Living

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Living

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Living

   Love

It was just three days before Halloween 2008.  Mark and I were planning to go to the Halloween festivities on State Street in Madison.  We were planning on meeting Abby and some of her friends there.  We were getting ready to go grocery shopping.  I was making the grocery list while I smoked a clove cigarette.  The TV was on and I was watching a McCain/Obama debate.  I was getting mad at what McCain was talking about.  The first and last time I voted was for Carter.  I was thinking about registering to vote for this election.  I remember getting so upset with what McCain was saying that I went on yelling about him and his views.  I was just a little upset!

I was in the kitchen with my grocery list and went into the living room, when all of a sudden I felt a very sharp pain in my chest that took my breath away and knocked me on my butt!  I fell on the couch.  I was moaning.  Mark came over and sat next to me and asked what was wrong.  I told him I was experiencing pain in my chest like I've never felt before.  It was hard for me to talk.  He asked if we should call the ambulance, could I be having a heart attack?  I looked at him and said no.  Then I got scared and said yes maybe we should.

They arrived at the apartment within five minutes.  They asked me some questions and I was on my way to the hospital.  I did not have my shoes. 

They were asking me health questions and insurance questions when I got to the hospital.  It took Dr Snyder about a half hour to get to the hospital.  My lifesaver.  He sat by my side, and all I remember is his face and he was holding my hand, while he asked me my medical history and what brought me to the emergency room.  He ordered a chest x-ray.  Mark was there and never left my side.

The next thing I remember is Dr. Snyder telling me I had to have an operation and I didn't seem to have any choice in the matter.  Like it was life and death serious.  Did I want to call anyone?  Yes, my parents.  My Mom answered the phone.  I tried to explain what was going on, then gave the phone to Mark.  That was the first time he talked to my Mom.  Not quite the way I imagined introducing them. 

I was in the operating room for eight hours.  I had a thoracic aortic dissection.  There's not to many people who have to have these that even make it to the hospital.  I was very lucky.  I remember being in the recovery room when Dr. Snyder came in to check on me.  I was still under the affects of the anesthesia when I heard him talking to me.  I recall thinking this is the same feeling I had when as a child I felt the same way after my hernia and tonsilectomy operations.  I felt real groggy and not ready to wake up.  Dr. Snyder said something to me and I saw him through the slits of my eyes.  I squeezed his hand because he asked me to.  I felt I would be alright, this was a familiar feeling and I would wake up when the anesthesia would wear off.  This is when they sent in my parents and I never woke up.  I had several bilateral diffuse strokes.

Then they decided to give me ace inhibitors to bring down my blood pressure.  It was very high.  They gave it to me twice.  I had renal failure.  It turns out I'm allergic to ace inhibitors!  I was in a coma for a couple of days.  The doctors gave my family a very bleak prognosis.  My daughter and her husband came out to see me.  I did not even wake up for my daughter.  They told my daughter I might be a "vegetable" because of the strokes.  They had no idea who they were dealing with.  I'm very stubborn.  I'm a Libra after all!  One of the most stubborn zodiac signs!  You can ask my Mom the Tauras she'll tell you I've been that way all my life.  The only Doctor who gave my family any hope was Dr. Snyder.  He had to put me in the wind column and he said once he does that he doesnt like to lose them.  He didn't. 

This Band was on David Letterman tonight.  They are called Tinted Windows.  Enjoy!

My boyfriend works at the mall here in Madison so I decided to go yesterday to pass the time.  Went in about 1:30 and I was looking around Barnes and Nobel at the books and cd's.  I was just headed up to get some coffee when the electricity went out.  It turned out to be a transformer.  The day I decide to go out there that happens.  It affected all the stores.  What a way to spend the afternoon!  

I felt tired and decided to take a nap.  I had a dream, this is what happened.
In my dream I opened my eyes and looked down at my body.  I saw that my body was transparent and illuminated.  There were spheres of light of different colors where the chakras are.  There were also golden chords of light around my body, not my physical body the transparent one.  Each chakra light had a different vibration that I could feel.  The lowest chakra felt like the base in a speaker.  If it could make a sound I think it would sound like the base.  It felt like the sound a base speaker makes.  The other chakras vibrated faster and faster as they went up.  Also the energy I felt was very intense.  I have meditated before and felt an "energy" but it's mild in comparison to the energy I was feeling in this "dream".  I felt excited about what I was experiencing.  Then the energy level started to fade.  I did not want it to and tried to sustain it. The energy level started to come back but I couldn't sustain it and it faded.I would like to know if I could do this in a concious state and is what I experienced close to what one experiences in a consious state doing a meditation to "open the chakras".

........

There has been virtually no research
examining any links between imaginative involvement and spirituality.
However, some literature discuss the link between spirituality and
many of the common features that imaginatives hold. Although
hypotheses can begin to be formulated about the possible link between
spirituality and imaginative involvement, the literature is still
very sparse on this particular subject.

First, spirituality must be defined.
Schemer (2003) elaborates on this construct, saying that spirituality
consists of three core experiences. These are a sense of oneness with
a force greater than the individual, feelings of boundlessness and
expansion, and a feeling of participation with the divine source.
This definition of spirituality makes it easy to speculate about
spirituality's link with absorption, which is the (definition blah
blah blah). Hunt et al. (2002) explores this connection more
thoroughly in their study of mysticism and dissociation in relation
to absorption and openness to experience. Not only were mysticism and
dissociation positively correlated to absorption and openness, but
they confirmed that trauma and lonliness can contribute to
dissociation. However, the researchers argued that dissociation
should not be confused with the opening, expansion, and integration
of transpersonal states, and that moderate trauma and lonliness can
lead to more integrative transpersonal states.

Luhramm (2005) puts the relationship
between spirituality, absorption, and dissociation into context by
pulling together information from historical and ethnographic texts.
He argues that absorption is used in a variety of spiritual contexts,
from prayer to meditation, and that they can be trained and
developed—in essence, “trained absorption.” Dissociative states
and hallucinations may go hand and hand with these absorption
practices, however, they are guided and benign in nature.

In addition, Kennedy and Kanthamani
(1995) found links between spirituality and artistic creativity. They
found a positive correlation between psychic and paranormal
experiences and valuing artistic creativity, a positive correlation
between spiritual interests, overall life meaning, and reports of
psychic experiences with reports of transcendant or spiritual
experiences. Moreover, they found that of the people who reported
transcendant experiences, 90% valued them as important while only a
small minority reported them as being aversive experiences.

Considering the link between
absorption, openness, dissociation, and artistic creativity with
spirituality, it would be worthwhile to examine imaginative
involvement in relation to spirituality since imaginatives have also
been found to have the capacity for absorption (cite), openness
(cite), dissociation (cite), and creativity (cite).

I was left dependless.
I feel a longing,
for a kiss,
for a hug.
Never to receive either.

I feel abandoned,
I feel lost.

without my soul mate,
without his arms around me,
making me feel safe.

I'm lost.  Alone.  Unloved.