Living in the Afterlife

My interest in the paranormal began in the last year or so of my marriage. My ex was disappointed and confused by my fascination with life after death, with the world of spirit, and anything else that wasn't grounded in materialism and atheism. I didn't blame him; in fact, I was embarrassed for myself. I didn't know why I read book after book on a subject that made so little sense to my husband. Nevertheless, I continued my search for evidence of an afterlife.

I think I understand now. One doesn't just die once, but many, many times. The physical death of the body is still far in the future for me (God willing), but I have died before. When my partner of ten years started looking at me as if he despised the very ground I walked on, or worse, with irritated indifference, my time in that life was running short. I didn't know how short.

His departure happened gradually, although I really didn't see it or understand it then. I had grown accustomed to his long absences from home, his all-consuming life at UCLA. I had resigned myself to his rages, his hot anger at me for all the things I did that angered or disappointed him. In the last year of my marriage, the year I lost all control over myself, I was preparing myself for the afterlife.

The death itself was slow and very painful. I hated dying; as I became invisible to the person I loved the most in the world, I realized that there is no going back to your old world. Once you die in that world, you are a corpse. You do not exist. This lesson is still sinking in, since every now and then I attempt to contact the Other Side, in hopes that the person who once created my universe might conjure me up once more, just to prove to me that I really was real.

And yet, he resists and annihilates my spirit every time. I learn, even if slowly, to avoid any contact with a home that is not home, a place that has disappeared, and memories that refer to nothing. He killed me once, and he will do it again, as many times as it takes for me to stay in the tomb.

The parallel universe is infinitely better than the world from which I was ejected. Heaven really is a place, and although I don't believe in perfection, I know I have found the highest of all earthly realities: I am loved, and I love in return. I understand that I inhabit the light now, and that nothing will drag me back to the darkness of a life that expressed itself in pain and constant yearning.

Yet the other world holds its painful attractions, as a place you wish you could claim as real, where you had some dignity; you know that your wishes represent a fantasy, but one you still need.

Dying was hard; becoming a ghost was even worse. Although I know that I am real, that I am loved into this world, sometimes I look in the mirror, and I am still transparent.

What Does One Write About When One is Feeling Out of Words?

For me, it's odd to have nothing to say. I decided to write anyway. So. Ty is away at Jake's funeral. I didn't know Jake at all; in fact, I don't know any of the family on that side. Hell, I don't even know which side I'm talking about. Ron Supancic's side . . . OK, so I do know that. I didn't go, since I have to work, and also because this isn't the best time to meet all the cousins and such. It's disconcerting to feel disconnected from such raw emotion, to watch everyone depressed and crying and feel nothing but distant sympathy and far away sadness. Ty won't be home until late Wednesday night, and it's lonely without him.

Honestly, I've been feeling really out of it lately. I am really scared about everything, but mostly about my health (as usual). I am dizzy a lot, my head is stuffy, my ears kind of hurt, and I'm exhausted and weak. My heart has been racing for no reason I can discern, and when I turn over on my left side, it skips beats. Just when I am getting better, I relapse and start the whole cycle over again. I feel kind of lightheaded and spacey, just floating along from one fear to the next, from one obligation to the next.

I think this latest round of intense anxiety started when I thought my husband had bone cancer. OK, in my defense, he thought so too. Of course, he didn't have bone cancer. He and I are more alike than I ever thought. It is some relief to me to know that the person I love the most in the whole world is a freak like me. He has some anxieties, too. At least I'm not alone in that.

The weekend, as fun as it was, was overwhelming and not relaxing. Friday, we went out with Ty's old photo buddies. We thought it was to be just four of us, but his old photo buddy invited a ton of people and planned for all of us to watch some friend of his play a show at a run-down club in Reseda. The waiter was rude to Ty, refusing to give him tap water, and I stressed out thinking about the way this was all going to end. We were home by 9:30. This was the same day we found out about Jake's death.

I cleaned house Saturday morning like a fiend. I scrubbed out Gracie's cage, making a monstrous soup of soap and bird crap, and then I scoured the floors, vacuumed the carpets, washed the dishes, and put away clothes. I packed, prepared for my ghost hunting weekend at the Glen Tavern Inn, and when Grant and Layla showed up, I was already exhausted. We had fun in Santa Paula until the hotel started playing games with us about available rooms, the cost of said rooms, and other issues. The general rudeness of their staff cast a pall over the weekend ghost hunt. Layla was miserable, she hated her room, Grant was upset because he couldn't fix the situation, I was willing to leave, and when everything was finally taken care of, the rest of the stay was pretty good. We had a great dinner in Ojai, explored a weird, new Catholic university that I've never heard of (Thomas Aquinas), hunted ghosts in the lobby of the Glen Tavern and room 303, and eventually I slept around 2:00 AM. Grant and Layla slept very little, for their new room--one that miraculously became available when we complained and threatened to leave--was right above the tavern, where the music blared way too late and people smoked like chimneys right below their window.

