A New Easter Sunrise
Over the years, I have become deeply disturbed by the developments within our shared world, within my individual consciousness, and the points of connection between self and other, through language, religion, and philosophy, that have created oppression, repression, and the resultant physical, emotional, and social disease. Starting within myself, I have seen how a lifetime of oppression, and repression, had brought about a sequence of serious 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 in their understanding of humanity, and it’s basic, innermost needs of being valued and listened to.
Virtually all men and women have experienced oppression, repression, and the resultant diseases of the spirit at some point in their lives, and we have been both the victims, and the conscious and unconscious perpetrators, of this behavior. We have all attempted to manage our symptoms in our own unique, yet all too often broken and dysfunctional ways. I have wanted to help myself, my father and several of my male friends, to develop greater insight into these issues over the years, but I did not find a consistent interest being expressed by others in exploring these issues with me. But my friend Marty did begin to show great interest in my Facebook posts beginning late in 2016, and this opened the door to a different level of sharing between the two of us. Concurrently, by this point in time, all other women and men had either ceased responding to my Facebook posts, save my wife and my friend Jim H., or had stopped following or unfriended me.
Together, Marty and I shared over twenty years in a couple’s group (three couples who were long term friends), many weekend trips, nights out for dinner and entertainment, and then the book club that we also shared together for the last several years, Marty and I were quite friendly with each other, yet rarely spoke at great length or depth, or showed extraordinary interest in developing a deeper friendship apart from our wives. I noted how his wife organized and dominated his life over the years that I had known him, and how she would all too often speak for him, or even verbally run over him in group meetings. It was common knowledge that when his wife was present, Marty would not consistently reveal himself and his own story, and he would instead defer to his wife through his silence. My own experience of his wife was that she was usually quite willing to listen to what I had to say initially, then she would often fill whatever empty space appeared with herself, rather than wait for me to finish my story and whatever message I might be trying to deliver. At this point, much like Marty, all further talk from me would end, and I would just listen to her, no matter what important items I might have to share with her or the group that we might be attending together..
This brings me to January 11th of 2017, when 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”, almost the size of a golf ball, in the left portion of the brain area of my inner field of body awareness. This was the first time that I had awareness of the energy field of my body since July of 1987, when I had my first, and only, experience of detecting my own “life energy field”. 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. In February, I had yet another seizure, this time much milder, and in a public setting, while playing cards at Jim’s, who was a mutual friend of both of us (and another member of the couple’s group).
I did not talk about the seizures, or the black mass, initially, because I thought that I might be losing my mind. I later began talking about it with my wife, and two 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 seemed to have any impact upon the dark mass. I knew that some sort of death was coming my way, though I felt little need to discuss it with a doctor. I did tell my family doctor that I feared that my own death might precede my father’s, when I took my ill father to see her about January 4th of 2017..
On March 5, 2017 Marty suffered a major seizure and was hospitalized at OHSU. , Marty had been in a four year recovery phase from malignant melanoma, a process first diagnosed in late 2012. He appeared to have been successfully treated with Interleuken II therapy, a powerful immunotherapy regimen. Now, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. My wife Sharon and I visited him two days prior to its surgical removal. Marty and I talked about our seizures, and I was struck by the similarity of his seizures with my own, though mine were relatively tame by comparison. I told Marty 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 was also beginning to see a relationship between our problems, but I was hesitant to tell Marty about it, though I told him that I hoped that his brain 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 for two days I had an event that prevented me from speaking during a portion of my trip through the underworld. I lost my voice for two days when confronted with the reality that there were dangerous people I was associating with, and this fact had finally, and powerfully, struck home with me.
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 almost losing my mind, while having an almost neurotoxic component to it. I did not want anything to do with another neurological exam, having been through that horror several years before, when I had experienced excruciating headaches. 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 Marty’s tumor was being removed. I had dual concerns, for Marty, 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. Well, I listened to Jack Boland, a nationally renowned speaker and master of the recovery process. I owned a tape where he referred to me personally, said he knew me, probably better than I knew myself. He then stated that he wished pain, not peace of mind, to all who had not yet fulfilled their interior spiritual obligation to cleanse their hearts, as this is the great precursor to any lasting spiritual progress . Those who understand this statement UNDERSTAND. And here I thought that I had already performed that process! How wrong I was.
Thursday evening came, and after yet another nearly sleepless night, I got up and sat in the family room, and awaited for Sharon to join me . My life’s message was 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 believe that I had the capacity to deliver it in a way that others could hear, or understand.
Sharon looked at me with acceptance, love, and compassion. Sharon had been listening to my story for close to thirty years, and she had witnessed me sitting on my voice for most of that time. 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 with my life in any kind of healthy way, and I did not know what to do.
I had the experience of a lifetime of 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 very notable exceptions, and I did not know how to act or feel differently. My voice had been silenced by myself and others, even in many settings where spiritually aware, conscious people gathered to celebrate ‘connection’.
This loving act on Sharon’s part by refusing to speak for me was instrumental in the recovery of my ability to speak and to write. I could not let myself die again emotionally and spiritually, so I asked my Spirit how to best deliver my message. A prayer from my past, first created from a dream in 1992, formed in my mind and began with “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, perhaps knowing that it would be discarded, without reading, by those who already believed that they knew me. But the curious ones, the ones who had an inner Spirit that had not been yet stymied, would read, and appreciate, this aspect of the message that I now 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. I was never a writer, and before recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, most of the insight that I had was irrelevant to recovery and healing, and certainly was not worth “writing home about”. While hospitalized for a month in 1984 for alcoholism, the journal that I was required to write about my daily insights seemed to be written by our society asking for permission to continue to be dysfunctional, rather than me getting in touch with my pain, and making progress with healing. People pleasing stories may be easier to read and write, but they sure lose their allure when one finally decides to move into the neighborhood of truth and real insight into self.
