talking to myself

The morning

There all along

There all along

The desert within seems to reach towards infinity,
Parched it longs for what will cause life to bloom,
Driven by thirst it wanders empty,
Longing to be filled with that which refreshes.

Paths hidden beneath the dunes,
Yet called forward,
Or pursued in its wandering,
The soul seeks without cease
Driven at times to madness by its thirst.

Oasis’s found that gives relief,
Coolness to take away desire,
Yet restless once again it is forced away
Not knowing the why of restlessness,
The torture of seeking what it does not know.

What is sought after cannot be owned,
Tamed,
Caged,
Bought,
For it has no name or form to grasp,
Yet it is there also seeking that which is lost.

We live and grow,
Loving and loved,
Gaining and losing,
Amidst it all
As life progresses,
Always seeking the chalice filled with life,
No longer an oasis,
A prison of sorts,
No,
The inner desert becomes a garden of life
When what is sought is found;
There all along.
To drink freely without fear perhaps is the heats desire.

So deep is the human heart,
Filled with love, rage, compassion, revenge,
Neighbors living together seeking rest
That only what is truly sought when found can give.
Each must look, fall and rise,
Until captured by that which journeyed with us all along.

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A tango of sorts

A tango of sorts

Our inner lives are deep and mysterious
Seeking expression in ways often humiliating,
If allowed to fester in the dark regions
Energy growing,
Stronger, maturing the more ignored,
Causing dis-ease with their impatience
To experience the light of day
Away from the infinite depths of the unconscious.
Knocking,
Pounding like infants seeking attention,
Ripping apart the world without
Reflecting the chaos within.

Mirrors faced with images unwanted
Others carry what is feared and despised
Forcing those without to carry our cross,
Bearing the butt of scorn and derision undeserved.

Our loved ones scapegoat-ed,
Strangers hated carrying the inner darkness
Causing rage and hatred or simple scorn
By the one who sees,
Unconscious of the truth reflected back.

Whether from cowardice or ignorance it matters not,
The fruits are the same there for all to see,
Observer or the one who suffers
This dance is played out by all,
A tango of sorts,
Led by one and then the other
On a planetary level,
Ending only in the silence after complete destruction.

The seeds of life and death take root in the human heart,
Why is death most often the winner?
Do we hate our own reflection so much
That we will continue to kill it over and over again,
The mirror shattering,
Scattered pieces of what was once beautiful
Its light gone for eternity.

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More on William

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Such is heat

In the afternoon heat on a summer’s day,
As the day winds down deep fatigue sets in,
The bones are weary,
The chest gets tight from the air,
I lie down to nap and arise not refreshed,
Such is heat,
Loved by some,
Dreaded by others,
Necessary in any case for natures continuance.

So I wait for winter avoiding the Sun,
Yet I also enjoy the beauty of the deep green trees,
The summer thundershowers,
Rare this year, also a great consolation to hear and watch,
Cold water sipped from a sweating glass,
Watermelon with its deep satisfying sweetness,
Ice tea sweet bring a deep contented sigh,
Yes there is also many things to be thankful for in summer.

Reading many books in the shade
Gentle breezes playing with the pages,
Perhaps even a quick swim in the lake,
Diving deep into the black coldness below the surface,
The sound of frogs in the evening with their mating call,
The deer bearing young with their gentle beauty,
Though in fact very powerful,
Yes there is much too love in summer,
In the end however let the fall and winter return soon

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For all to see

We are born without a stitch,
Naked for all to see,
Needing care and constant watching
Decreasing as the years march by one by one.

We grow and learn,
Independence grows as we mature,
Though not all survive to live a long life.
Some cut short on the day of birth,
Others drop as time flows forward,
Some die because of simple stupidity
Thinking themselves immortal doing foolish things;
So violence plays a major role in mortality,
Yes and disease striking suddenly for some,
For others it creeps slowly draining life away.

We reach our prime and go out into the world,
Young adulthood a time of growth and excitement,
Dating, parties, traveling, school.
Then marriage,
Settling down
A time of sacrifice and joy for many,
For some running from their responsibility
Leading to shattered lives and perhaps despair.

