The burning bush was a microphone: six installments on the cabin, the commune, and Milton's two religions

(immutable; five installments as received)

### Installment 1 > When I was... when we were boys, uh, my father moved up to, uh, the Smith River, uh, up front... outside of Crescent City just over the border to Oregon on the California side. Uh, so he built it, and then we went up and... well, we helped him finish it, actually. It wasn't built when we arrived. So we built this cabin. It's two stories. One room meets. The top had a clear plastic, uh, cover, just literally plastic you could see through. So we could see the stars, which is terrible from a energy efficiency standpoint because it at zero insulation, uh, but we wanted to be able to see the stars and not get wet when it rained. So we basically slept up there almost every night. And if it was clear, you could see the stars. And the summer was mostly clear. Uh, anyway, so he taught us how to do asphalt projections. So we could, like... you basically went into, um, uh, sort of this meditation mode. You close your eyes. You look at the stars, you close your eyes, and you just feel your body, uh, sort of this blue. He he gave us a vivid description. So it's basically guided meditation slash visualization is what it was. But, basically, allow your body to rise up of, like, this blue translucent thing. And then that's your asphalt projection. And then, like, let's go up and do not cry. I'm in this space. And then we traveled the world, and we zoomed in places. And we went where we wanted. It was amazing. We traveled in space with my dad all the time. So that was wonderful. And then they gave us a book by this guy, uh, the carriage of the gods. which is a book by this guy. What was his name?

### Installment 2 > Van Dynakin. Um, and by the way, as an aside, a friend of mine, uh, she was, like, a visiting scholar or something at Stanford Business School. Um, she was Swiss journalist, uh, and, uh, she knew Kurt van Dynagan because he was Swiss. So she told me all about him later when I was at Stanford. But, anyways, so we love Kurt, uh, the terrorists of gods, and then they made a new movie, which we really loved. And it basically said, oh, you know, look at the, you know, the the various, uh, you know, mine artifacts or the... what was it the the earlier ones, there's an earlier... it starts with t. Forget the name of the earlier civilization that built all the heads. They basically look like, you know, a space helmet. So... yeah. Anyways, so he was into all that stuff. And we were into... we love that stuff, and it was so fun. And then we talked for hours because we lived in a cabin growing our own food, so we all we did is work and cut and talk. And my dad was a super genius, so he basically were homeschooled in a in a cabin in the middle of the forest when we weren't over... you know, that was our, uh, main residence, and then we started spending time at the at the at the commune, the magic forest. Uh, and, you know, they weren't as cold my dad. But, anyways, this was some of my fondest memories. Now, uh, years years later, I had the... my girlfriend, Tulan, and this is the first girlfriend, uh, Tulane Homequist, h o l m q v i s t. Um, so she had a similarly colorful upbringing, and and her mother had similarly, you know, unconventional beliefs and tarot cards and, you know, like, you know, just everything you can imagine, and she believed in everything. Which I thought was charming, and she loved me because I accepted her and her family as they were - it reminded me of living in that cabin, or what my mother believed in, which was everything good and spirtual. (when we moved into our little converted chicken coop that had apparently been occupied by wickens (like nice witches), she got rid of all the drug paraphenalia and dried out weed, but she kept the Oigi board - made me dust it off and keep it. We used to use it every once in a while. I thought it was ridiculous, but fun.

### Installment 3 > Well, anyways, uh, Tulane was the first girlfriend I ever brought to meet my family because my family was so crazy. It was kind of embarrassing or, you know, people would, like, go into shock. Uh, it was my concern. Um, but, uh, anyway, so I brought Tulane to meet, uh, my dad and my stepmom, uh, Sandy, uh, and, uh, I can't remember if my brothers were there, um, but, uh, or all of them anyways, but I think they were definitely... yeah. Uh, Harold was there and Cassie was there. And, uh, so, anyways, I brought Tulane to see them in their place at [address as dictated — redacted per Hold 1], which is where they still live. Um, and, um, uh, or at least Sandy and Harold and, yeah, Harold and his wife live there. Uh, so my stepmom lives there and and and Harold, who, by the way, is very big and can defend her from any invaders, so don't don't don't try anything. Um, Anyways, um, uh, so we're in there, and I just finished battling for the righteous, you know, uh, supply software channeling MLK, and I was super proud of myself. So I was telling dad about that with to-in-law sitting there, uh, and, uh, incredibly beautiful, sweet, by the way. And, uh, anyways, uh, he said, well, I don't really believe in that that sort of stuff anymore, son. Um, I said, And he said, well, you know, I I just wanna let you know that, um, I've discovered God again and... because I've was a sinner and it's... or something like that. And I said, um, what? because my dad, you know, was... his proudest thing is he claimed to be excommunicative seventh day Adventist Church back in his sixties because of race relations and whatnot. And, you know, I asked my mom, I was like, no. No. No. Uh, seventh day Adventist don't have excommunication. They evangelize everybody. They were just happy when he stopped coming to church and complaining about their hypocracy every sabbath.

