About the Author

Although I’ve lived through some interesting experiences, I always thought my life was relatively normal—until, at the age of forty-five, I came face-to-face with death, and life, as it was, came to a screeching halt.

Lying in an ICU with a massive pulmonary embolism, knowing there was little chance of survival, it seemed like a good time to get honest. A personal knowledge of the presence of death will do that, even with someone as oblivious as I.

Truth is, I’d always lived the life others wanted and expected of me—the good Mormon son, the limp-dick, controllable husband, the dependable employee working at a job he hated—but never did I live my own life. Hell, I had no idea what life was about, but now facing death, there came a burning need to know.

With my reprieve, I began a search for the meaning of life, most importantly, of my own. Dying while being someone I didn’t know or respect was not an option. This memoir is the sequel to The Courage of a Butterfly, which covered the time before that ICU. This book is about what followed—about discovering the simple truths to life that, without exception, always hold true. Some call them Spiritual Laws.

Looking at life in light of these Spiritual Laws, one has a completely different perspective than most. And yes, in living by them, I came to know myself.

There is not much I can tell you about me that isn’t covered in these two books. Perhaps leaving you with a thing or two I’ve discovered about life would be more in order—things, according to these simple truths, that hold true and fit together. These are things I believe and offer up for your consideration. Who I am on that level is the same as who we all are. I offer the essence of me to the essence of you—Namaste.

                                                     * * *

I believe our souls are that highest and best of us—the “God” essence where we are all as one. As such, I believe our souls know everything there is to know. Thing is, you can know a thing in your head (consciously), but to truly “know” it takes knowing it from the heart. That requires experience. I believe our purpose in this world is to experience it so that our souls can “know.”

Our lives are like pieces of string—birth at one end, death at the other. Most everything in this life comes as a duality—good to bad, right to wrong, sweet to sour. You can never know a thing without knowing it from both ends, the full gamut. What good is knowing only one end? Can you appreciate the sweet without knowing the sour?

Most of the Spiritual Laws mentioned in this book are mentioned multiple times. I’ve written this book with the intention of giving you their full gamut. But who am I kidding? It’s not about what I believe that is knawing at you right now.

More likely you want to know about those simple truths. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple of the more important ones.

The first states—I am the creator. Basically, it means I create my whole world from my perceptions—my thoughts, my beliefs, my feelings, and yes, my experiences. But mainly it tells you about my responsibility in life—that I don’t have the luxury of blame.

You may not be aware that I have published a series of non-fiction books on Spiritual Law all titled Redneck Spirituality and authored under the name E. Egorhh Frank.

In them I let my redneck run free. A redneck is someone who has lived a rough life—a working man’s life. A man who normally would not talk like an author. This About the Author section does not tell all of the story.

I’m an honest redneck. This sequel ends my two-part story—over 800 pages in all. I cannot in honesty leave you without a word spoken from this redneck’s heart. It is spoken in the language of a redneck—complete with expletives used in punctuation.

I’m very aware that what lies between my ears—my perceptions—is MY shit. It is not to be blamed on you.

The second truth concerns the energy. There are only two basic energies to choose from when living life. They do NOT ever mix.

                                      There is the energy of LOVE,

                 and the energy of everything that is NOT love (FEAR).

Bottom line—in every moment of life, we exist in one of these two energies. We may occasionally switch between, but with every single moment, it is our free choice in which energy we are creating ourselves. Do we prefer the energy of love to that of fear— the truth of responsibility to the lie of blame? These choices make up who we are. These two books tell you about my own choices.

                                       —I prefer sweet to sour—

                                                —Love to fear—

In other words—taking responsibility rather than smearing my shit on you. Oh, and BTW. Would someone out there please bring me some damned toilet paper? ’Nuff said.