Saturday 25 April 2020

SATURDAY SESSIONS #44 (Final episode next week!)




Near-Death Experience - Crystalinks



What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? No, no!  It can't be! It couldn't be!
It's an ICU. Doctors, nurses, all over the place. Look, there's Croescia and Jarok looking in through the glass door. They're crying. What happened to me? Must have been my heart. Was it the heart? Yes, I see them now, the pads, there's the EKG, the IV-line, defibrillator, ventilator. Heart. 
Please bring me back. Please, please! 
He's shaking his head. The nurse is talking to Croescia. I understand him. I feel his frustration. I feel what the nurse feels. No! If only I could reach them now, Croescia, Jarok, just for a minute, talk to them, whisper in their ear, tell them I'm fine, happy, fit, light as a feather, never felt better in my life! If only I could hug Jarok, kiss the tears from Croescia's cheeks! Why am I not unhappy? Croescia! Jarok! Look up! Look up! What is wrong with me? Why am I so full of joy? But of course! Everything is so familiar here!  I've been here before! I've retUrned! That's why! I'm home! Thank you, Solari! Thank you, Xendo! Thank you, Zol!  Croescia and Jarok, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. It will take a bit of time but time marches on, as they say, and they'll be fine. I know it in my heart. My heart, ha-ha! But it feels like that, it feels so much like that now. The joy. It's our true nature. That's what they said in Lemuria! That's what they told me! Wait, what's that music? What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, my light body, body of light, will I ever see, ever touch again? Now I remember! It was one of the things I looked forward to before I arrived here on Earth, the senses, touch in particular, the rarity, the preciousness of touch,  the petals of a rose, a fistful of pebbles, the silky thighs and breasts of Croescia, even though we never touch at all, ha-ha-ha! as I tried to tell my friends at the hotel!  Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, the music, they are the music, we are the music, blending, sifting through one another. Look! There! It's my life, all before me, like a Lemurian hologram!  Xalak Zolthin?  But I was only seven! He was six! I kicked him in the shin and he cried. I am Xalak. I am hurt. I am everybody, everybody I hurt. Older now, every moment, every thought is there, my parents, siblings, Croescia, Jarok, I absorb it all in an instant. But what is that? In the distance? 
What is  that shimmering, shining light?                    
      
                                                               

                                                                ********








What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? Who is that on the sofa? No, no, it can't be! It couldn't be! 
What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, light as a feather, my light body, body of light...Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, they are the music, we are the music, as we blend together, sift through one another. Everything seems so familiar here! But of course it is! I've been here before! I've retUrned!...
Look! It's my life, all before me, highlights, like a hologram, every detail, I can grasp it all in an instant! Ah, all the selfish little things I did in life! Ah, my lonely childhood, my miserable life...There's Maria!...There's Jason!...I was asleep, sleepwalking, I could have been there for them, I could have....
Look! The joyful moments now...Ha-ha! I'd forgotten I'd ever had any joyful moments as a child....now the early years with Maria, with Jason!  Ha! There's Cathy, at last! Look at that! Wow. I'd forgotten all about that, those people, all of them, I'd forgotten all about all of them!  Look! Look! What's that? In the distance?  That shimmering, shining light...Listen!  It's the song! The song!  May the pure light within you...guide you on your way...
'Lucy!' I cry, gurgling, gasping for breath, as I get to my feet from the sofa.
'Oh my God, I thought I'd lost you! There's an ambulance on the way!'
'What? Why?'
'You had no pulse, Jordan! I gave you CPR! What happened?'
'Call off the ambulance, Lucy, please! Tell them I'm fine.'
'No way! Is there anyone I can call?'
'Family? No. My partner, maybe. But I don't want her to know about this.'
'Then I'll go with you. To the hospital. It could happen again, you know. You never told me you had a weak heart.'
'But I don't. What about our recording?  Jordan died in Atlantis! He was the one with the weak heart! We must record before I forget!'
'Phew!...That's...amazing!  First things first. If they decide to keep you there for a while and if they allow it, we can do the recording in the hospital together. Deal?'