### Installment 4 > So I was... so, uh, then he said, well, you know, I, uh, I had this girlfriend, uh, black girlfriend in in the sixties in seven... day up in down in Palo Alto. And, uh, so I've gotten to know her daughter. He's she's, uh, been coming to men's... you know, in the same church in Oakland. So he'd rejoined the seventh day Adventist Church. I knew that. That had been like... or he just rejoined the... actually, this is when I learned he rejoined the Catholic, uh, the church. So, anyways, I started having an affair was the daughter of, uh, my old girlfriend or something like that. It was crazy. Um, and and, uh, you know, we would go off and have these interludes, like, you know, which is a euphemism for sex. And every time I came back, I had a, uh, some sort of vision. So, you know, I would see, like, a a skeleton in a in a in a doctor's office, you know, have they have a skeleton hanging so they can show you the bones on the second side. See that. And then the other time I would see this blacked our car with blacked out windows with a, you know, personalized license plate saying death or something. And then he had a few more examples, and then said... then I realized it was God speak to me about my spiritual death because I was sinning by, you know, by having out of marital sex. Right? And I said, um, are you sure you just weren't feeling guilty for being a jerk by sleeping... like, cheating on your wife? I was like, no. It was God. So I said, okay, dad. And mean... meanwhile, everybody's... Sandy is sitting there looking really awkward, and, like, everybody was just... it was my dad, but, you know, it was really awkward for Sandy. And, uh, anyways... and then, uh, he said, and then I realized I need to return to the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

### Installment 5 > So then I said, oh, okay. So, um, what about... remember all the stuff with actual projections and, you know, charities the gods and all that? So how do you, you know, how do you reconcile that with what you taught us our whole lives? And he said, oh, well, yeah. Well, here's the deal. Uh, so you remember the the story of the burning bush? It's like, you mean, where, you know, God was speaking to whoever it was, Abraham or whatever, uh, from the burning bush? It's like, yeah. I I know that one. And he said, well, that was actually a microphone connected to a a a spaceship with aliens now what what they refer to in the Bible as angels are just more advanced species, which are, you know, also children of God. It's like, okay. Um, and then he said, um, uh, Yeah. And you know about the, like, the angel... or what was it? Uh, the chariots, uh, you know, was it the angel Gabriel in the chariot of fires? Like, that was a reentry vehicle. It's like, okay. That's a good one. I'm I'm with you on that one. I could... that's a good metaphor for the Bible. So you had a few more examples. And I said, so, uh, dad, if you run this by the pastor, and said, oh, yeah. Yeah. We've agreed to disagree. But I'm still, you know, I'm becoming a deacon at the church, and so I've rejoined. And my fear at that point is, oh, my god. My dad is so charismatic. He's gonna found his own religion. Like, people have done it, like that branch to Vivians, like, there's every new religion, uh, was founded somewhere. My dad is gonna invent his own. Of course, this will never last with the Seventh day Adventist. So he'll hang out there for a while, then create his own faction and start his own church just like forty, my grandmother's friend, everybody. I knew it seemed to have to have their own damn religion. So that was going through my mind. as I'm sitting there listening to my... or standing there with tullan, we we were hugging at the time, by the way, because we always hugged.

### Installment 6 (typed, 2026-08-19 — corrections and the Passover exchange) > It was the Olmec that had the head statues that looked like space helmets. Or was it the Tolmecs or something. The one's with the big noses that look more african than american indian (which is asian descended). Thee Angel Gabriel (or some famous angel, but I always said Gabriel) comes in from Passover. I accused that story as justifying genocide of innocent babies, and asked Dad how God could do that and not be kind of a jerk. He said, "the Lord acts in mysterious ways - the general purpose christian cop-out, was my thought."

**Note on Installment 6:** the closing quotation mark placement in the source makes it ambiguous whether "the general purpose christian cop-out" was spoken aloud; "was my thought" indicates it was internal. The polished anecdote renders it as unspoken ("though I kept the thought to myself"). Milton's spoken words end at "mysterious ways."

---