The dark mass in my body of energy disappeared upon completion of my story, coincidentally at about the same time that Marty’s tumor had been surgically removed. To this day, I remain healed of that darkness, though I am forced out of bed frequently now, to write, and to share with, the One who listens. Yes, I have finally learned that I need to listen to myself, more than just listening to other “authorities”. Some nights, I may only sleep 3 or 4 hours, and so I get out of bed to write until my wife Sharon awakens at 5 am.
As a result of this process, I had an insight that is extremely difficult to talk with others about, an insight about my relationship with Marty and his disease in the final year of his life. I saw how I had become attuned to Marty on a psychic level. Some have called this connection radical empathy, some have called it telepathic, some have called it just plain fucking mysterious, and some would call it insane thinking on my part. For me, this is a natural outcome of “prayer” as I defined it earlier following my experience with Gary Johnson of my electrical apprenticeship program.
Somehow, Marty’s structure of consciousness, his ego mind, part of his sense of self had been transmitted to me, and I “felt his presence” within my own sensitive, susceptible consciousness through my love, compassion, and concern for the man. This is how I was able to sense the dark, golf ball sized mass in my own brain. It was not my cancer, it was Marty’s. And I was also finally able to articulate the forces of oppression and repression within both of us for the first time. I never had the capacity to communicate around the two “black holes” or tricksters, revealed by the teaching from the Master on July 21, 1987, that were embedded within my own field of consciousness before this time. Somehow, through the mapping of Marty onto my peace of mind, a bridge of words was created to describe the vast matrix whose complete description had eluded me for all of these years. The light of my own awareness, shown through Marty’s matrix of consciousness, created the shadows, or words, words that ached to reach from the unknown to the knowing parts of myself.
During this period of time, Sharon and I attended Matthew Fox’s Cosmic Christ Workshop in Tacoma, in April 2017. After Friday evening’s seminar about mysticism with the Master Spiritual Teacher, Matthew Fox, we returned to our hotel room, to rest up for the next morning’s follow-up workshop on the Cosmic Christ. I had quite the deep, peaceful sleep, which lasted six hours for me. Prior to awakening, I had a most interesting, powerful dream. What was/is fascinating about this dream is how absolutely awake I was, while having the dream.
In the dream, I opened a door, and walked into a room that was well lit. The room seemed neither familiar, or unfamiliar to me. Inside of the room there was a man standing, who was also neither familiar or unfamiliar to me, as well. He greeted me, holding a cup out to me in his hand. He gently offered it to me, and for a moment I considered what it’s contents might be. I then knew that if I drank from it, I would become “intoxicated”, but of a different nature that was still consistent with the path of “sobriety” I currently walked upon. I then noticed a table, where an opened map laid open upon it. The man walked with me to the table, still holding the cup.
I looked at the map, and it was a topographic style map, similar to what I might use for traveling and/or hiking with. There were two distinct areas to it. The path or road, on the right side of the map, had only one dark, solid line drawn from the bottom to the top of the map. But, the section on the left side of the map had several dotted lines that only remotely “paralleled” the route on the right side of the map. I had no judgement about each of the path styles, yet I remained curious about the several dotted line paths, which intersected each other, while also “snaking” their unique individual routes up the map. I noted also that the “dotted line” paths also did not ever cross the path of the solid, dark line, though all of the paths had no distinct starting, or end point.
At the Cosmic Christ workshop Saturday morning, Matthew asked if anyone had a dream that they wanted to share in the big group. Not being a “realized person”, I felt uncomfortable sharing the dream. But when it came time for a break, I took a book to Matthew for signing, and shared my dream with him. He refused to tell me what it might mean, but he had a smile on his face, and told me to let it tell me it’s meaning.
On our drive home, Sharon took controls of the car, and I started telling her the dream again. It was then that the horripilations began in earnest, and the full meaning came through me. A complete mystical understanding, and teaching, was built into that dream, and it was then I realized that I had indeed drunk from the cup of the Spirit. Yes, I became quite “intoxicated” with Spirit, and I knew then that we had truly been blessed again by the Master Teacher. I was later to finally realize that this “map” was how I was supposed to represent my life’s story, in the form of a book to be written by me.
This dream was a complete spiritual teaching, and for that, Great Spirit, I thank you, and my gratitude to you will be expressed through the life that you live through me, for now and all time to come. Yes, mysticism, the heart of all vibrant, evolving religions, also can be a personal reality. It is not, however, for those clinging to structured understandings of life.
We met with Marty and his wife at Marco’s restaurant one day on the week following the workshop. Marty’s recovery from the surgery to remove the brain cancer was going well. I continued to carry a sense of the Transcendence, it was as if a higher vibration of being was carrying me, and my powers of insight, awareness, understanding, love, and compassion were at their peak. At our lunch the group was to discuss options for hiking in the future, among other activities for sharing friendship activity. Sensing his own death may be close, Marty wanted to engage in activity that he had delayed over the years. He wanted to prepare to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, so our discussion revolved around that activity.
Yet, we also came to discuss the Cosmic Christ workshop. I wanted to speak from the energy that was uplifting me, and the amazing dream that I had, but Marty’s wife made sure to dominate the discussion. Even when I tried to share some of the teachings, she grabbed her phone, and started Googling information, the very information that was being delivered from me. It was typical of her, and it was offensive. I understood at a very deep level what Marty experienced with this woman, and my heart opened at a much deeper level for Marty.
On a late April couple’s group meeting at Marty’s home, I was able to talk about my experience of “transcendent energy” for the first time with Marty, with Jim also present for the discussion. Marty’s wife had disappeared into the back bedroom with Jim’s wife for awhile, so we were able to talk at length about a subject that Marty’s wife would have balked at, or run over with her own knowledge or Google obtained information. Marty was genuinely interested in what I had to say, as well as what I had to say about the potential for spiritual healing. His own father had a spiritual experience prior to his death, and Marty wanted to have a taste of the divine experience, if possible, in the lead up to his own death. I promised Marty a copy of a meditation that I had prepared, based on the spiritual experience I had on July 21, 1987. I text messaged to Marty the following day, after a remarkable dream.
