Curses and Blessings

Sunday, October 22, 2006

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Sunday, October 01, 2006

18. A School of Fish, A Gaggle of Geese...

A Miracle of Molecules

Every little experience, together with its emotional content, its sensory components, and its relationship to our beliefs and expectations is registered in our subconscious in molecular form. Fear for instance, is immediately available, though we may go about our business for any length of time without feeling the slightest twinge. Where does fear go when not in use? The same place memories go when they are not being recalled.

Every nuance of this moment exists in combination as a unique blend of atomic frequencies – the matter that forms Reality but on a more basic level. Although we are in the midst of this immense pattern, we cannot possibly perceive it all consciously, and so quite naturally, we shine the spotlight of our attention, only on the parts that suggest some relationship to our lives. The way we see ourselves, our world and life itself determines which details we'll examine, and how we'll look at them this time. But a lot of other information exists in each twinkling instant, and much of it is consigned to a subconscious level because it seems to have no purpose in our lives, nothing helpful to convey, and no pleasure to offer.

As soon as we concentrate on a particular thought (memory, emotion, object) or emotional state, everything else must recede, if only to the next place in line just beyond our focused attention. If my thoughts and feelings have converged on some irritating episode, for instance, I am not thinking specifically about the driver who let me into traffic or about a co-worker’s kind words (and I’m certainly not allotting it as much of my energy, as I am to the thought-most-conscious).

If I am feeling peaceful, I am not feeling angry. If I am intent on watching the sparrows in the birdbath, I might not notice the blue jay in the tree behind me. However, if I scan—and try to take full notice of everything around me—I may see a moment of both, or I might just as easily see neither.

Choice and what we perceive as chance come together as experience.
What we choose to view and how we choose to perceive it begin to form “future” combinations of choice and chance.

When a memory is no longer being recalled, or when an emotion passes, that particular combination of molecules collapses or breaks apart. Some molecules disconnect completely into their basic constituents: atomic elements, whereupon they regroup with other elements, to become new molecular manifestations such as the flavouring of another emotion, or the construction of a blood or stem cell or such. Others retain their molecular form, but all are transforming, moving, changing, and becoming this moment's pattern. At any given instant, many elements can be called into service to reassert a pattern, or to form an entirely new one.

When we daydream, our mental spotlight on the details of the external world is diffused, as illumination is increased on a broader field: the stuff of our subconscious mind. Although we can remain acutely aware of our surroundings, and alert to changes in our environment, our thoughts become less specific. Here, at an unconscious level, all aspects of reality exist simultaneously.

Obviously, we cannot examine or express all-thought-at-the-same-time, for we exist in a tangible, time-bound dimension. The best we can do is to choose which thoughts are worthy of our conscious contemplation and expression.

Once we concentrate our energy, or will or focus, back onto the present world, we are often unable to decide what the main thrust of our daydream was. If someone comes along and asks what we were thinking, we might clutch at one tiny part of our meditation (though we know that it doesn't truly represent the whole) or we may not be able to retrieve a single word, picture, or idea, and assume that our mind was blank. [See: Right Hemisphere]

Although the experience at Trooper Lake (Post #17) wound up in some variation of that daydream-like state, it had not begun that way. Rather than shutting out the external world, I had been focusing on it. Smelling and feeling the sweet fresh breeze, listening to the soft whir of hummingbird wings, and the hollow tapping of a distant woodpecker, gazing upon the profusion of wildflowers that had changed through the season: all my senses were fully engaged. I was thinking only of how unutterably splendid my natural surroundings were, and how very lucky I was to be in the midst of them.

As the sensation began to subside, I walked across the deck, moving as automatically as I could to avoid landing on any particular thought. When I had kept a dream journal many years earlier, I had found that if I considered a dream before writing it down, my focus would change and much of it would slip away. The words would flow however, if I simply let myself write without conscious censure or interference. So I slipped inside the cottage, grabbed a notebook, and without awareness or intention, found myself writing the words: Breaking the Faith Barrier.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

17. Trooper Lake - A Peak Experience

In August of that year, my daughter Ell. had left to spend the rest of the summer in England; so, I loaded the dog and cat into the wagon, and headed up north to our cottage on Trooper Lake. Soon I would have to relinquish this pretty plot to winter and later to divorce, but I was not about to dwell upon that now. As long as I was able to appreciate each moment of its pleasures as it happened, I would.

Ell. and I had spent a glorious few weeks together before she left, roaring in laughter (or pain) as our dog pulled himself onto our rubber rafts, usually dumping us into the drink, or leaving long, red welts on unprotected thighs. We went for walks, talked for hours, had nightly barbecues; drove into the town of Gooderham for cold, fresh well-water and ice cream at the Lucky Dollar, fed the chipmunks or just read books in companionable silence.

Now, Ell. was across the pond, and Chaucer, Cocoa and I were here alone.

On a weekday afternoon when the lake was deserted, I stood outside on the deck, taking in the beauty of wildflowers and hummingbirds. It was so incredibly stunning, and I wanted every sensual detail to be embossed upon my memory—of slivered sunlight on water, and tall, swaying birch trees, leaves shimmying in the breeze.

But my thoughts were not all peace and light. As full as my heart was now with happiness and appreciation, the knowledge that I would soon be experiencing many changes in my life existed alongside.

Could I sustain a happy heart? Fear of the unknown slithered along the edges of my serenity. Might I not become bogged down by responsibility and the limitation of time? Might I not regret my decision? Little pricks of uncertain ‘what-ifs’ tried to puncture my pleasure, but I was aware of these whispering soul-saboteurs, and shook them away, determined to resist such restrictions of fear. With a slight sense of triumph, I amplified my appreciation of the scene before me, and held tightly to my earlier pleasure until it was strong enough to hold me.

Suddenly, one isolated question overpowered every other thought in my mind.

Are you prepared to continuously acknowledge the existence of an Infinite Wisdom that exceeds everything tangible?

I stood motionless, astonished by this abrupt, and apparent non sequitur. I hadn't been anywhere near the contemplation of the universe, or of God. And yet, the question seemed to be coming from some singular point within me that gave rise to all the rest. All other thoughts, plans, and experiences seemed to wind their way back to that one inner question, which had managed to break through my conscious reverie.

Of course, the question was not really posed in sentence-form. No voice actually said, “Do you acknowledge . . .” And the words “Infinite Wisdom” did not come from anywhere “else.” These were just words I was using as another translation of the word “God” which I had found, when I quibbled with words, too religious-sounding, too human, and too tightly wrapped in other assumptions. This was more like a sudden, clear and uncompromising state of mind that I knew I could not dodge or analyze. It was as if I was being invited to face my place in the cosmos, by the total pattern of my experiences, which had suddenly presented themselves as an intricate, unfolding design.