They give me the all clear at the hospital and as there was a bed free, they suggested I spend a couple of hours there for observation. Lucy was allowed to stay with me. She drew the curtains for some privacy, wondering why they couldn't provide wireless earphones for the patients instead of imposing that incessant TV noise on everyone in the ward.
'This is St. James's Hospital, isn't it?  Ha-ha. Just my luck.'
'Why? Is there anything wrong?'
'No, no. Not at all! Let's do the recording. OK?'
On finishing the recording behind the closed curtains, we hear the clatter of plates and smell the fried chicken. 
'Poor chickens,' she remarks. 'A sixty-day lifespan of hell, hormones and antibiotics to end up in a sick patient's stomach. As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. Tolstoy said that. I wonder if more people have died in war than in peace since he died?'
She's brought a gift for me, wrapped and tied with a red ribbon.
'I'll put it into your jacket pocket,' she says, 'in case you forget it.'
'It's the CD, isn't it? Thank you so much, Lucy! You and that soundtrack have led me to the most important turning point in my life. And I mean turning point, because my life has already changed, thanks to you!'
I tell her about the NDE, how exhilarating it felt to be up there looking down. I felt pure joy, I tell her, so much so that I really didn't want to return. In fact I hated being dragged back into my body. Coming back was like a birth, a painful, unwelcome birth. I tell her about Jordan's death, or retUrn, I should say, in Atlantis, and how similar it was to my own NDE.
'Isn't it amazing, Lucy? My highlight reel was for this lifetime. So if, according to the Lemurian definition of time, we live a potentially infinite number of lives each life, a film-like review will take place for each of those lives. You know, somehow I had the feeling while I was up there in the ceiling, that it was possible to see every single one of those highlights all at the same time! Maybe we do! How mad is that, eh?'
'You may be the first person in history, Jordan, to have experienced two NDEs at the same time!'
'No, actually,' I grin, 'only one. Jordan Karpathian didn't come back!'
'Oh yes he did,' says Lucy. 'For the umpteenth time. He's right here in front of me!'
'Karpathian? I've disowned him, Lucy! He's a bloody coward. He betrayed me.'
Lucy laughs.
'You know, Lucy, it struck me on the way into the hospital today that my interaction with those beings of light was just another way of relating to the other beings here on Earth. What I mean to say is, you and I are also beings of light, and if we could only tap into our subtle energy bodies, we'd hear some of that blended music when we interact with one another. Does that sound crazy?'
'Not to me, it doesn't!  I've been studying the energy body for twenty years. The ancients called us children of light. It's only in the twentieth century that this knowledge has been rediscovered by the physicists. They describe us as frozen light.'
'The Lemurians told me that all those parallel universes, or parallel realities, are right here, now, here and now. I'm sure the afterlife is also right here and now, you now, that we can tap into it at will by a mere shift in consciousness.'
'In other words, we don't have to die to get there! I've read about this. People from different cultures all over the world have been able to do this. Australian Dreamtime, for example. Ever heard of it? That, if you ask me, is an experience of the afterlife.'
'I actually felt more alive than I've ever been. Maybe it should be called an NLE, a Near Life Experience, instead! It's what they were telling me all the time, the Lemurians. The implicate order is real, the explicate order is unreal! But the blending of light, of sound vibrations, of music, this merging, Lucy, this, how will I put it, this undivided unity of consciousness was pure love, pure joy!'
For a moment I am tempted to tell her about my problem, the cancer, my prognosis, but no, I decide against it. Why should I burden her with all that? Or?
'Lucy.'
'Yes?' 
No. I baulk again at the fence. For some inexplicable reason, I'm not going to tell her. Maybe it's a superstition which I'm not even consciously aware of. Maybe I'm afraid she'll tell me what I don't want to know, that this kind of therapy is only for chronic pain or phobias or traumas or whatever. Not for me. Not for cancer patients.
We hug and I thank her for everything and tell her I'll be over to see her tomorrow and she leaves. 

