We Have Met the Alien and He Is Us

March 2, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I had to laugh at the news that the government is going to release the UFO files, because the truth is, most have already been released, but people don’t want to believe the prosaic (though often horrific) explanations. I spent years researching UFOs and looking for the truth of aliens among us. And you know what I discovered? They are us. Not you and me, but humans, nevertheless. Top secret projects like Project Mogul. MKUltra and human experimentation on US citizens by the likes of the CIA and the DIA. Experimental aircraft that was decades beyond what was released to the public. Drone technology. Laser technology. Extra-Low Frequency beams. And fake stories to cover up illegal dumping. (This last was Fred Crisman, an agent of disruption for the CIA, who also turns up in JFK conspiracies.)

We always think we deserve to know the truth, but our leaders don’t think that way, so there’s a lot of so-called UFO activity that will never be released, especially if it involves crimes against citizens or when it involves national security. (Or even when it comes down to how to control us citizens.) Military technology is always a decade or two ahead of what is released to the public. In UFO lore, there is a tale of a mysterious fellow who went around to various businesses and shared information that supposedly came from the aliens, such as fiber optic technology, but the truth is, this fellow was very human. He was Philip Corso, who headed up the Foreign Technology Desk in Army Research and Development, and one of his jobs was doling out military technology that needed to go public.

[He’s also the intelligence officer who did research on POWs from the Korean War, found out that most of them had been sent to Russia, and so decided it was best — and cheaper — to tell the world they were dead rather than continuing to pay their salaries or even trying to rescue them. And that’s been the US policy ever since. He’s also the one who said he saw Oswald at the Russian Embassy. And oh, after the truth about Roswell came out, he wrote a book supposedly telling the truth about Roswell, which was, in fact, all a lie. Shady fellow, for sure.]

Of course, if you’d read my book Light Bringer, you’d know all this. It’s fiction, but I needed a place to dump a lot of my research. Weirdly, though it was supposed to debunk all the UFO theories, I ended up creating my own alien group based on Zecharia Sitchen’s books about Sumerian cosmology, so if you do read the novel, take what that part with a grain of salt.

I was going to set out all I discovered about Roswell here, but I did a bit of online research, and everything that took me decades to find is available, all included in the U.S. Department of War’s “The Roswell Report: Case Closed.” It tells all about Project Mogul, a top-secret military operation that once had a security rating and a budget as high as that of the Manhattan Project. Sheesh. I could have saved myself a lot of work if I’d just waited a few years and read that report! At least now, though, it will save me the trouble of writing it all out here.

One thing I haven’t been able to find more information about is that supposedly, when the CIA were in Tibet, they discovered a living group of tiny humans, three or four feet tall, with long fingers and long, skinny necks. Add a jumpsuit and a mask with strange eyes, and there you have the “aliens” we are so familiar with. I wish I could have found out more than just the snippet I did, but still it’s worth mentioning.

It does makes me wonder what sort of things will come out if the files and information and photos are released now. Will there be a redaction, saying that aliens are real? Will there be a bunch of stuff released to hoax us? (Because someone wants us to believe the myth, otherwise, why would a character with the clout of Corso be negating the truth?)

Either way, I doubt people will believe the official story. The UFO myth we believe is too powerful. Of course, knowing how we’ve been played for so many decades, it’s always possible the myth covers up a more disturbing idea that they live among us. But frankly, I don’t know and don’t want to guess.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Stepping on Toes

March 1, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I stopped paying attention to partisan politics when, as a young adult, I learned about shadow governments, globalists, an international elite of some sort that was running things behind the scenes.

Even if I hadn’t researched the histories hidden in books, some of the sense that both parties were working toward the same agenda is obvious when you see how often policies changed to reflect the losing candidate’s point of view. It seemed so contrived — a play put on for the benefit of the voters who otherwise didn’t count in the rulers’ grand scheme of power and political leverage.

The way I saw it, when a tiger and a lion fight (or an elephant and a donkey), the poor rabbit always gets trampled. Or devoured.