In that instant of realization, everything came together. Even what I would have formerly called “bad” experiences, seemed to have burst into bloom, reminding me of what I had learned, and showing me what I had gained. I could not have denied the existence of some All-Encompassing Essence, of God, even if I had had such a desire, for suddenly I felt as if the molecules of my body were somehow mingling with those of the grass and trees and everything else. It was not just the idea of connection; it was – as closely as I can describe it – a physical and emotional sensation, accompanied by astonishment and objective curiosity. At once, I felt the incredible emotion of being both an individual and an inseparable part of the landscape, of society, of Earth, of the Universe, of Light, of time, of space, of everything, not merely philosophically or metaphorically, but actually and on every level. Here I was, sharing the profound energy of existence with everything around me: current blips in an eternity of static, static that was indescribably alive.

A feeling of total awe swept through me. I felt high on non-feeling and all feeling. Time itself seemed to exist at once, and all of reality was laid out for me to see in its totality. Aware of myself as both individual and energy fused with everything else, I saw the ways my “objective self” reflected light, and the ways my “subjective self” absorbed light, and how both together seemed to be that light. All my insecurities were laid bare as powerless projections of useless thoughts. Even my body felt more energized somehow. I was acutely aware of Life being perfectly balanced, utterly, utterly logical, and interconnected in a very direct and immediate way. And I could clearly see how paradox so perfectly shielded the underpinnings of reality from human definition.

Time Out

These words are inadequate, for mere words cannot convey an emotion in its pure form. Language is finite; we deal with what we have. And at any given moment, there are only so many words that we can use that all, who speak the same language, can understand. It is tough to speak of “spiritual” matters without sounding “religious” or “mystical” or some other personality-confining adjective.

The last thing I want to do is imply that this mystical sensation was “oh-so-unique” or to suggest that some paradox that is “shielded” was suddenly revealed only to little, ol’ me. Neither do I want to insinuate that my description was the experience. I might also relate the feeling to the absolute ideal alcohol buzz, wrapped up in the best possible mind-drug effect, legal or otherwise, then topped off with the seemingly impossible: a peaceful, balanced, clear-headed, both-feet-firmly-in-reality kind of high. But it wasn't that either. The question that suddenly expanded out of nothingness, as I stood quietly on the deck, was simply the only possible question that could exist, in light of such an awesomely powerful state of consciousness. And it continues to transcend my own minor assessments of it.

Bio XVIII

16. Synchronicity

Coincidence was something my family always enjoyed and shared with one another but no one attached any meaning to it. Coincidence was just “one-of-those-things,” a usually amusing little anecdote that popped in and out of “real” life and then was forgotten. The subject, therefore wasn't profound or even interesting enough to be considered—until years later when I began to experience a string of coincidences that had…no meaning whatsoever.

The first peculiar coincidence that I can recall began on the day I found a poor dead squirrel in the back yard, which I assumed had fallen off the roof of our two-story duplex. The next day I learned that Ruth R., the lady who lived upstairs had died suddenly. Everyone else was shocked because Ruth had only been in her thirties. I was shocked because I had never seen a dead squirrel before and had no experience with the death of any known human being. Two living beings that had suddenly ceased to Be. The juxtaposition of the two events struck me as odd though I knew they were not really connected. Still, I thought the timing of the two events was curious and interesting.

Some time later, I watched transfixed in horror as a squirrel ran into the path of a car, and was killed outside my home. Instantly I recalled Ruth R’s death and the squirrel that had fallen from the roof. I remember having the thought that I was engaging in “silly nonsense” by even considering a connection between the squirrel and human deaths.

Later that day, Ruth's elderly father Mr. H. died. Two dead squirrels, two deaths in the upstairs duplex: I did not think there was any real connection but for a little while, I toyed with the notion that I had accidentally tripped over some sort of pre-death announcement. Could it be that nature provided different kinds of announcements for everyone? I wondered. But when I asked my mother about it, she reassured me that it was just a not-very-nice coincidence; and that was good enough for me.

Experiences such as these, made me aware that our signposts in life are not only the tangible, central events that happen in chronological order; but the peripheral details, and the way we connect everything.

Repeating Numbers?

As far as I was concerned, life was filled with unlimited coincidences, and because each was unique, its occurrence slid beneath my notice until one day when I observed in passing, that each time I had looked at the clock, it had been something thirty-three: 9:33, 10:33, 2:33. “Ha. That's funny,” I thought. And, as I had done to each previous coincidence, let the memory fall into the strange-but-meaningless-and-not-worth-filing bin.

The next day it happened again.

If I had had a career crammed with hourly or half-hourly appointments, or had watched television during the day—I would have presumed that my strange awareness had to do with checking the time a few (three) minutes after the half-hour. If there had been clocks all over the house, the odds might have been in favour of such an odd observation. But aside from the almost-indecipherable analog clock on the stove, there was only one digital clock in the house back then, upstairs in the bedroom, where after tidying in the morning, I had little reason to go during the day.

I rarely kept track of the time back then—seldom looked at a clock and never wore a watch. I was fortunate to be a stay-at-home mother, and time there was marked mainly by the sounds of the street, the quality of the light, the comings and goings of my family, and other natural rhythms of life. And I liked it that way.

Neither was I superstitious. I had no lucky number, no fear of breaking mirrors, or of black cats crossing my path. Thirteen didn't faze me, and not walking under ladders, just made good, common sense. I was proud of my rational mind and pragmatic, non-superstitious attitude. I was, I thought, strong-minded and logical. I had no intention of wasting any time trying to figure it out or hoping to assign meaning to what was—after all—merely a number and a meaningless coincidence.

The machinations of the mind had always fascinated me and I decided that this numeric manifestation had to be simply a case of selective observation. But that night I woke up—contrary to my usual habit of sleeping straight through until morning—and to my amazement I saw that it was 2:33. “Oh great,” I thought with amused sarcasm. Was I going to start keeping time this consciously? But no other instances occurred.

Over the next few weeks, I slept soundly through the night, and the days passed without a single recurrence of the strange little coincidence. Not once did I see thirty-three. Then one night I awoke, and once again found it to be twenty-seven minutes before the hour—something-33. “There I go again”, I chuckled but didn’t think twice about it, for I had decided that this was a purely random little event, which had somehow attached itself to my own observation. The next day however, there were clusters of “33s” everywhere I turned. I let a car into my lane and felt a frisson of irony when I noticed that it had “333” on its license plate. Then I tore off a paper queue stub in the bakery and saw that it was “33”. A few minutes later, I placed some groceries on the checkout conveyor belt, still feeling the vestiges of the silent mental giggle I’d had upon seeing the bakery stub.

“Do we enter into a symbiotic relationship with what we choose to notice?” I mused. Then the cashier pushed the tally button and announced the amount of the bill: thirty-three dollars—even. No cents.

Right. No sense! The cashier smiled. I did too, feeling that any second, words might tumble from my lips, and I might tell this friendly stranger about the little flurry of coincidences that had just occurred. But of course, I only said, “thank you” when she handed me two one-dollar bills, change from $35.

“Well, naturally,” I thought, or tried to think. Why would it not be $33.00? I walked out to the car and immediately saw that the pickup truck that had parked in front of me did not have “33” in its plate number. I got into the car, and started it. “Thirty-three years old today,” said the radio announcer as the engine came to life.

“What on Earth kind of coincidences are these,” I wondered. What were the odds?

