Two long term projects coming to completion

Posted: 24 June 2019
Updated: 25 Jun 19

CREEI Process Logo

It's been six months since my last post on this thread. Will try to summarize and catch up.

This coming fall my friend and co-author Dr. Robert J. Thomsen, MD, and I are publishing our book titled Portal to Meaning: finding inner wisdom through The CREEI Process. [See: https://eugenenkovalenkophd.com/ and https://creeiprocess.blogspot.com/] This is the first of the two projects.

The three RPK, Phase 2 hanging objects

The second [RPK] project began on the morning of August 14, 1965 with a simple, clear dream image of a single hanging object. At the time I was a new PhD nuclear materials research scientist at General Atomic in La Jolla, California, actively looking for an experiment that would allow me to reconcile my hard science, rational, skeptical background with a recent powerful emotional experience involving a sudden fascination with flying saucers the previous April 23. It was a head vs heart dichotomy, which I could not easily resolve. [See: https://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/03/sighting.html]

So, you see, these subjects have demanded my attention for a very long time--at least 54 years!! I'm sure many readers will view this preoccupation as the definition of being crazy. I'm betting they are not correct.

However, perhaps others can see that these two projects are fundamentally related. It's hard to determine which really came first. Not intending to be obscure (without worrying too much about it), I'd have to say the upper project [CREEI] came first, but not consciously so. Actually, I can trace its roots to summer 1962, while working as a graduate research assistant at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, between the first and second years of grad school at the University of Utah. It was my first remembered dream, which came involuntarily and was a nightmare. [See: https://orthodoxodyssey.blogspot.com/1972/07/first-dream-lucifer-is-here.html]

To be continued....

Transformation at Esalen (October 1965) A fateful memory.

Event: Late October 1965

Posted: 9 December 2018

Updated: 10 Dec 18

Sunset at Esalen

For niece Kanya:

It was Kanya's FaceBook message during her recent visit to Big Sur that brought again this wonderful memory to mind. When I mentioned this long-ago experience, she expressed interest in the story, which is why I'm posting it below.

She and her partner are touring several western states while she works in a great new job and while on the road when they can find a WiFi connection. Great work if you can find it! When she mentioned they were headed up the California coast on the way to Big Sur, I suggested she make it to Esalen and enjoy soaking in the hot springs there. Alas, there was "no room at the inn" these days without reserving a place well in advance. 

I'm so sorry they couldn't make that particular stop. But, it made me reflect on the history of my current RPK experiment and how it is rapidly coming together from input and help from others of the new "Exoconsciousness" community, free thinking friends and technical colleagues. 

And, it brought to mind a long ago letter to one of my best friends, Joseph Dillard, a psychotherapist now in a thriving practice in Berlin. Joseph and I have been working together since the mid 1980s, when I was an engineering manager in an aerospace firm suffering from a severe morale problem.

Having developed a practical way to solve the problem via utilizing employee dreams, I happened to notice a published article by Joseph and co-author Stanley Krippner on dream work in the workplace. I wrote to Joe immediately to make his acquaintance, flew to Phoenix, where he was then in practice, and we became fast friends and collaborators. 

Now, decades later, this letter to Joseph (which I had lost, but which Joseph has just returned to me) has taken on much new meaning as a precursor to the current RPK, Phase 2 experiment. In June 2011, I wrote:

From: [Eugene Kovalenko]

Subject: Re: Mass continued

Date: June 1, 2011 at 3:04:44 PM GMT+1

To: Joseph Dillard...

Cc: ...

Joseph,

Thank you for your very specific, helpful and loving response!   Yes, I've stopped bus driving for the summer and hope it will lead to resigning by the fall. And I will think about turning  to cross country skiing in the nearby forest next winter...  Yes, the Gazelle is something like an elliptical trainer. And yes, I will now look at doing yoga in a new way.. .When I got to your last paragraph a wonderful, long-ago memory came to mind. [Joseph had written about his most recent IDL activities]:

We are off to the beautiful Toskana Therme in Bad Sulza, near Weimar in Turingen today, to teach a four-day seminar on Rhythm and Flow! We have some twenty-two people registered, which means we are going to have a lot of fun with our drums, bells, painting, rhythm games, and dancing! There will also be interviews and work with meditation - all about getting into the flow of one’s life! Fun! 

How I wish I could be with you in your four-day seminar! I recalled my first experience at "Big Sur Hot Springs" (soon to be known as Esalen) with a Jungian dance group led by Mary Whitehouse and Josie Taylor from Los Angeles. It was late October 1965. I had been brought there by John David Arnold, a "renegade" Episcopal priest whom I'd met only days earlier and at whose "Ranch of the Way" in Ben Loman I'd stayed for a couple of days after leaving home in San Diego for the wilderness of northern California. I had sung to John David and his Big Sur guest "Mike" while at the Ranch and John David wanted a larger group of Big Sur people to hear me sing, which is why I was now there, having just been introduced to this Jungian group.  