I'm thinking maybe I should see Cathy but I don't know what ward she's on so I leave the bed and start wandering about the hospital and who do I bump into but the oncologist himself, Dr McKiernan.
Well not quite bump into; I just see him with his clipboard at the end of the corridor. He's probably the last person I wanted to see here, but maybe I should be biting the bullet. It feels a bit like checking my account on internet banking, or not checking it, I should say, for fear of what I'll see, and in the meantime, just hoping for the best every time I use my card.  I have to admit, though, McKiernan is one of nature's gentlemen.  I suppose he should be retired by now, but I think he's very attached to his patients. There's something poignant, almost tragic about his expression, as if he were apologising for being what he is, an oncologist.  Or even for being alive, while every one of his patients is dying all around him. He'd sit on the edge of the desk, never behind it, or he'd sit on a chair or on a stool right beside me, showing real, genuine compassion for my plight.  Now, even more so, I guess, as I've opted out of the treatment. 
'Jordan!' he says, with a big smile. 'How nice to see you again! But if I remember correctly, your scan is not due for another few weeks. Is everything OK? '
I ask him if there was any way at all he could fit me in for a scan this afternoon. Taken aback, he wants to know why. I tell him, awkwardly, that it has to do with reassurance. That's all. I need reassurance that things are as bad as he tells me they are. He's trying to read between the lines and probably figures I'm sitting on the fence about the treatment. He reflects for a few moments and says he'll do his best to squeeze me in. Unless there's a cancellation, he thinks, there's no guarantee I can get it done today. If I could wait around for a while, he'll text me to let me know.

Eventually, I find Cathy who is surprised and delighted to see me. She has all of ten minutes for me in the canteen over a cup of coffee. As we sip our coffee, she asks me if there's anything wrong.  I assure her everything is fine. I just wanted to see her, just for a few minutes, just to be with her. In fact, maybe we could go home together after her work.  I'd just chill out here, read a bit, go for a walk around the grounds. 
'Are you sure you're OK, love?'  she asks, with a concerned smile, as she gets up to leave.
'Yeah, sure! Why do you ask?'
'Well, I don't know. You seem so... '
'So...?'  I repeat, teasingly. 
'So, I don't know, clingy? Ha-ha! Yes. Clingy! Are you sure you're OK?'
She kisses me and holds my face between her hands, gazing into my eyes.
'Yeah, maybe I'm a little clingy today. I just love the attention, Nurse Cathy!'
'If you ask me, I think it's this regression business that's affecting you. That's what I believe. But if it is, keep it up, will you? I love it!' she laughs, blowing me a kiss as she leaves the canteen.
I go downstairs to the waiting area and find a free seat. How many of these people around me here are on death row?  Does it show in your face if you're on death row? That feeling of acceptance. Of what is, what was, what must be. Of betrayal.  Betrayed by life itself and all its false promises.  What's going on in their minds? Unfinished business? Ah yes, it's always unfinished business of one kind or another, isn't it?  Death, the predator, springs without passion from the tall grass. We, the prey, succumb. 

After about an hour or so of contemplation, daydreaming, checking an e-mail or two on my phone, hoping for that text from McKiernan before the battery runs down, I get up to stretch my legs and who should appear with a clipboard in her hand but Cathy herself.
'You again!' she laughs. 'What are you doing down here? It's much nicer upstairs. At least while you're waiting you have windows and can see the sky!' 
I tell her I was just wandering about, exploring, feeling what it's like to be one of her patients, that kind of thing, but then McKiernan turns up again, engrossed in his own clipboard. Cathy has to go and so off she skips, chirping that she'll see me when she's off-duty, which won't be long. She stops to chat with McKiernan and I sit again and pretend to be looking at my phone, keeping my head down, but noticing now that they're glancing in my direction. Cathy must have told him we were together. She drops the clipboard and puts her hand to her mouth. She scurries back to me. I stand up to greet her and she slaps me in the face.
'How could you do that to me?' she pleads, tears streaming down her cheeks.
'I'm really, really sorry, Cathy! I didn't want to change anything. At least for as long as was possible.'
'What the hell do you mean by that?'
The heads of all the waiting patients are now turned towards us. She grabs me by the arm and we walk hurriedly towards McKiernan. She ushers us both into a corner, huddled out of sight from the bewildered patients.
'What do you mean you didn't want to change anything? You have pancreatic cancer! How could you not tell me about this?'
'I wanted to be your partner, Cathy. For as long as I could. Not your patient.'
She bursts into tears on McKiernan's shoulder. He just looks at me in helpless pity. Then Cathy apologies to McKiernan, fetches her clipboard from the floor and rushes upstairs without once  looking back.                                                                                                                         

Final episode next week! Catch up on: gregoryrosenstock.blogspot.com    
www.gregoryrosenstock.com            


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