Death Came Knocking

The four of us girls were chatting away in the dark cocoon of my Aunt Lydia’s car on our way back to Carlsbad, New Mexico after taking my cousin Grey to college in Las Cruces. It was labor Day weekend and we were on the last leg of an all day trip.

Twenty miles east of El Paso, the fading remains of day lay behind us, a blackness was settling over the moonless, windswept desert. Lights of sporadic lines of oncoming cars danced far ahead of us, twinkling in the distance. The highway was a two lane ribbon of asphalt stretched between barbed wire fences. It rose with the hills and dipped and curved with the valleys. About half the time, we were driving in no–passing zones: suddenly there would be a yellow line and we’d know we were topping a hill.

Grey's sister, Darla, Jane and I were starting our senior year in high school and this was a fun jaunt, taking Grey off to college as a freshman. Darla and I were in the back seat, sitting center and forward, our arms on back of the seat to participate in the conversation. Jane, Bob’s girlfriend, sat up front with my older sister, Carol who was twenty-one, and had been entrusted with driving us for the day in the family car. Carol's husband was at work, her toddler daughter was with Mother. We were all eager to get home.

“I don’t know whether to pass this truck or not,” Carol said as we edged up behind an eighteen wheeler. “There’s no yellow line, but I’m not sure how far we are seeing, since there are so many hills along here.”

“Well, it looks like there’s nothing coming right now,” we encouraged her. "Go ahead."

So she stepped on the gas and eased the Ford sedan into the left lane, rushing to pass quickly. Halfway around the truck we entered a no-passing zone and almost immediately, the lights of an oncoming line of cars peaked the hill right in front of us.

Carol hesitated only a split second before floorboarding the gas pedal, but there was neither time to get around nor to slip back behind the truck. I stared in terror at the headlights hurtling at us, close range, involuntarily screaming “No! No!” Carol edged almost against the truck, riding the brake, and just as it appeared the car would smash into us, she jammed the brake and lost control. We lurched sideways in a tight spin. I was plastered against the door with Darla pinned against me as we spun around and around in a void where sound and time ceased to exist.

After a short eternity, I noticed lights flashing past the car window. I slowly became aware of a disembodied voice insisting, “Stop screaming. Stop screaming. We're okay.” It was registering against a high-pitched scream I hadn’t heard before. Slowly, ever so slowly, I came swimming up from an abyss. Jane was speaking calmly from the front seat. The sound stopped and there was absolute silence, not even a heartbeat. I don't know who had been screaming. It may have been me.

“We really are okay.” Her voice sliced through me like a high voltage electrical charge. I couldn’t seem to breathe or feel my body, just the jolt to my nervous system of her voice breaking that disembodied silence.

“I’m going to check the car, but I think it’s fine,” Jane stepped out and walked around it. I could see her getting out, but it was like watching a movie on TV from across the room. It was far away. Removed. Small. Had nothing to do with me.

We sat motionless for a moment then one by one, we almost fell out of the car, wobbly, like our legs couldn’t quite support us. Edging to the barbed wire fence, as far as we could get from the highway, we shook and laughed at nothing. My teeth were chattering from the overdose of adrenaline, my mind replaying the lights in my face. The moment of impact that hadn't happened seemed suspended somewhere in space, waiting to end our lives when we weren't paying attention. I could feel it out there.

Jane kept talking, chatting about nothing, as if the world was normal and this was just a little respite from the drive. Her voice was an irritant, like a mosquito buzzing in the room when it’s too dark to find it. I wasn’t sure we were still alive and she was running off at the mouth about inconsequential stuff. I couldn’t even follow her conversation.

Instead, I was still caught in that moment of terror. There seemed to be no logical way for us to have survived the head-on collision. My mind kept examining it. Did we actually manage to slide between two speeding cars, off the far side of the highway, continuing to spin while a dozen cars passed within a few feet of us? Or did we crash and our minds continued forward with the story line we had going originally. Were we suspended between the knowledge of imminent death and the impact? Like a limbo? I wasn’t sure. Reality itself had become suspect.