Trump’s first term caught my attention because he seemed an outlier, not a politician but someone who had a different agenda, something more than just accruing power and money as politicians so often do. But I never really thought much about him and his presidency until the personal attacks on him began, most of which have subsequently been litigated out of existence or are proving to be false as more information comes out. (Many of those lies are still believed despite proof to the contrary.)

Those attacks continue. There’s an almost constant barrage of lies, hatred, vilification, name calling, more than any other president in my lifetime. Even if the current president is as bad as they say he is, it still comes down to why he’s not being protected from the outrage. Almost all presidents were corrupt (or corrupted) in some way, almost all overreached their power, but (with a couple of exceptions) the system protected them, hiding their transgressions from the voters, or at least downplaying their corruption. But not him. He’s out there on his own. The traditional media will not report anything he does that benefits people, and if they do, they spin it so it’s a bad thing. And news apps perpetuate this bias.  A content analysist, Media Research Center, reviewed the news that was presented in January to Apple News’ 140 million subscribers, and out of more than 600 articles during the most popular time slot, not a single article was from a conservative point of view.

Since this is history as it’s happening rather than books, I have no recourse but to do my research online to try to find out why the power brokers, the opposition party, and those who influence public opinion are treating this president differently from previous presidents. I’ve found many in-depth articles showing how he’s making his deals. Like with any dealmaker, he starts out with a brash opening, and it’s that opening that gets reported and excoriated. The steps that come after the opening salvo are ignored, so people only see how outlandish that first statement is without noticing the strategic moves he has already planned to get what he’s really aiming for.

I suppose it’s possible that the globalists let him continue doing his thing because of the chaos his presidency causes, which I’m sure furthers their agenda. But why do those in powerful positions hate him so much if he’s just the reverse of the same globalist coin presidents have always been? Is it possible that he’s actually doing something to upset or at least delay globalist policies that have been playing out for over a hundred years?

The first 150 years of the United States, there was no income tax. There were tariffs to support the various government programs, tariffs that were so successful, there was money to spare. Then, at the instigation of a cabal of bankers, the US money system was turned over to the newly created Federal Reserve Board, which Woodrow Wilson later admitted he regretted: “The Federal Reserve Act, which I signed, allowed our system of credit to become too concentrated. The growth of the nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world — a government run by the opinion of small groups of dominant men.”

Not only did the government of the time create the Federal Reserve Board (which they kept secret from the public for more than a decade), but they amended the constitution to allow for an income tax, which just twenty years previously had been decreed unconstitutional. (At first, they only taxed the highest 1%. In 1942, Frankin D. Roosevelt increased the number of people to be taxed to 75% of workers.) Because of bribery, corruption, and influence from other nations, tariffs were rescinded and taxation and debt became the name of the game.

Tariffs were always meant to be the main source of income of the United States not, as it is now, directly and solely from American citizens through taxation.

So why the hatred of Trump and his tariffs? Why the hatred of his push for nationalism? Why the insistence on destroying the immigration policies that all of his predecessors had created and espoused? These things, in the main, seem as if they would only help the country, though people point to each of these things (as well as other policies he’s followed) as reason to hate him, forgetting that the hatred and vitriol came first. Even before he was inaugurated, before he did a single thing, there was already talk of impeachment. And in the years between his two terms, there was a concentrated effort to discredit him irreparably.

After weeks, months, and way too many hours on the internet trying to figure this out, I still don’t know the truth, but I do know that anyone who is so utterly vilified (someone moreover who once was loved by the very people who are now vilifying him), has to be stepping on someone’s toes. It could be all part of the play, but it seems too extreme to me. Too confusing. By the time enough years have passed to put this all into historical perspective, I’ll be long gone, so I might never know. I don’t suppose it matters anyway, since what is happening and what is going to happen will happen even if I don’t understand the play that’s being enacted.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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White House vs. White Tower

February 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram

More and more, I see The Wheel of Time saga as an allegory of our time.