That night I woke up again in the middle of darkness, but this time I had the groggy idea to out-wait it. If I didn't turn over just yet, I rationalized sleepily, I wouldn't know if it were anything-33. I would not be able to tell how long I had waited, so even if it were 2:36 when I finally looked at the clock, I would not know for sure what time I had awakened. Aware of how silly I was being, I waited nevertheless. Finally, I turned over to look at the clock and could hardly believe my eyes. It was 3:33. I stifled a little “hah” of surprise, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

After that, I accepted the fact that for some unknown reason I was tuned-in to that particular number. If these perfectly timed awakenings were messages from the cosmos, then it seemed the cosmos must have figured its point had been made. It did not continue to intrude on my sleep. If there was any “point”, I had no idea what it might be, and I was not about to give it any serious consideration for if there was any meaning to be found at all, I was doubtful that I would find it in my own interpretations. It was one thing to enquire about the nature of synchronicity, quite another to navel-gaze about my own. I permitted myself only brief amusement by their frequently interesting occurrences, but in a sense, I became more discriminating about coincidence. To my way of thinking, this was so easily explainable as selective observation, that it no longer turned my head, and became nothing more than an instantly passing chance occurrence. But that is not to say I was able to ignore it completely. Thirty-threes kept cropping up. When (the only time) a dear friend (a fellow young mother and fellow kitchen table philosopher) and I rented space at a local fleamarket, as she registered, I walked on to pick up our table number from a pile of cardboard squares laying face down. It was “33”. I checked the next one but it was way out of sequence—not that numerical order would have made the coincidence less of one. The fact that we arrived, in the middle of a flow of people, at the precise moment that happened to leave “33” at the top of the deck when I got to the table, was coincidence enough.

A short while later, we dropped by my new apartment to pick up the keys. As the superintendent handed me the underground parking tag, my friend and I exchanged a wide-eyed glance. Out of all the spots in the garage, I just happened to be getting spot 33. Noticing our surprise, the superintendent looked at us questioningly, so I told her briefly that that particular number seemed to pop up a lot. Since I am not superstitious and (at least at that time) was convinced that anyone who even sounded mystical was either nuts or a charlatan, I certainly didn't want to come across as either, and to my grateful surprise, she didn't take it that way. Instead, she told me not to dismiss it or be afraid of it—that it must be something special. By then, I certainly saw it as odd or curious, if not special—and I was delighted that she had echoed that sentiment.

Thirty-three continued to mystify and amuse me. On the day of orientation at my first job since the birth of my daughter Ell., I sat at a U-shaped table with twenty-five or more other new part-time Christmas hires, and was handed my employee number. Again, I was amazed to find that mine was 34933. Was there a kind of poetry in numbers? I wondered. Is that how career mathematicians viewed numbers and equations?

Though writing about it now, I spent very little time considering it back then. I was living my life and my thoughts were (usually) on whatever I was doing. When I had time to ponder, I sought answers to more pressing questions, but the vague puzzle remained. Why was I noticing this particular number? Why not 7, or 11, or 13, or 44? Did it have something to do with Ell.? She was born at 6:33 pm. Or could something from my own childhood be trying to assert itself in my mind—drawing me back to the memory of “33”? My childhood telephone number had had three 3’s in it. But there had been nothing so dark or troublesome about my childhood (Was there?) that needed to assert itself through something as arcane as a number—which is what I offhandedly figured that sort of memory recall (or analysis) was supposed to be about. [It had certainly been said often enough by then, that psychiatry and psychology tend to deal with pathology more often than health.] Though I considered my childhood to have been quite unusual, I had slowly come to the realization that what I had learned and experienced was much more valuable to me than anything I imagined I might have missed. Besides, everyone's childhood was unique, and it seemed rather futile and despicable to pull things apart from a negative point of view. So I didn't bother trying to seek an explanation for thirty-three, nor did I bother trying to analyze my childhood.

I never thought to look specifically for what had been bright and enlightening.

Many others have also noticed this odd ‘33’ phenomenon, including Major League baseball pitcher David Wells

Bio XVII

Saturday, September 23, 2006

15. Life after Death

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I Corinthians 13:12

After a period of hospitalization, Grandma died from complications resulting from a broken hip. She was eighty-six. I was twenty-three, and though I had been close to my grandmother during childhood, I wasn't shocked or traumatized when she died. My attention was occupied by the youngest member of the family, my four-year old daughter, Ell.*.

A day or so before she died, my grandmother opened her eyes, and in a clear voice filled with the sound of amazement, wonder and satisfaction she said, “the veil.” Her eyes were brighter and more alert than they had been in months, but it seemed as if they were focused on some point in mid-air – or maybe in some other dimension. Mum and I looked at each other, and clasped hands, for we both knew what “the veil” meant to Grandma. She used to say that a veil is lifted at death, allowing us to see clearly, all that is concealed during life.

The night before her funeral, I stayed behind to have a few quiet moments, remembering all the wonderful times I'd had with her when I was a child. I was not feeling distraught; my memories were warm and loving, and quite pleasurable considering the circumstances. As I looked down at her without really seeing, lost in a reverie of good times, I suddenly felt her presence behind me and slightly to my right (as if she'd come across the room to stand beside me). And I turned to “her” automatically, as if I fully expected her to be standing there. But of course I did not expect any such thing, and the incongruity of my movement sent a shock wave through me. I had felt her presence there behind me, even though I knew her body was lying in the casket in front of me! It made no sense, and instantly I chided myself for being childish, for permitting any spooky feeling to arise. That, I told myself sternly, was blaspheming her memory; but the feeling had been uncanny not spooky, and my expectation and movement, so completely automatic, that I was unnerved. Still, I remained there, wanting to analyze and to understand that suddenly energized sensation, before leaving my grandmother’s presence. Nature however, did not seem keen on cooperating with me. A sudden, resounding crack of thunder followed on the heels of a lightning flash that sent shadows staggering around the room.

More lighting. More crashing thunder. The storm had come alive to rant and rave and rattle my nerves as I tried to say quiet good-byes to my grandmother. I wanted to flee from the irrational fear that had so abruptly intruded on my introspection, for it seemed that every horror story archetype of corpses, creepy mortuaries and stormy nights might be activated at once and scare me to death as I stood there.

“Ok. Hold on here!” I thought with a flare of defiance. “This is Grandma. That is a thunderstorm. Get a grip.” With perception under control, I silently apologized to the spirit of my grandmother then joined my family where they waited in the lobby. Outside the parlour, less haunted feelings returned, and it was easy to dismiss the experience, as state-of-mind, nothing more or less than a natural result of the circumstances.

The weather on the day of the funeral continued to add to the otherworldly event. All morning, dark bruised clouds had gathered to threaten rain, but abruptly, as we emerged from the funeral cars at the cemetery, the sun broke through. I could hardly believe it. It seemed so perfect, so incredibly, unbelievably perfect. Grandma used to say that if there was a patch of blue in the sky, “big enough to make a pair of man's ‘britches’” (breeches or pants) then the sky would clear. But there was no patch of blue, just an unseen break in the clouds that had let a few sunrays shine down on us, while we laid her body to rest. As we got back into the cars, the sun vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. And by the time we reached the cemetery gates, the whole sky had let loose. Rain threw itself to the ground as the lightning-streaked atmosphere was shattered by thunder. As my mother said through her tears, it surely seemed as if Nature too was mourning her mother's passing from the Earth.