So the years begin to fly by.
Years seem like months,
Months like weeks,
Weeks like days,
Days, well they seem like smoke,
At the end,
Which is its nature,
Gone, fading into the air,
Much forgotten swallowed by oblivion.

Then we become old,
Some succumb sooner than others,
Yet it arrives,
We become dependent,
Needing care and constant watching,
Naked for some to see,
Increasing care as the years go by
Until we end,
Silence takes us,
The dark door closes,
Hiding the light that many believe awaits us,
Faith is my light on this joyful yet often dark journey,
Which I love.

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The game

It is all a waiting game that we are part of,
Externally expressed by how it happens in our outward lives,
We wait in doctors offices,
Traffic of course one great burden in how it manifest,
Airports a common experience of waiting.
Waiting for that phone call,
That friend to come,
Or perhaps waiting for just someone to enter our lives,
Hopefully to make a difference.
Some days we can forget about waiting
So much to do,
Important business to attend to,
The inner waiting game can be forgotten,
Tick Tock it still is there,
Yes waiting for our attention.
Boring hours an invitation to enter into it fully,
More often this desert preferred to opening that door,
So we run,
Complain of the outer waiting
When in fact it is so close to the real thing,
Shadowed true,
That it makes for some...uneasiness,
For others rage,
Yet again resignation.
Until the day suddenly the wait is over,
We sink and the waters of time flow over where we stood,
As if we never were or ever waited at all,
A brief time of mourning perhaps because of love,
Then silence.

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Lesson learned

I have come to the conclusion, well it is something I have always known, but perhaps the lesson is finally starting to sink in. What is that lesson? You can’t change someone else’s mind. That each person has reasons and many can give a good argument, well thought out for why they believe, or don’t believe the way they do. It is simply useless to argue, and I feel in most cases to debate, which is really more useless most of the time. Usually when someone is agreed with, it is because they belong to the same choir that the one explaining belongs to. If outside the choir; well seldom is communication achieved, though perhaps a little more understanding is passed on, not a small thing, at least in my opinion. Though for the most part I think those doing the talking, and I include myself in this of course, use stereotypes in dealing with those who hold an opposing point of view. Though each side may think they are the only ones have this injustice done to them, while not seeing it in themselves. Real communication is almost always impossible even among those who agree, so with those who think are believe differently; well anyone can do the math.

I am very poor at debate; I keep thinking it is about learning, when in fact it is simply about convincing others to agree with ones point, in opposition to the other. A valid sport, but not one that leads to real communication, something I am beginning to lose hope in. I think we will become more fragmented as a society, with more and more lines being drawn between opposing groups as time goes on. The web is full of ghettoes where like minded people can gather, a good thing in itself, however it can lead to a false sense of infallibility, because for the most part, everyone agrees with each other. To see my point, simply go to a discussion group that is held by any group that you do not agree with and see what they say about people like you. It can be any group. For instance Catholics can go to an extreme fundie’s sight, or perhaps fundies can go to an extreme catholic site. Atheist can go to a sight dedicated to one particular faith only, or people of faith can go to a sight dedicated to atheism and sees what is written. Usually people feel that they are reduced to a stereotype, yet often do not see it in themselves. So the cycle continues, unending, eternal, I wonder if there is a way out?

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Rewards

William’s primary doctor voiced his concern about his rapid decline. He thought it might be due to the amount of medication that he is taking, that they are the cause of him to not wanting to eat, or to drink, or when he does in very small quantities. So we got a blood sample and took in to the doctor’s office to see what is going on. Rose the RN that I work with and I had a discussion about this. William's appetite has been in decline for over a year, with of course the weight loss that always accompanies it. It got to the point that the only things he craved were hamburgers, plain, with only onions, coke and of course the ever popular chocolate. My thought (which is not worth much, not being a doctor) is that it is the progression of his disease and that it is not as sudden as his doctor might think. In any case, we want what is best for him and are doing everything we can for him.

