Sally Ember's Blog, page 121

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

15th Serialized Excerpt, 4/7/14

CHAPTER TWO

Leah Iris, 29, Niece of Clara Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator

Interview Date: May 26, 2018

10 Questions for Clara Branon’s Niece:

the Transition, 5 Years Later

1. How old are you when the Transition begins, winter, 2013, and how old are you now?

LEAH: I am 24 when the five MWC holos first come to Earth to work with my Aunt Clara, and I’m 29, now. Since we’re each five years apart in my family, my brother, Caleb, is 24 and younger brother, Aaron is 19 [interviews with them and another nephew of Clara's, Gabriel, are in CHAPTER THREE]. My boyfriend, Josh Lasky, and I are recently together (about three years, now), so he isn’t with me when the Transition begins.

2. What is your favorite part of the changes since the Transition? Why?

LEAH: Well, as my aunt Clara and everyone else who knows me knows, I’m a geek and proud of it [laughs]. Let my freak flag fly! So, Access, my iD, the fish, my cousin-Jessica-designed OPTS (totally stylin’), all the other new tech, the gadgets, toys, space and time travel components, the whole confirmation of the multiverse moment: LOVE! Also, I’m kind of a music geek: the pieces that combine non-humans with humans are the BEST! Especially, Angelina [Cetacean Leader, Bottle-Nosed Dolphin, South Pacific near former Guam] and her pod’s co-creations with Zephyr: amazing!

Also, I am very impressed with the respectful, pretty much nonviolent ways the MWC manages the Fraggers and Trenchers. That is, if you do not consider involuntary ReInvolvement or forced Qing to be violent, which I do not. The alternatives are much worse.

Having Moran and a bunch of my friends in the OSes and OSOps who are eligible to be Psi-Warriors, Levels 6 and above to fight Trenchers, especially the Psi-Defiers, is quite fine. I’m glad that “fight” takes on a different meaning in these contexts, one that is involves less physical violence and more mental competitions. I am a fan of Qing, for sure. And, dueling psi is kind of astonishing, really. I’m only at Level 2 in my ESP training, but that’s OK; I’m so busy [laughs]!

3. What Transition changes have been the hardest or least favorite for you, and why?

LEAH: Well, it’s no secret that some of my other cousins and relatives have a very hard time with the Transition; Aunt Clara talks about that a lot. I know some of Aunt Clara’s acquaintances and friends try to mitigate the damage and help people along, as does she, but, still…. Many people are unable to cope.

Although I do not agree with most of them nor miss them, exactly, it seems kind of harsh that so many get Qed or forcibly ReInvolved, you know? I mean, these hapless souls are sort of innocent, in a weird way. Born at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and then handle it all so badly. Can’t help it, really. Products of their times, cultures, religions.

Thought prisons are the worst and the hardest to break out of. I know a lot about that. I have many years of dealing with my self-esteem and empowerment issues that inform and form me.

Here is the main question: How can Fraggers refuse to believe what’s right in front of them? Seriously? Things are better APC. It’s obvious.

It’s kind of a happy accident that I—that some of us—are inherently better prepared, more open and ready for these revelations and changes than others. Comic-Con fans like me, it turns out, are especially well-suited to the MWC era, right? [laughs]

Once everyone knows about Aunt Clara and that I’m her niece (because of Facebook, for one), the ways my friends are “sorted out” is also kind of difficult. Some turn out not to be such good friends and we part ways. I’m fine with that, now. A few of those losses are surprising and hurt at the time, though. Other friends and new ones really come through, liking me for me and not for my relation to the CC. Josh is one of those, and I’m so grateful!

4. Where are you and what are you doing when you find out about the Many Worlds Collective and that your aunt is the liaison/Chief Communicator?

LEAH: I don’t want to answer that, since some of what I know I am not supposed to know as early as I know it and I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. [laughs] Let’s just say that I hear about all this more than once, from more than one of my relatives, and leave it at that. I don’t tell anyone else until we’re all allowed to, though. No leaks from me. They choose to tell me a bit early so I could try to help some of those that need it.

I do try, but….[long pause] Best I could do.

Probably more than where or when I find out, you want to know how finding out affects me, right? Let’s talk about that.

I’m not as surprised as I expect myself to be, which I know sounds kind of strange, but hear me out. My Aunt Clara is not ordinary. [laughs] We all know that. [laughs] From as early as I can remember, my mom—Cassandra—and others in our family all acknowledge Aunt Clara’s uniqueness and not always favorably. [laughs]

But, Aunt Clara and I have a special bond. She and I connect many times as I’m growing up and after I am on my own. On purpose, not only because there is a family event: we talk, we message, I teach her to make vid calls, I do things for her, she helps me think about stuff—like that. We enjoy each other, even though we’re not so much alike, she and I. And, I trust her.

So, when Aunt Clara tells me something in a serious tone, I listen carefully (because sometimes she’s just being silly or playing on her weirdness, as a joke). When she and my mom tell me the same things and if I hear about it again from Zephyr and another person I trust, I believe it. Have to.

My finding out doesn’t exactly happen that way, but you see where I’m going with this? When she means to be, Aunt Clara is a trustworthy source of information, so my shock turns quickly to curiosity, then certainty. I do not spend much time in disbelief the way some people do.