We were all completely wiped out by the time we met up the next morning. I had dog allergies, since the damn place allows pets, and we had to race back to Woodland Hills since we (Ty, Imanya and me) had a brunch date with Marc and Anette. We enjoyed hanging out with them and baby Mila (so adorable that I can't even begin to describe how much), and we had fun wandering around a hippy estate for sale near their house. They had a dog. I felt even worse. By the time we arrived back home, I was so thoroughly trashed that I did NOTHING for school, even though I am buried in essays. I still have to pay some bills, but I'm out of checks.

There was much drama at school yesterday. My loud, undisciplined group of middle school students (even though they're 20 years old)were particularly unsavory and hysterical, pushing me to the point of tears (although not in front of them). Then there was the big Academic Senate Meeting, where I was so nervous I was shaking since they were about the debate MY resolution about the SLO Coordinator position going full time. They passed it with no debate. WTF??????? I wasn't expecting that at all. I had been living on so much caffeine the last few days that I couldn't sleep AGAIN last night, and as Ty was pulling out of the driveway at 6:15 AM, I realized that if I didn't stay home and sleep today, I'd be really sick by tomorrow.

I stayed home. I feel crappy. My head is congested, and I'm dizzy. I keep thinking something is REALLY WRONG WITH ME, and I AM GOING TO DIE. Of course, I have and ear/sinus infection and I just don't want to take antibiotics, because they make me really, really sick. Sicker than the original infection. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Maybe I'll finally get over this. This cold started weeks ago, and just when you think it's gone, it returns with a vengeance. I am very unhappy about this, because I don't get to really have a life when I'm sick.

I had something to write, but it wasn't very interesting, and I suppose it would be better for me to wait until I can actually say something that doesn't sound like a whiny screed.

What I want to know is this: when did life stop being fun, and start being so much damn work?

PLACECARD

This means: this is not a real post, just a reminder to my four readers that I am still alive, just waiting for a moment to breathe before I can ACTUALLY WRITE SOMETHING. I wake up at 6:15. I arrive at school at 7:20. I make photocopies. I run off to class and set up the tea caddy, fill the huge tea boiler thingy with water, plug it in, and then run outside to a bench to do relaxation exercises. Then I walk into class, and proceed to teach three classes over the next 4.5 hours. Then, I either run home and collapse for an hour, or I join Ty for lunch and then run home and collapse for an hour. I get up, run back to school, attend meetings, deal with multitudes of student issues, try to be the SLO COORDINATOR (don't ask) for a couple more hours, and then it's back home. Maybe I get to watch American Idol, or perhaps an episode of "The Haunted," and then I'm on the Internet attempting to work on LAPA, or the Los Angeles Paranormal Association web sites. I answer some email, fantasize about a trip to Madrid in June, and . . .

I clean up bird shit. Cat vomit. Hairballs. I make sure somehow the members of the family are fed. I forgot to mention that above. I make dinner almost every night. I am not complaining. Really. I attempt to keep the floors clean and bring a semblance of order to the huge pile of papers on the kitchen table.

I have dizzy spells, and I'm sick. Again.

I forget to pay the bills. Bad things start happening. I get "notices" and "warnings". I still haven't paid those bills. I don't know when I can write. All I want to do is sleep.

So, good night. You will hear from me again, between the cat vomit and the bird shit and the LA DWP bill that has turned from a nice pink to a fire-engine red.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

Writerly Constipation

Hello, everyone. I have been attempting to come up with something interesting for a post, which led me directly to an issue I have with writing: I try to write what I think I SHOULD write, which constipates me, creatively speaking. I judge every line I write, thinking that a certain word is trite or cliche, or that I could have expressed an idea or observation better than I did, and so on. What results from that is a total lack of posts, much time wasting on various Internet sites designed to ruin one's creative impulses (whoops, I used the word "creative" twice, do I need to correct that?) and a sense that one is a total failure as a "writer," whatever the hell that is. What is a "writer?" Someone who writes occasional posts on a blog? Someone who is published?