Text message to Marty
I hope that the guided meditation will be of some benefit to you.
Meditation Experiment–As a direct result of the “transcendent experience” of July 21, 1987, I developed a “thought experiment” for you, Marty. This is a both a teaching, and an interior journey, and it might be useful for accessing the One Real Teacher, which lies deep within all of us.
This is my own unique verbal bridge, from the deepest part of myself (which is non-verbal in nature) to my conscious mind, and will not work for most others, who must make their own personal ‘direct connection’.
This is only a template, to be filled in by your own unique journey towards Truth. It only points in a direction, and this ‘meditation’ is definitely not for everybody.
THE MEDITATION
After quieting the body by sitting down comfortably, let us breathe consciously, and deeply, for a few breaths. Usually, the following of our breathing will quiet the mind a bit, which is important if this “experiment” is to bring any results.
Let’s now ask of our self if we are ready to listen for the truth of the moment. Are we willing to travel to a new place in consciousness, and conscious awareness, that perhaps we have never traveled to before?
Ask our self if we can “let go of all thought controls” that keep us in the past, that keep us in judgement of self, or other, that keep us from experiencing a deeper appreciation for what this moment might be able to bring to us?
Now visualize for a moment that we are driving a car, heading to a direction that we feel quite familiar with. Before arriving at the usual destination, ask our self what would happen if we just “LET GO OF THE CONTROLS”, even if it is for just one moment?
Is it possible?
Keep trying, until we can see our self actually letting go of the steering wheel. As we let go of the steering wheel, imagine, now, that the car “disappears” that was around us, and find that we are now being carried into some new, as yet, unexplored realm of experience.
If it is still familiar territory in our interior visual field, we will need to restart the thought experiment, or just give up altogether on this particular thought experiment, and find a different path to the interior dimensions.
If we have “LET GO OF THE CONTROLS”, we are now finding that we are being “guided” by a “teacher” or a “messenger”, who has not revealed who or what it is, what kind of form it might take, or why it might, or might not, exist for us in this new moment.
Yet we know that there is no need for fear, even though we are now being “guided” into a complete mystery, and “unknowable” experience.
There is a sense of exhilaration, because we are no longer secured to our “body of knowledge” anymore, which may also feel like we are having an “out of body” event.
We are free, yet we do not yet know what we are being liberated from. Stay in this “unknowing state”, while still being “guided by our inner teacher”.
We now pass by an amazing, infinite array of interconnected, interlocking “membranes”, which are neither “light” nor “dark”.
We seem to “float through, and then underneath” this web of “who knows what?” – then we reach a place of absolute still, and calm. {Much more will be revealed later, when we have developed the interior fortitude to face our individual and collective demons}
If we are really “there”, we find a silence, which is so quiet, and peaceful, that it may “startle” us initially, yet we quickly settle into it, and appreciate its essence and nature.
A “voice” may appear within our now quiet minds, and may begin to speak “through us” rather than “to us”. We will become the mouthpiece for a teaching, or a message, that we have never heard before, yet we are willing messengers for this new moment.
We begin to recognize an incredibly happy, joyful, laughing voice, and we know we are right where we are supposed to be, in a state that is so natural, and normal.
We might wonder why it was so “unknown” in our past, but we save all questions for later, so as not to miss the rest of the experience.
“Follow the new paths of consciousness” we hear, and speak within our hearts and minds simultaneously, directly and powerfully to ‘our self’.
“No teacher can give to us our salvation, we must work it out for our self”.
“Think no thoughts, especially time based thoughts (memories) about the “you”, as any “YOU”, cannot ever be real here”.
“To return to the “UNKNOWN”, we must eliminate all time based thoughts about our self, and “THE OTHER”.
We now know that this moment, outside of time, has all of the information that we will ever need, and does not need our input to reveal itself and its real, eternal nature.
As the “teaching” ends, we are shown those forces which have attached themselves to our energy fields, which provide “companionship” yet they provide no lasting spiritual value, and will inhibit our future growth and development.
FURTHER FRUITS FROM THE TREE OF LIFE
Be easy on our self, as it will not be immediately obvious what the nature and purpose of these inner/interpersonal forces are.
They served a purpose, yet they will have to leave. But, first, we have meet them directly, to get to know them better, while further dealing directly with our “conscious” world, and the life we live in it.
Welcome to our Real individual, and collective, self. There is no room here for “you and me”, “us and them”, there is only room for the ONE.
This will trouble us greatly when we return to our ‘normal’ consciousness from this experiment. This is normal, and we will learn from the tension created by this dynamic.
Eventually we learn that we dream through the “collective” mind of mankind, and the “collective” also dreams through us. Yet there is also One Other Option, which has eluded most of Mankind.
As we travel back to this place, over and over, over many years, if necessary, we find what we have always been looking for.
We also find what has been holding back the rest of mankind for all of time. Many of the very structures of thought that have been ‘worshiped’ or unconsciously accepted are seen to be the source of the Shadow within mankind’s heart and soul.
This journey is not for those who want to continue to just worship the past, and all of its dead thoughts, and heroes.
This thought experiment is a technique for shaking the mind free, even if just for a moment, from its lifetimes of its ‘knowns’ or certainties.
Truth does not come into a mind that has already been crystallized into a structure that does not permit curiosity, and insight.
If we are sincerely seeking Truth, prepare for a real shock. If our minds have not been shocked, we have not yet met our goal.
“YOU WILL FIND WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR”, just don’t give up looking before the Real miracle appears, OK?
Otherwise, we will only find a continuation of our past, as it extends into an all too familiar future.
The gap between self and other is the source for all judgement, hatred, and illusion. That gap is the “YOU”, which is only a mental creation, and “YOU” can never be real, in any absolute sense. As I look out from the place where I stand in life, as far as I will ever see, until eternity, is my self.
How will I see my self today? “I will find what I am looking for”.