I think that’s the reason I adjust more quickly. I can believe Aunt Clara and go from there. I’m all: “What does this mean?” and “What do we do now?” not, “Is it true?” See?

Aunt Clara’s very practical, so she’s direct, factual and helpful. She tells me exactly what our joining the MWC means and what to do, so I relax. As long as I have a plan, I’m fine. [laughs]

That’s one thing she and I have in common: we’re very organized. I’m a bit OCD and she’s just O, she says. [laughs] [Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessed]

First thing I hear is that I’m not—we’re not—in danger. Check. The rest is easy, after we establish that. [laughs]

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, Clara Branon, ebook, Many Worlds Collective, multiverse, paranormal, Psi, Sally Ember, sci-fi, speculative fiction, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever

sallyember:

I resemble most of these.

Originally posted on Inspired Journeys:

“…psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they’re complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. And it’s not just a stereotype of the “tortured artist” — artists really may be more complicated people. Research has suggested that creativity involves the coming together of a multitude of traits, behaviors and social influences in a single person.

“It’s actually hard for creative people to know themselves because the creative self is more complex than the non-creative self,” Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at New York University who has spent years researching creativity, told The Huffington Post. “The things that stand out the most are the paradoxes of the creative self … Imaginative people have messier minds.”

While there’s no “typical” creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. Here are 18 things they do differently.”

Read article here – 18…

View original 1 more word

Filed under: Writing

sallyember:

Very cool! #Multiverse R us!

Originally posted on TED Blog:

Physicist Brian Green promises he will tell the audience at TED 2014 the whole history of the universe in four minutes. “Forgive me,” he says, “if I leave out a detail here or there.”

He does it with two metaphors. One from the beginning till now, and another from now till the end.

Brian Greene. Photo: James Duncan Davidson

The universe today is 13.8 billion years old, and it can be very hard to get our minds around that number. So Greene uses a metaphor pioneered by Carl Sagan. Imagine that we’re part of a single calendar year. All of cosmic history compressed into a single calendar year. On this calendar:

May 12, the Milky Way is formed.
Sept 2nd, the Earth is formed.
11:40pm New Year’s Eve, Humans evolve.
11:44pm, we domesticate fire.
11:58pm the first cave paintings are made.
11:59:49pm writing is developed, so all of recorded history takes place…

View original 347 more words

Filed under: Writing

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

14th Serialized Excerpt, 4/4/14

CHAPTER INTERLUDE TWO

Chief of the Psi-Warriors, OverSeer and covert special Operations agents, Moran Ackerman:

My Stories of the Transition

(continued)

I am re-reading the description of Level 3. Burns? Frostbite? Deep wounds? What??? I ‘path Aunt Clara: “I can’t do this. I’m not cut out for pain. Get someone else. I can quit, can’t I?”

Aunt Clara knows where I am and says she’s coming to see me, ‘pathing, sternly while she is on her way over, “That’s more than one. You are now in arrears for three days of kvetches, Moran. Want to go for four?”

I look up at the end of her remonstration to see her standing in front of me. How does she get here so fast?

“No, Aunt Clara. I’m serious.” I say, aloud, wincing at the sound of my own whining, but I am somehow compelled. “I can’t do this. I’m a baby. Truly. Liora can tell you. Agam and Lavi can tell you. Hell, Orna can tell you: I’m a wimp. Really. I get teary when I get a paper cut.” I wave one finger around, demonstrating the way it makes me feel, wiping pretend tears away with my other hand.

She is unmoved.

Led appears *POP* and hovers over to me. “What seems to be the problem, here, Moran Ackerman?”

Just Led’s appearing and calling me by my full name makes me stand up straighter, suck in my gut and pull it together. “Nothing, Sir. I mean, Led. I mean, I’m fine. Just having a moment with my aunt.”

Led hovers over to Clara. They exchange some information silently.

I don’t catch it, which I’m sure is intentional on their part.

Aunt Clara turns to me, “Moran, we think it’s best if you and don’t see each other so often for a while. Somehow you allow yourself to feel weaker or show your doubts more around me, which is not helpful to you or to your training. Probably a family thing.”

I take that in, feeling as if she’s punched me in the stomach. Not see her? She’s my only family here, most of the time. I am hit with a wave of homesickness and despair. I sit there, feeling it, then look up at her.

“You’re right. I see that, now. I agree.” I have no idea where this type of inner strength and brutal honesty come from, but the correctness of this plan permeates me completely.

“I hate it, so it must be right.” I grudgingly agree.

I give Aunt Clara a rueful smile: this formula is well known to meditators, personal growth mavens and therapists. She and I face this paradox often. Our strongest resistance and fears are sparked when we face exactly what our next steps have to be. Certain kinds of “no” actually mean “absolutely yes” when we’re talking to ourselves.

Aunt Clara steps toward me and envelops me in a very loving, long hug. “I’m so proud of you, Moran. You are perfectly suited for this. We are sure.”

I appreciate her hug and even more, her confidence in me. “Thanks, CeeCee. I won’t let you down.”

Led says, “No, you won’t, Moran Ackerman. You lead Earthers quite well.”

