Today is the day! I’m calling out for questions for the Ask Erik magazine column, so email me ONE question (preferably succinct rather than long-winded) to emedhus@gmail.com. It’s first come, first serve, and I can only take ten. The deadline is midnight tonight, central time.
Another housekeeping note, since this Thursday is Thanksgiving, we won’t be having the Hour of Enlightenment radio show, but we’ll be back with bells on next week.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I did all my meal planning and shopped for groceries yesterday. Not my fave thing to do. On the menu is a Martha Stewart roasted turkey. The secret to a beautifully bronzed bird is to put a bottle of white wine in a bowl with three sticks of melted butter, then soak a cheesecloth in that liquid and cover the turkey with the cloth. Then baste with that same liquid a various intervals. I’m also making a fried turkey but will inject marinade under its skin first. The sides will include buttermilk garlic mashed potatoes, homemade stuffing, peas in olive oil and thyme, homemade gravy, cheddar cheese biscuits, potato leek soup and cranberry sauce. I might be forgetting something. Lukas will be in charge of the desserts because he’s a master chef in that category. Everyone else is responsible for the horrendous job of cleaning up, but I try to clean as I go.
At the table will be Rune and me, Michelle and her hubby, Nick, Lukas and Annika, Arleen, Lukas’s friend, Vivian, and our own, Robert. The latter two have no family here so we’ve adopted them for all holidays. Erik’s framed portrait will be on the table, too, as always. I’m sure he’ll be enjoying the feast in his own way. I’m thankful that he’s happy and fulfilled, but I sure would love to see him in his usual chair, chowing down.
Me: Now a lot of people are worried about, during The Shift, you mentioned that some animals will become extinct. Basically here’s the question: “Why do some animals become extinct?”
Erik: This has been happening for a long time.
Me: Yeah, I know!
Erik: It’s still happening. Why do they go extinct? Because the environment can’t sustain them anymore. Part of it is we, as humans, are fucking it up, and part of it is because of the solar flares. It could be the ozone layer. You know, we’re all in it together.
Me: Well, what about before we were even around? Some animals did go extinct then.
Erik: Thank god those dinosaurs went extinct!
Jamie giggles.
Me: Yeah, well that’s true.
Jamie (still giggling): Glad to see you so happy, Erik.
Erik: Again, that was because the environment couldn’t sustain them anymore. I mean, as humans we’re doing pretty damn good in trying to dampen the weather patterns and other things. We put out fires. Forests are used to—they’re trained over thousands and thousands of years to have a cleansing period where they get burnt to the ground.
Me: Um hm.
Erik: But hell, we’ve built our house in the forest so we can’t let that shit happen.
Me: I know.
Erik: So, right then and there a lot of the seeds and the structures of plant life are used to being burnt crispy to help them adapt to what the nature is, and they’re not being, you know, allowed that cycle. It’s only in the last twenty years that we’ve realized that burn cycles are important. So, we do controlled burning. Man, you and I, we’ve gotta give a huge shout out to all of the people in the fires right now.
Me: Yeah, that’s true. We’re learning. We’re learning. On the other hand, animals that do become extinct are just not on the earthly plane. It’s not like they don’t exist anywhere. They’re just in another dimension. So, we pull at our heartstrings and feel guilty because of our perception of death.
Erik: Right.
Me: So, what’s wrong with them going extinct?
Erik: Well, what’s wrong with that is we lose that role that they contributed to the environment.
Me: I see. I understand. Well, along the same lines, here’s another question from a reader: “My heart aches for the animals. Erik says we should go green, and I agree with him, but will that be possible when most animals will be gone? Nature behaves interdependently. Won’t the soil be ruined when the myriad of tiny organisms are no longer there to do their job? And what about rivers, lakes and seas and oceans? How sad it is to know that my lifetime struggles to save this planet as we know it with the amazing variety of life that it has onboard will disappear. My question for Erik would be, if he can tell us, if the animals will be coming back sometime in the future or not and what their future will be like in Heaven meaning if they’ll evolve or not.”
Erik: Many of the species on Earth are evolving, and we even have new evolutionary strikes with animals.
Me: Evolutionary what?
Jamie: He calls it growth, like they’re striking out and they’re evolving, getting different—
(Pause)
Jamie giggles.
Jamie: Getting different phalanges? That’s such a funny word!
Me: Different fingers?
Erik: Yeah, different shaped fingers in certain animals like sloths.
Me: Okay.
Erik: So, they are continuing to evolve; they’re not standing still, They’re better survivors than we are, because we’ve adapted ourselves to controlled environments.
Me: Oh, yeah.
Erik: So, those who pass over, whether from extinction or individual deaths, their souls do survive in Heaven. You just remember that you’re part of it.
Me: Um hm.
Jamie: He never shows me—
(Pause)
Jamie: I’m sorry. I asked a question, “Will Earth be barren?” You know, kind of like Mars or something.
Me: Um hm.
Jamie: And he never shows that image to me.
Me: Well, that’s good!
Jamie: As far as he knows, it never gets like a desert, barren.
Me: Will humans be on Earth forever?
Erik: We’ll always learn how to adapt, because we create controlled environments.
Me: Okay. Anything else on this subject?
Erik: Nah.
Me (chuckling): Nah.
