I am deeply disturbed by the present developments within our shared world, within my individual and our collective human consciousness, and the points of connection between the self and other, through language, religion, and philosophies that create oppression, repression, and personal and social disease.
Starting within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about a series of near fatal illnesses, physiological as well as spiritual. I saw how a dark force, common to all of humanity, lived, moved, and had its being enshrined within my own heart and soul. I also saw how the medical, economic, religious, cultural, political, and spiritual traditions had failed to honor my most basic, innermost needs of being valued for my basic essence, and to have my voice listened to, understood, and accepted by those who have that capacity of the Heart.
January 11th of this year, I had my first ‘seizure’. I awoke at 2:45 in the morning, and went into my office and sat down. Suddenly, I lost all ability to move, and to even think, though I remained quite aware during this approximately one minute process. It was then that I became aware of a “black mass” in the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. I became quite concerned by this whole experience, though I kept it to myself initially. Every subsequent time I looked internally, I could still see the dark mass. The next month, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at a friend’s home.
I began to talk about it with my wife, and some friends, and it was theorized that it might be related to something spiritual or psychic in nature. But I came to know it as “death”, at least in a spiritual sense. I saw that there was no negotiating with it. Prayers, meditations, affirmations, reading, talking with others, nothing had any impact on the dark mass. I knew that some sort of spiritual death was coming my way, and I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor (though I did tell my family physician that I feared that I might have a “Debbie Reynolds-Carrie Fisher” event, when I took my ill father to see her about January 1st of this year).
In early March, a friend was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal. Mr M and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his description of his event with my own. I told Mr M that my perception was that Death was making itself known to me, through the dark mass that I could “see” in my own energy field. I hoped that Mr M’s mass did not indicate a death for him.
That next day, Wednesday, at noon, I had another episode of such intensity, and duration, that I dared not even attempt to get up from the couch. I had previously arose from the couch, and briefly lost consciousness, so I was “all shook up”, yet I still had no desire to get a doctor involved. Sharon came home later that afternoon from her creative writing class, and found me quite compromised. She listened to my story, and accepted my decision not to seek further medical attention, since this was perceived as a spiritual crisis, while she offered her own love and care. She monitored my blood pressure, and when she noted when my breathing became shallow, to offer me a paper bag to breathe into, lest I sink into a “panic attack”.
Each time I tried to get off the couch, I became quite dizzy. I continued feeling quite physically subdued, and some sort of anxiety reaction was also happening with my body/mind. I was also losing my ability to talk. It took all of the power that I could muster to force words out. It was reminiscent of a time 31 years before, when I wandered through Portland’s dark underworld community. I had an event that prevented me from speaking, which was probably amphetamine use related. A prominent memory is when I visited a motorcycle gang hit man who i had befriended, who was incarcerated in Clackamas County jail, and I was incapable of speaking with him. My words were frozen in my mind and throat, and I could not talk for two days.
The present time, I actually felt like my consciousness was trying to escape, and it took all of my resources just to hold it together. I characterized this present event to Sharon White as “losing my mind”, while having an almost Neuro-toxic component to it. I did not want anything to do with a neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before. I tried to go about my “normal” activities, while being grateful that I did not have to provide care for my disabled father, whose care that week was taken over by others.
Thursday came, and I had not improved much. It also was the day that Mr. M’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Mr M, and for myself. I went about my limited daily activities as best I could, but I became quite conscious of my own fear and anxiety around Death, both of self, and of other. I continued to listen to the occasional taped “spiritual wisdom” tapes of some of my past teachers, hoping to hear something that might bring me comfort. I listened to a tape made in 1991 by Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, on which said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He wished pain, not peace of mind, to me, and to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to spiritual progress. Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND.
After yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited Sharon to join me. My life’s message was now bubbling up within me, and I felt a compulsion to share it with my world. Yet I also knew that there were few, if any, people presently in my life who had the time, or even the interest, in listening to what Spirit was trying to “pour through me”. As I lay out on the couch, feeling my own emotional/spiritual death about to overtake me, I cried out in despair to Sharon, to please share my message, since I didn’t have the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand.