In the story, there is a powerful group of women, called “witches” by some, who use the energy of the universe to sometimes help, sometimes hinder humans. It used to be that men used one side of the power and women another (think yin yang), but the men’s side became tainted and unusable, leaving women the sole users of power. The women power wielders live in a town more or less based on the Vatican, in a building called “The White Tower,” that supposedly was based on the Padgett-Thomas Barracks at the Citadel, Robert Jordan’s alma mater. This white tower also invokes images of “ivory tower” because of their detachment from the world and their arrogance in believing that despite their insularity, they know better than everyone else. And, in being a seat of power, it also invokes images of the White House.

The leader of these women is called the Amyrlin Seat, which is both her title and the name of her position. (Can you see the similarity to “Merlin?” That’s the fun puzzle part of the books for me.) Although many of the various factions of this White Tower hate the woman who holds the office of Amyrlin Seat, they still respect the position because the position itself is more than the current leader. Leaders change, but the position remains, and it’s the position itself that’s important.

I’m sure you know where this is headed. When did we come to see the position of president as solely the person who holds the position rather than the position itself? This was so very obvious during the State of the Union Address. Half the politicians completely and totally disrespected the presidency. Not just the man. The position. The institution. (And the constitution itself, since the State of the Union Address is a constitutionally mandated report from the president to Congress.) I can understand not respecting the office holder, but to disrespect the office itself, the “position of the president” seems . . .

I had to stop there and think. I don’t know what it seems. Uncalled for, certainly. Defiant, probably. Childish, perhaps. I do wonder though: if one faction can’t respect the position, if they demean it so publicly, why would they expect anyone to respect them when they attain that position?

The position itself should garner some respect even if the person holding the position doesn’t. Or maybe I’m wrong. Or the wrong generation. I don’t know.

In The Wheel of Time, the tower splits, and each side chooses a different Amyrlin Seat, basically running two different governments under the same name. Each Amyrlin claims she is the true leader and the other is the rebel, which leaves most of the common folk crushed between the two of them.

In the USA, we still have just one president, but half the government doesn’t even seem to acknowledge, let alone respect, the elected leader, which gives us two factions, each acting as they are the “real” leader.

Doesn’t sound as if this bodes well for us common folk.

Or maybe it will end well. After all, the White Tower was eventually reunited under one Amyrlin, so perhaps we’ll eventually find some sort of unity.

It could happen.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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Life, Fate, and Conundrums

February 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

On Chinese New Year, a friend of Chinese descent who was born and raised in Malaysia, and I, a German/Polish hybrid, who was born in raised in Colorado, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant owned by a man originally from Vietnam, who chatted with us while we waited for our food. Mind boggling, right? I can’t even imagine how many tens of thousands of decisions we each made, how many unexpected changes in our lives, and how much time had to pass for all of us to end up in that exact place at that exact moment.

It almost makes me believe in fate, but perhaps that’s what fate is: everything that has to occur so that a certain event can happen. In some cases, those events and decisions are simply living and going where the day takes you. Other times, it’s a significant event, such as the death of a loved one. In my case, Jeff’s death untethered me so that I ended up in California taking care of my father. My father’s death broke whatever strings I had left, which sent me all over the country in an effort to run away from my life as well as run towards it. It’s mere happenstance — an unasked-for email from a real estate site — that I ended up here.

I’ve been thinking about this definition of fate as it applies to the Walk for Peace. On October 26, 2025, the monks set out from Fort Worth with barely a wave good-bye. Almost no one noticed them as they walked, though they did get some heckling and a few people who stopped to talk. Truckers and Texas residents shared sightings on Tik Tok, which got them some online followers, but mostly, they walked alone along empty roads.

Then, on November 19, a pick-up struck the escort vehicle so hard that it pushed the escort vehicle into the walking monks. Several were injured. One seriously. (He lost a leg but was doing well enough to attend the ending ceremonies in Washington.) After seeing that their fellow monk was taken care of, they continued their walk with the Harris County sheriff’s department riding alongside to keep them safe. The sheriff notified the sheriff’s department in the next county, and those law enforcement officers continued the protection, and so it went, all across the country.

