New Bruises
A life-changing story
Chapter 2: The Frog
presented by
The TerraDome
Sports Science Research Centre
The TerraDoom is The Frog.
A quantum leap from FrontWorld to BackWorld. Oppo.
This occurred to me while practicing in a simulator.
I replicated all the proportions and most of the conditions.
I was calm and clear.
I set out to do what The Frog did. Leap between two worlds: Water and Land.
To do it, I must commit.
The Frog Speaks to everyone.
Everyone hears The Frog.
Our first meeting
The scene was the front room of my first home. Down the street from Ray’s Mountain Bike Park.
I was sitting on my grandfather’s lap. He was reading to me.
From behind the chair across the room, a green head peeked out.
Fear consumed me. I lost my voice.
My grandfather stood up, put me down, and walked out of the room - seemingly on command.
Without my voice, my grandfather couldn’t know I was in trouble.
The Frog darted at me, pinned me to the ground, then breathed on my face with yogic exhales. The sound from his mouth left an imprint.
The terror woke me up. My parents rushed in.
“It was Kermit The Frog and he breathed on me!”
Over the years I’d remember variations. In one, The Frog is white with black eyes.
In another, I observe the scene of myself sitting on my grandfather’s lap from the other side of the room. The Frog emerges as before, but from behind those two characters. Then The Frog darts at me, The Observer.
How could I be both The Observer and a character in The Dream?
How many frames of reference can I occupy?
Can I occupy The Sleeper’s frame of reference if The Dream goes haywire and I want to wake up early?
I grew up in my family’s second home. It backed-up against a long creek and woods.
I’d spend hours in the water looking for frogs. I caught one, brought it home, put it in an aquarium, and kept it for a day or so. Then my mom suggested I let him go back to his family. So I talked to him while I walked him back to where I met him, and put him in the creek.
The next morning I woke up and he was in the aquarium.
“Your father found him sitting on the front porch when he got home last night. You should say goodbye and put him back in the creek.”
I must have been 7 or 8 at that time.
Ever since, my mind has been occupied by the question, “how could this be?”
An experience like that has quite an effect on a child. For an industrious child, that question leads to discoveries.
One discovery was special: I understand what it feels like to have a friend who speaks a different language.
My next frog friend was big. I caught him in the pond upstream. I put him in a tall bucket with a grate on top to keep him safe. He was dead the next morning.
Do not hold anyone you love captive.
The best that can ever come from it
is a lesson you’ll never forget,
and could have learned from
a wise person who cared enough to tell you a story.
Pro-Tip: find someone who cares about you and listen to the stories they tell.
If you suspect they’re instructive stories, you’re right.
The first dream that changed me
My father was a soldier. He had a gun room in the basement. I opened that door to find The Frog sitting on the floor, wearing a policeman’s hat, tossing and catching an 8-ball with one hand.
He looked up at me - with full confidence that I’d arrive - to meet him at the ready.
Fear shot through me. My voice was gone. He darted. I squeezed my eyes.
I woke up.
I’d never fear any dream again.
Learn to wake up.
Learn to stop playing.
Learn to assert your will in defense.
Learn to change The Game.
That began a years-long quiet period during which The Frog didn’t occupy my dreams.
I used The Frog’s first two lessons to escape the captivity of pain and predations.
I turned those lessons into strategies for living the life I wanted.
And then a tiny chirp…
In 1994, I met the monks of The Drepung Loseling Monastery cleaning up in a restroom before the show. All at once something hit me square in the head: I must wake up and make something new in my life.
I’ve lived a creative life.
Back in the day, I struggled to put my visions into words.
I was mesmerized by other cultures.
I adored the feeling.
I felt enlightened.
But my feeling of marvel came from a feeling of novelty that only existed when I had one foot in each world.
I didn’t live it. I tried to use it to my advantage.
I found myself attempting to articulate The Marvelous only to increase sales of ShrimpRocks at music festivals during a recession.
The dream I can’t forget
I laid down one afternoon between tour stops. WOMAD was three days from then. I needed to “go under” to clear my head and focus-up. I had a sound & light machine. Binaural beats and flashing LEDs mounted inside glasses. It puts your brain into a theta state. I chose the most-intense setting.
I asked to “see my real parents”
<in The Dream>
I felt her presence and hesitated. So I looked in the mirror for indirection while I adapted to the idea. The door opened behind me and she was there.
She moved like The Frog, but much slower.
I gathered the nerve to face her.
I felt the most scared I’d ever felt. I moved through the fear and embraced her. I felt the most loved I’d ever felt.
