My vision comes into focus and I look up, seeing that I am on the terrace of a tall building. It is very open and everything is gray as if made out of concrete and in ruins. Buildings stretch into the distance, each partially destroyed but weaving together to create a post-apocalyptic skyline. There is no sound of any sort. It’s just that quiet. I look up to the sky, seeing clouds dark and heavy with the mother of all storms ready to unload everything they have. Everything—the ruined buildings, the storm-ready sky, even the air itself—seems to be waiting with the tension of an arrow drawn tight on a mythical bow.
Suddenly a wave of nausea runs through my stomach and I double over in pain and grab my gut. I whisper aloud, “I don’t think I can stand this!”
With these words I sense something to my left. There stands on the terrace not far away one of the eeriest sculptures I have ever seen.
Standing out against the darkest parts of the brooding sky is a large egg-shaped sculpture. It appears to be made of curved bands of metal, crisscrossing in what seems to be a random pattern but in the overall form of an egg standing on its end. I can also see small whirling patterns and hear their whispering movements slow down within. This interruption of the place’s absolute stillness I know is due to my spoken words, and so somehow, this thing and I are connected.
Suddenly a wave of nausea runs through my stomach and I double over in pain and grab my gut. I whisper aloud, “I don’t think I can stand this!”
With these words I sense something to my left. There stands on the terrace not far away one of the eeriest sculptures I have ever seen.
Standing out against the darkest parts of the brooding sky is a large egg-shaped sculpture. It appears to be made of curved bands of metal, crisscrossing in what seems to be a random pattern but in the overall form of an egg standing on its end. I can also see small whirling patterns and hear their whispering movements slow down within. This interruption of the place’s absolute stillness I know is due to my spoken words, and so somehow, this thing and I are connected.
Still feeling my stomach gripped in pain, I rise to my feet and do my best to walk over to the monolith. As I look through the open lattice work, I can see gears inside. They are suspended freely in space, but anchor to an invisible and unique pivot point defining their sweeping arcs of movement in every different and imaginable direction. I notice that these are sector gears, the kind you see in clock-like mechanisms. In contrast to a round gear, these are only a small part of an entire toothed circle, therefore with a beginning, middle and end.
As I watch the otherworldly dance of the gears, I can see that some are very real and definite and others are ghostlike. They pass through each other without interference, and I can hear the whisper of a light, clacking sound as they ratchet around inside the egg. I take a few steps back to take it all in.
“What is this thing?” I ask.
A disembodied voice responds within my consciousness.
“This is the future birthing into the now.”
The otherworldly dance of the gears is complex- like a multi-dimensional model of time. They come to rest and I reach through a gap in the side of the egg.
This is the process of Becoming.
As I look at the gears, within my mind I see something like a video feed of future events. One brushes my outstretched hand and suddenly I double over in pain.
With a reflex, I rip the gear out, pulling it through the egg’s lattice wall, and throw it over my shoulder. The machine responds by spinning its gears around again, recalibrating for the loss of one, whispering its light clacking sound into a new configuration.
“What’s happening now?”
Each gear is the probability of a thought, word, or action in your future. Your destiny is resetting itself around what you have removed.
“How did I know I could do that? Pull that gear out, removing that future moment?”
Why else are you here?
“I have no idea. I don’t even know what this place is.”
You are in the In Between.
“In between what?”
Everything. The Impossible Now between the past and the future.
“That makes no sense whatsoever.”
It’s impossible in its short duration. Yet here you are, standing inside the eternity of a single moment. Do you remember who you are in the world to which your body belongs?
I look blankly into space, squinting with the effort to remember.
“I have no idea.”
Then you see the truth in how the past is dust.
“OK. Why do some of these gears—these futures that I touch—make me sick and not others?”
All choices have unintended consequences, some unfortunate and some not. The pain each brings is your guide.
“Where are the gears that feel good?”
You’re not here to feel good.
A new gear swings into view. On this one I see a Ferris wheel and happy grandchildren whizzing by, fingers grasping their car, laughter… they smile at me, or through me, looking off into their own world.
Obviously, I let that gear pass by.
More gears emerge within view, some passing through others, several clear and definite, many less so and hard to focus on, though all bringing with them their clear images of meaning.
Each time they come to rest, I pull out a gear that I feel by my pain to be to my future detriment.
At one point I look at the growing pile of gears.
“It’s starting to look like if I don’t have a bad future then I have no future at all. Even though I now feel less pain, am I going to die sooner from doing all this?”
Your destiny has to fit itself around futures that aren’t meant to be. Your number of breaths are already counted. I will worry about your last one.
“I don’t know how comforting that is.”
Eliminating bad choices doesn’t mean you won’t make wrong ones. You won’t know they are wrong until after they pass. Since right and wrong are variables over which you have no control, the answers to what comes tomorrow are a waste. Better is understanding the beauty of how everything fits and re-fits together.
“What am I missing here, in my lack of understanding?”
What is clearly before you. Grace. No one deserves salvation. It can only be given by Grace. It is your birthright, but it must be chosen at the expense of the world that separates us.
“This fixing my future is painful. I feel ashamed that I’m not doing it with some moral compass. I’m only guided by pain. I don’t even know where or when these futures happen.”
Where or when are not important. Removing your enthusiasm to further chain yourself to the world isn’t as painful as carrying the crushing weight of those chains, once forged around you.
“It's as if this place was made so that I can do one thing and one thing only, with no chance to screw it up.”
If those with choices make poor use of them, then offering fewer possibilities could be called mercy.
You can’t change the past. But you can make better choices in the future. Everything is interconnected. And pay more attention to your relationships. Be gentle with everyone, as I am gentle with you.”
