blessing and as I'm moving out of the way to make room for the next devotee, the next spiritual aspirant, I hear her say, "How are you feeling?"

It didn't immediately register that she was even speaking to me until one of her attendants, a lovely young Indian girl, touched my sleeve and repeated the question. Of course, being the least spontaneous person in the world, I turned back and saw her looking at me in her smiling, beneficent fashion and was promptly struck dumb. 

To put the moment in a context with which you may more easily identify, let me say that it was the equivalent to being in a receiving line for the Queen when, after having been thoroughly instructed beforehand on what to expect and the proper form of address and curtsey and bow and etiquette and so forth, there you find yourself suddenly face to face, so to speak, and out of the blue Her Majesty leans in and asks you to quick tell her which grandson you think is hotter, William or Harry.  Just, you know, to give you an idea of what it's like, being caught off guard by a great being.

Mercifully and after what seemed like an eternity I finally, lamely, mumbled something to the effect that I guessed I was okay thanks, then excused myself and stumbled off as quickly as I could.

I went home and was sick for three days.  And not just sick, you understand, but afflicted almost to the point of not caring whether I lived to make it to the bathroom in time, with the kind of head and gut splitting pain and urgent evacuation from both ends that makes the current exotic 'flu seem like a mild case of gas.

Naturally I couldn't wait to tell my friend all about it.   "It was a psychic cleanse," I said when I could finally get to the phone, still very weak but proud of myself.  "A spiritual purging."

"Oh," he chuckled in what I can only describe as a distinctly disdainful and ungratifying tone of voice, "the guru asks how you are, just to be polite, and you turn it into some mystical moment of truth and revelation."

As you might imagine my first reaction was to suggest he was jealous it hadn't happened to him, but as I was still recovering from what had for all intents and purposes felt like a near-death experience, I could see the folly in thinking anyone would envy an uncontrollable and simultaneous voiding of stomach and bowels.

Still, for what it's worth, my guru has been coming to me in my dreams lately.  The last couple of nights.  And not making me sick, of course.  Not in the least.  On the contrary I wake up refreshed and remembering nothing whatsoever of anything she's said but with the bright and clear memory of the two of us laughing while she holds me in her arms like a child or a sack of potatoes, depending on your point of view.  And I freely admit these visitations may be meaningless or of only personal significance as opposed to anything on a world wide level or larger, and maybe she's still only being polite, but in any case I thought you might want to know.  

You might also want to know, while we're on the subject of psychics, that Jeane Dixon was born in 1904, although she used to lie about her age.  Jeane Dixon, 1904 - 1997.  True story. 

As you may remember, she got loads of things wrong.  In retrospect, though, she got a few things right too.  

And just now my falcon is back, so I've got to run.  I just wanted to say, my darling, that I hope you're feeling well.