That accident and the law enforcement notifications catapulted the walk into the public’s eye. No longer just a few bystanders on the open road — suddenly there were miles and miles of people lining their pathway. Thousands of people — hundreds of thousands — endured the cold and wind and rain and snow to wait to see the monks walk by. Millions followed the monks online. Lives were changed. People vowed to find peace within. And the effects of that walk are still rippling.

So, what would have happened without that accident? Was it a necessary part of their journey? Was it fate that it happened? Did the monk who lost his leg think it was a fair payment for the good the walk did? Was it a further example of their belief in breathing, in peace, in accepting the physical aspect of suffering while letting go of the resulting mental suffering? (One of the lessons they taught was that 10% of suffering was physical, the other 90% mental.)

Conundrums like this keep me wondering about life, about all the dots that need to be connected for anything to happen. Depending on what source you check out, there is between a one in seventy trillion chance and a one in four hundred trillion chance of any one of us being born.

So many changes and connections. Events and decisions. And time, lots of time. And all to get us here, to this very moment.

A moment that was eons in the making, a moment that will never be repeated.

During this rare and precious moment, may you be well, happy, and at peace.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Daily Blogging

February 22, 2026 — Pat Bertram

For years, I blogged every day mostly as a discipline to give form to my days and because I knew that if I ever stopped, I might just let the practice slide away. And the practice did. Slide away, I mean. In January 2023, I still posted every day, and I continued until the middle of February. After that, I posted only sporadically, maybe 25 posts the rest of that year, 7 the following year, and 14 last year. Not very impressive, but then, it wasn’t supposed to be. I simply had nothing to say that I wanted to make public. I’d gradually become sensitive about putting my thoughts out there for anyone to read, so unless I had something innocuous to post, such as pictures of my garden, I kept my thoughts to myself.

Which makes me wonder why all of a sudden this year I’ve found myself blogging again. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I just posted on the first of January, then the second, then . . .

Now here I am, day 53 of daily blogging, though I have no idea why. Can’t even begin to guess. Not that the reason matters. What matters, I suppose, is that I am sitting at my computer. Digging words out of my sluggish brain. Trying to make sense of the world at large.

I originally wrote, “the world around me” and only substituted “the world at large” when I realized that world around me makes sense. I look out the window, and I see that the sky is blue, the grass a dry winter green, the streets empty. I hear clucking from chickens a couple of houses away, tapping now and again from the roofers halfway down the block, and a train in the distance. But it’s mostly quiet. Peaceful. When I close my computer, the only tensions I feel are from the book I’m reading, and most of those come because I’m not engaged in the story at all. (I thought I should get away from the Wheel of Time for a while, but going from the study of a multi-layered epic to reading a simple one-note novel, makes that novel feel even flatter than it really is.)

But this isn’t a post about reading. It’s about writing, finding words in my own head rather than in someone else’s, even if the words I find don’t mean a whole lot. It’s about being able to see something to appreciate in my small life and being able to express my feelings. It’s about being centered on what truly matters to me right now rather than worrying so much about things happening elsewhere that I have no control over.

What I do have control over are my words, and I that, I imagine, more than anything, is what makes this current practice of blogging every day important to me. Though to tell the truth, I’m still not sure I want to make my thoughts public. Luckily for me, my tulips are making themselves known, telling me that gardening season is coming, and soon we can both contemplate something more interesting — watching my garden grow.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Moving the World

February 16, 2026 — Pat Bertram

A friend and I recently discussed the Walk for Peace and what we thought would happen now that it’s finished and the monks back home. She thinks it will have a lasting effect and will make a big difference to the world.