The above picture is Connor James, my perfect nephew. I feel that I should mention something about what a miracle he is, now much I love him, how much we all adore him, or something profound about new life. However, even though all of those previous observations are true and would make relevant blog entries, all I can manage to say today is this: when I was contemplating his funny and beautiful face last Sunday, I thought:

He has so much to endure. School. Girlfriends. Stupid boys. Barney. Global warming. Potty training. His weird aunt. He'll have to attend my funeral one day. Will he cry because I was so amazing, and he can't imagine life without me? Damn. That's almost too much life. That was the first thought. The second was: crap, I'll have to start over just like him one day. I felt total exhaustion at the thought of starting over. I wondered if we had a choice in the matter. I rather doubt it. One day, I'll wake up screaming as cold hands pull me out of another stretched-out chi chi. I hope that I won't remember too much of this life . . . otherwise, I'll be yelling for Ty or Imanya. "WHERE ARE YOU GUYS? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? AM I A BABY AGAIN???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO . . . " but there you go. I'll be on another journey, whether I like or not.

Why do I think I'm destined to go around again? I sure as heck have not achieved anything like Enlightenment. I have not earned the right to expand my consciousness to encompass the Great Chain of Being or whatever. I haven't learned enough. Yes, I have another 50 years or so if I'm lucky, but somehow it just doesn't seem like enough time for me to figure out the Big Questions, much less the Big Answers.

Yes, C.J. is wonderful. I can now identify his wail from those of 1,000 other babies. That makes me heart melt a little. A lot.

So I wrote this today, with only 5 minutes left before Imanya and I are supposed to be at G-Mama's. So I feel like a writer today. It feels good.

(I dedicate this post to C.J. and Mosca)

Here We Go Again

I highly respect Dr. Ian Stevenson. Of all the authors I have read, some truly execrable, some quite respectable, Dr. Stevenson is the one person who has formed and shaped my beliefs about life and death, and the very purpose of existence. I believe that no one makes a stronger case than he does for the continuing existence of consciousness.

It doesn't matter what I think, really, since I am not a scientist but a PhD. in Hispanic literature and language. I have read a tremendous amount on the subject of existence (in some form) after physical death, and I have conducted some of my own investigations. I have had numerous personal experiences that defy a materialist mindset, but none of that makes me an expert or someone whose opinion on this weighty matter should be accepted as a matter of fact. So many of these questions must be answered on a personal level, for it is a matter of personal transformation in the end. I appreciate, however, those who dedicated their lives to amassing evidence so that people like me can feel reasonably justified for their belief in post-mortem existence. The hard, painstaking work of investigators like Dr. Stevenson allows me to draw my conclusions based on their evidence, and for that I am eternally (literally!) grateful.

There may be some interest for anyone reading this in what I have concluded, after reading over one hundred books on the subject, ranging from the purely scientific (SPR and ASPR papers) to the popular (John Edwards' and Van Praugh's accounts of the afterlife). I do have training in critical thinking and evaluation of evidence-- no one receives any kind of degree at Yale without rigorous training in both--and 22 years as a teacher and director of various academic and administrative programs certainly trains one to organize one's thought process towards results, not fantasies. After wading through so much information and history, after thinking about this issue endlessly and pondering all possible explanations, I find that the theory of reincarnation is what makes the most sense and has the strongest evidence to back it. It also, on a personal note, is what explains my experiences as a child and best fits my memories (the few that remain) of a previous existence.

All of the other information--gleaned from mediums, channelers, psychics, near-death experiencers and adults who claim to remember past lives (as opposed to children between 3 and 5 years of age) tends to suffer from wish fulfillment fantasies and self-delusion; yet even as I write that, I am quite sure that there are several authentic "experiencers" of the afterlife that I hesitate to criticize or invalidate. The problem is the mixture of real and imagined, of authentic with trickery, of pure motivations with motivation tainted by greed for money and fame. Eusapia Palladino is a good example of what I mean by that. Much of her physical mediumship was authenticated by scientists from various disciplines who set up conditions that would make fraud impossible; yet, even though she could produce amazing results ranging from apports to full materializations, she was caught cheating openly on several occasions. When she couldn't produce good material from the spirit world, she took matters into her own hands. This is the issue, then, that plagues people like John Edwards. He may be 99% authentic, but there's that nagging issue of the 1% that tarnishes his reputation. You could look at it the other way, too: he may be 99% fake and 1% authentic; in the end, you have to have some control over what you do, some method that keeps you above board and "investigatable" by objective observers with no interest in the outcomes. This is what Dr. Stevenson does, and his work taken as a whole is overwhelmingly convincing. As far as I am concerned, Dr. Stevenson has proven that reincarnation happens. He does not claim that it exists for everyone at all times; yet the fact that it exists at all blows the top off the universe and everything we think we know about human consciousness and survival of death.