“Okay, then. Let’s get this party started,” I say.

Smiling, excited and filled with stomach-sucking dread, I turn away from them to walk into the Level 3 classroom.

******

I start to feel very rushed during these next trainings because things are heating up “outside.” More Fraggers are becoming Trenchers,which means the kvetchers [outspoken complainers, Yiddish] are becoming a politically organized resistance movement, no longer content with venting.

Trenchers are organizing to protest Earth’s membership in the MWC, to “throw off the yoke of alien invasion by any means necessary,” according to their websites. I feel quite worried and accelerate my practice sessions. I don’t timult, yet, but I can sense the impending conflicts, nonetheless.

Led tells me that this is all “typical.”

But I am increasingly worried because Mick shows me, via Access, that many orbs have psi Wars during their Ts. I ask them how the Trenchers learn anything like my lessons in psi from ESP training when none of them is included?

One day, Led explains.

Aunt Clara and I are called in via vid call to speak together with The Band in April, 2013. I remember it vividly because this is the first time I hear that I am supposed to not only become one of but to lead the Psi-Warriors. The most I lead up to that point is my class of twenty 7th-graders!

*******

“I am in no way suited for such a difficult role and unimaginable amount of responsibility! Please, find someone better! I’m merely a beginner. Surely you have someone with psi talent and training you can use from off-p?” I am kind of shouting, but who wouldn’t?

“Can’t I assume leadership later, like, in about five years or something? You have all these experienced OSes here. Can’t we use one or more of them? I feel intense internal opposition about becoming something I’m not. Worse, I would be having all these people, all these beings—the entire damned planet—depending on me. This can’t be right.” I’m beginning to feel lightheaded from hyperventilating. I take several deep, slow, calming breaths.

Led intones: “The leader of each Member’s Psi-Warriors, when one is needed, must be of the dominant species from that orb. Furthermore, s/he must be a close relative of the CC. We try many other variations and none is as effective. Name recognition, early acceptance of unusual traits and Excellent Skills, close contact and guidance from the MWC: these are all important to the success of the leader of the Transition OverSeers’ defense squadron.”

Why isn’t this Zephyr’s role? Why isn’t he being trained to lead the PWs and OSes?

Before I can voice these questions, Led interrupts.

“In addition,” Led inserts, “anyone who actually wants this job, who feels comfortable assuming this kind of leadership role, is prohibited from attaining it.”

Realization dawns slowly, but I get it, now. “Oh. It’s just like what’s happening with all the new global government leaders: everyone who volunteers, who runs for election or wants to be in charge, is refused. Anyone competent and good-hearted who could be leaders are the ones who are invited and trained.”

Led bounces in his YES mode.

Aunt Clara chimes in to reassure me: “You are supervised in Access contact and telepathically engaged at all times, same as I am. You will never be ‘alone,’ as you conceive of it, ever again. You don’t even have to send a ‘Bat signal’ to get help!”

I take a moment to let that sink in. Never alone again?

Now, I’m used to it. But, then, it’s a shocking concept.

I look at Aunt Clara, who is looking at me with sympathy and understanding. Oh. I get it. She’s already like that, with the MWC. Always in contact, whether she likes it or not. Her life must seem to be out of her control.

Mine is about to become eerily similar. Tell me again why this isn’t this a job for Zef?

Hearing me, Ringo cuts in. “Your cousin, Zephyr, has other roles to play in the Transition and is already engaged in them. Furthermore, experience shows us that the Psi-Warrior leader cannot be a member of the CC’s immediate family because that causes the CC to be too distracted to perform the CC duties during psi conflicts.”

Battles. Fights. People and ETs with some weird-ass weapons I can’t imagine, yet, killing and hurting each other. A war. I can’t lead a war! I’m a rabbi, a middle-school teacher!

I start to object, but again, I am not fast enough.

Led seems as if he’s trying to reassuring, here: “You receive specialized, accelerated ESP training already. We add, today, your specialized InKC [pronounced InKayCee], your Inner Knowing Center, Access training. InKC gives you some measure of privacy.”

Mick adds,”More importantly, InKC Access also enhances your ability to connect directly with everything you learn, know, and are capable of at every moment as circumstances demand without having to make an Access request.”

Aunt Clara chimes in: “InKC is great. I believe it’s saved what sanity I can claim to have. For most ESP trainees, it’s Level 8-A, but for us, it’s NOW.”

I am not even close to being sufficiently reassured.

We are all quiet for a few moments.

This is too weird, even after everything I already know.

Hearing my internal distress, again, Ringo intercedes by reminding me: “Isn’t there a great tradition of Jewish scholar-fighters?”

I nod. I breathe that in. This is HaShem’s will for me. I nod to acquiesce, with quite a bit of trepidation. Even Noah is afraid, but he builds the Ark.

I finally find my voice. “How does InKC training work?” I realize I am sidestepping my misgivings, but I can’t talk about them all, yet.

“We now show you,” Led says, somewhat gently, for him.

I look to Aunt Clara. She is already getting into meditation posture on her chair.

I mimic her, but on the cushion I use on the rug. Without further prompting, I begin the deep breathing and calming exercises that precede all ESP training sessions.

