Graduation

My Daughter and Wife and I all attended the senior graduation for a friend of my daughter's last week at her private Prep School. At the time I was amazed at how progressive this graduation was without a lot of the formality of graduations I had attended before. And yet, the quality of teachers and students were obvious and it wasn't surprising that some of these students were going places like Harvard, Ivy League colleges on the East Coast, Stanford and the like because of the extremely high quality of students and teachers. Basically, if you weren't an A or a B Student at any public school in the first place you wouldn't be going here in the first place. And if you were a trouble maker either you would have not been admitted or you would have been expelled before graduation. So, the quality of students and teachers was the highest I had ever seen before anywhere in a High School setting.

Today I received a thank you letter for a donation I made to my own private school that I attended in the 1965-6 school year. So, in May 1966 I graduated there in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a senior there.
At that time there were only 4 of us seniors, 2 boys and 2 girls. In fall 1965 I had decided to drop out of high school in the beginning of my senior year and get a job. I think I had just grown up too fast because I looked 17 or older from the time I was about 12 or 13. So, people just started treating me more as an adult starting about age 13. By age 13 I was at least 5 foot 10 to 6 feet tall and by age 17 I was 6 foot 3 and by age 21 I was 6 foot 4 and 3/4 inches tall. So, being treated as an adult that young changes ones behavior a lot along with having my first car that I bought at age 16 (one month after I turned 16). Then I started at age 16 dating a girl 21 and I think this also made me grow up pretty fast.
The problem with this progression is that by the time I was 17 I started dating the girl I had intended to marry since I was 6 years old. But, she was a year older and I saw how I wasn't going to be ready to marry someone until I was in my middle 20s or older or never. This was awful for me at the time.
Many people say, "Timing is everything!" and I see now they are right. I went too far too fast in my teens and paid dearly for it at that time and after. So, finally at age 25 (which was old for then) I married my life in girlfriend because she was having my son.

When I went to Santa Fe, New Mexico on the El Capitan Train in October 1965 all by myself, I was met by a lady from Belgium who had spent most of World War II in a detainment camp in europe somewhere. Since she had watched hundreds of people die there and met her husband there she was a pretty tough cookie. As I got off the train she told me that I was a spoiled boy from Los Angeles and she didn't see how I was going to fit in there in Santa Fe. At first I was completely taken aback by this until I realized I was in her version of Private School Boot camp. If I didn't pass her tests I would be sent home because she had already thinned out all the other trouble makers. She wanted to see if I was a young gentleman or just a young asshole. I proved to her that I was a gentleman because I realized if I didn't pass her test I would be sent home in disgrace. Besides, she only was trying to protect her family and the other boys and girls in the residence from a 6 foot 3 inch very strong willed young man which actually made sense to me because I could be pretty wild if I wanted to be at that time and after. It was just about what I willed to happen after all.

However, as I adjusted to life there (almost 900 miles away from home) I found the place incredibly beautiful. I had been there several times already with my parents going to religious gatherings there. I had flown my first plane there when I was 8 years old. I wasn't allowed to take the plane off but I was allowed to fly it all over Santa Fe for about 1 hour which was exciting beyond belief for me. Looking back now it must have been hard for my father because of his brother who he hadn't seen since World War II to let me fly a plane when I was 8. In my 20s he begged me not to get my private flying license until after he had passed on. So, I waited until I was in my late 30s (after he passed on in 1985) until I soloed in a Cessna 152. This was one of the hardest things to wait for in my life as I had wanted to be an Airline pilot when I grew up. But, I knew my father couldn't deal with worrying about me flying planes because of the true saying about pilots "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots" People have always recognized I am a very bold person like my father, brothers and his father. So, people who are as bold as we tend to be fit the description about pilots. So, I ride a motorcycle and miss flying a lot. Every time I have wanted to get my pilot's license someone close to my family has crashed their plane and died. So, this always is something to think about. I suppose it might not matter as much if you don't have kids.