When asked about the "larger purpose" behind reincarnation and current theories of the mind, here are his words:

"Do you see in reincarnation a glimpse of a larger purpose?"

Stevenson: Well, yes, I do. My idea of God is that He is evolving. I don't believe in the watchmaker God, the original creator who built the watch and then lets it tick. I believe in a "Self-maker God" who is evolving and experimenting; so are we as parts of Him. Bodies wear out; souls may need periods for rest and reflection. Afterward one may start again with a new body.

Omni: Do you disagree with most bioscientists, who hold that what we call mind or soul is actually a part of brain activity?

Stevenson: The assumption that our minds are nothing but our brains appears to receive support when you consider the effect of injury, surgery, a high fever, or one or two drinks of whiskey on our mental processes. Some neuroscientists ac knowledge that they have only just begun to show how brain processes account for mental ones. But they claim to know that they or their successors will work it all out. They are sure there can be no other explanation, therefore they consider no other. We are not pledged to follow all the received opinions of neuroscientists, however. Recently, a small number of psychologists and philosophers have begun to ask whether mind can ever be fully explained in terms of brain functioning.

The mind, apparently, is not bound by this one existence. As for the implications of this, that I leave to a later post. In the meantime, anyone with any interest in the question of survival of consciousness should read Old Souls, written by a journalist who traveled with Stevenson to India and documented the journey. It's a fascinating introduction to an amazing man and an even more amazing life's work.

Waiting.

My sister is in a hospital bed in San Francisco, battling through her 20th hour of labor. She is with her husband and a midwife, and long ago gave up her oath to not receive an epidural. She's had two, as of last count. I can't, of course, imagine what her pain is like. I know what everyone says, you forget it, it's all worth it in the end, etc., but at the moment, I doubt my sister cares what the common wisdom has to say on this subject.

I'm scared, because I don't understand what is happening to her. My mother tells me that "everyone does this," but not everyone does. I didn't, and I won't. There are complicated emotions surrounding this birth for me. I can't stop thinking about Mease, but I also think about myself: the cold fact that my window of opportunity for pregnancy and birth has shut. I will never experience what she is now, which on the face of it is just grand--who wants such misery, such animal torture?--on the other hand, I will never hold my baby, my flesh and blood, and know that mysterious bond that new mothers feel with their infant. Mease and I will be separated by experience: I will never know or understand what she is going through, what she will experience over the next several months. I fear that this will separate us a little, as my divorce placed a barrier of (bitter) experience between us. She couldn't fathom what it felt like to watch a marriage dissolve, and nothing I tried to explain to her really made sense. Of course, her new life will be mostly a positive. Perhaps what will link us is this one commonality: she will know in a few short weeks what it feels like to have absolutely no control over any aspect of her life.

When her child reaches the age of six, THEN she and I will have a lot to talk about. That's when my kid came along. I missed Mosca's babyhood, and landed right in the middle of her Pokemon obsession. Since then, it's been six years of parenthood, and learning how to share her with many other interested parties, not the least of whom is her biological mother. I have learned over these six years that giving birth does not make one a parent; even missing the first six years has not mattered all that much to my relationship with Mosca. I've listened to endless stories spanning the first to the seventh grade; I've been patient when I wanted to explode; I've coaxed her to eat a million times; I've held her when she's hurt herself on the monkey bars; I've hung out with her in the mountains and cracked open hundred of acorns for no particular reason; I've had many, many, many heartfelt discussions with my husband about the best way to impose discipline when the need arises; I've anguished about how to best guide her to become a responsible, loving, compassionate and kind adult. She is well on her way. It has not been easy.

Mease and I will, shortly, have a new bond: that intense feeling of loving someone so much that you can't bear to even begin to express it, because it runs so deep that it changes your DNA. No matter how much pain she is in now, the cliche will prove its grounding in truth:

It will all be worth it in the end.