Within a few minutes, I feel the familiar heat in each of my energy centers, especially in my heart chakra [energy center, Sanskrit]. I continue breathing, eyes half-closed, turning my mind to focus on my breath. In, out, in, out.

I feel the tingle that signals a lesson is beginning. I always feel it first in my hands. Aunt Clara tells me another time she feels it first on the back of her neck.

I hear Mick’s voice, in my mind, directing us: “Allow your attention to flow through all of your energy channels evenly and without constraint. Keep the breathing steady. Release the bonds of the outer shell and join in oneness.”

Time and space expand as the multiverse timelines converge, separate, reconverge, merging into one. I no longer feel my limbs, my skin, my weight. My sense of the room I’m in fades as well. So far, all very familiar and somewhat, well, blissful. I should do this more.

Mick continues, still ‘pathing: “Now, increase the pressure from within your heart energy center so that you are expanding its presence in your chest. Let it fill the entire cavity.”

This is new. How do I do that? Suddenly my chest fills with sparkling, buzzing electricity. Energy is also zinging up and down all of my central and auxiliary channels with more speed and heat. Whoa, there, Sparky! I slow it down a little, but keep it strong by directing my attention to it, pushing the current while harnessing it at the same time.

Mick’s voice resumes in my mind: “Refocus your attention back to the center of your heart energy. Breathe into it. Consider that it is a kind of doorway. Visualize it, seek its opening and enter through that door. You will find yourself in a chamber of your own design, outfitted exactly as you need, each time you enter. Here, you are safe, fully knowledgeable, reconstituted and restored as needed. Find your resting place, your refueling station. All your information Access points are also within this chamber.”

Wow. This is so cool! My chamber is kind of like an Israeli Talmudic library and study room that also has a large couch, a small table with water and food, soft lighting, complete silence. Pictures of Liora and Orna are on the shelves.

I immediately feel happy, safe, at home. I want to come here frequently. I want to stay here.

Again, hearing me, Led responds. “Now that you establish your InKC, make this journey at least once per day exactly as we just have. Familiarity is the key.”

“Does the InKC change each time I visit?” I ask aloud. “You say something about the chamber’s changing each time we come. How does that work?”

Led makes the bubble sound that I recognize as laughter and also speaks aloud: “It’s all in your mind, Moran. Of course it can change, instantly.”

Oh. Right. I return my attention to the chamber and push the energy to make a tablet computer appear on the table. Snap. There it is. Immediately. “Sweet. I can use this!” I say, happily.

******

During the rest of the Level 3 ESP training and all my previous Levels’ practice sessions, I come to my InKC often, more than once a day. I find I heal faster, learn more quickly, feel refreshed sooner and remember lessons more reliably with many visits. I understand better each week the reason for its name.

It takes many months for me to get good enough at ES Levels 1, 2 and 3 and Health/Healing [8-B] since these are fundamental. Meanwhile, using my InKC becomes automatic and essential.

“Outside,” things are getting crazy in Trencher-ville, spawning the Psi-Defiers at the end of the summer, 2013. My training really speeds up after that.

More OSes come every week to be part of our PWs from all over the MWC membership. I get to train with each of them, individually and in groups. They know before arriving that I am going to lead us as soon as I’m ready, so they all pitch in to encourage, test, demo, model: they are amazing.

I’m not at liberty to say much more about the exact training I get, but I’ll share what I can with a story here and there.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, Buddhism, Clara Branon, cover art, ebook, Many Worlds Collective, meditation, Moran Ackerman, paranormal, Psi, sci-fi, speculative fiction, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever

sallyember:

Very cool!

Originally posted on Inside TV:

Wil Wheaton has been given a new forum to discuss all things science fiction.

Syfy has picked up 12 episodes of The Wil Wheaton Project (working title), which the actor-blogger has dubbed “sort of like Talk Soup for geeks.” The half-hour show, hosted by Wheaton, will allow the geek hero to dissect the week’s biggest stories in sci-pop culture with the witty commentary that has made him a social media star.

View original 114 more words

Filed under: Writing

4-Star Review of

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

“As I started reading this book I was extremely confused. The initial writing style is uniquely jumbled and somewhat difficult to follow. However, I believe that this is somewhat intentional based on the first concept initiated within the story—everything happens all at once. Time is not linear, but expansive. Once I understood that this was one of the major messages being shared within the book (note, I do not believe that sharing this will be giving a spoiler as it’s pretty clear within the first 25 pages) the strange manner in which the story, itself, as written, makes perfect sense.

“Although I do not predict this story will become a mainstream success, it will definitely appear to a certain subset who have an interest in discussing the possibilities of linear time and alien interaction with what Sally Ember has labeled as ‘Earthers.’

“The concepts that the author discusses certainly align with some of my own beliefs and, perhaps, this is what kept me turning the page to see the direction in which the story would lead. By page 36, I was glad that I did. It was around this time that I started to enjoy the spin the author put on past events, giving them flavor that played well into her vision of the purposes of past alien encounters.

“I will say that what I enjoyed the most about the book was the main character’s interaction with both ‘The Band’ and her fellow humans. The interactions gave ground to the underlying plot, taking it from something akin to a research paper and back to the world of storytelling. I especially liked the fact that not all of her family is receptive to the sudden announcement of the other world visitors and her realization that, perhaps, she’d best prepare some of these people for the publication of her visits to the world at large.