Grandma Makes an Appearance

As we sat around the kitchen table at my mother’s home later that night, sipping tea and talking tearfully, the August storm picked up again. Great peals of thunder, and strobe lightning accompanied the rain that thrashed the windows. But it held no further fear and the thunder faded away as the storm moved east.

That night an ordinary, forgettable dream shifted, and became an extraordinarily memorable one. In the dream, as I came out of the bedroom, my attention was drawn towards the hall—to my grandmother who was coming up the stairs. When she saw me, she stopped, halfway between the landing and the top step.

“I'm fine!” She said. “It's won-derful!”

Even at the age of eighty-six years, Grandma had been almost entirely free of facial wrinkles. But in the dream, her face was even more youthful and energized. There was no doubt in my mind that this dream was set in the present, and that she was referring to wherever she was now. She seemed to emanate light, and appeared radiantly happy and tenderly understanding, as if she knew that I knew that I could never be one hundred per cent certain of the nature of this dream. Though it had always seemed obvious to me that dream information is the product of the dreamer's thoughts and experiences, when I awoke, I felt as if I had just received an indication of an afterlife, before I'd even had time to wonder.

Why had I dreamed this?

For the first time, I considered the possibility that some dreams might be more than simply a dreamer-driven production. Was it conceivable that under certain circumstances some subtle portal could open between one dimension and another, and be displayed in dream form? Or was it that some knowledge inside me had been awakened, and was prodding me with dream, to be considered here in the conscious world?

I might have decided upon the meaning of the dream if I had seen it as an opportunity to dull my mother’s pain – but I did not think that telling her about it would help. To the contrary, I thought she might feel even sadder for not having a similar dream of her dear mother. I knew I couldn’t convey the luminous quality of the dream, and I certainly didn’t want to sound as if I thought that my Grandmother had “spoken” to me “from the grave”. That just sounded too weird! And it hadn’t been the feeling at all.

I had never really given much thought to death because I hadn’t had much experience with it I suppose. I accepted its inevitability, and though I had never stopped wondering what the ultimate purpose of life was, I didn’t think much about what might, or might not exist beyond life. That is what surprised me about the dream. I had not been asking about any afterlife. I had dismissively figured that there was no point in speculating about something that nobody could know. I had no desire to waste my wonderings when there was no possible way of obtaining an answer.

So, why was my curiosity piqued? Why was I wondering?

During the days that followed, I could not help but reflect on the feeling back in the funeral home, of sensing my grandmother’s presence beside me. Where had it come from? Why had it arisen?

Science is not a substitute for spirituality, any more than analysis is a substitute for poetry.

By then, I knew a bit about the brain’s hemispheres. I also knew that every state of mind, every emotion, every logical thought could be explained in terms of the brain areas that were active at that moment. I was not wondering about that, for I was not concerned with the ‘how’ at that point. I wanted to understand the ‘why’.

If it had been my imagination, (or some sort of left-brain stimulation producing a right sided sensation) what had prompted it? I had not been feeling scared or unsettled or anything remotely similar when it happened. (The unsettling spookiness had arisen only in the aftermath of this curious, surprising and strangely heart-warming sensation, when I had allowed Hollywood images of death to impinge on my conscious thoughts – helped along, no doubt by the highly apropos sound effects of the thunderstorm.) Before the storm, I’d been feeling quite peaceful.

And that very stillness stood as a smooth, neutral background into which my sense of Grandma's presence had briefly and silently crackled. Or at least that had been the feeling. What was it? Why had it occurred? How was such a perception even possible? And what about the subsequent dream? If this was simply my own imagination at work, why bother?

Heaven? God? Religion?

I was not sure what I thought about Organized Religion. I was disillusioned, but I made sure that my daughter attended Sunday school, just as my own mother had done, two decades earlier. Now I was of two minds about the subject. When I looked at nature, I could grasp a sense of God, but in a way that was focused more on the universe itself, than the ideas of humankind. And although I saw the common sense in most of the rules in the Bible, I had come to think of “God-the-Father” as a mythical figure that ancient people had creatively imagined, and modern people were superstitious about, a sanctified character that could deliver the laws of life, with ultimate authority. All “Religions” seemed to personify (what I thought was meant by) “God”, to describe God as a male and as human-like, and I could not accept such a narrow belief. I felt strongly that this idea of God as a human speaking male was the very least that God was and a rather one-dimensional representation of the true all-encompassing nature of God. While I did not feel any need or desire to believe in what I thought was a traditional fiction, I wasn't going to deny my daughter the opportunity to believe, or at least to gain some knowledge about a subject that had guided, inspired, and confounded humankind for as long as we have existed.

I also wanted her to know that many rules in life, were time-honoured and shared (if not uniformly practiced), and were not just arbitrary family whims of “should and shouldn't”. The main purpose of religions, I thought, lay in their ability to provide good guidelines and instructions, which if followed, ultimately allow the most liberated passage through and fullest experience of life.

Although I would not have been able to proclaim convincingly that I “believed” in God-the-Father, I probably would have said that I believed, if I had been asked. It was the best answer. It was not worth scaring the bejeebers out of someone who might be on the verge of disbelief, by trying to explain that I did not believe in God in a “religious” way. What would that mean to anyone else? It was too close to being totally misleading.

As far as I was concerned, if belief in God meant that I also had to embrace the notions of a fiery hell, or of a God that passed judgment, I'd pass. Hell! If I could understand and forgive, then surely an ultimately wise and knowledgeable God would know instantly how (and why) we had come to think, and to behave in a particular way: good, evil, or a mixture of both.

Three months after my grandmother died, I stumbled upon an article written by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one of the pioneers in the study of death and dying, which led me to Dr. Raymond A. Moody's book, “Life After Life” (first published in 1975). All I could do was shake my head and marvel at the stupendous timing of it all, for it was around this time, that I first heard the Confucian adage: “when the student is ready to learn, the teacher shall appear.” After that, the visible coincidences in my life seemed to click into motion as from idle to first gear.

*Names have been changed to "protect the innocent".

Bio XVI

Saturday, September 16, 2006

14. A Psychic Connection

(or “I Wished it had Happened to Me… uh…well… except for the mugging.”)

Mum heard Uncle L call out to her one night, when I was thirteen or fourteen years of age. The strange thing about that was he was miles away. His voice was so clear, she said later, that she immediately got out of bed and slipped into her housecoat, certain that her brother must have left his keys behind; but when she looked outside, no one was there. His bedroom door was ajar, and she could see it was not occupied, so she checked the kitchen and the living room. They were vacant too. She looked in on me, but I was asleep. Puzzled, she looked in every room again, before finally returning to bed, unwillingly deciding that it must have been a dream.