We (John David and I) entered their group process during one of their breaks, while all the dancer-participants were resting after an exhausting exercise. After John David had a few words with Mary Whitehouse explaining his idea, I was invited to sing and began with one of my favorite Russian folk songs. A few of the dancers began to move, which I didn't notice. Then Josie came over to me and whispered, "Eugene, you are singing structured songs, which some of our people are being moved by, but here we deal with spontaneous, unstructured movement. Can you not sing something spontaneous and unstructured?"    

"Well", I answered, "I've never done anything like that, but I'll give it a try." Looking around on the floor where I sat next to Josie and others, I noticed a few objects like bongo drums, bells, triangles, and drum sticks, etc. "I'd like all of you to join in with me if you feel like it. If you feel a sound come up in you, please let it out. Perhaps we can make a medley out of it or something."  And so we began an adventure together that turned into the most wonderful, heavenly experience I had ever had! 

As I began to sing whatever came up in me and making accompanying sounds on and with the objects I'd noticed previously, others began to move and sing a note or two. I took those few sounds and added a new harmony to them as they continued.  Soon everyone was up and moving, singing and making other sounds. For what seemed like several hours as I sat singing, beating the bongos, ringing the bells, beating the floor in concert with the dancers' beautiful movements, we simply went to heaven and stayed there until we eventually, gently floated back down to the floor while exclaiming surprise and celebrating that mind-blowing event.   

It was then that one of the dancers, a large shapely blond, came over to me and asked where I was sleeping that night.  And I stepped over a taboo boundary, which changed me forever.   

Years later, while reflecting on that transforming event, I recalled a dream I'd had in Salt Lake City the previous month [on the Autumnal Equinox (September 21, 1965)], while I was the overnight guest of my former Mormon mission president. I've titled it "The Recrystallization of the Church". In the dream I kiss a large blond woman on the cheek while my wife and friends watch with knowing and approving smiles from a short distance away and say, "This is to celebrate the beginning of the recrystallization of the Church". I could not help thinking/believing that this same inner blond reappeared to me last summer, this time with a long blond braid, whom I called "Hippie Woman" in an interview with you on the Indigo in Bimini in August. 

With love and gratitude,

Eugene

Playing chess with youngest grandson.

Originally Posted: 2 October 2018
Updated: 25 Nov 18

Grandpa plays chess with grandson

Beginning

2 Oct 18. Looking forward to teaching my youngest grandson a game I used to be passionate about more than 65 years ago. None of his older cousins now in their 30s and 40s has managed to beat this old grandpa yet. But I suspect it won't take long before this one will be teaching him (me)!

7 Oct 18. I am waiting for the first game online later this evening. We don't yet know who will make first move, but his dad will have his son choose which piece, black or white, which he will hold in his hands behind his back. If the hand chosen is holding white, grandson will start.

The setup in Los Alamos, NM (Grandpa's board)

Later (same day). Grandson chose white and we began communicating moves over the telephone, each of us living in a different state. (Am deliberately not using his name, place or age at present) This preliminary game turned out to be a good practice run. After several days of back and forth text moves, the game broke down in confusion over who moved what when. Our respective record keeping lists did not agree, so we decided to stop at move #23 on October 12, with no one yet winning. In the meantime we reviewed standard nomenclature, agreed to clearer language, and to play again another day, better equipped to understand each other. I was pleasantly surprised how much he knew and how quickly he learns.

October 12, 2018:  Game 0 (practice) at move #23

22 Oct 18. And then, on October 21, 2018, at move #21 in less than an hour, this grandson beat his grandpa during their very first real game! This was a total shock to me, but also a surprising delight! Who knows what the future will bring?!!

October 21, 2018: Game 1. Grandson's stunning defeat of his grandpa at move #21!!

Grandpa evens score

10 Nov 18. Game 2.
It took a month to arrange the next game in which Grandpa (me) would play white. During the month, grandson's parents suggested the best time for him to play on a regular basis would be early Saturday afternoons. That's how this second game was arranged, which was completed via telephone in one hour and 23 moves. 

It was not without lessons learned, especially by Grandpa, who had trouble keeping correct track of recording a few moves versus actually moving the pieces accordingly. At move #25, for example, he lost a rook to grandson, having failed to correctly move grandson's piece at the time grandson announced it. It took us a few minutes to review the written moves, which were all correct, but which Grandpa hadn't followed up by moving grandson's piece to the announced spot. This very much surprised Grandpa and he couldn't very well ask to redo the move (not allowed in serious chess). He had to eat crow and lose the piece. Fortunately for Grandpa, he was able to limp along enough to out maneuver grandson for an eventual win. 