“Because I did have some problems following the timeline off and on throughout the book, I’m unable to give it a solid five-star rating. However, I will say that very rarely do I finish a 248-page novel in the course of two days and that, even more importantly, I’m curious to see where the author takes this series in the next installment. This speaks volumes as to Ms. Ember’s writing skills and ability to keep her readers interested in her content.”

posted by: riyanj | Jan 23, 2014 | LIBRARY THING

http://www.librarything.com/work/14662907/book/106564730

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

Available wherever ebooks are sold. Buy links, more reviews, interviews and excerpts from Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, starting March 16, on http://www.sallyember.com

Volume II is in pre-orders via Smashwords, iBooks, Kobo and nook for 50% off @$1.99, 4/18/14 – 6/8/14 and releases 6/9/14 @$3.99 on those sites plus Amazon and everywhere.

Filed under: Reviews, Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Spanners, This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, Book Review, Clara Branon, ebook, Many Worlds Collective, paranormal, Sally Ember, sci-fi, speculative fiction, The Spanners Series, This Changes Everything, Volume I

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

13th Serialized Excerpt, 4/2/14

CHAPTER INTERLUDE TWO

Chief of the Psi-Warriors, OverSeer and covert special Operations agents, Moran Ackerman:

My Stories of the Transition

MORAN: Where are we? Oh, ESP Levels 1 & 2 and how it all begins.

I banish Orna today; I don’t want her to hear these next parts, yet. My classes with Aunt Clara take a detour after Level 2, to fast-track me into OS training.

They tell me that the psi wars are coming soon and I have to be ready. At that time, I only have the vaguest idea what psi wars could involve, but I do know that, whatever they are, I’m not ready. I still feel like a rabbi, a teacher, not any kind of warrior or chief, that’s for sure.

“There are layers of transformation,” Aunt Clara explains. “We are like artichokes. It takes a while to get to our hearts. There is an entire prickly choke to get through, first.”

“Well,” I respond, “this artichoke needs more garlic-lemon-butter sauce.”

I don’t even know what I mean by that ridiculous answer, but it makes us laugh, which is good. There are too many solemn moments and I need to laugh. Regularly. People who know me know that.

There are things I need to learn right away that a CC doesn’t and vice-versa for an OS because of the drastically different nature of our roles. The way I understand it is: the CCs on every MWC member orb have to learn every part of the ESP training, and often become the main instructor for many parts, but OSes do not learn them all, just the ones we need.

There is no standard sequence since everyone comes in with different talents and strengths, also. After Level 2, we don’t share the same order or gaps within the OS trainings.

Because some parts are specialized and because Earth’s Trenchers are moving faster in protests and their own psi resistance training than on some other members’ planets, Ringo and Mick bring in off-p OSes from Earth-like planets to train with and become OSes with me here, starting in June of 2013.

That is freaky, let me tell you. Well, there’s a lot I can’t tell you, so I’ll go with what I can say.

OSes, obviously, have to learn all the physical protection and deflection components in the ES right away. We also have to learn how to heal ourselves and others which has a foundation about self-control of the bodily kind. That all comes from self-control of the mental kind.

I think that’s where the Trenchers can meet or even exceed us, in physical prowess and in mental self-control. Many of them become Psi-Defiers because they have experience and prior training, unlike me, in the military or civilian police forces.

All of our ESP training is rooted in using our minds, but at first I don’t know that. I think I’m going to be in some kind of boot camp with push-ups and sit-ups, obstacle courses and ropes, crawling around on my belly carrying an Uzi and stuff like that. I picture the Israeli Army’s training camps and set myself to endure that kind of physical challenge. Not so.

First of all, the only weapons OSes have are mentally engaged. We actually do not carry anything with us except plasticuff restraints that are Skills-tamper-proof (from off-p, at first, of course) and a kind of taser-like tool. Both of these serve to dampen or eliminate the opponent’s use of psi skills. The nano-technology to create and manufacture this type of equipment is not available on Earth until way into 2014, but we need it by the end of the summer of 2013 and are glad to have it.

The model of OSes we use means we don’t even have standard uniforms. OSes each get a colored wrist band that doubles as our iD and fish until we get our implants. Then, we keep wearing the bands for the public to be able to identify us, but that’s about it. From a distance, or when we wear long sleeves or OPTS [for when we're underwater, at high altitudes or off-p], no one knows we’re OSes unless they have strong psi themselves.

At first, I just go along. But when the Fraggers start organizing and the Trenchers emerge as their military branch, complete with those that has psi skills who become the Defiers, I wish we could be more prominent as OSes.

I tell The Band that Earthers need the OSes to be protectors, to be a class apart, to be easily recognizable and spotted from a distance. But, Led tells me that all the MWC member orbs adjust during their Transitions to the unparalleled natures, functions and appearances of the various OSes. I have to believe them. They do have tens of thousands of years of experience. I sheket [be quiet, Hebrew].

Learning to sheket is, apparently, key to this entire training, which is based in meditation and other types of mind-taming and -control, similar to Tibetan Buddhist practices, Aunt Clara finds out.