My mother was slightly uneasy in the morning. His tone, she said, had sounded as if he needed help and she could not rest until she knew he was all right. Thankfully, he was due home that morning after visiting friends. She figured she was being superstitious. After all, it was “only a dream”, she told herself. Just the same, she felt a little funny about it, for she was certain that she had been awake, thinking of other things, when she heard his voice.

Later that day he came home, looking rather scraped and rumpled, but he waved off his sister's concern and changed the subject. My uncle was epileptic, and during that period of his life, did not always remember (or maybe didn’t like) to take his medication, so from time to time he had cuts or bruises from falling in a seizure. It was not until afternoon tea that my mother told him how convinced she had been that he had called out to her during the night.

As she relayed her dream, I could see my Uncle L’s eyes widen ever so slightly. And when he asked her what time it happened, he fell quiet when she told him.

“What?! What?! WHAT??!!” I silently demanded, wanting to interrogate my uncle immediately to find out why he was looking so freaked out.

It was obvious that my mother’s experience was significant to him in some way. I waited while he wrestled with her story.

Finally, he said, “I was calling out at that time. I did need help at exactly that time!” (A little later, we learned that he’d been in the worst of places at the wrong time and had had a violent run-in with a strung-out mugger.)

“Far out!” I thought. “A real-life, legitimate case of psychic communication! Wow!” And I knew that my uncle – open-minded and ethical as he was – thought it was pretty strange too, or he'd never have mentioned the incident. He hated being fussed over. I knew that he had spoken about it only because he felt honour-bound to share what he knew about my mother’s psychic impression, and not keep it to himself and cause her to overlook this intuitive insight.

For a long instant, my mother was silent, and then quickly she shifted her focus to her brother’s experience. But it was over as far as he was concerned; he didn't want to discuss it; that was not why he had mentioned it. And Mum didn't want to talk about her moment of psychic contact. It was too weird, too unexplainable. She wanted no part of such clairvoyant episodes, for what good was hearing someone call you, if you did not know where he was, and could not help him? Because it was never discussed again, the episode was more or less forgotten, or at least shoved to a more distant level of memory. And life went on as usual.

As far though, as this “psychic phenomenon” was concerned, it made sense to me that my uncle’s plea for help had reached my mother’s psyche, for she had always displayed much kindness towards and understanding of her brother.

Bio XV

Saturday, September 09, 2006

13. Out of Body...

I was in grade seven when Sir Winston Churchill died one day before my birthday. As the school planned an assembly in his honour, somehow I wound up as narrator. But speaking in front of a gym full of people was a gigantic leap from reading in class and I was honoured and terrified. While other children walked on and off the stage carrying historical pictures and slogans on placards, somehow I'd have to keep an eye on what was happening behind me so we'd be in sync—without turning my back to the audience. How, I wondered, would I maintain my pace and keep from losing my place if I had to keep glancing behind me?

When the day arrived, the butterflies in my stomach were trying to beat their way out through my veins. But as I moved onto the darkened stage to stand under the light, everything seemed to slow down. I was completely aware that I was standing in front of the podium before a darkened audience—but as I began to speak, it was as if “I” was somewhere above my body. I was flabbergasted to hear my own voice as if it was coming from some point beneath me and even more amazed to realize that it didn't reflect the astonishment I was feeling or the delight at finding my voice calm and clear. Though I was fully engaged in the narration, another part of my consciousness had stepped back to watch. Even more curious and mystifying was the feeling of being able to “see” what was going on behind me—without turning to look—and that some part of me was also taking note of the oddness of the experience. But though all those perceptions now seem as if they were separate and distinct, at the time they were connected as one whole observation wrapped up in a feeling of warmth and connectedness. And I wondered what brainwaves these might be!

Years later as I read other accounts of “out-of-body experiences”, it seemed that many were similarly stress-induced. Of course, that observation explains nothing. In fact merely using the word “stress” can imply that the “o.b.e.” is somehow a “bad” thing—a result of a negative situation or emotional state. It's even been described as the result of misfiring neurons (ie. electrical activity that is somehow “wrong,” abnormal or in error). Neurosurgeons have long been able to stimulate the brain to produce feelings of being out of one's body. In the 1950s, Canadian neurologist, Dr. Wilder Penfield was able to provoke a sense of being out-of-body by electrically stimulating the sylvian fissure, a structure that divides the temporal lobes from the rest of the brain. Dr. Michael Persinger (Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada) has done it by stimulating the temporal lobes themselves, and more recently, Swiss neurosurgeon Dr. Olaf Blanke got the same result by the stimulation of the right angular gyrus. While their research is fascinating, no conclusions have been drawn about the purpose of these perceptions, and (as far as my investigations have been able to determine) no one has been able to produce an out-of-body state consciously and deliberately while wired to an electroencephalograph. Though there has been scads of research done since I first wondered about the phenomenon, science still doesn't have much to say about it. Reality—as it is defined by science—does not include anything that cannot be defined. So the out-of-body state is viewed as an anomaly—as a stress-provoked frenzy of electrical signals gone haywire or as a state of mind more mystical or pathological than real or natural.

But it was a very real experience or at least a real perception, and, I believe, also completely natural. In preparing for the school assembly, I learned a lot about Sir Winston and wanted to do the best I could to pay my own respect. To do that it was necessary to detach my ego and abandon my self-concerns—to focus my attention completely on the job at hand and permit my senses to operate at a fully functional or enhanced level. If I had maintained my trepidation, some of my brain would have been required to share its supply of oxygen and glucose with areas governing such egocentric thoughts (self-consciousness—positive or negative ie. self-congratulations or self-criticism), robbing my visual cortex and the auditory areas of my brain of that necessary energy-producing food. Instead, I dissolved my ego for the time being and directed all my energy to my senses and to what I was doing. Incoming and out-going signals were being limited to the moment—not diffused by any other unnecessary activity. My “sightless” sight—the ability to “see” what was taking place behind me without looking—may have been the result of some kind of “harmonic sensing”, my own voice being the melody and the action behind me, the harmony. As long as the sound waves coming from behind me were in accord with what I was narrating, the scene was represented in my mind as visual information—just as if I was viewing it directly.

Though I have forgotten the mechanical details of that presentation, I have never forgotten the emotional state. It was very pleasurable, a “high” that suffused my whole body with a kind of super-calm energy. And I am comforted to know that it is possible to produce such an effect when it is needed.

Bio XIV

12. Like an Alien

I felt like an alien when I joined my new class in January.

Needless to say, this change in my life was critical. I had understood why some children hated school. I had seen that these children were regularly treated with less regard, and I had empathized and did what I could to help. But now suddenly I too was getting a great dose of unwanted insight.

B. and I had been in different grade three classes and this had continued; but while B. seemed to be enjoying her new class, I was shattered. It was clear to me that my new teacher had decided in advance not to like me or to do anything that might make my transition any easier. In fact, she seemed bent on disliking me, something I wasn’t used to.

Talk about a major paradigm shift!

I realized that my teacher might have been opposed to my unconventional acceleration; and I could understand how she might feel. She had been teaching the same group of children for four months and she was now expected to accommodate a child who had not only missed all those lessons, but every bit of information from the last almost two-thirds of grade three as well. I suppose it would have irritated her, especially if she had voiced her opposition, and had in effect been overruled by my mother … and me.

