(4/11/24. . . please keep in mind that I have used the male gender as my subject with understanding of this evolutionary leap of humanity because little is understood of what we females responsible with children and aspects of quality to ensure the family in civil community life with compassion when we are leveled with this. Yes, school is in session, and the garbage must go out Monday morning and we will mow the lawn today, so we won’t look shabby. And are we not lucky the supermarket is open round the clock and your uniforms will be clean for gymnastics. My appointments are covered, and I get to see Dr. Heinz today and yes, of course I am fine. With pot-roast for dinner. Amen and Amen.)
March 19, ’81
Five of the hardest days I have encountered had no one about. I look about me and see VIP’s and wonder how they could have grown so large and so unapproachable? The whole process of honest self-examination is painful. The key word is honest. One carries everything to its ultimate conclusion. But why punish oneself? They fill lives with good works and activities and think that physical speed denotes progression. It is easier to blame others for one’s misery.
As a child I made the error in thinking that I was like everyone else. In adulthood the error was in thinking that everyone was like me. Arrogance? Hardly. Doubt sits beside me and questions my every word. Since the time the top of my head was seared off and I walked for days in a world that had no beginning and no end, and I felt that I was one with the universe and there was no mystery, no evil, no beginning, and no end. Just love . . . sustaining and supportive. That year of cosmic consciousness stays with me. The impact dulled for a time when I shouted after my breakdown close up my head! Close up my head. . . . Why me?
Still, I have to ask why not me. But those who have experienced this, and they write mostly about men who do not have the daily care of young children. I continued with my responsibilities under stress and broke up in a million pieces. To whom did I say close up my head and how did I know that my brain was opened to a greater degree than the average person?
A minister friend could only say I had a mountain top experience. He said he has read of it and wished for it. I envy you he said. The men of this experience took off for the hills, or the privacy of the forests and contemplation. Even the biblical Paul took a year off to accommodate this experience and was attended to. When one is born with a brain working at 7 percent instead of the average 5, the 2 percent difference is unbelievable.
As a child one learns to accommodate oneself. What of the adult who because of stress or injury finds himself open to more than was ever imagined, who to go to for guidance? The physicists who sit in their laboratories and play mental games with the idea of impinging universes are lauded for their mental agility. Yet what of those of us who are visiting and have visited other worlds and see and hear and are labeled insane?
My heart breaks for those who lock themselves away and cannot participate wholly for fear of giving themselves away. And those sedated beyond reach who cannot say it is all for real and I am not imagining all this.
How can the Powers That Be measure the scope of the operational brain and unlimited mind? Unless they themselves have experienced any of it , they cannot do ought but label abnormal what is outside their frame of reference. The instability of the emotional creature who has been opened up still remains a constant source of worry to himself. Will I break up again, he says. What are my limits and how much stress can I handle?
And the questions themselves are enough to make him tremble as he reaches for medication. He yearns for flight and there is no place that quiets him. Like being seasick in the bow of the ship during a storm which appears unending. Dulling the brain to ensure that the full impact of events will not undo him is the only way he can see to function. Because the full impact is what he feels and sees Others do not. And this is the problem.
He continues to blame himself for what he considers his weakness and inability to cope when his specialness is his problem. And even that he finds difficult to assimilate. To be special means to be different. And who of us can comfortably accept the fact that we are not like everyone else? The very fact that he has come through such a trauma is to his credit but who will grant him that? Who will sustain his belief in himself and his ability to survive?
Where is the doctor or help for him to reestablish his individuality and yet allow him to feel part of humankind in evolution? The books are not closed yet on us. Something is very wrong in the way we treat those who appear to be different. We should be asking ourselves to reexamine our philosophies. Man will grant to his gods eternal life and the powers to influence for good or ill.
At the same time, they deny the eternal life for themselves and the abilities to do the same. There is a large gap in man’s ability or inability to go beyond physical death. He would allow himself the grace to go somewhere and basking in a large cloud forever seems to be the extent of his imagining. That we go to other worlds and these worlds are peopled for want of better words, like intelligent beings, does not occur to them. That there are those of us who can be attuned to other than the physical automatically puts us in an abnormal category.
The physicist gains applause for his musings. The individual who experiences these worlds and can give substance to them, does not.
There is a depth, a width, a breadth that escapes many of us. And those who are aware are shaken to an inch of their very selves. The spirit continues to teach, often with taking dictation. Joyce Carol Oates in an interview stated she sits at her typewriter table with a ream of paper and begins to write what is mentally dictated. And for such a prolific writer, those of us who know how it is done, understand. For all of us, it is still a mystery how our human brains operate. No doubt the public acceptance of her work has bridged whatever trepidation she feels, if she does.
And others, who put out mountains of work, or even minor works, do it the same way, though few speak of it for fear of being thought odd. The question to be confronted is, who does the dictating if anyone does, or is the mind such that it dictates to itself? Both premises are unsettling if one actually confronts them. Or the individual is especially secure and has put to rest all the questions arising. I go back and reread and find the material fresh.
I wrote a poem in the meantime.. . . .no title yet. And an Amen.