After a lifetime of experiencing people experiencing me as less of a human being than I am, starting with my own diseased father, followed by a steady progression of angry, sometimes hateful, judgmental male and female power figures (with a few notable exceptions), how could I feel differently? My voice had been silenced, even in settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.
Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. She then stated unequivocally that my message was my own, and must be spoken through me, or not at all. Even my tears, and begging, would not change her mind. I was in such pain and agony, that I knew that I could not go on. But I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver “my message”.
A prayer formed in my mind “Grandfather, Great Spirit, Thank You”. All of a sudden I was COMPELLED to write, and I did not stop the process until fifteen pages of a story poured through me. My Spirit chose the format of a parable, knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me. But the curious ones, the ones who’s inner Spirit had not been yet stymied, would read, and appreciate, this aspect of the message that I felt Compelled to give to my world.
It took less than two days to write, and it was the first story I have ever written. And, the dark mass in my body of energy disappeared. I remain healed of that darkness, though I am forced out of bed frequently now, to contemplate, to explore, to discover, to write, and to share with, the One who listens. Sometimes, I only sleep 3 or 4 hours, and I write until Sharon usually wake at 5 am. I note now that I have “access” to nearly infinite reserves of human energy and my heart has opened up in new creative, POWERFUL ways, allowing access to heretofore unexplored areas of human/Cosmic understanding.
A New Story Needs To Be Told
The fatal flaw with all philosophies touting the coming of a new age of peace and enlightenment is that they fail to embrace a fundamental flaw in human character and reasoning (the flaw which is typically male in nature, with a few exceptions). All “teachers” who promote the “light”, without first addressing the required walk through the personal and collective “darkness”, are offering up shallow containers for those who need to drink deeply from the waters of the Spirit. We are left thirsty, and confused, as to why we do not reach the “promised land” as offered by others who are supposedly “in the know”.
When Jesus of Nazareth stated that “the poor will always be amongst us”, he was talking about those who were poor economically, emotionally, and spiritually. He knew that men repressed their feeling nature, and tried to oppress others who attempted to express it, as well. He was referring to a basic defect in character, or nature, which permeates the intellect of men, and the way men communicate within themselves, and with their external worlds. Men use their philosophies to justify greed and selfishness, and to give themselves permission not to feel for others less fortunate than themselves. He knew that male energy, and all patriarchal cultures, in general, are out of balance, having repressed so much of our basic, human (feminine) nature that we can no longer access our innermost divine/human nature, where all love and healing bubbles up from.
Built right into the very fabric of life, is death itself. Our own cells within our bodies are constantly dying off, and being replaced by others so that we can continue to live, and even evolve (or regress as the situation may dictate). So also should not all of our old thoughts die off, to be replaced by newer, more vibrant creations, if we are to continue to live, and grow, and even evolve?
Women, especially those who have carried the life of “another” in their wombs, know at their deepest level the experience of physical creation, the bringing forth real life into our shared world. It is not just the fertilization of the egg that brings life; it is also the carrying and internal nurturing of the developing fetus for almost nine months, then delivering the viable, complete life form to the world. Women know, at the deepest level, that their babies have ultimate value, regardless of what the “egg fertilizer” might say or do to try to imply otherwise.
It is then that the parents begin to practice whatever are the socially or culturally acceptable norms for raising the child, coupled with their own ‘insight’, from the baby’s birth through its young adulthood. The spiritually unaware male figure, try as he might, never quite catches the “spirit of the creation”, and begins the process of impressing his own disfigured consciousness upon the unsuspecting developing human being. Yes, the “sins of the father” meaning, the errors in spiritual understanding of the entire culture, and the individual father, are inculcated into the baby.
I have had a very painful “rebirth”. Yet, this birth is what I have been looking for my entire life (and, perhaps, many lives, if reincarnation is true-who knows for sure?) I refuse to raise my “New Born Child” according to the established norms of our diseased times. I will use all of my human resources to communicate, as best I can, the unfolding new reality bubbling up within my heart and soul. I will not oppress, or repress, the ever unfolding new reality, of the self that I am, and that I am to become. Toxic Masculinity, Toxic Capitalism, and Toxic Religion are not welcome guests in our home, though they continue to “stand at the door and knock” at the interior doors for all of mankind.
Please save yourself
