I Was Jody by George Evanson [Guest Wreckers]

I remember once being a very gentle and special little boy. That boy appeared long before my fifth birthday.  My family nickname was Jody. The story was that my brother could not say George and what he did say came out sounding like “Jody”.

The name Jody means more to me than just a nickname. Jody was a being distinct from George.  He was a light being who saw a good light shining out of everyone.  He loved and handed his heart to everyone fearlessly.

I had an aunt and uncle who took me for a ride one day and talked to me about the dangers of being “too nice”.  How really kindly, heart sharing souls often got tread on like that famous snake on the flag.  I can recall being confused as if I were being chastised for misbehavior.  I could not see what I had done wrong.

Jody had love for everyone. He had the “gift of cheerful heart”. I saw a good soul inside of everyone whatever their exterior.

I remember at about 8 or so reading a bunch about Hitler. My parents thought this weird but I wanted to find his light because at first glance it was quite dim.   In my reading I found out two things that gave a little glimmer.  He despised people who abused animals and he was vegetarian.  I felt a bit better. A totally dark soul was a challenge to Jody’s cellular belief system; no one was all dark or all evil. There was a good light shining out somewhere.

Jody had his own form of Namaste (The God/Goddess Spirit within me recognizes and honors the God/Goddess Spirit within you.) greeting. His less developed Namaste was “all our hearts are one”.

Fairly I can say that Jody was just born that way and that for years, life and my own doubts hacked at the Jody persona and told him to toughen up, get smart, let go of this naïve faith in the universal goodness and start being tough and cagy.

This set up an inner war that has played out over decades but I can truly say that living in my Jody self has brought me more satisfaction and more love connection than any other persona I’ve tried to manufacture.

When I did the second level attunement for Reiki some years ago I had a dream the same night that confirmed what Jody’s true gift was and is.

In a dream a rather ominous shrouded figure came to me and said he had a special Reiki symbol just for me.  He blew dark smoke in his hand and pressed it to my chest just to the left of my heart.  A deep orange circle appeared on my skin with a strange symbol inside.  It glowed and pulsed. I felt magic energy surge through me. It was terribly electrifying!

I was very excited. Perhaps I could cure cancer or heal the mentally ill? I asked this figure what the symbol was and he said, “It’s the gift of a cheerful heart”.  At that moment I was rather annoyed. I wanted a great power and I was getting “the gift of a cheerful heart”?

So little I know. This was the affirmation of my Jody nature and its true validity.  It was my great gift to my world for my whole life.

What are the components of transmitting a cheerful heart?  First your own heart has to be open and receptive without fear or concern. You need to believe in the essential heart oneness of everyone and fearlessly offer warmth and love to those you meet.

This requires understanding that heart energy/love is not a diminishing resource. The true essence of heart energy/love is that the more you offer the more you generate. So each time you give it out it comes back tenfold.  It’s a gift to others that become a gift to self.

It’s the plan that spirit programmed into our cells to bring us happiness and connection. When we cut ourselves off from this natural way of relating we feel lost and alone.

I have a reoccurring image of being in a very high tree house with the latter pulled up where no one can reach me and I can’t reach anyone.  Alone like that is unnatural and soul stifling.

It’s a reality for many souls and I have had a sad awareness of it since I was quite young. The old Brewer and Shipley tune that goes, “Your lost inside your houses, No time to find you now” really touched my heart place which seeks heart connection.

The second component that was given to me to transmit the gift of a cheerful heart is a quirky and irony-appreciative sense of humor. Virtually nothing happens to me or around me that does no evoke my humor maker.

When I had my left kidney removed because of cancer the nurse in the recovery room told me that in 25 years of this work  I was the first patient she’d had who woke up after five hours of  surgery and started make goofy jokes.  I explained it was my way of coping with life’s hard moments.

So here’s to all those hard situations and painful dramas that have haunted my life for you have been my humor teacher. The pain humor relationship is well known as is the tendency for fat people to have powerful humor skills usually of the self-deprecating variety.  So here’s to my big enamel buddy, the refrigerator which helped hone my comedic skills.

Spoke to a work friend of 30 years last night and she was telling me how many friends and coworkers I rescued from total despair with my ability to make the drama of day to day work insanity a funny parity that allowed us to laugh and take it a lot less seriously.

That is the primary mission of the humor gift God gave me; to take everything as it comes and see the ultimate unimportance of any of it when compared to our God given birthright of joy and loving connection.  It is a real blessing and a gift to see the funny in stupid and bureaucratic.

Struggling against stupidity is like a Chinese finger puzzle: the more you struggle the more you are stuck. But with ironic and sometimes black humor you can just laugh and laugh at the absurdity of it all and get over it without struggle.

In the Hindu tradition the middle point of life for most is the role of “householder”. This is the time where primary focus is home and family. After this period many Hindu’s leave the worldly life to seek a more spiritual path.

My spiritual path is back to an unencumbered Jody, without fear or cynicism. Just a loving heart greeting other hearts and inviting connection: this will be a good way to do my later years.

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Who is George Evanson?

I was born in 1945 in Boston MA and grew up in Allentown PA. I moved to CT when I was 17 and lived their for 35 years. I have lived for the past 15 years in one of the most eccentric towns in America, Truth or Consequences NM. I made my living for many years working for the Labor Department in CT paying unemployment claims, finding people jobs and later teaching employees how to use computers. For the past 20 years I have had my own computer support business. I am married to Wendy Sager-Evanson who is an RN, LMT and a Certified Yoga Instructor. We are polar opposites. She is active and physical. I prefer smoke filled rooms. I am a avid music fan and love almost everything but opera. My dad sang opera and would throw out my Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis records. He called it “jungle music”….I dabble in Slam Poetry and am writing a meandering memoir of an ordinary life that shows we all have extraordinary moments….At Wendy’s Yoga studio I host a free form dance party every Monday night….I make a wildly different music mix each week and we dance until we drop. Dancing is probably an over statement but I like the Mohawk expression, “A bad dance cannot hurt the earth”….so we jump around, sweat and laugh our asses off…I have people in their 20’s and people in their 70’s….With music, laughter and dance their is no fucking generation gap….the older folks didn’t like my Maclkemore so much or Blue Scholars very much but they were game to move with it….The youngsters stayed right with me when I played Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Charles and Fats Domino. The “kids” didn’t know who Rickie Lee Jones is but seems to like the music o.k.