So for now, he is off of his medicine, except for some Ativian, that we only give when he becomes very restless. At this point we usually give him no more than two a day, which helps to keep him peaceful. He will not sleep in a bed. As soon as we put him in, no matter how sleepy he is, he tries to climb out. He once told me that he is afraid to be by himself, he forgets where he is at. I think that might be part of the reason for his trying to get out. So for the most part we keep him in a geriatric chair, and he seems to be doing fine with it. My concern is that we may have to repeat this all over again if he again gets strong enough that we will again have to medicate. Medication is a two edge sword, and there is always a price to be paid in taking them. However the benefits are also good, and make it easier for both caregiver and for the one being taken care of. Without them it could be a hell for both parties. William often does not understand what we are doing for him, and he can fight back, making it impossible to give him the care that he needs. Yes a two edge sword, it cuts both ways. All in all however they do make his life easier, so if we have to go back on them, if he gets stronger (which I doubt), we will do what we need to do.

At this point he has two family members visiting him. He remembers them most of the time and while they are here he seems to be eating and drinking a little more than has been his practice to do, but not much more. The family members are his niece and nephew. He has two other nephews’ but they could not make it. They are all that is left of his family, all his brothers are dead, though at times he forgets and asks for them.

Last night after they left and I was spending some time with him, he asked me to say the rosary with him. So we said the rosary slowly, which he likes to do, for he has always been a very prayerful man, spending hours in silent contemplation everyday for most of his life. After we said the rosary, he turned to me and said in a whisper “I love you” ,which almost brought me to tears, something I often don’t experience. Being a caregiver has its rewards, and they often come unexpected. I love surprises.

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Peace still achieved

Peace still achieved

The silence that surrounds him deepens,
Words come in an ever decreasing flow,
Restless still but weakness curtails movement,
What little nourishment he has taken lessens even more
Soon to be stopped altogether.


Cared for until the end,
In patients he waits for his leave,
Which while sorrowful for those who love him.
He will at last find peace,
No longer tormented by a mind fragmented and lost,
Perhaps the shattered mirror will be regained,
Those of faith believe this to be so.
If not, well peace still achieved.

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Curtain call

Curtain call

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Could be soon

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Wounded souls

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They really saw him

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Light at the end of the tunnel

For Joe his near-death experience (NDE) was a very real preview of what is in store for him after death. Science has a different take: NDEs are real, but they have nothing to do with the afterlife. Instead, they are illusions created by a fading brain. But despite numerous attempts, no one has been able to scientifically explain all the elements of an NDE.

Now one researcher thinks he can. For Kevin Nelson, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, NDEs may be little more than dream-like states brought on by stress and a predisposition to a common kind of sleep disorder. If he's right, as many as 40 per cent of us could be primed to see the light.

Written accounts of NDEs go back more than two thousand years and have been reported all over the world. Most include a "point of no return" that if crossed will lead to death, and a person who turns you away from it. The identity of the person seems to depend on your religion. Christians, for example, often meet Jesus or a dead relative while Hindus may see Yamraj, god of the dead.

For Nelson, this suggests that NDEs stem from something fundamentally human. "People say that because there's a common thread running through them all there must be a spiritual element," he says. "I look at that common thread and I see a biological process."

Whatever causes NDEs, the experience is surprisingly common. Nearly 20 per cent of heart attack survivors recall at least some elements of an NDE, which can include out-of-body sensations, euphoria, tunnels or a bright light. Half of these people experience full-on NDEs that include several such phenomena. Although they are fairly common, near-death experiences have never been adequately explained. Most rational suggestions trace them back to falling levels of oxygen in the brain, and several explanations have been offered for how this hypoxia might trigger vivid experiences.

Some scientists say that they might be triggered by a hypothetical molecule called "endopsychosin" that binds to neurons and protects them from hypoxia. Others suspect that a flood of endorphins in the amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotion, could lead to euphoria and feelings of detachment. Falling oxygen levels might also cause epilepsy-like electrical discharges in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, leading to a rerun of life events. Activity in the amygdala might lend these visions a spiritual tint. Other observers have pointed to painkillers or anaesthetics as possible causes.

In fact, the list of explanations goes on and on. But many of them fail to account for the whole experience and are impossible to test scientifically. Many also overlook the fact that you don't have to be at death's door to have an NDE. A study in 1990 at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center in Charlottesville of 58 people who had experienced NDEs found that half would have survived without medical care. Sometimes fainting can be enough to trigger NDE-like sensations.

Nelson says that that's because despite the name, NDE has little to do with actually being close to death. He argues that the experience stems from an acute bout of "REM intrusion" - a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

REM intrusion is a common feature of narcolepsy - a neurological disorder characterised by uncontrollable bouts of sleep that can cause elaborate hallucinations and, sometimes, out-of-body experiences. But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest. Sleep paralysis has been offered as a rational explanation for many apparently supernatural phenomena, including witch attacks, visitations by the dead, and more recently alien abductions.

Could REM intrusion also explain NDE? "Elements of near-death experience bear uncanny similarity to the REM state," says Nelson. Falling and floating - common in dreams - also occur in NDEs. And although normal dreams fade quickly from memory, that quirky combination of dreaming and wakefulness causes people with narcolepsy to recall their hallucinations vividly. They may remember their NDEs in such clear detail for the same reason, says Nelson. Meanwhile, total paralysis - a hallmark of REM - might make a person believe they really are dead.

REM intrusion could underlie other aspects of NDE, too. "Narcoleptics, whose REM systems often become active while awake, are known to have a propensity for out-of-body experiences," says Nelson, and the frequency of these experiences decreases when their narcolepsy is treated with drugs.

Watching from the ceiling as surgeons work on one's body can be especially convincing during an NDE. Olaf Blanke, a cognitive neurologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, says these sensations happen when the brain fails to weave different threads of sensory information together. If tactile senses tell the body it is lying down, but a wobbly inner ear causes vision to be interpreted as though from a floating perspective, then a person may well "see" themselves from the ceiling. Blanke has caused people to see their disembodied legs from a floating perspective by electrically stimulating the angular gyrus, a brain area that integrates sensory information. A mixed REM state could disrupt the integration of sensory information in much the same way, says Blanke. The brain may be aware, but the transfer of sensory and motor information from the body is largely shut down.

To investigate the possible link between REM and near-death experiences, Nelson surveyed the frequency of REM intrusion among 55 people who had NDEs in a variety of circumstances, including fainting, heart attack, traffic accident, lightning strike and during surgery. He compared them with 55 healthy volunteers who were matched for age and gender. The results were striking. Around 60 per cent of the NDE group reported having experienced symptoms of REM intrusion, either before or after their NDE, compared with just 24 per cent of the control group. What's more, REM intrusions in the NDE group were more elaborate, including not just sleep paralysis but also hallucinations (Neurology, vol 66, p 1003). "This is good preliminary evidence," says Nelson.

One fly in the ointment is that REM intrusion is usually a frightening experience, which is hard to reconcile with the often comforting feelings of NDE. In response, Nelson points out that in the context of NDE, REM intrusion happens in a crisis, when our fight-or-flight response has already dampened our normal fear. It's something we can all relate to, feeling strangely detached as a car pile-up unfolds in slow motion, or calmly administering first aid at an accident scene only to panic later. We're naturally prepared, he says, to find the visions comforting.

Not everyone is calm in a crisis, of course, and it is also true that not all NDEs are as comforting as Joe's. Some survivors report hellish encounters that leave them depressed for months afterwards. One woman drifted beyond the stars to an endless void where voices taunted her about the dark eternity to come. A man was tormented by demons who "chattered like blackbirds" about his dangling body after he had hanged himself.

As for the feelings of cosmic unity that accompany the more pleasant NDEs, Nelson points out that the brain's limbic system, which includes the amygdala, lights up during REM sleep. The limbic system is responsible for emotion and some aspects of memory, and studies have long implicated it as a lightning rod - some would say God's rod - for religious experience. Electrical stimulation induces transcendental feelings, and patients with epilepsy whose seizures originate in this part of the brain report experiencing deep spiritual revelations.

Nelson's ideas have been well received by some. "Many of us have thought that REM intrusion was a plausible explanation," says Mahowald, who has spent decades treating narcoleptic patients. "It doesn't take much to extrapolate what we've heard over the last 30 years to near-death experiences."