After a short discussion, we agreed that it was best to let Jane drive home since she seemed to be the only unrattled one among us. We also decided that this incident should remain a secret. No reason to worry our families and we wanted to protect Carol from blame. I noticed that although I participated in conversation, I wasn’t sure my body was breathing or what I said. Words vibrated in the air, but did they come from inside me? Everything seemed to be relayed from far away.

Once on the road again Darla and Jane conversed quietly from the front seat, their voices rising and falling but the words were meaningless sounds. Carol and I sat in the back seat while she tried to process her choices and her fears around having done the wrong thing. It weighed heavily I knew and tried to reassure her, we had participated in the decision after all, but all the while I felt strangely hollow. Not really present.

We turned and kneeled on the seat, looking out the back window at the stars and shared how we were marked by this happening, wondered if we were spared for a reason. On the other hand, we questioned if this was what death felt like. How could you tell if you were dead? We decided we wouldn’t know until we walked into Aunt Lydia’s house: if she saw us, we were still alive.

It was late when we stepped onto the porch. Aunt Lydia met us at the door. “Well, the wandering gals came home again. I’ve got you some cookies and milk.” Carol and I looked at each other, a silent high five of affirmation.

But a part of me knew that in some other probable reality, we all died that night. And there were repercussions that reverberated through our known world. . . I have felt the undertow of it ever since. Waiting for the impact . . .

The End of the World?

There is a wonderful astrology book called The Gods of Change, by Howard Sassportas. I love the subtitle: "Pain, Crisis and the Transits of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto." This seems like a good subject to talk about since we narrowly missed the end of the world on the 21st of May and as every astrologer knows, the gods are restive of late. Okay. I'll admit, I'm iffy about the Rapture saving me . . . so I'll just have to deal with bumptious gods and worlds ending.

I've been roughed up by these gods more than once and I have the utmost respect for their powers. I've learned that I'm such a speck that I can curse them at will and affect nothing except my state of mind. It feels good to vent sometimes. But then I still have to get on with the dirty work of cleaning up the mess and righting my upside down world. From it, I've gotten a bit wiser. For starters, I do less venting and more getting on with it.

And here's what else I've learned about those harbringers of Pain, Crisis and Change.

First, they are going to do what they are going to do. The gods will take you to task at some point in your life. Maybe several points. Scan your chart horizon and prepare for it as best you can, knowing that you still may not see it coming . . . and that it too, shall pass.

Second, understand how they operate and don't expect anything else. When they are through with you, they will move on, winds howling down the canyons of life. They've done their job which is messing with your known world. Demanding your own terms is like trying to negotiate with the Japanese tsunami or the Joplin tornado. They don't listen.

Third, it's truly impersonal. Don't take it personally. Just get out there and get on with life as it is. Even wasps and toads do as much.

Fourth, never argue with the gods (or What Is.) It only makes you crazy and annoys the gods. Your job is to clean up the debris and build a new life. It won't be the same and you will never again take things for granted, believing you are impervious to the vicissitudes of life. Be grateful for the tempering of your character. You probably needed it.

And last, it is for your own good. I need to believe that one or I'd have to shoot myself as a logical response to the alternative. Through these god adventures (a euphemism if I ever used one), I've noticed that certain outcomes can and may happen:

A. You may never recognize the gift you were supposed to dig out of the rubble. So, you cower before life believing yourself a helpless victim rather than the responsible party. (Just remember that the gods don't mess with things that are working for your growth. But crystallize and get inertial, live with situations instead of dealing with them and you step into the target zone.)

B. You may realize you've been set free and see yourself a feisty survivor who dives into life because you know tomorrow you may die, and you don't want it happen with you hiding in a hole, your hind parts foremost.

C. You may recognize we're all in it together and gain a new appreciation of your fellow beings. Ultimately, the choice of perspective is yours. That, the gods can neither grant nor take away. It's all on you.

So, join me and lift your cup to the gods of change, to ending worlds, and the growth they induce. To Life.