Me? Not so much. People tend to get caught up in the spirit of the moment, especially big moments, and they hold on to that feeling of peace or commitment or awe or whatever for a while, but then life happens. And keeps happening. And the feeling that they thought would last forever dissipates and eventually gets put away, only to be remembered long afterward as a curiosity. For sure, some people’s lives were changed. Some people will follow through with the daily affirmation that was handed out during the walk: “Today will be my peaceful day.” Some will practice mindfulness as the monks urged, doing only one thing at a time. Some will even set their phones down for a while and just live in the offline moment.

Those things are important. After all, that was the monks’ message and their hope — that people would find inner peace. But will it change the world in the long run? Interestingly, the monks didn’t set out to change the world. They merely set out mindfully on a walking meditation with no announcement, no big production, no online presence. Just twenty monks walking. (Nineteen human and one canine.) That was it. They thought a few people would pause for a moment to watch and perhaps be moved to find their own inner peace, but they had no expectations beyond placing one foot in front of the other.

And yet people found them. Because of the interest, monks who stayed behind set up a map, websites, social sites, made and uploaded videos. The news of the walk spread, and hundreds of thousands of people stopped their lives to stand by the road and watch the monks walk by. Millions all around the world participated vicariously through videos and live streaming. During those months, there was a vast outpouring of kindness, compassion, harmony, love, and hope. All that energy would have to go somewhere since energy can’t be destroyed, so maybe there was enough power generated to move the world.

I keep thinking about a certain episode in The Wheel of Time books. The weather in their world has gone out of whack due to the Dark One’s effort to destroy the world and even humanity. But a couple of the girl heroes (“witches” some call them) have managed to find the ancient, long-lost bowl the sea faring people once used to control the weather, and these heroes as well as the sea people — Windfinders — get together to change the weather back to the way it’s supposed to be, pouring into the bowl huge amounts of the power only they can wield.

Afterward, they collapsed from exhaustion, but there was no immediate discernible difference in the weather. One of the heroes asks belligerently, “All of that, for what? Did we do anything or not?”

‘The Windfinder struggled to her feet. “Do you think Weaving the Winds is like throwing the helm over on a darter?” she demanded contemptuously. “I just moved the rudder on a skimmer with a beam as broad as the world! He will take time to turn, time to know he is supposed to turn. That he must turn. But when he does, not the Father of Storms himself will be able to stand in his way.”’

Is it possible my friend is right and the walk for peace will have this sort of effect? Is it possible peace will ripple through the world, changing things in ways we can’t even imagine? Maybe in ways we can’t discern but are still subtly effective? Despite my rather cynical view of people, I would like to think the walk for peace will make a difference.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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Seeing and Being Seen

February 15, 2026 — Pat Bertram

When I watched the videos of people watching the monks walk for peace, I noticed how many had tears in their eyes. I imagine the in-person experience was overwhelming because just watching videos of those terracotta-robed men walking barefoot or wrapped up against the snow and wind was powerful in itself. But I think it was more than that. I think the watchers felt seen.

I bet many bystanders were surprised by that “seeing,” because after all, they stood, sometimes for hours, simply waiting to see the monks go by, but as the monks passed, the walkers looked at their watchers and the watchers were seen. It worked both ways. The monks themselves admitted they felt witnessed, not simply watched as if they were a parade, and it touched them. Hence, the tears from both the walkers and the watchers.

In the movie Shall We Dance, Beverly Clark (Susan Sarandon) says: “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet . . . I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things . . . all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’”

Admittedly, this walk wasn’t a marriage (and a lot of marriages don’t work like Beverly Clark’s anyway). I didn’t mention the quote for the marriage part but for the witnessing part. (Though, in a way, that brief connection between walker and watcher could be construed as a marriage in the sense of a combination of two or more elements, but still, not important to this discussion.)

I think so many of us are hungry to be seen, not simply as a body standing by the side of the road, but as a person, an individual, perhaps as someone who wants to participate in something greater than ourselves. And those wise Buddhist eyes saw. And those bright Buddhist smiles drew everyone into the heart of their mission.