She crows about the ESP-Buddhism connection at my expense, many times. I tell her she has too much pride. She sticks out her tongue at me. She does.

But, exactly when her gloating is at its worst, Led comes out with this: “Moran, you are eligible and suitable to this intensive training because of your capacity to concentrate due to your rabbinic training, Talmudic studies and daily davening [chanted liturgies and prayers, Hebrew]. These are quite similar to many of Clara’s Tibetan Buddhist practices. Then, your natural affinity to psi, as an Ackerman, clinches your readiness.”

Aunt Clara is gape-mouthed at this revelation! Snap!

In fact, the next crop of ESP training recruits come from many mystical sectors of Earth’s humans. The list of early OS trainees is like a who’s who in mystical Earthers. We have Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns; advanced students in Kabbalah and Talmudic Jewish studies; Hmong Ntxiv Neej (Tee-Neng); mystical Sufis; South and Central American/Mexican Curanderos; Cuban Santeras; Zulu Sangomas; Pacific Islander Kahunas; Sikkim Jhakris; Alaskan and Canadian Angakot; and, other indigenous Shamans from around the globe. These come from Australia (Kadjis), Native American tribes (mostly Lakota Sioux, Hopi and Navajo), Siberian Samans—the originators for the term “Shamans”—and many others I know nothing about before my ESP training.

The energy levels and conversations in the dining hall, walkways and between classes would blow your mind, literally. I am both exhilarated and terrified.

I’m supposed to end up leading this crew?!? How? Why me? I teach middle schoolers, I keep telling The Band. They ignore my kvetching [complaining, Yiddish]. Just as well.

Aunt Clara and I make a pact: we each get one complaint or moment of self-doubt a day. That’s it. We are strict about it, too. We hold each other accountable. By the end of our lessons in Level 2, we can find out, easily, if either of us cheats. So, we don’t.

This limit on internal griping helps keep me from completely freaking out. I treasure my one kvetch some days, believe me, but knowing I only get one means I don’t spend most of the day indulging my fears or doubts.

Sometimes I save my one kvetch for my daily call to Liora, which also helps me enormously. Li is the best. She truly is. More about her later.

According to the structures and levels of ESP training, all human Earthers, even those with advanced powers and skills in their own traditions, are unevenly educated and lack key components, but none of us lacks the same ones. So, our instructors take us into our own chavrutas, one-on-one, even before we enter Level 1 and then for any Level or section we each need tutoring for along the way. We Access to fill in our gaps.

Once the ESP training facilities can accommodate and physically include cetaceans, cephalopods, pinnipeds, elephants and large primates instead of working with them remotely (as Aunt Clara and I do for our first few months, prior to the establishment of The Campus), we discover that most of the individuals in these capable species actually have fewer psi gaps than humans! Radical.

When we get far enough into mind control lessons we move into the body stuff, which I think is going to be harder for me than some people. I’m not much of a sports guy, not like my dad or Agam. Lavi and I are both more mental and musical kinds of people.

I’m kind of nervous about entering Level 3 lessons. That’s an understatement of massive proportions. I’m ready to puke the morning of my first class.

ESP Training Level 3, BODILY CONTROL, includes: Withstanding Responses to Pain, Withstanding Extremes of Temperature, Controlling Changes in Bodily Functions, and Alternate Sleeping/Resting states. Concurrently with this, I get right into ESP Training Level 8-B, HEALTH & HEALING, because I need to do the Self-Monitoring & Self-Healing when my attempts to “Withstand” and exert control involve significant numbers of burns, frostbite, deep wounds and exhaustion, at first. This Level also includes Medical Diagnoses as well as Close & Remote Healing for others, but I learn those a bit later. Here is what happens, the first day.

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, Clara Branon, cover art, ebook, Many Worlds Collective, multiverse, paranormal, Psi, Sally Ember, sci-fi, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, WillowRaven

#COVER #REVEAL!

This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D., is graced by the excellent, creative cover art by Aidana Willowraven for both the cover and the logo!

Excerpts starting 3/16/14 – 4/17/14 and all pre-order and buy links, reviews, interviews and more on http://www.sallyember.com and on Authonomy.com and Wattpad.com

Pre-orders @$1.99 (50% off) 4/18/14 – 6/8/14 via Smashwords, nook, iBooks, and Kobo only

On sale everywhere ebooks are sold: 6/9/14 @$3.99

Filed under: Cover, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, cover art, ebook, paranormal, Psi, Sally Ember, sci-fi, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, WillowRaven

Tune in any time today (24 hours) for #TheAuthorsShow #Interview with #SallyEmber by Don McCauley.

Use the link, below, to go to the ON AIR list. The list is near the bottom, center, of the site.

Choose “This Changes Everything, Sally Ember” on their list of Author Interviews(don’t go to YouTube since this is just an audio, not video interview).

Click on the title, then click the arrow (PLAY) on the website’s player. It’s about 15 minutes long.

SHARE! Thanks.

http://www.TheAuthorsShow.com

Filed under: Interviews with Sally as Author, Themes from The Spanners, This Changes Everything, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume I of The Spanners Tagged: aliens, Author Interview, ebook, Many Worlds Collective, meditation, multiverse, paranormal, Sally Ember, sci-fi, self-publishing, speculative fiction, The Spanners Series, This Changes Everything, Volume I

Vol. II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, The Spanners Series, by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Cover and logo art by Willowraven.