“Gentle? What’s gentle about all this?”
You prayed for something for which being here is the answer. And now the man who fell from the sky is not the same who flew into it.
I look up into the stone-gray sky and then out across the seemingly dead and abandoned city. I look back to the egg and reaching up, place my hand upon it. And I say, “I think I can live with this now.”
As I watch the otherworldly dance of the gears, I can see that some are very real and definite and others are ghostlike. They pass through each other without interference, and I can hear the whisper of a light, clacking sound as they ratchet around inside the egg. I take a few steps back to take it all in.
“What is this thing?” I ask.
A disembodied voice responds within my consciousness.
“This is the future birthing into the now.”
The otherworldly dance of the gears is complex- like a multi-dimensional model of time. They come to rest and I reach through a gap in the side of the egg.
This is the process of Becoming.
As I look at the gears, within my mind I see something like a video feed of future events. One brushes my outstretched hand and suddenly I double over in pain.
With a reflex, I rip the gear out, pulling it through the egg’s lattice wall, and throw it over my shoulder. The machine responds by spinning its gears around again, recalibrating for the loss of one, whispering its light clacking sound into a new configuration.
“What’s happening now?”
Each gear is the probability of a thought, word, or action in your future. Your destiny is resetting itself around what you have removed.
“How did I know I could do that? Pull that gear out, removing that future moment?”
Why else are you here?
“I have no idea. I don’t even know what this place is.”
You are in the In Between.
“In between what?”
Everything. The Impossible Now between the past and the future.
“That makes no sense whatsoever.”
It’s impossible in its short duration. Yet here you are, standing inside the eternity of a single moment. Do you remember who you are in the world to which your body belongs?
I look blankly into space, squinting with the effort to remember.
“I have no idea.”
Then you see the truth in how the past is dust.
“OK. Why do some of these gears—these futures that I touch—make me sick and not others?”
All choices have unintended consequences, some unfortunate and some not. The pain each brings is your guide.
“Where are the gears that feel good?”
You’re not here to feel good.
A new gear swings into view. On this one I see a Ferris wheel and happy grandchildren whizzing by, fingers grasping their car, laughter… they smile at me, or through me, looking off into their own world.
Obviously, I let that gear pass by.
More gears emerge within view, some passing through others, several clear and definite, many less so and hard to focus on, though all bringing with them their clear images of meaning.
Each time they come to rest, I pull out a gear that I feel by my pain to be to my future detriment.
At one point I look at the growing pile of gears.
“It’s starting to look like if I don’t have a bad future then I have no future at all. Even though I now feel less pain, am I going to die sooner from doing all this?”
Your destiny has to fit itself around futures that aren’t meant to be. Your number of breaths are already counted. I will worry about your last one.
“I don’t know how comforting that is.”
Eliminating bad choices doesn’t mean you won’t make wrong ones. You won’t know they are wrong until after they pass. Since right and wrong are variables over which you have no control, the answers to what comes tomorrow are a waste. Better is understanding the beauty of how everything fits and re-fits together.
“What am I missing here, in my lack of understanding?”
What is clearly before you. Grace. No one deserves salvation. It can only be given by Grace. It is your birthright, but it must be chosen at the expense of the world that separates us.
“This fixing my future is painful. I feel ashamed that I’m not doing it with some moral compass. I’m only guided by pain. I don’t even know where or when these futures happen.”
Where or when are not important. Removing your enthusiasm to further chain yourself to the world isn’t as painful as carrying the crushing weight of those chains, once forged around you.
“It's as if this place was made so that I can do one thing and one thing only, with no chance to screw it up.”
If those with choices make poor use of them, then offering fewer possibilities could be called mercy.
You can’t change the past. But you can make better choices in the future. Everything is interconnected. And pay more attention to your relationships. Be gentle with everyone, as I am gentle with you.”
“Gentle? What’s gentle about all this?”
You prayed for something for which being here is the answer. And now the man who fell from the sky is not the same who flew into it.
I look up into the stone-gray sky and then out across the seemingly dead and abandoned city. I look back to the egg and reaching up, place my hand upon it. And I say, “I think I can live with this now.”
I wake up in a hospital. I am told that my plane crashed and the doctors run down the list of all my injuries. I discover that I was put into a coma upon my arrival and was kept there for one week. For that entire time, I was in the In Between and did not stop yanking out gears until I left. But time doesn’t seem to move at all there and it’s not like I had a physical body that needed to rest, eat or sleep.
One morning I awoke to find a photo of me taped to the wall, this from my past and someone's idea of the best version of myself.
One morning I awoke to find a photo of me taped to the wall, this from my past and someone's idea of the best version of myself.
If you would like to read the full mind-blowing conversation I had with the In Between and my life leading up to it, please visit Amazon and consider purchasing my book: https://amzn.to/35qg1qf
Here are some additional photos from the book, which tell my story:
Here are some additional photos from the book, which tell my story:
The In Between shows the quantum reality of time, entanglement and how all things are interconnected. Obviously there is more to its purpose than this, but it’s amazing how logically consistent the model is, the deeper I dig into it. There are entangled things that are a universe apart, and when you change the state of one, you instantly change the state of its entangled mate, no matter the distance in space or even in time. There are things that happened at the beginning of time that are, not will, affecting other things at the end of time. Literally, in between the two is only the present.
Taking it a step further, if something is happening at the beginning of time that is also happening at its end, then everything in between must be happening all at once.
Taking it a step further, if something is happening at the beginning of time that is also happening at its end, then everything in between must be happening all at once.
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