“God” laughs WITH us, when we finally recognize the insanity of our perceptions, and allow love and healing to fill in the space between “YOU” and me.
If we seek truth, beauty, and wonder with all of our heart, we will find what we are looking for.
“The Devil” laughs AT us, when we don’t, and we all suffer accordingly.
A happy, spiritually healthy life involves tuning into what I really want to find, for in the tuning, there is a turning. Then, all that we will ever see, unto eternity, is our real Self.
As the wise ones advise: To change my world, I first change myself.
I anticipate that the process will take a bit of time to work so that it is apparent to you. Daily, or hourly, practice might be appropriate, unless your spirit tells you otherwise. We are all blessed by our sharing last evening, so thanks to you and Eddy for providing a wonderful setting for all of us.
Now Marty, to bring you up to the present, I awoke this morning at 2:45 am, and I had a profound “sense of the presence”, whatever that means. I could almost feel all of us gathered together again, and I asked for the “blessing” for all of us. I have no concrete proof if such an internal process actually reaches anybody outside of my “field”, but I then entered a dream state, and something profound occurred.
I dreamed that we were all together in some sort of noisy “industrial plant”, and there was an electrical system that needed reconditioning. As I awoke, I was “told” that your security lock needed to be removed from the “electrical panel” that I was working on (me, with you and Sharon witnessing).
I was wearing sound proof headsets, to protect me from the “industrial noise”. I also observed others who had already performed their “work”, noting the discards in the nearby “dumpster”. I also saw how I needed to integrate my actions with their work, though it felt like we might be getting into each others’ way at times.
Symbolically to me, it is obvious what my subconscious was communicating with me.
Letting go of the controls, trusting in “the process” and turning over our “work” to “others”, even if for a moment, is difficult while being overwhelmed with the daily “noise of the mind” and the activities of our lives, and threats to our health and well-being. But, even if we succeed in “getting the work done”, whatever that means, and how it might express itself, we have to suspend our fear and lack of trust in the process, as we still have to turn over the “operation” to others (trust in a higher power within our isolated self and its limiting ideas, all the while knowing that power resides within our heart and soul).
Marty, you have a resistance to your own healing. You must remove the self-protective mechanisms and controls that you, and perhaps your wife, have layered over your consciousness for many years, or, perhaps, for your entire life. These controls lock you out of your own greater good. The very state of consciousness that made the melanoma possible, and helped support its presence and growth, is still embedded within your mind and heart. Infusions and medications, though potentially helpful, alone will not get the job done. If the supporting structure embedded within your ego is not dramatically altered, or transformed, then the conditions for the continuation of the growth and spread of the cancer have not been sufficiently altered either.
My “higher power” has ultimate confidence in you, and sees the absolute present beauty of who you are, how you are “innocent” and Not Responsible for this melanoma wounding, and it has also seen the wonderful potential for your future life. Once again, there are no guarantees, but I see this for you.
I plan on living into this dream with you, for a long time to come, Marty.
Thanks again for a wonderful evening,
Blessings to you!
Marty was able to maintain good health for only a few more weeks. I gave to him a copy of a meditation that I had created, but it had little positive impact for Marty. My intention was to help him release his understanding of who he was, and for him to have an experience of his divine nature at the deepest, most healing levels. Marty was a man of highest intellect, character, moral and ethical integrity, yet he had not ever experienced the release of his great creation, his ego, into the great Unknown, though he certainly desired to reach that place in consciousness.
Marty, Sharon, and I went hiking to Dog Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge, on the Washington side, about three weeks later. Marty had just started on a new targeted drug therapy, with the hopes that the drug would keep the metastatic cancer at bay. We took our time hiking this great, challenging hike, and Marty persevered, and made it through the hike with great spirits. He was so encouraged by his performance that it was only natural for all of us to begin the preparation for a great Pacific Crest Trail hike, to fulfill one of Marty’s dreams.
Two days later, he began losing all use of his left leg and arm, and then became wheelchair bound. It was postulated that he was experiencing a reaction to the new medication, Keytruda, which caused unexpected inflammation of his brain, and damage to his nervous system. The potential metastases to his brain had already caused concern to Marty and his wife, with the fear that it would impinge on his sense of self, and on his competent, highly intelligent, insightful, loving mind. Yet at this stage, Marty remained fully present.
Dying, death, and transformation continued to be a subject of interest to Marty, but now it took on a special urgency. Because of the complications of the medicine, Marty lost much of his treasured independence. He lost the desire to scan Facebook for any insight into his friends or the concerns of the day, as all of his energy became devoted to just getting through the day with as much peace of mind, and with as little chaos, as is possible under the absolutely overwhelming conditions of his declining life. We all gave up on the idea of hiking, lest he somehow regain his physical function again. He was prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine to help reduce the brain swelling which had caused his disability, and he continued on anti-seizure medicine, just in case.
Marty communicated to me his sense of being inarticulate, in relation to the new experiences of his deteriorating state brought about by metastatic melanoma, and the encroachment upon his critical brain centers which had already begun. A life transitioning from being
highly engaged with the culture and the world, and immensely supportive of his wife while doing so,
physically healthy and active,
spiritually, intellectually and technologically stimulating and expressive,
at times exciting and challenging,
occasionally joyous, and,
regularly immersed in family and social interaction,
to one that is
physically inactive, and almost home bound,
threatened with the loss of intellectual competence,
challenging in anxiety producing ways, and
humiliating, depressing, and emotionally painful, and
without normal joy and hope for the future, and
devoid of physical intimacy with the wife,
immersed in family connections, but now not under the old rules, and
a myriad of other less than happy adjectives,
And, then attempting to describe the changing experience, while still in the middle of it, is a most difficult proposition.”
A story came to my mind after our morning’s meditation, of which I sent to Marty in text message form, and I include parts of it here as a small record of our journey together. The message is as follows:
“Marty, all of your descriptors are perfect, and they will change, as you change. While in meditation, the following images came to my mind:
Life can be like a lifelong adventure hike (perhaps the Pacific Crest Trail of everyday life?). On one side of the trail we are witnessing the unbroken beauty of nature and of our own wholeness and connection to it, and the joy of unfettered movement of an innocent mind and healthy body while walking through the magic and mystery of the unknown. Yet, on the other side of the trail, a wicked forest fire has erupted, obscuring our view, threatening our safety and freedom, and taking us out of the beauty and wonder of the new moment. Its flames are now, more than gently, lapping at our back side, burning away at our past, burning away at our clothing, at all of our hidings and holdings, and at all the knowledge and memories that we cling to, and hold so dear.. When you search for names to characterize this process, I understand at the deepest level why it is hard giving it a new name, or calling it “good” or perfect while still being so painfully “burned” by one aspect of it.
Losing independence in life and in decision making is a most difficult proposition.
Losing the ability to get out of bed and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night by oneself can be demoralizing.
Losing the ability to plan for the day to day exigencies of life can make one feel less than empowered.
Losing the sense of intimacy with one’s partner, who is now more or less the primary caregiver, and not the lover, feels a bit like love has abandoned us for now.
Losing strength and mobility, and being dependent on another for all movement around the house, and now, around all of life, feels like life is almost stripping us of our dignity.
Losing control of one’s bladder and bowels, and wearing supplemental underwear, and the insertion of pads onto our beds to trap our incontinence, can feel like adding insult to injury.
Losing the use of the left arm and leg, and then not having others respect one’s sense of loss, feels like the world has become insensitive to all suffering individuals.
Losing the desire to keep living on dying’s terms, while all of the other losses kept accumulating and accelerating, can make the thought and actions related to Death With Dignity an attractive option.
Yet, your journey, with this measure of suffering becoming folded into it, is part of humanity’s unbroken wholeness, of which we all remain a most treasured, though challenged, part of. Can you begin to trust that Love itself is always guiding, and coming out in its many new, challenging forms? Love is soon to become your new and only garment, and any holding back will only increase your pain.
Marty, our hike on the path continues, and the “forest fire” always burns (it burns for all of us). Hope and expectancy tells us to keep walking, because the “view ahead is always changing”. But, what was our past continues to burn away in uncertain and many times anxiety producing ways. Around one of those next bends in the trail, there is only the unknown, bringing whatever is to come. And, also around that same bend, the “fire” will have burned away all that is unlike your true nature, revealing who you were “in the beginning, before the World was”. Giving it a name is the challenge unique to all of us. The articulate ones write great books, and attract lots of attention to their words. You don’t need that.
There are already many fine works available for the curious to read on the subject of death and dying, but your life is now your greatest teacher. Now that we finally have realized that facts and knowledge alone are not enough support to make all of life’s decisions with, we can willingly enter through the doorways to a new spiritual awakening, populated by creativity, intuition, and insight, where transcending many of the troubling aspects of the ego, and finally accepting the inevitable deaths of our bodies, becomes more likely.
Transformation, and death, can be so closely related that many people have profound spiritual experiences on the final stretch of their life’s path. Yes, I had a “death” 31 years ago, and people who knew me before the change, and then afterward (and who were not my direct family members) witnessed them. I was accused of being a “walk-in” by a friend from the 90’s (one of those “new age friends” I met in one of our men’s group meetings from Living Enrichment Center), and I too was at a loss of words to articulately describe the death and dying process that I went through, let alone this subsequent “resurrection” that I am currently living through.
Thank you for reaching out to me in your time of greatest need. I am honored that you regard me as “the best thing you have done recently” when you got me to become involved in the OHSU Men’s Cancer Survivor’s Writing Class with you. To have a published author and Dr. in Philosophy, a highly intelligent and sensitive facilitator and several others over the past few years giving mutually positive, life affirming feedback on all of our creative writings, rather than the mixed bag that many have grown accustomed to receiving in our normal life experiences, is a revelation of sorts. Thank you for honoring and respecting the words that we all write, and the words that we directly speak to each other. Thank you for involving me in a process where I can listen with my heart and mind at the deepest level to those creative urges and surges that we all share in. Thank you for allowing me into a process where I can give you extra love and attention, and draw you away from the trials and tribulation around the home long enough to give you a sense of release, and relief.
You and me, we are both on the same path, though I experience it differently right now than you do. I “die daily to all that was myself”, through a process of personal inventory, mindfulness, and insight, though small parts of the old me pops up and reminds me that I am still human, and part of this glorious mess that we call humanity. Yet, right now, what seems to be different between us is that I have, more or less, a fairly secure sense of continuity between the past and the present, and I still experience the “illusion of control”. Of course, your fine engineering mind rebels at all thought of loss of control, even while personally witnessing the dramatic effects of that powerfully humbling experience.
It is really messed up to finally find ones place in life, one’s most healthy relationships with new and old friends and family, where healing and acceptance FINALLY reside, TO FEEL LIKE WE HAVE FINALLY BEEN INVITED TO LIFE’S PARTY, AND THAT WE TRULY BELONG, and then have a disease process creating conditions that feels like a rug is being yanked out from under us, the very rug that sustains our connections, and our future. It can feel, at times, like life itself is rejecting us, while our body continues the profound ejection process of our life force.
I parked myself on the outside of humanity for much of my early life, because I never saw or felt the welcome mat set out for me, by my early experiences of family, or many of my early relationships. And I was not skilled enough to create a welcome mat for myself among the diverse groups of people that I met through school and work in my “pre-30 year old” life. Most relationships with males were troubled, and too many men seemed to be dominated by the aspect of the Common Knowledge Game that included judging all others unlike ourselves as bad, ignorant, stupid, ugly, and undeserving of further positive regard, unless there was some obvious economic or personal power gain to be made from the relationship. I gravitated towards girls as friends, as a child, and then women as a maturing human, as they did not play the “put down” game so profoundly as my male peers and authority figures did (at least the women I met and befriended did not). I clung like a drowning swimmer to an inner tube to any male friendship where I was accepted, more or less, for who I was, without having to accomplish superhuman feats of accomplishment to just “fit in”.
Toxic Masculinity is the cause of so much suffering in the world, and the cause of some of our own suffering, and, at times, I am still repulsed by the baseness, cruelty, and ignorance of many males. The spawn of Toxic Masculinity is Toxic Religion and Toxic Capitalism, and thus the whole world suffers with us. I will try not to get too political, but the election of the POTU$ was a gut/sucker punch to us. We have been victimized by this type of male energy, as well as most women and children (though many do not understand the “following the herd” and the sexual dynamics behind it), and, when I was younger and more unconscious, I probably victimized others with my “masculinity” as well.
My past unwillingness to talk or write much stems from being shut down for much of my life, by others who did not want to listen, or did not have the time to care, and my unconscious involvement with the Common Knowledge Game, where I let the opinions of others, or my perceptions of the opinions of others (another deadly creative twist of the illusory mind) drive my own unique expression nearly into the grave. Your story of your relationship with your father resonated with parts of my own past, and self-esteem issues certainly arose through our fathers’ own lack of insight, and limited ability to be emotionally present in supportive, meaningful ways.
Thanks you for caring, and for listening with your heart. And know that I give to you all that I am, and all that I have, as well. I hear you, Marty, and I know that there is much challenge ahead for you. Yet, “ahead” will not be done in isolation, or away from your family, and your friends. The miracle for both of us is how our hearts merged at this most troubling of times. This is one of the “great unknowns to be experienced” around each bend of our life’s path. You will experience many more “great unknowns”, as the release process continues.
I will walk with you, in freedom, to whatever extent we can,
I walk with you, in pain, while we must,
I will walk with you into the unknown, where we will eventually recognize nothing but Spirit, as we release ourselves from our bondage to our deteriorating minds and bodies,
I no longer will burden you with thought experiments for personal transcendence.
I will no longer advocate for prayer or meditation for you, nor will I withhold from you any potential benefit derived through my own relationship to those processes,.
I will walk with you into death, each in our own time, and in our own way,
I will integrate part of my individual destiny with your own, and, ultimately, join with Destiny itself.
I am grateful to have you as a friend. I am also grateful to share with you in the good intentions and prayers of our spiritually inclined/religious friends and family.” We all mean well, perhaps with some of us needing more targeted training in supporting you in the way that has the deepest meaning and significance for you.
It is quite appropriate that my wife, Sharon, chose for her lone published book the title
“Whose Death Is It, Anyway?”
It is all of ours (end of letter)
I began to accompany Marty to his Men’s Cancer Survivor Support Group creative writing group, through OHSU, in late June. Marty had wanted for me to join it several years earlier, but I never felt that I had anything to write about, even though I was also a malignant melanoma survivor, and I could not justify going there because of it. But now that Marty needed friendship and support, I felt honored to join with him, and to share some writing time with him and his writer’s support group.
Marty communicated to me, during our weekly drives to the Men’s Cancer Support Creative Writing Group at Oregon Health Sciences University, that he and his wife were having insurmountable issues with their relationship. They no longer were intimate, and had not been for quite some time, and Marty struggled to feel love or affection for his wife anymore. He wanted a divorce, yet was powerless to do anything about it, since he has been so severely weakened by his malignant melanoma, and its effects on his mind and body. He believed that his wife is insane, and I find it hard to disagree with him, based on my own observations. Marty was starting to have some unexpected hallucinations, where he would wake up from his sleep, and yet his dream world would continue into his “waking world” for awhile after waking up. He and his son and daughter-in-law wanted him to be relocated to a neutral care facility, where he can receive high quality care, and not be exposed to his distressed and neurotic/psychotic wife. His wife insisted that if Marty is moved, she will move into wherever he is relocated to, and sleep next to him on the ground, if necessary. Marty felt trapped, and also felt that the cancer treatment that he was now receiving will have no positive outcomes, so he needed to plan for his own assisted suicide through the Death with Dignity process.
Near the end of August, Marty related to me how it would be better to die quickly, so that more money would be available for his wife after his death. I was shocked and surprised by his lack of self-worth, and I called him on that. I told him that even if he needed to be relocated to a professional care facility, or to a hospice house like the Hopewell House, the money spent would be minimal, compared to the substantial amount that he had accumulated through sales of homes and properties. HE WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY THAT HE SPENT ON HIMSELF. Marty just could not accept that. He had already spent $840 on his end of life drugs, and he felt that the amount spent on the medication would also continue to be a financial burden upon his wife. He also stated that to continue to live would be to only add to his wife’s nightmare of her own distress and insanity. He stated that he had to die, so that she could live. Now, I was distressed, and I felt like I was a helpless witness to a self-imposed crucifixion process
His wife considered herself a minister, and a teacher, and a leader, for those on “the spiritual path”, and she had this understanding of herself for close to thirty years. She was quite the planner, and was also studious, and read everything readily available to support her knowledge, or need for knowledge, in areas revolving around her main concerns in life, or in her teaching arenas. She had quite the rigid understanding of the facts, and, in fact, her “facts” became her idols, of which she trusted, at the exclusion of any teaching, or learning, that those around her might try to impart to her, either unintentionally, or through a need to help her to see more clearly. She was pretty specific about who she would accept her “facts” from, as well, always seeking authority figures, and not fully trusting anybody who did not already have an established reputation. She had little or no sense of humor, and was devoid of all capacity to embrace the “unknown” or the present moment, as it fruitlessly tried to present itself to her every moment of her existence.
When her husband began his dying process, I became actively involved in her life, and their shared life, on a level that I never anticipated I would. A defining story came near the end of her husband’s life, when I was providing care for him up to two times per week. She rattled on endlessly about how to best care for her husband, even though I was already an established help mate, and quite successfully navigating the unknowns, and the difficulties, with his care. Her husband became quite unhappy with her care for him, and he considered her incompetent, and uncaring, and he informed me that he wanted a divorce from her, as she was so “insane”, and there presently was little or no love being shared between them. Yet he was helpless, and powerless to do anything about it, as his fading life force had removed all options for change for him.
Yet, she would not stop her irritating teaching mode of existence, forcing me to finally confront her.
“Please stop trying to teach me about stuff that I don’t need to know, or don’t want to learn? Can’t you trust that your husband and I are successfully navigating these difficult times together, and that we can manage without your endless control?”
“Oh, Bruce, you are just going to have to treat this like it is an AA meeting. I have to give you this teaching, as I have no choice. Just continue to listen until I am complete, and then take what you like from it, and leave the rest.”
“Actually, I don’t want or need any of your teaching, or your lessons. You teach fear, and distrust of me, as well as the Unknown, and i have grown weary of your intellectually dominating behavior, as has your husband. Please get into your car, and leave for a while, so that we can all breathe a little easier.”
It only took me 23 years to speak my truth to this knowledge dominatrix. My love for her husband, and my attention to his needs and greater good, took precedence over my own feelings of inadequacy in confronting his wife about her terror of death, and her alienating, crazy making communication style. Her spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest I lapse into deeper degrees of anxiousness, powerlessness, and unreality. Confronting a difficult reality takes more energy than most of us care to bring to the table, yet, not doing so diminishes our own standing in Truth, Life, and Love, and that was my experience up to that point.
In the absolute, All that we ever see, unto eternity, is our own self. As I look upon the world, and all of my relationships with the people, the land, the animals, and inner and outer space, I see an evolving landscape that demands collaboration and involvement by ALL PEOPLES, and representation for those beings who do not have a voice in such matters. This is a landscape that demands that I make my own unique impression upon it. I must first confront the demons within my own mind and heart before I strike out against the “outer world”, lest I project unhealed images and intentions upon the unsuspecting population.
I had very poor training since birth in how to successfully navigate group energy, up to, and including, the whole of society that we all participate in. As a boy, when family discussions turned into arguments, many times I found myself either raising my voice against the angry voice of my father, or retreating into submission and fear at the threat of being attacked for being contrary to the flow. And, I internalized that I was probably wrong anyway, and would be punished if I stepped out and asserted myself too much. I learned that I could undertake less obvious means of rebelling against authority, sometimes through indirect, or obvious, self, or other, destructive behavior.
Passive/aggressive tendencies have haunted me most of my entire life, and becoming “self-aware” has gone a long way to keep me from employing those unskilled coping mechanisms unconsciously, though I am still occasionally haunted by their presence. Having undertaken the inner work of insight, and maintaining mindfulness, and identified those sources of suffering within myself, does not instantaneously remove all of the darkness within. But is also does not remove from me the responsibility to call out those who are the external agents of oppression and repression, no matter how much I might love them or want to protect them, or even to protect myself from the ramifications of asserting what is right, true, or proper in any situation.
So I spoke out, and she actually consciously and considerately listened to me. She still felt obligated to give me the latest details on Marty’s care, even though I did not need them. I continued to help with small tasks around their home, once or twice a week. I continued to attend, and participate with him in, the men’s cancer survivor writing group at OHSU, until two weeks before his assisted suicide. Of course, my survival from melanoma went much better than his, as mine has not yet metastasized, and hopefully will not in the future.
I came to deeply miss the only man who responded to my philosophically challenging Facebook posts. My heart aches for the married couple Sharon and I have shared so many outdoor adventures and community memories with over the last 25 years. Somehow the disease in our shared lives, and individual lives, and our own inability to transcend their emotional and spiritual impacts, led to another form of death, the end to our friendship.
Love goes before all of us “to make the crooked places straight”, but while chaos’s clouds obscure the view, it is hard to see the path. Being open to each moment as it unfolds in its own unique way, and being present with self through insight clears the fog, and keeps the door open to love’s unfolding mystery. But, It remains a mystery to me, how to plan for and successfully navigate the rivers of life that carry us into death. Reading more books, and gathering more information, is not going to get the job done for me. I try to remain open to the mystery, though it still troubles my heart. I may never heal of that, but miracles are still possible.
Death really sucks for those with much life left to live, period. I am not fooled by the promises of a “reward in the afterlife” offered by some. That reward is only a painkiller to be ingested by the magical thinkers who struggle mightily with the concept of death itself. The thought of an after-life vacation in “heaven” is more addictive than opiates, and drives national and international irrationality and insanity. It is our eternal struggle.
“And, in the end, even death shall be conquered”.
I am not “in the end”, obviously. “Fear of death” can be conquered without it being masked by even more illusions of thought. That is the path of today’s spiritual warrior. I guess that I somehow signed up for the course. The only study materials are supplied through a committed involvement with life, on Life’s terms, and not on my ego’s terms. I am no longer allowed to just audit the course, now that I am in the final stretches of my own life. I just hope that my “final stretch” is an engaged, joy dominated experience. I do have some control over that
Marty chose to exercise his right to the Death With Dignity process on September 10, 2017, without ever informing me of his decision. What he had informed all of us was that there was to be a party at their home on Saturday, Sept 10, as a celebration of life, and to honor him and his wife for their successful life experience. The evening previous to his final day, Sharon White, Anne LaBorde, and myself had been planning to attend the Michael Franti and Spearhead concert, which we had tickets for. Sharon and I look forward to Franti’s concerts every year, as he is the musical advocate for all that we embrace with our hearts and soul. Sharing this common theme of celebrating and honoring the dignity of all people, and living and loving life together as one infinite family in God’s Kingdom (No religion necessary, thank you!), is what continues to give me reason to wake up every day.
My friend for 20 years, fellow book club member and creative writing partner with the men’s cancer survivors’ writing group, and our hiking partner was to leave our planet somewhere between 6 and 7 Sunday evening. His mission was to enter the Mystery, and the Unknown. Nobody was to know that Marty was dying the next day. We were all supposed to participate in some sort of celebration of their marriage, and their shared life. I was unsure whether to cry, vomit, or run away. I saw that he had regained full use of his left arm and hand, and he was starting to regain feeling in his left leg. Thus, I was stunned and surprised and even hurt by his decision to proceed with his Death with Dignity option. His main fear, however, was that future metastatic lesions in his brain would take away his sense of self, and rob him of control over his future dying process, so it was time to die now, while he still had freedom of choice in such matters.