Too Close

Around a week or so ago, the usual group was wandering Camarillo. In addition to the thrill of knowing that we could be arrested for our exploratory activities, there was a new twist on the evening: Unit 44, along with others whose numbers escape me, was wide open: the Children's Ward.
It was terribly creepy. The murals were garish, out of place, oddly bright and happy for such a sad and frightening place. Marylin Monroe poses for all eternity next to Michael Jackson, the (alleged) pedophile; monkeys swing from cartoon trees above Ricardo Montalban and the the little guy that used to say, "The plane, Boss, the plane!"; then, of course, there was Satchmo, Diana Ross, Alfred Hitchcock, staggered down the hallway in out of proportion oddness, inviting visitors and inmates to endless contemplation of a popular culture that some of us recognize, and others have no reference for at all. How many children have seen an episode of "Fantasy Island"? Is that what Ward 44 pretends to be, a fantasy for sick and incarcerated children? There is no relation among the bizarre murals adorning the long, sterile hallway. These are just random images signifying nothing to no one: an apt metaphor for madness and illness. Mental illness is something like memories out of context; it's all there, the pictures of one's life that are inextricably linked to television and movies, so much so that one bleeds into the other, yet there is no narrative, no story, no language to organize or connect them.

I freely admit that I do not know what I am doing wandering through this history of abuse and despair, this building redolent of hot fungus and medicinal fluids seeping through filthy carpet. That one night, every door was open to us, an invitation: come in, see what you feel here. So we entered every room, every corridor, every wing, every unit. I was feeling brave, intrepid, daring; until the last room facing the north parking lot. It was dark, of course, but it was more than that: it was alive. The chief ghost hunter said it first: "There's a lot of activity in this room"; and so there was. I don't know what to call it, that feeling of dread, the state of being watched, the sense that something is happening all around you that you cannot see but only feel. All I do know is the result: I was instantly exhausted, drained of all energy, all light, all optimism. I sat on the floor with my head in my hands while the others conducted an EVP session. My legs felt weak and vertigo toyed with my head. Every instinct told me to leave that room as soon as possible. If I did not, it was only due to a super human effort to not appear the coward in front of people who never, ever ran away from ghosts . . . because we are all playing with death, if we were to be honest. We are hoping to contact someone who has "crossed over", who has seen what none of us have, what we all fear. Of course, our biggest fear is that after death there are no voices, no contact, no spirit energy, no paranormal communications, just silence. Just annihilation.

One of our ghost hunters died last Saturday. He couldn't breathe. He emptied his asthma inhaler and it didn't help. He suffocated. That is the death that most terrifies me, a fellow asthma sufferer. His death brought the possibility of my own to the forefront of my thoughts. Mostly, though, I think of his mother who lost her other son less than two years ago. Oddly, he died the same way: suffocated in his bed. All of this seems unreal, surreal, the stuff of novels and horror stories. There is no way to imagine what bizarre reality his mother is stumbling through as I write this.

He was a big kid with huge, warm hands. He loved taking pictures with odd flashes and streaks of light, thinking that he had captured evidence of the paranormal. He loved ghost hunting with all his heart. He seemed, outside of ghost hunting, lost in the world. He was happy tromping around graveyards, missions, and the Queen Mary; it gave him a mission, a purpose. I did not know him well. What I was able to see was his childlike sweetness and passion for all things paranormal. He was genuine and sincere in his enthusiasm; he made Ty and me want to take care of him, to encourage him, to nurture that innocence that he was destined to lose.

Now, of course, I have no idea where he is. His mother is probably frantic to find him, as she was with her first son. I would love to offer up some platitudes regarding his new life after death, but I have nothing to offer. There is nothing to say. In all of our many hours recording random noises that we sometimes construe to be voices of the dead, in all of our thousands of pictures that appear to show something, in our endless videos and constant attempts to reach over the edge of this life and into another one, we have no answers whatsoever.

If there is another life, we have no clue what it looks or feels like. If there is some existence after death, we are no closer now than we ever were to understanding or describing it. Anything that I said regarding the continuance of the human spirit is based on some odd audio clips, some bizarre sensations and some strange photographs. Hardly the basis to alleviate the crushing grief of losing one's son; one's last son.

There is a certain cold emptiness and weariness in the ghost hunt; we often feel that there is something there, and sometimes we can offer evidence for it, but we don't know what "it" is. We have nothing to give those who need answers. In the darkness of Camarillo, I wonder if the search might not be dangerous. If we find answers, perhaps they are not the ones his mother needs to hear. Perhaps they are not meant to be discovered at all, and every time we tempt the spirits in the corners of hospital rooms we are, in fact, giving up just a little of our souls.

I know one thing. At least that mother's kind son is not to be found in Camarillo. Wherever he is, I know there is more light for him than there was for the children staring at the lost and impossible world of Fantasy Island.