By the time the walkers reached Washington, so much of that “witnessing” aspect of the walk had disappeared. (At least on video. I have no idea what those thousands upon thousands of bystanders experienced.) The crowds were too huge, for one thing, and for another, members of congress showed up, with cops helping them bulldoze their way through the crowd, wanting merely to be seen seeing the monks. (To me, that was the most bizarre part of the whole walk, even more bizarre than the people who followed the monks through several states, heckling them and exhorting them to convert.)

I have a hunch this need to be seen is why the social aspect of the internet is so immense. Or maybe not — too many people hide behind user names and seem more interested in creating havoc than in merely being witnessed, but who knows. It could be why I write this blog, but again, who knows.

What I do know is that for one hundred and twenty days, people saw and were seen, and lives were changed.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Comeuppance

February 13, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve had a bit of comeuppance. Or maybe a come-down-ance? Been humbled, anyway.

I’d read that screenwriters are told to repeat the plot of a story at least four times during the course of a movie because viewers no longer have the ability to follow a plot all the way through. Not only are they distracted by their phones, but all that scrolling and seeing small snippets of videos, comments, and headlines has made them unable to focus. That lack of focus is also why few people read books — they can’t comprehend what they are reading, can’t keep the story in their head long enough to make sense of it.

This made me feel proud of myself that even at my age I could focus on a story, often being able to read an entire book at a sitting and keep the whole thing in my head. I’m even getting to the point where I can keep the entire four million words of the Wheel of Time books in my head, which is important because of all the foreshadowing. (You can’t tell when something that was foreshadowed happens if you can’t remember the foreshadowing.)

Anyway, lately I’ve spent a lot of time online, following the Buddhist Monks’ Walk for Peace, listening to black conservative commentators (I was interested in seeing what they thought about being told they were too stupid to figure out how to get an ID), following the backlash of the halftime show and its alternative (what I learned is that if you didn’t like either, you’re probably just plain old), and various other things.

And you know what happened? I can no longer focus on reading. I can’t keep even a chapter in my head, let alone an entire book. Can’t sit still without wanting to go check to see what’s going on elsewhere.

I never planned this experiment, never planned to test the theory that online activities shorten one’s attention span, but I sure got a quick result. Luckily, I figured out what the problem is and know an easy solution — spend less time online. But what about people who have lived their entire life practicing what I did for just a few weeks? Can they ever learn to concentrate? Though I suppose what it comes down to is if they even want to. And I doubt they do.

The world has seldom been a comfortable place for me since I’ve never fit into any socio-cultural setting. We didn’t have a television when I was a kid and we weren’t allowed to listen to popular radio stations — my father wanted us to grow up to be different and, well, he got his wish. Hence, growing up I seldom understood the cultural references of my classmates, and since I don’t have television now, I don’t understand today’s cultural references. My preferred music is silence. My preferred activity is reading books. My preferred companions are those who know how to think. So even though I’ve usually been able to find a niche for myself, I never felt as if the world was mine.

And now I know for a fact that the world isn’t mine. I might still have a decade left or possibly even two, but I’m on my way out. The world belongs to younger people. And in their world, maybe being able to focus or keep stories in their heads isn’t an issue.

As for me, I’ve learned that even a bit of misplaced pride can end up being humbling.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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Strange Thoughts

February 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I just had a strange thought. There is a great assumption of hate here in this country, but is there really that much hate? If people didn’t keep telling us folks here in the USA to get rid of our hate, would there be any hate amongst us? Would we even think about hate or hating if they didn’t keep pushing that narrative? They tell us that love is stronger than hate, but isn’t even that trite comment making an assumption of hate? (Otherwise, why would anyone think the comparison needs to be made? Saying “Love is strong” would be fine by itself.) Even I, who have no hate in my heart at all (that I know of, anyway), find myself nodding along when people talk about the prevalence of hate. And yet, it seems as if the only people talking about hate are those who have a platform and are determined to have their say, as if they are the arbiter of morality. As if those who are sitting in their gated mansions know the pulse of the rest of us.