Cover reveal for Volume II: April 15, 2014

12th Serialized Excerpt, 3/31/14

CHAPTER SNAPSHOT #1

Snapshots of Clara’s Daily Life: Fourteen Octobers, 1963 – 2017

October, 1963

(continued)

I am a little over seven years old. My younger sister, Cassie, is a year-and-a-half. In Bayonne in those days, pediatricians still make “house calls,” meaning, our mother calls when we are sick or she has no way to get to the doctor’s office (in those days, most families in our suburban neighborhoods either have only one car or their mothers don’t even know how to drive). The doctor then comes before or after office hours to our house to check on or treat one of us.

On this day, right before I leave for school, my mom tells me that the doctor is coming to give Cassie a check-up because she’s been coughing a lot. I think my mom tells me this because our house is right across the street from the school and she knows I can see it from the playground.

“When you see the doctor’s car in our driveway,” she tells me, “you will know the reason he’s here and not come running home, scared that something bad has happened.”

I’m walking through the hallways just before the morning bell rings for us to signal the end of before-school morning recess, telling us to go to our classrooms, when I am hit with a physical pain in my butt, on my hip. It feels as if I have been stabbed by something sharp. I look around, but there’s no one and nothing there but me.

I stagger and almost fall into a small staircase next to the stage in the cafeteria/gymnasium. It is so narrow I can put my arms on each wall as I stumble down the few stairs, limping from the pain in my hip.

My vision of the stairs blurs as I “see” my baby sister on my bed and not in her crib. She is crying. The doctor stands over her, our mother next to her, soothing her. The doctor then puts an empty syringe (a “shot”) into a small container which he puts into his black doctor’s bag.

The doctor just gave my sister a shot. Why does my hip hurt? What is happening?

I lurch into the office at the bottom of the stairs, which belongs to the gym teacher, and blurt out: “My sister got a shot and my hip hurts.”

The gym teacher, startled, looks up to see me almost falling over and reaches out one hand to steady me.”What?” she asks me.”Clara, what are you talking about? What’s wrong with your hip?”

I start to cry.”It hurts. It hurts. Tell him to stop.”

“Who, Clara? Who is hurting you?”

Suddenly, the pain stops, my vision clears, and I see where I am.

I shake my head and look at the teacher.”What?” I ask her.”What happened?”

“You tell me!” she demands.

“I saw my sister getting a shot from the doctor. He’s at our house. It hurt, but now it’s fine. I have to go. The bell rang. My hip doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she looks at me intently.

“I feel fine, now. See ya.”

I bounce out of her office and run up the stairs. I walk extra slowly past the principal’s office, sneak around the corner, then race to my classroom as the second bell rings. I throw myself into my seat.

“Made it,” I announce, to no one in particular, panting.

My second-grade teacher, not a nice woman, remarks,”Clara, if you are late to school you have no one to blame but yourself. You live closer than anyone else.”

“Right!” I say, falsely bright.

I lift my desk’s flip-up top to get my pencil, but really so the teacher can’t see my face. I grimace, rolling my eyes at my best friend, Paula, sitting next to me, and stick out my tongue insolently at my teacher, safe behind the wooden barrier from her mean eyes.

Paula grins at me from behind her now-raised desk, rolling her eyes, too.

Class begins and I almost forget about the entire thing.

*******

ESPE: Do you continue to have physically empathic reactions every time you timult?

CLARA: After that experience, I can only recall a few other times when I feel what others are feeling, physically or emotionally, during a timult. I usually get situational concepts or ongoing thoughts more than sensations or feelings of others.

Plus, I figure out on my own how to shield and re-direct fairly soon after this incident. I have to.

Even though I am not a full-blown empath, when a person in a timulted scene is a family member or close to me emotionally, I can still sometimes get empathic bleed-through, feeling their physical or emotional states briefly. My ESP training helps me keep the altered experiences and bleed-through to a minimum in terms of both duration and intensity, now. When I am younger, though, timulting is often problematic.

I also sometimes get empathic contact when I’m intentionally pre-cogging and accidentally, during dreams. In fact, empathic contact and the concomitant sensations are often my first clues that I’m having a pre-cognitive experience. More about pre-cogging in later Octobers in this Volume, all right?

ESPE: Sure. What else do want people to know about your elementary school years?

CLARA: About my being a feminist before I even know that word.

******

The part of my family that lives in Bayonne and near there are on my father’s side: his parents, his mother’s parents, his sister and her new husband, his mother’s brother and family, his mother’s single sister. We see them quite often.

I become an advocate for girls’ equal rights in my family and because of this school and its misogynistic policies. The need for this type of advocacy is all part of the era of my upbringing, unfortunately.

To anchor you younger ones: women my mothers’ age are the first generation of women who grow up with the right to vote in the USA, but women still can’t get credit, loans, property or inherit in their own names in many states until the 1970s. Even these “privileges” are accorded only to white women, remember: African-Americans of both sexes don’t get the “right” to vote until the late 1960s, when I’m in junior high school).