But I hadn’t given myself the tests and I hadn’t expected special treatment. Nor had I ever asked for any kind of review of what I'd missed; I wouldn't have dared. I knew I was expected to backtrack and extrapolate from where the class was now, and to do it on my own. And I was trying my best to do that but the emotional burden was stifling. For the longest time, the other children cast me sidelong glances and seemed afraid to accept my friendship, possibly out of fear that Teacher might turn on them too, for she seemed to like the other children.

Being sensitive and logical, I could not understand why she would want to thwart me by treating me in an emotionally caustic way. If she had been kind to me, or pleasant, or if she had forgotten about me completely (but without animosity), the atmosphere would at least have been neutral. (I could have assumed without thinking about it that I was accepted, and that I belonged, rather than have to deal with unaccustomed antagonism on top of the strangeness of a brand new environment.) Instead, it often seemed as if a stream of negatively charged particles were being blasted my way, a sensation that was entirely new to me. She made irritated asides, mostly about not having to review the year for one person. (Since school officials didn’t go around openly discussing children’s IQs, my classmates knew nothing about the tests or my scores; although I remember Mrs. M. telling my fellow third-graders something about the results of my tests, to explain why I was leaving. But I don’t think that any of my new grade four classmates knew anything about it. Children often joined a class mid-way through the year simply because they moved into the area.) I certainly didn’t tell anyone about the tests, so I knew that some of her pointed comments were aimed only at me and went over my classmates’ heads. For that, I was thankful. I wanted to connect to others and fit in, not set myself farther apart than I sometimes felt already, so I never spoke about my marks, let alone boast.

I had never really thought about being liked, before. I liked everyone, naturally, for even the most troubled children possessed some trait that I could like and admire, and I knew instinctively and logically that the song my mother often sang was pretty good advice.

You've got to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative,
Latch on to the affirmative and
Don't mess with Mister In-Between.*

I was a sweet and sensitive kid (if I do say so myself!). I would not have dreamed of flaunting my blessings for fear of hurting someone who was not as fortunate; and I was always thrilled for others’ triumphs and good fortune. I was definitely not accustomed to experiencing animosity. I had never been singled out and deliberately made to feel insignificant, especially about learning, but suddenly I understood what it felt like to be belittled for not coming up with the expected answer immediately. And I realized how humiliation could make a person feel stupid and diminished—how it could prevent that person from learning and becoming confident about their ability to learn. If I could feel that way, how horrible must it feel for someone who had never been given a similar intellectual ‘stamp of approval’? It’s safe to say that anyone who is made to feel foolish or thick by someone who is supposed to have authority, will close him or herself off from that person even if he or she must abide by the authority’s rules for the time being.

Teacher watched me like a perfectly coifed hawk. It seemed to me that if I appeared confident about something, she ignored me but as soon as she sensed that I was treading in unknown water, she'd swoop down upon me. When she jabbed her pointer at closed and open circles on the blackboard and the class clapped out a rhythm, I scrambled to make sense of the pattern. I knew nothing about whole notes and half-notes, quarter and eighth notes; but as I listened to the clapping of the musically confident children, I could hear that the open circle by itself was four beats (one clap and three silent beats), the open circle with the line was two beats (one clap and one silent beat) and so on. I knew that she was going to single me out and I also knew that she fully expected me to fail.

All—mostly sympathetic eyes—were on me. At first, I wasn't clapping loud enough, so she made me start again. I wanted desperately to catch up to my new classmates and to get it right for this disapproving teacher so that she'd leave me alone and let me get on with it; but even when I clapped out a perfect rhythm, she wasn’t satisfied and quizzed me on the names of the notes. My fear of her was beginning to cloud everything and when her provocation finally became too much for me to bear, I broke down in quiet and embarrassed tears—traumatized and humiliated.

It did get somewhat better after that. Teacher must have realized that I wasn’t the conceited brat she may have imagined, and allowed a couple of classmates to show me their notebooks, so I could catch up on what I had missed, but I cannot say that I ever looked at school in quite the same way as I had. While I had never felt as if I had completely fit in, now that feeling was accentuated. Being an only child, I had always enjoyed the company of adults and I accepted my place in the chronological hierarchy of my family. I was used to being the youngest. But now suddenly, I was back to being and feeling younger and less experienced than everyone else around me at school, and they were children! I missed my friends from grade three and for awhile I continued to see them at recess, but there was a space growing between us, for now they had other mutual experiences to share that did not include me, and I had experiences that didn't include them. So I worked at fitting in with the older grade fours as much as my rights and freedoms would allow.

It wasn’t my teachers’ fault that I stopped liking school around that time. (I continued to have some good teachers who knew how to grab our interest and ignite the spark of curiosity.)

Though there were many joys and advantages in my childhood environment, there were, of course, disadvantages and sorrow too. School was never the main thrust of my focus. My friends were. I always knew when someone was going through some sort of emotional turmoil. I could always see when people were hurt or joyful or afraid, even when others could not. I understood why many children (and adults) lashed out or were ill-behaved. I saw people who were on the receiving end of injustice, unfairness or plain old mean spiritedness, and who were then further castigated when they couldn't cope with the burden. And my heart ached when I saw wonderful people being judged as inferior by other people who I could clearly see were only pretending to be superior.

I knew there was an awful lot of ‘wrong thinking’ happening and I wanted to know why.

Since the educators themselves had provided me with proof that my logic was fully functional, I knew I could think and reason, which (I tend to believe) permitted me to feel free to strike out on my own and to learn what I wanted to know. I didn’t worry then, where this might lead me. I wanted to see what conclusions I could come to if I chose a different path and looked for my own answers in the most natural way. (In high school I felt inexplicably afraid to learn about history! I wanted to plug my ears and say, “Blah-blah-blah-I’m-not-listening. La-la-la-la-la.” It wasn’t until years later that I wondered if I had instinctively been afraid that in my inexperience and naivete, I might have believed someone’s skewed perspective and consequently might have formed a whole set of attitudes based on inadequate historical information! History is so subjective. As soon as I earned the one required history credit, that was it. No more history until years later when I felt more confident about being able to recognize and compensate for such subjectivity.

I decided that I would make use of my "IQ" my way, since as it was, everyone who knew about it, now had inflated expectations of me, and I hated that. I had my own.

Gradually, I became a secret rebel. While I scraped by in school with somewhat exaggerated indifference, I was intensely interested in what made everyone tick. I was always surveying my friends and acquaintances, finding out how they felt about life, learning about their dreams and goals and about where their real priorities lay, trying to find clues to the meaning of life. Which behaviours were necessary to adopt to ensure survival as well as the smooth running of a society, and which were merely unnecessary acts of conforming?

My conservative and reserved demeanour may have been cultured by my family, but it seemed a natural extension of my desire to get to know as many people as I happened to meet, regardless of their superficial differences, interests or opinions. In most instances, it was more rewarding to be amiable and agreeable than it was to proclaim my preferences or to assert my own opinions. My interests lay in understanding how people felt and showing them, when I could, a broader picture and a way to turn their perspective and feelings around by putting them into an undeniably logical context.

My tendency to be reserved, along with the natural circumstances of my life (being an only child who was sometimes alone) also allowed me to explore and to learn all I could about the inner workings of life – without committing myself entirely to one particular set of beliefs, or by aligning myself only with those who shared the same beliefs.

*Lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen

Giftedness?

I never had the temerity to understand myself as a “gifted” child. I felt this would border on narcissism and so downplayed it and didn’t think about it much. I might have been better off if I had, or if someone had been able to guide me. Exceptionally gifted children have been known to master multiple languages by four or five years old, or play Beethoven on piano by 18 months (or something equally impossible-sounding). I had no burning desire to learn a different language and no resources if I had. I wasn’t a musical prodigy either. (I took guitar lessons for a while when I was twelve years old, but never stuck with it, though I took night classes again in my twenties and enjoyed writing lyrics and music and strumming along to my own little creations; but this not exactly evidence of ‘exceptional giftedness’. My guitar playing was barely mediocre!) I was always a good abstract thinker though.

Decades later, I would read a piece by clinical psychologist Deirdre V. Lovecky, whose research shows, “Exceptionally gifted children often have difficulty dealing with material other gifted children find easy. The exceptionally gifted see so many possible answers that they are not sure how to respond because no one [single] answer seems to be better than another.” For example, Zachery, age 7, “was unable to answer the question, “What does a doctor do?” The moderately gifted children answered with any of several acceptable responses and did not find this a difficult question. Zachery, however, answered that there were so many different kinds of doctors, and they all did different things. Even when encouraged, he was unable to pick on kind of doctor and name something that doctor did. Zachery obviously knew the material but was unable to focus on a simple level. His response suggests a higher level of analysis and integration than the question required.”

“The exceptionally gifted child grasps abstract material by finding the underlying pattern. Once that pattern is understood, the child knows the concept behind the material and further practice is unnecessary. In fact, the whole is comprehended so quickly and thoroughly, the child cannot break it down into component parts to show the steps used to build the concept.”

Coming across Ms. Lovecky’s work on the internet was like finding a key to an old safety deposit box I hadn’t known about. If I had been given that one reassurance back then, I would have been a lot easier on myself. Instead, I felt that I was now supposed to get everything right the first time, and I remember the near-panic I sometimes felt trying to decide if the answer the teacher was looking for could possibly be as simple as it seemed to suggest. I would think, “no way! She can’t mean, that the sky is “blue”. She must want a more precise answer. So what is it? Turquoise? Cerulean? Azure? Cobalt?” By then, my hesitation would be noted and the teacher would have asked someone else. “Blue” says someone. “Right,” says the teacher. Inside, I’m saying – and feeling, “duh”.

I knew that this was a situation and sensation that most of us were familiar with, so I did not think of it as being connected to “giftedness”, though I should have because I didn’t agree with the entire IQ test process or analysis. I had been given an early start on education and had always felt confident in my ability to understand. I was a happy, content, “pre-taught” child in a calm and self-assured mental/emotional state when I had written those tests. I knew that those variables played a large part in my ability to learn.

So I also knew that there were many, many other children whose scores were lower only because they were struggling with other concerns at the time; and others whose minds were locked by panic, fear or anxiety, and who therefore lacked confidence in their own keen intelligence.

Bio XIII

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

11. A Parent’s Good Intentions

Each generation faces its own challenges. No one gets it perfect and it’s ridiculous to expect that any one generation can.

If we perceive an error in the previous generation’s actions, we may try to do the opposite, to be certain not to make the same mistakes. If our parents’ choices or decisions caused us to experience pain of some sort, we may try to take what we believe is an opposite course of action. When it comes to difficult situations or emotionally charged issues, we can overcompensate, thinking that we are saving our children from some experience that we would rather not have had; and, are convinced that we would not have had, if our ancestors had foreseen the effects of their actions.

Out of a desire to do the right thing, one generation might impose very strict rules, responsibilities and curfews on their children.

Feeling oppressed, distrusted or unloved, the next generation might place far fewer restrictions on the following generation.

That generation, suffering the results of being raised without responisibility and believing that the lack of rules and curfews implied less concern, interest or love, might tend to tighten the reins again on the next generation.

To Be a Child a Little Longer

I knew that my grandmother had once mourned her lost childhood spent without any sense of belonging. As a "Home Child" on that Saskatchewan farm in 1900, she had been treated quite openly as an outsider, a maid or farm hand, not a member of the family. Since she had been denied a care-free childhood, she wanted to make sure that her own children fully enjoyed theirs. Mum was the youngest, and in an attempt to extend my mother’s childhood, Grandma kept her at home while her peers went off to kindergarten. Mum was therefore a year behind, and throughout her years in elementary school, she felt teachers and classmates assumed that she must be less intelligent than others her age. This of course, was nonsense, but it was something she had to endure in her formative years and she was not going to let it happen to me!

Doing What I Was Told

I was told that I was smart, that I could understand anything. I was told that I could draw — and incredibly, I found that I could. (Some said it was because a distant and virtually unknown uncle on my father's side was a professional artist and so it was in my genes. (My father wasn't bad either. He'd painted a pretty good portrait of my mother.) I tended to think that these influences had prompted my immediate family to 'believe' that I must have talent and so to "tell" me that I had the ability if I wanted to develop it. And because they provided me with the materials and encouragement, I tended to spend any quiet time drawing.)

My questions were never dismissed and my ideas, thoughts and sensibilities were treated with respect. Before I began kindergarten, Mum had taught me “readin’ and writin’ and ’rithmatic”; and since the adults had taken to spelling words backwards to discuss topics not meant for my ears, I was a pretty good backwards speller too, and was excited to learn more.

No one needed to tell me that I was living in an “enriched environment”. With four or five adults around me all the time, (each with an awesomely unique personality), home was a vibrant place where someone was always teaching me something, whether deliberately or accidentally. It is clear to me, that the early education my mother had given me had had time to percolate and settle before I began attending school. I suppose I’d had the time to understand the concepts behind the rules because everything I learned from kindergarten onwards blended nicely with what I already understood. This, of course, allowed me to ace every test that was put in front of me, so it did not mean much when I achieved high scores on a number of Stanford-Binet IQ tests I was forced to write in first, second and third grades in the early sixties. They told me that my scores had been very high—“exceptionally-gifted”, is how it had been explained to Mum.

My family told me, “We always knew you were smart” but I could see that they were pretty shocked to have this external authentication of my capacity to learn. I was less certain. Nothing was completely good. What would this mean? I already knew I could think! I didn’t need anyone else scoring(!) me to know that. It certainly didn’t make me better or worse than anyone else. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses; everyone was brilliant about something just as everyone was ignorant of many other things. If it made me feel any different than I had before, it was only because now I had a choice to make. Now there had to be repercussions.

My Apologies for any Arrogance – it has never been intended.