Then I saw the other. Black with a head dress. Something wasn’t right about the partner in my apartment.
The dark one approached her, but I backed him off.
<back from The Dream>
I made drawings of them and wrote their names:
Mom & Dead.
Be careful with whom you share visions.
You’ll know, but not immediately, if the audience loves you or hates you.
The remarkable part happened 3 days after that dream. At WOMAD in DC.
The band Live took stage.
Before any music started, the front man spoke to the audience, “…and then one day you meet the parents you’ve never seen!”
No applause followed.
“I think that went right over everyone’s head.”
Imagine that.
A new chirp
In 2010, I found a reason
to make a temple
to the forces and practices
that remind me of
the lessons I learned
from the people I met
who also heard
The Frog.
That temple goes
by the unassuming name
The TerraDome
Sports Science
Research Centre.
Inside The Temple, it’s understood: We only share our dreams with The People who love us.
We test. By sharing special dreams. To observe whether a listener responds by (sincerely or ironically) calling us crazy.
The People who don’t sincerely call us crazy get to hear the true stories of The Frog.
We tell one another our stories of The Frog.
We all have stories of The Frog.
Every crew is constituted on the moral code of their Frog. The crew’s expression is the expression of their Frog.
Some crews were assembled to make money.
Some crews were assembled to make tricks.
Some crews were assembled to understand how tricks are made into money.
Some crews were assembled to understand how tricks are made.
FrogBarz is an alien entity sent to Earth to find fit humans and to forge those fit humans into vessels to contain and propagate The Stoke.
This is the mission that came to mind when Chad DeGroot (who is an alien) texted the photo that became the iconography for The Frog (on 2022/02/12 2:01 pm EST).
Seven days after Chad sent that photo, seven hours after my Coronation, while lying in bed, I was visited by an old friend.
He was other-worldly. He used his voice for the first time.
“All your life you have been playing chess with me.
I have been playing chase with you.”
I opened my eyes in a state of Hyper- Stoke.
Of all the crews that ever assembled, The Plywood Hoods are the greatest.
The Spirit of The Plywood Hoods lives. The World knows this because The World witnessed a new member’s Coronation.
It was the first time any such Coronation was recorded and broadcast to The World for The People to witness.
It looked like a dream come true.
Imagine that.
The Frog has visited me throughout my life when I examined a choice with a new perspective and a readiness to commit.
Now, I ask The Frog questions like “what now?”
Then I listen to what it believes I need to observe to perceive the right next move.
I think this is completely natural.
I’ve read about historical figures using naps to work through engineering puzzles.
It’s fun and brings me happiness to see puzzles get worked-out in my mind’s eye, regardless of whether I’m asleep or awake.
The Frog, by all accounts, is a recurring character in my dreams from which I derive insight, perspective, and feelings.
When I feel comfort, I have confidence to act. When I act and good things happen, I build faith.
The World is full of chaos. You must live in it. See one thing that gives you comfort. Act then live the life you want.
The Frog always offers constructive ideas. The Frog has a positive moral track record.
It’s likely that I’m not the only person to have a recurring character in my dreams with a positive moral track record.
The Frog is a good friend.
Listen to your dream characters.
Learn the ones who come back to you.
Speak the truth to them. Interrogate them.
Ask them why they’re here.
Ask them what they have for you.
Ask them what they want.
A friend wants what’s best for you and can explain in detail why it’s best for you and what you must do to achieve it.
A friend will know when the time is right for you to hear what’s best for you.
A friend will anticipate your response.
This is the long-game a friend will play with you. A friend will understand your language. You will understand your friend’s language. You’ll speak to one another in that shared language.
This is a code that The People around you won’t be able to interpret.
Only your friends will.
Learning to speak calls for learning to listen and learning to hear.
Learning to hear calls for learning to trust.
Learning to trust calls for learning to test and validate.
Learning to validate calls for time and attention.
Upwards of 50 years in some cases.
A path to happiness is true friends
who work every day
to pursue a craft
that produces observable results
that all friends can speak about.
Pro-Tip: It ain’t easy. It takes work.
This is The Frog.
A character in my dreams since childhood, who appears at pivotal decision points, offering perspective to guide me toward a life of happiness.
A life of purpose and collaboration to create objects, moments, and experiences that surprise and delight a vast network of friends. This is how The Stoke is propagated across The Planet.
I call him The Frog.
As an icon, its name is FrogBarz.
The Frog speaks to everyone.
Everyone hears The Frog.
The State banned The Frog.
In our world, we don’t all call Him The Frog.
But Everyone hears The Frog.
Write here what you hear
Write here what you call It