But then, today, it’s not just celebrities — athletes, singers, actors, newscasters — with a platform, but anyone who has a phone and some sort of social media account. And the videos that get shown everywhere are people screaming out their anger and hatred. Paradoxically, the screamers don’t think it’s hatred they are spewing; they think it’s . . . I don’t know; some sort of relevancy, perhaps.

The rest of us are going about our lives . . . not hating. Not even thinking about hate. Just living. Being. Enjoying what the day brings — for me, a couple of days ago, it was lunch and grocery shopping with one friend, an easy walk with another, and lots of sunshine. Yesterday it was watering my lawn, enjoying the last warm day before the cold strikes again. And today, well, today has just started. But it will be a peaceful day for me whatever I decide to do.

I’m aware this isn’t any great insight, just a stray thought.

Another stray thought (though this isn’t as “stray” as the first since it obviously came from somewhere, which is the monks walking for peace). There are millions of people all over the world (93 countries, including the USA) watching videos of the walk. The videos show the monks walking, but they also show the people who are witnessing the walk. People of all ages and colors and abilities coming together to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime transformative experience. The vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of people who pause their lives to watch the monks pass or gather to hear them talk, are quiet, respectful, loving and kind. Will people from all those countries see Americans any differently after this? Will they see we are not the hateful folk we are portrayed to be? Or will we all still be affected by the “hate/not hate” rhetoric that so often passes as truth?

Strange thoughts, indeed.

(I hope I’m not breaking any copyright laws by posting the following photo of all the places where people who are following the walk for peace live, but I find it fascinating and wanted to share it.)

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Choosing Peace

February 8, 2026 — Pat Bertram

Dean Koontz often used a dog as a major character in his books, whether as a naturally superior intelligence, an enhanced intelligence, an alien from another planet, or even as an angel. Those books were not among my favorites because I couldn’t really relate to those dog characters. Although I seldom admit it, because in today’s world not being a dog afficionado is almost a sacrilege, I don’t connect to animals the way other people do. Of course, I don’t connect to many humans, either, but that’s beside the point.

As I’ve been watching dozens and dozens of video clips of the monks on their walk for peace, accompanied by their dog Aloka, I can’t help but think of Koontz. Although his dog characters are always golden retrievers and Aloka is an Indian Pariah dog, a street dog from India, I see a strong correlation between Koontz’s almost-an-angel dogs and Aloka.

In his own way, it seems, Aloka is bringing peace to the multitudes that pause in the strife of their daily lives to watch the monks and their dog pass by. The dog seems as happy and as calm and as peaceful as his companions, just going about his day walking, being mindful of his surroundings. What’s interesting to me, and what is so Koontz-y is that Aloka chose the monks. He started following them in 2022 during a 100+ day peace walk in India. Many other dogs also followed, but Aloka stayed, a quiet companion to the walkers, as if he knew what they were about and wanted to be a part of it.

When the monks decided to make their next walk here in the United States, they brought Aloka with them. And together, they fulfill their mission. No big pronouncements. No noise. Just walk. Be present. Be at peace. Aloka seems to have an additional job or two, showing absolute loyalty, and even though he is recovering from a January surgery, he seems to still take his job as protectant seriously, staying focused and watching over the monks from a support vehicle.

Apparently, some people follow Aloka more than the monks, but that, too, seems part of this incredible journey.

I came late to the walk for peace because I don’t really like videos, and besides, the first videos I saw were of various preachers trying to convert the monks, which seemed . . . inappropriate. But now I’m as mesmerized as everyone else.

Until I gave up consistent blogging, I used to participate in a blog-for-peace project every November 4th. Although I didn’t believe world peace was possible (because whatever the world leaders say, they really don’t want it), I thought it was important to stress that peace starts with us. The monks’ walk (and Aloka’s) reminds me so much of what the peace bloggers wanted — just to show that peace is possible.

And apparently, peace is possible. It is all in our minds, especially when we live in the present moment. Like Aloka, we just have to choose it. My wish for us is the same one the monks have left for us: “May we all find our way back to the present moment.”

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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