Disaster in Japan and Life with Death

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan reminds me how fragile life is and how quickly it can be snuffed out. Daily, there are stories in the news about murders, fatal accidents of all kinds including floods and tornados, but they seem more manageable when it's one here and there, or maybe a few at a time, with or without pictures. But to sit and watch the tsunami roll across Sendai and realize the magnitude of the disaster unfolding is horrific. There were people in those cars, vans, buses, trains, houses, and boats. Visceral. Haunting.

It brings back memories of 911. The helpless horror of watching the towers fall with all those people in them. I sat and sobbed.

And it's real. I suspect we get numbed by the sheer amount of exposure to death as news, entertainment, or spectacle. It's usually staged or after the fact. I remember when I was in high school, graphic pictures in the newpaper or on tv was condemned as rank sensationalism and in extremely poor taste. Viet Nam news coverage with bloody gore served up at dinner with the evening news changed all of that.

When I reread passages from books like The Power of Now by Eckert Tolle, I am reminded that attachment is the root of suffering. That includes attachment to people, things and to the pain of losing them. To feel it and let it go helps transcend suffering. So very contrary to the general approach to life most of us hold in this culture and probably most societies. People who don't form attachments are considered sociopaths. Or enlightened masters. Is the difference the capacity to feel compassion?

Breathe.

I bought an older house with a large backyard graced by large trees and some cottage style flowerbeds I've put in and I'm really attached to it. If it were destroyed, could I feel the pain and just let it go? Questionable. When my home burned in 1999 and my mother died two days later of cancer, it took me several years to move past it. I suffered. We do get attached in life. Is that good or is it bad? Or neither.

What do you think? Believe?

2012 And Ghost Stories

Do you remember when you were a kid and loved to scare yourself half to death with thoughts about what might be under the bed or lurking beyond the half open door to the closet? A walk down the dimly lit hall to the bathroom was a trip through the canyons of hell and monsters were waiting to eat you alive.

It seems to be a rite of passage. Things that go bump or skritch in the night and bring up half-choked screams are rather embarrassing by the light of day. But we do have our adult versions of them.

You may remember 1989 when people sold their homes and went to stand on a California hilltop in a circle, waiting for the Harmonic Convergence to carry away the world. Scallion predicted California was going to fall into the ocean by the year 2000 and even made a new USA map of rising ocean shorelines, coming right up to lap at Dallas. People hung onto to his words of crashdom. Subscribed to his newsletter, even when his dates kept shifting and explanations about how things hadn't quite lined up yet, but it was coming. . . and they should have known better.

How about when everything was supposed to quit working because of a computer glitch the second midnight clicked over to 12:01am back in 2000. People had extra water and rations for that inevitable disaster.

This is not new. Back in the years after Jesus's death, the Christians waited for the end of the world. It has many, many permutations and incarnations, this primitive fear bubble-up dread phenomenon. Ohhh, how well we manufacture fear in the mind, produce anxiety to hang onto, imaginings of the unbearable to keep us in heightened alert mode. Keeps us from being bored by the daily grind of life. And...

I think we're still just kids listening for things to go bump or skritch in the night, even by the light of day. We love the delicious adrenaline rush of imagining scenes of disaster and getting all worked up, shivery with the fright of it. Maybe it's the reptilian brain hungering for the daily challenge of battle against leopards, lions, snakes, other humanoids, and the elements, just to stay alive another hour, another day. Battle withdrawl. You can't reason with the reptilian brain 'cause it doesn't think.

Maybe it's Mom's voice telling us to be prepared, and warning of dire results if you don't stay on top of the worst the world can offer up. So you are always waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop ... or drip ... or fall on your head.

Or maybe it's just that we love ghost stories. It makes for great tv programs and sells a lot of books. But when the pumpkin hour strikes, you still have to get in bed so you can get up tomorrow and do these things all over again, like go to work, mow the lawn, pay the bills and watch another scary docu-ghostentary story about 2012, astroids, super volcanoes, perfect storms and even resurrected dinosaurs. Shiver!

Hey, it's entertaining!

Perspective in Difficult Times

It is blimey cold today. 18 degrees.