Letting an eight-year old child make a potentially life-affecting decision is possibly not the best idea in the world – even if that child has an Einsteinian IQ. After all, no matter how sensible a child is, an eight year old has had only… at the very most … nine years of experience on Earth (less a day)! (How is that? Well...when you "turn" one, you've already spent one year on earth, so when you "turn" eight, you've spent eight years. If your ninth birthday is tomorrow, you're still eight today, but you've spent nine years on Earth (less a day).)

In the autumn of grade three, I mentioned to my mother that my friend G., (who lived a few doors away but who was in a different school district than I), had been placed in an accelerated class that covered grades three and four curricula in one year. Mum was surprised, and (with my agreement and curiosity) set up a meeting with my principal to find out why I hadn't been put in a similar situation, given the results of my tests. The answer was predictable. My school didn't have resources to implement an accelerated class. If I wanted to take an accelerated class, I would have to change schools, and Mum would have to contact the Board to do that, which is what she did, insisting that someone explain to her why tests were given to all children if not everyone was afforded the same opportunities. She demanded to know the reason for putting me through so many tests. (I have no doubt that my mother’s determined quest for action was softened by one of her dazzling, disarming and wholly genuine smiles). Mum won her point and she was told that another child and I were eligible to move ahead and stay in the school.

To my surprise and delight, the other child turned out to be one of my best friends, B. (While B. and I attended the same school, we had not really bumped into each other until we met at Sunday School, which was right across from our public school.)

In mid-December, each of us was given a choice. We could A) stay in grade three and continue on as before, or B) move immediately into fourth grade, or, C) stay with our grade three classmates for a week or so (until the end of the term), and join grade four in January.

I must emphasize that I never felt pressured by anyone in my family to skip a grade. They never encouraged it. They made it clear that it did not matter to them what I chose. Nothing would change. They were neither secretly nor not-so-secretly hoping that I would do one thing or the other. They did not know what to do. (I remember the conversations that took place while they wrestled with the question of what was really better for me, staying with my friends in grade three or accepting the circumstances and seeing them as an opportunity. I was wrestling with the very same question, so I knew that they only had my welfare in mind and did not want what would not be good for me.

Before I decided what to do, I'd occasionally wish that the whole thing had never started and that I had no choice to make. Then I could just stay with my friends and go along happily in my classroom with a teacher I liked. But that pining-for-a-different-reality (i.e. one that did not present a choice) didn't tell me that I should stay. As far as I was concerned, there was always a brief pang of wishful thinking when faced with situations that presented an unknown or a difficult choice. Ultimately, I decided to move ahead.

My friend B. opted for B) and joined her new class right away. I chose C) to stay and celebrate the holiday season with my friends in Mrs. M’s third grade class and move on to grade four in the new year.

Over the holidays, I decided to distance myself from what I considered my baby name (the nickname my grandfather had given me at birth, the name by which I'd been known until that point.) In the new year, I began using the name on my birth certificate, but it did little to alleviate the stress I was about to endure.

Bio XII

Monday, September 04, 2006

About Me.

My only problem with blogs is that I haven't yet figured out how to leave enough time to comment on them! I only have the early morning hours on Saturdays and Sundays (my first priority on a weekend morning), to write, return email and read others' blogs. (And I spend a lot of time searching for and reading them!!)

I WANT to comment because that's the point of blogging - shaking hands with you across the world or across the city, sharing my thoughts and beliefs and inviting your opinions.

So maybe that's what I'll do: bite the bullet and do a weekend 'comment blitz' (one of these days).

Kind regards,

P.S. If I don't comment on your blog, it does not mean that I don't relate or agree (or have an opinion). It's just a matter of time.

If you don't like leaving comments, please feel free to drop me a line at breakingthefaithbarrier@ hotmail.com (or springalwaysfollowswinter@ hotmail.com).

Beginning

7a. The Edges of Perception

See: Fever Dreams - Beyond REM

I don’t think that there was anything supernatural or profound about that dream. It was merely a recurring dream, probably brought on by a fever. Nevertheless, I remember the perceptions, the sensations, and the sequence of events. The profoundness lay in the lesson learned. Many perspectives were possible.

While speeding through the darkness of my oddly lucid dream, I felt that some part of me knew exactly where I was, and was unsurprised and quite acceptant of possessing this knowledge. I sensed that what I could understand as “me-the-human-being”, was only an infinitesimally small bit of all that this non-physical me already knew, but when I tried to think about the specifics of the experience or to put it into some form for later consideration, I found I was unable. Yet, I knew... I knew without words, and without any experience preceding this knowledge.

I knew that what I knew was more than what I thought I knew. What!?

I realized that what I knew as a soul/spirit/energy/non-physical entity was vastly greater than what I knew as a physical Being. This was so obvious to me at that stage in my life that I did not understand why it was the main memory from this dream. There had been so much more and I felt slightly disappointed that I could not recall the specifics. Why did they have to slip away? I wanted to look right at the details of my dream, and have a clear concise memory of them, but they seemed to slip into blackness when I tried.

It was like turning to look directly at something in the dark and finding that it disappears into the shadows. The more you try to focus on the object, the harder it is to see, so you begin to look away and suddenly, the object reappears in your peripheral vision. Automatically, you centre your gaze, and the object vanishes again into the darkness.

The Eye

The human retina is a light sensitive layer of nerve tissue at the back of the eye containing layers of interconnected neurons, including rods and cones (photoreceptors), which convey visual information to neurons in the brain. Rods are extremely light sensitive, but operate only in black and white. Twenty-five million of them are scattered across the retina. Working with, and vastly outnumbered by the rods, are 7 million cones that are sensitive to colour but do not work well in darkness. In the centre of the retina, there is a small impression called the fovea, where there are no rods at all, only densely packed cones.

As a species, we have chosen to spend most of our conscious time in the light. We build shelters and fences to protect ourselves from nocturnal predators, and we feel safe to sleep through the darkness, or, we stay awake under artificial light. We don’t need special night vision. In the light, we like to zero in on one scene at a time and get as much information as we possibly can. We look directly at everything. The cones, packed as they are in the centre of the retina send information to the brain that is superbly detailed, gloriously saturated and of the highest resolution. (Think of the way light shimmers through strawberry jelly or on a peacock feather. Visualize the subtly different colours of tree bark. Consider a rainbow.)

Peripheral Vision

If you look directly at an object in the dark, you will be trying to use only your cones to see it. Since the cones don’t work in the dark, and there are no rods in the fovea you must move the centre of your gaze away from the object you wish to see.

Look slightly to one side of it. Now the rods can see the object, if only in black and white. (The smattering of cones over the rest of the retina does what it can to contribute colour information, though memory may assist here, if you already know the colour of the object.)

On a clear night, look up at the sky (even in the city). As you search for stars, be aware of the stars at the edges of your vision, especially the ones that you can barely see.

When you find the faintest star that you can still see in your peripheral view, try to look directly at it. It will disappear.

If you can still see it when you stare at it, find an even fainter star at the edge of your visual field. It should disappear as soon as you try to look at it directly.

Cats have a special layer of cells behind their retinas called the tapetum lucidum (Latin for “Tapestry of Light” (or bright carpet), which acts like a mirror, reflecting light back into the retina’s cells.)

Bio VIII