I first sat next to Marty for a couple of minutes, then I gave him “my message”. He apparently did not know that I knew about his decision to abort his mission today. He was relaxed and quiet, and he listened well to me, and to those who talked with him. I was previously told that I was to be included in his final “death with dignity” process, but due to unknown reasons he shelved my support at the last minute.I still am a bit confused, and my heart is hurting. Crazy making communication around his “assisted suicide” is understandable, but that still does not protect me from its emotional and spiritual fallout. My stomach almost lost its contents, but not my heart. I just KNEW that he was healing, yet my knowledge had no power or authority to sway Marty’s decision making around his own life and death process.
We attended the Michael Franti concert that evening, after making an early exit from Marty’s “celebration of life”. I cried almost the whole way through Franti’s song, “Life is Better With You”, when Michael played it that evening. Life was better with Marty in it, now we all must deal with life without Marty. How absolutely devastating of an experience it must have been for Marty’s wife and for his son Chad.
Marty took nearly twenty hours to die, using the medication prescribed to him by his doctor, ultimately dying on September 11, 2017 (yes, 911). We were not included in any preparation, planning, execution, or support for Marty or for his process of dying. Sharon, a hospice nurse, and expert on Death and Dying, was almost totally shunned by Eddy during the last three months of Marty’s process, resulting in creating almost insurmountable rifts in the 30 year friendship. The only reason that I was present was due to a direct request, I mean DEMAND, from Marty to his wife that she accept me into their household during this most difficult of times. If it had been up to her, she would have excluded me completely, as well.
So I really was dealing with a lot of difficult issues. I would not have considered myself to be the most appropriate person for these life experiences, yet I found a way to remain engaged with all of the following situations:
1). the care for, and eventual death of my father, on the day of Marty’s funeral, and the difficulties in the management of his estate,
2). the challenges in supporting the protracted dying process, and the eventual death of my good friend Marty in the week prior to my fathers’ death
3). dealing with the (hopefully) temporary insanity of the wife of my now deceased friend, and her ongoing spiritual dementia,
Facing a two-fold challenge, with one coming from being fully present for a married couple we have known and loved for a generation and the other for the continued care of my disabled father. A terminal diagnosis for the husband, coupled with the wife’s death terrors, obsessive compulsive nature to prove her own worth and to also protect and honor her partner, in the face of their collapsing lives, kept me engaged with the unknown, as my good friend lost parts of his wonderful life, and mind, on the way to a Death with Dignity. Being “fully present” as a life witness, while being a loving friend, in the face of his deterioration and potential death, and with his partner’s fear, anxiety, neurosis, and potentially, own emotionally self-destructive attitudes and behaviors, placed me in a position for “accelerated understanding and spiritual growth”, and generated unexpected anxiety for myself..
I used to say “growth is highly overrated” in a humorous manner when I feigned aversion to situations known to create opportunities for personal evolution. I looked for real humor in the face of the adversity, and I kept coming up short. I missed the healthy version of my friend, while I learned to embrace the deteriorating version. I experienced some shock in the face of his accelerated change and his wife’s emotional collapse. It is said that “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”. Apparently, the teacher was Death Itself, appearing as Marty, and as my friendship with him and his wife.
Eulogy for my friend, Marty
(I wrote it, but it was not used by his wife)
I never knew what I was getting involved with when I offered to you all of my heart in friendship this year, having withheld so much of myself over the years. 2017 was the year when I finally learned how closely two male human beings could connect, and ultimately become “one” on a journey of exploration and discovery on the way to your own death this past Monday, at 1:24PM.
You are/were an important missing piece in my own journey of self discovery. I tried to bring you along on the journey into the Unknown, deep into the Mystery of Life. You introduced me to Death in a way that has changed me forever. We walked together while we still could, while you still had hope for your Miracle. Another definition for Miracle now lives in my heart, and Soul. When our human knowledge parading as Truth is unveiled for the lie that it really is, insight, intuition, and Love are finally enshrined in our Heart.
Through your death, I have been Destroyed, and I am now Renewed.
Rest in Peace, Marty.
I have included, below, one of Marty’s Last Creative Writing Stories below, from the OHSU Men’s Cancer Survivor’s Writing Group, August 25, 2017. I finally joined him in this group in July, after avoiding the commitment with him for 3 years. He called my acceptance of joining the group one of the best things that he did for the two of us.
He apparently died to me after the September 1st Writing Group meeting, obsessing with preparing his car’s GPS and OnStar system for his wife the whole drive home after the writing group. He was, basically, unresponsive to me on the day before his death.
Here is Marty’s final creative effort, a story of release from societal expectations, rigid attitudes, structure, repression, and the lifelong oppression of the human spirit into the infinite freedom of Spirit:
We visited the Riverview Cemetery last week, Doyle and I. Truth be told, I dragged Doyle there with me. I’m a green burial plot owner, and I wanted to see my plot and its surroundings in the morning sun from the East.
Although the hour was early, a couple of parties were already at the site, evidently an early graveside service and a couple visiting a recently- interred loved one with their dog. I was also looking for a sign of completion – a sign that Eddy and I had completed the arrangements for a “final rest” in a good way.
I looked up the hillside and remarked to Doyle, “Look, a coyote loping through the midst of the people and their pets with such obvious self-confidence. You can always recognize a coyote – even if you don’t think you have ever seen one before. They are never frightened – just there, immune to danger and above the fray.”
Yes, I recognized my sign, the age-old sign of the trickster, the shape-shifting presence of the coyote. May he safely inhabit this place forever. (end of story)
Marty, though I miss you, you are now safe, healed, and whole.