Below is a photo of the final position at move #23 in Game 2. 

End of Game 2 from Grandpa's view

Lesson learned for G'pa in Game 2: "Move first, then record!" 


18 Nov 18. Game 3.

End of Game 3 from G'pa view

G'pa was more careful this time and won the game in an hour at move #24, when grandson [GS] resigned. This was a good lesson for GS, who felt devastated at this loss. With the help of his observing father, GS learned he could resign without suffering a humiliating checkmate when losing became inevitable. It was a lesson in gracefully accepting defeat. This is an attitude that all good chess players must learn.


25 Nov 18. Game 4.

End of game 4 from G'Pa view

G'Pa won game 4, but we had more fun this time. It took GS's dad and me to work out a more stable FaceTime audio connection to allow us all to communicate better. Also, this time I softened the rules for GS during these early games, so that we could talk about GS moves that he might want to take back. You can see on the record sheet that moves 10, 11 and 12 needed "readjustment".

Posted: 2 November 2018
Updated:

As serendipity would have it, at 2:41 PM today (11/2/18), I received a news release describing the best long-term scenario I can imagine for our beleaguered USA, now in a constitutional crisis. Please read and let's discuss it! See PRG.

Kathy before she became Katya, circa 1958

Posted: 7 October 2018
Updated: 

Kathy Anne Kregg, circa 1958

A few weeks ago, in process of gathering personal papers to send to the University of Utah archives (at their invitation) before moving to Sweden, I came across this charming picture of my oldest child (and only daughter), taken by my dad in 1958 at his Nick Kregg photographic studio in San Clemente, California. This must have been just before her mother and I (and her younger brother Nicky) moved to Berkeley later that summer for me to attend the University of California. The family would eventually change its name to my dad's original family ("familia") name in late 1961 in Salt Lake City, during my second year of grad school at the University of Utah. 

Kathy would soon become known as Katya Kovalenko.

Let's talk about NOW...

Posted: 30 August 2018

Updated: 2 Sep 18

This shared FB post came in this morning (Aug 30) from good friend Joe Dillard:

"A good rule of thumb: spend no more than 5% of your thinking and feeling in the past, in order to learn from it; spend no more than 5% of your thoughts and emotions in the future, setting your priorities, and spend at least a full 90% of your time in the here and how, with each breath, because that is where you live, where you are alive, and where you can make a difference."

When I saw Joe's post, I immediately thought of the most recent letter from my oldest son, which dwells on long ago (1975) in a way that saddens, disappoints and surprises me. That he copied his siblings (except his youngest brother and his mother), their spouses and their mothers felt Absolum-like. Especially how it contrasted to the greatest Fathers' Day card I ever got from him or anyone else just 3 years ago.

Regretfully, I acknowledge now in this space, that I was not in my children's lives when they were small, as they needed me to be. I most regret not being able to rescue son Ivan in 1976, when he was living with my brother and his wife in Colorado Springs in their military household and hating it. (Although I much appreciated my brother's help, I had told Ivan I'd come to get him if the situation became intolerable). 

But now is now! Ivan left us in 1996 to the family's great sorrow, but not before saying goodbye to me in a most meaningful, well-planned way, before I realized he would soon be gone. His death brought the family together for a wondrous week. During that miraculous time we were able to put our resentments, complaints and guilts aside, while we met in the harmony of true community. Nick exclaimed at the end of the week that Ivan's passing had succeeded bringing the family together. Indeed he did. In fact, he continues to visit some of us in our dreams. In my last one of him, he rescued me from a stuck and confusing situation!

All my children have long ago grown up, four of which have their own families, four of which have become grandparents many times over. 

These days I am exploring a new kind of community that is only now coming into its own, which refers to itself in terms of "Exoconsciousness". I will be saying more about this in future posts and hope to share these experiences with those of my family who are willing to join me.

RPK Phase 2 Experiment Protocol DRAFT 3

Posted: 2 August 2018
Updated: 

CONVERGING

 Dear RPK Phase 2 potential influencers, 

Below is DRAFT 3 for our up-coming experiment. Since most main line scientists are skeptical of paranormal phenomena, I have given it to several world class skeptical physicists here, who are associated with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) with this question: 

Assuming positive results from this protocol, will it constitute irrefutable evidence that the phenomenon of remote psychokinesis (telekinesis) is real? If not, why not?

Once I get their feedback, I will finalize the protocol and launch our experiment. I will contact each of you personally with which time slot, A, B, C, D or E you are asked to fill. This will include a GPS coordinates location of the device and a date in your personal time zone. Results will be reported in terms of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).