Ridiculous for Texas and the long awaited Super Bowl week at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. It's a shame, such a huge event caught in the deep freeze maw of Mother Nature, dashing hopes for a huge financial boost to the local economy. The freeways were a disaster yesterday with jackknifed 18-wheelers all over the metroplex and beyond, surrounded by cars that stopped and couldn't get traction to get moving again, or worse, slid off the road entirely. Some were there for hours.

Like most folks who don't absolutely have to go to work, I'm basically housebound what with the neighborhood roads iced up and a steep driveway I refuse to negotiate under these conditions. So I've turned to the computer to get some work done (and the truth is, I needed to do it anyway). The only problem is dealing with the planned rolling power outages we're experiencing as the local authorities have gone into an emergency plan, trying to avoid overloading the grid. Thank goodness for a laptop.

A good time to take notice of the world, how things are heating up politically in Egypt and Tunisia, while a great cyclone rips into Australia and middle America is frozen in place. People are taking back their political power and chaos is the price. Mother Nature doesn't bargain about power. There's good news and bad news. As always.

But the sun rises every morning and sets every evening, right on schedule. l can get around again after several years of agonizing pain because my friends helped me through two surgeries last year and I'm now the proud owner of two new hips that guarantee a pat down in every airport and security checkpoint I pass through! Hallelujah! I can get through them under my own power and even shake my bootie if I'm so moved.

Yes, it is frigid. And the visitors to my little bird "watering hole" have never been more diverse.

Results Already

Re my last post, I said I'd let you know how it turns out: I got a call four days after this post from a friend I haven't heard from for about four years. He gave me the name and phone number of his daughter who is having twins and she wants a mural painted on the nursery wall. (I've met with her and will send her sketches and a color palette.)

The next morning I had a call from a client wanting an update on her astrology chart. Both these are paying jobs. This mental/emotional approach works!

I've done the chart and have begun planning and research for the mural. . . and am happily expecting more phone calls or emails as I continue the with-the-flow thinking and feeling.

Saundra_M

Creating My World

I'm reminded again how important it is to use creative visualization and emotional investment in creating my reality. What brought this on was because in my imagination, I've been previewing the end of my world as I know it, otherwise known as worrying about my financial situation. It felt like the world was closing in on me.

As an antidote, I decided to re-read the Abraham books for a crash course correction. It's obviously not going to self-correct, so I knew I'd have to do something different. Truth is, I've worried about money since I was a child, taking on the predominant concerns in my family of origin. Old habits of thought and feeling are hard to reroute without a map of the new terrain, and that's what these books provide.

I'm using metaphysical principles to consciously change how I think and feel about money issues. It's like it says in the Bible, "As a man thinks, so is he."

I'd like to take it one level deeper and say "as a man believes, so is he." It's the beliefs that create the reality. Beliefs are simply thoughts held and run so frequently that they become ruts. As I believe myself to be financially impoverish, so I am.

And to move beyond it, I can't just think differently once in a while. I have to take it on, heart and mind: feel myself to be comfortably well off while knowing what's actually in my bank account. It's called "acting as if it were so," but the kicker is it can't be mental pretend. It has to migrate to the emotional matrix.

The next step is to be able to relax with what is, expecting and believing it is changing, without my having to take physical action to force the changes. Now that's a stretch! Long ago, I bought into the dominant belief pattern of most of the world, which says you have to set a goal, plan, work hard and MAKE things happen.

But as Abraham says, "the real work is in changing your vibration," meaning the thought patterns and emotional responses. Further, the book makes it clear that you gauge how far you've progressed by how emotionally comfortable you are. You are looking for emotional relief and ease.

I'm getting there. It's a question of inner attitude and my feeling levels. I have managed to move from chronic anxiety to calm ease, but I still need to get to happy expectation. In the process of making these adjustments, I've learned I can change my emotional responses by changing my attitude toward the offending subjects.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I've had successes in other areas using these principles, and I realized it was time to tackle this one. In the meantime, I highly recommend the Abraham-Hicks material along with the Louise Hay products if you truly want to effect changes in various areas of your life.

Saundra_M