Emergency trigger

So if REM intrusion could explain NDE, what explains the REM intrusion? Nelson speculates that the brainstem - which regulates heartbeat, breathing and the sleep-wake cycle - could also be the source of NDEs. In many physiological emergencies such as heart attack, fainting or near drowning, blood pressure or blood oxygen levels quickly drop, or levels of carbon dioxide in the blood quickly rise. This stimulates the vagus nerve, which connects the heart and lungs to the brainstem. According to Nelson, this could cause the REM centres in the brainstem to snap on without warning.

There is some evidence to support the connection. Stimulating the vagus nerve in cats pushes them into REM sleep within 45 seconds. And epilepsy patients whose condition is treated with implants that stimulate their vagus nerve also slip more quickly into REM during daytime naps.

If a few zaps from the vagus can tickle REM centres into action, then this could explain why fighter pilots who black out because of low blood pressure in the brain during high-g accelerations often experience visions of beautiful places, euphoria, out-of-body sensations and weightlessness.

The vagal connection gains further support from a study published in 1994 by Thomas Lempert, then at the Rudolph Virchow Clinic in Berlin, Germany, in which volunteers made themselves faint through a combination of hyperventilating, standing and breath-holding. Many of them experienced euphoric NDE-like sensations such as floating out of their body, entering another world, or encountering supernatural beings. Nelson believes this is a powerful example of how even benign cardiovascular changes might induce REM intrusion and subsequent NDE - even if death is unlikely.

Hypotension could also directly evoke out-of-body sensations. The brain's temporal-parietal junction, which is known to cause such sensations when it malfunctions, is located at the far end of a tree of blood vessels. "So if blood pressure drops," says Blanke, "perfusion in this area is first to go. That could be one reason, purely anatomically, why out-of-body experience is related to NDE."

REM intrusion could even explain the biggest mystery of NDEs: that they seem to occur at a time when the brain is hypoxic and brainwaves recorded from the scalp are flat. "That is definitely paradoxical," says Bruce Greyson, a psychiatrist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who has studied NDE for 30 years. "I don't see any way around this paradox except to say that either our observations of NDEs are mistaken or our models of brain and mind are inadequate."

REM intrusion could solve the problem. The REM centres reside in the brainstem, and while the higher brain areas in the cortex quickly blank out during hypoxia, the more primitive brainstem remains active for several minutes. Whether in fact the brainstem alone could account for NDE without help from the cortex, which normally handles vision and hearing, is anyone's guess, but there is another possibility: an NDE that seems to last many minutes might occur in the few seconds right before or right after the cortex blanks out. "It is likely that NDEs do not appear in real time," says Mahowald, "they may actually be brief, but perceived as prolonged." REM dreaming, which is notorious for compressing time, could be the culprit.

Not everyone is convinced. Greyson maintains that the protocol for Nelson's survey - recruiting NDE subjects on the internet - could have artificially elevated the frequency of REM intrusion in that group. "Those who report their NDEs on the internet may be more likely to admit to unusual things happening to them," he says.

Greyson also questions the conclusion that more REM intrusion in people who have had an NDE means that the phenomenon causes NDE. "It may be more plausible," he says, "that NDEs played a role in subsequent REM intrusion." It is known, for example, that people with post-traumatic stress disorder subsequently have more frequent REM intrusion - maybe because they sleep less soundly. But "if NDE enhances subsequent REM intrusion," responds Nelson, "then that would tell me that NDE and REM are related." He believes this is a testable hypothesis and encourages other researchers to investigate.

He is already planning further tests of his own. He wants to monitor REM activity in the brains of people he expects to experience NDE-like symptoms under certain conditions and record any reports of tunnels, lights and so on. For the moment, though, he won't reveal exactly how he plans to go about this.

The definitive scientific explanation for NDEs may be a little way off, but if, as Nelson's work suggests, many of us are in line for a talk with the man in white, perhaps we should make use of the time we have left to come up with some really good questions.

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The

THE

We are God’s smile in a world cold and often dreary,
The Transcendent touch firm and warm for those who falter,
The Father heals through each or our presences
The Eternal hidden ones feet that walk this earth.

To be kind beyond mere sentiment,
Loving those unlovable,
To embrace the un-embraceable,
Is the love of God in the flesh.

For the least is loved without measure
By love infinite.
Christ in each,
Jesus more than hidden,
One, incarnate, in each life,
That we are honored to know, love and serve.