As I attended the private religious school in Santa Fe there within the first two weeks I woke up and looked out of my room and there was suddenly 3 feet of snow that had fallen overnight. Coming from Los Angeles (Glendale) this was amazing because I had never lived somewhere it could snow this much at one time without you knowing it. School was closed for the day as no one could drive anywhere and we all built snow forts and had snowball fights instead. The lady from Belgium who took care of us made us hot chocolate and cookies to warm up and life there was really amazing and safe. I was the biggest and strongest person at the school so I didn't have to get into fights at all and instead was something of a leader at this school and was very happy there as a result. Also, I went back to being a straight A student pretty much because there weren't people that were going to try to hurt me for getting an A like public School had been in Glendale. I was way too big and strong for people to succeed at that but yelling matches over stuff like that was really annoying. So, no one got angry at me getting good grades there so I was really happy with all nice people around me in school.

One time a girl who was 16 (a year younger than I) went into convulsions with an ulcer and I was the only one strong enough to pick her up and carry her to the car to take her to the hospital. So, I helped in this way. As a result she took a liking to me and became my girlfriend. The only problem with this was I was already going steady with another girl back home in Los Angeles and this became very confusing for me at the time. Because I was always used to being perceived as a gentleman and this confused me a lot at age 17.

Santa Fe can get very hot in the summer and yet in the winter temperatures in the day down to 10 or 15 degrees Fahrenheit are pretty common. Since it is at over 7000 feet in elevation it has these extremes in temperature. Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico and Colorado Springs, Colorado are the highest big cities in the U.S. I believe along with Aspen Colorado and Vail.

But Denver is the highest really big city in the U.S. at about 5000 feet in elevation or more.

In May 1966 my parents came for the graduation. Being a religious school we wore all white including a white  tie and white suit and white shoes. Then we wore an Indigo Cape with white Satin lining. It indicated that we were members of the Brotherhood of the Indigo Cape that was ushering all children into Enlightenment for Life. All four of us could play the piano and since I had been taking piano lessons from age 8 to 16 and then organ lessons while there at the school I played the Baldwin Organ accompanied by one of the other students on piano. Then later I played the piano accompanied by my organ teacher on the organ for the graduation.

My senior Speech was called, "The Power of the Silence". Growing up  I had been very quiet until I was about 15 listening to what my elders and people around me were saying. So, I valued greatly listening and watching and waiting and learning everything about life and people around me all the time. So, I took quotes from religious writings to emphasize the importance of concepts like "Let Go and Let God" and how important it is to be quiet and to listen to God always in ones life.

My speech had empowered the others to write there speeches on subjects like Harmony and the use of the Violet Sacred Fire. Our class was dedicated to "The Great Divine Director" also known as "Lord Maha Chohan" who is the head chohan of beings like Saint Germain, Jesus, Morya, Dwal Khul, etc.

So, this year prepared me in many ways for the rest of my life. However, in some ways it was a problem when I returned to Los Angeles and entered college in the fall. I was always an intuitive and at that time I believed in more of a Creationist point of view. So, as an intuitive when I went to a secular college and took Social Science it exploded my world view and I found I had to drop out of college and work for a year because I was upset realizing how most people in Los Angeles believed in Evolution. It wasn't until I was about 20 or 21 that I finally was able to integrate evolution into my understanding of the universe. When you are faced with this kind of dilemma you have to find a way forward or it can be harmful to your life as a man or woman. So, I moved forward at the time by realizing that both evolution and creationism were both theories. In some ways it didn't matter which theory was correct because neither was a law both were theories. Once I realized that most of what mankind knows is theoretical at best I could apply Francis Bacon's Scientific Method to it which is to classify all knowledge into hypotheses, theories and Laws.

By doing this with all things in my life and classifying everything in this way I had the most success. Since I was taught that Francis Bacon was also Saint Germain this worked for me always to classify all knowledge in this way scientifically.

So, though my graduation from a religious school was good and much more non-violent than my life in public school in Los Angeles it also had some drawbacks in regard to religiosity and creationism. So, it took me a few years to overcome these problems and in some ways it interfered with my initial forays into college. However, over time this became less and less of a problem and I eventually went to UCSC in Santa Cruz, California.