Men “own” their wives and can beat them up, rape them, force them to do whatever they want and the laws upholds these “rights.” Parents also “own” their children; child abuse, incest, neglect and abandonment are commonplace in some communities and there are no laws protecting the children.

There is an incident at our Reform Jewish Temple when I am four years old that is imprinted forever. In the great scheme of injustices and harmful moments, this one is not the greatest or worst by any means, even for me. But, it is pivotal in my feminist awakening.

I do not remember what holiday is being celebrated, just the incident.

We are all there, this aforementioned family of my father’s, along with my parents and my older brother. At one point in the service, my great-grandfather (my grandmother‘s father), my grandfather, my father and my brother are called up onto the pulpit (the small stage in the front of the congregation) to have their photos taken and be honored as “The Four Generations.”

I am furious. In my understanding, the “four generations” members being honored should have been this group: my great-grandparents, my grandmother as their daughter with her sister, my great aunt; my father and his sister; my brother and me. These are the four generations present today in our family, all of us.

Makes more sense, right? I suggest this, but my mother shushes me. She says, as if this explains it all,”Only men are allowed up there.”

I get angrier, especially when my brother senses my jealousy and smirks at me from the pulpit. I stick my tongue out at him. Well? I’m four!

Thus catalyzed, I am sensitized to sexism without having a word for it. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I am enraged a few years later when I encounter our elementary school’s sexist policies. For instance, there are no girls allowed on the so-called “Safety Patrol,” which infuriates me. I complain about it starting in 4th grade even though the Patrol boys aren’t selected until 5th- and 6th-grade years. I get nowhere.

I am pleased to report that, by the time Cassie comes along, five years later, girls in her class are allowed to be in this elite group. By then, selection is solely based on academic performance. I know that’s also a specious winnowing tool, but it purports to be “gender-neutral.”

Why do I militate to be “on Patrol”? Because it’s VERY COOL! On the days they’re officially “on duty,” the Patrol Boys get to wear a sash and a badge, which look very grown-up. While “on Patrol,” they get to come to class late every morning and leave early every afternoon in order to help the adult crossing guards at the intersections. This “important” work involves herding most of the students to where we’re already going, anyway. They also walk the kindergartners in and out of school for fire drills and situate them for air raid drills.

It’s not the tasks I envy; it’s the status. And, my prime motivation is the general principle of fairness.

(Yes, we have nuclear bomb air raid drills: we are told to hide under our wooden desks or whatever is nearby. The “Cold War” is in full swing while I’m at this school.)

More to be enraged about are the sexism and impracticality which dominate the school clothes rules. We do not have uniforms, but strict policies: girls are not allowed to wear pants or shorts. We have to wear skirts or dresses to school, every day.

Imagine climbing all over the “monkey-bars” (“jungle gym”), doing gymnastics, playing sports and sprinting around in dresses and skirts? We have no gym uniforms until junior high school, either, so we have physical educational games and activities in our regular clothes. Climbing ropes in skirts? Really? Skirts/ dresses really do not function well for active, sports-inclined girls, which many of us are.

As a work-around, passed down from some older girls, my friends and I wear shorts under our skirts every day or long pants in the winter. It’s so ridiculous and also infuriating. We protect our modesty and privacy (no one can see our underpants when we’re climbing or running around) but the double layers are bulky, slowing us down while making us uncomfortable and too hot in the warmer weather. I hate these rules and argue constantly to change them.

Also, my first “civil disobedience” nonviolent resistance leadership actions occur because of this. In fifth grade, I am 10 years old. That spring, as soon as the warm weather comes and we go outside for recess, I get on the playground and take my skirt off, hanging it on a less-used horizontal bar. I wear just my shirt and shorts, same as every day when I get home and all summer.

Many of my friends see me and do the same. We hoot and holler, running around, climbing freely, having a great time, daring the playground supervisors to send us to the Principal’s Office, but they studiously ignore us. When the bell rings, we put our skirts back on and go back to class, triumphant. Small victories.

***********

CLARA: Even odder, we go from this strict, sexist dress code in 1963 to no dress code at all by 1969. More about that later.

ESPE: You become an advocate for girls, you know you can timult, you write stories and songs, you get up to reading over 100 books in one year, and others see you as either a leader or rabble-rouser, all before you’re out of elementary school?

CLARA: Yes. I don’t even see myself as unusual, yet.

ESPE: That’s the weirdest part!

*********************************

Stay tuned on Sally’s blogs on WordPress (which has all links) and Tumblr, and on The Spanners Series‘ pages on Facebook and Google+, for each of the upcoming Excerpts from Volume II from March 16 – April 18, about one/day.

4/18/14, Volume II becomes available for Pre-orders via Smashwords, Kobo, iBooks and nook for half-price: @$1.99, through June 8, 2014.

On 6/9/14, Vol. II goes LIVE everywhere ebooks are sold for $3.99.

#THESPANNERSSERIES #THISCHANGESMYFAMILYANDMYLIFEFOREVER #THISCHANGESEVERYTHING

Filed under: Serialized Excerpts, Serialized Excerpts, The Spanners, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, Volume II of The Spanners Tagged: Clara Branon, paranormal, Psi, Sally Ember, sci-fi, speculative fiction, The Spanners Series, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever