August 2013 – Petitefreespirit

Conversation: The Death-Defying Lady

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with a woman who felt compelled to share her story and that I would think she was crazy. That exact day, a year earlier, she died.

While sitting outside saying her morning prayers (a daily ritual), she said she heard a voice tell her that she needed to go to the hospital because she was having a heart attack. She then asked her husband to take her to the hospital because of what the voice said. Her husband didn’t quite believe her (or more obviously, the voice) and asked several questions. He asked if she felt any heart attack symptoms. At that moment, the only “off” thing she felt was numbness or tingling in her pinky finger. Based on this one, minute point, he did not think it warranted a trip to the hospital for such a potentially silly reason. She insisted. He acquiesced. While they were on their way, her heart stopped. Technically, she was dead. Her husband flew to the hospital as fast as he could. She cycled through resuscitations and flat-lining multiple times. Finally, the doctors were able to stabilize her condition and find the root cause of her heart attack – a completely clogged artery. She underwent bypass surgery and remained in the hospital for quite a while.

While recovering in the hospital, she saw a little boy in her room around 2am. According to her description, he was looking around the room in complete wonder. She was, of course, concerned that there was a young child in her room, away from his parents at such a late (or early) hour. However, he would never speak. At some point, she must have fallen asleep. The next morning, she asked her husband, who slept in the room with her, if he had seen the little boy during the night and he said he had not. The following night, the little boy reappeared. Again, he said nothing. This time, she decided to try to touch him to get his attention. When she reached out to him, her hand went through him. In the middle of the night, in her hospital room recovering from a heart attack a voice told her she was having, she met an angel.

Yet, her story doesn’t end there. She returned home after being released from the hospital. While sitting outside saying her prayers, a voice (or THE voice) spoke again and told her to go the hospital because she was having a heart attack. Dutifully, she told her husband, who thought it was a not-so-funny matter. However, he did take her back, only to find that, yes, she was having another heart attack due to the diminished capacity or output of her other arteries.

The day I met her was a year to the day after the original voice and heart attack. The person I spoke to was a vibrant and thriving woman. She jokingly mentioned that she was now living on lagniappe. We spoke for so long that the conversation veered off to other subjects as well; spiritual healing, giving service to others in lieu of birthday gifts, adoption, angels and spirits. Once again, she mentioned that I might think she was crazy and I told her that she had a most amazing story that I was happy that she felt free to share with me. I now share it with you.

For me, almost everything relates to something else. While she was telling me her story, it reminded me of the movie, City of Angels. The song is especially appropriate…

Conversations

I often end up in conversations with people who relay their very interesting (to me, at least) stories. Sometimes, it may not be the story itself but the story coupled with the personality or what is going on at that moment that makes the moment so interesting. Without divulging deeply personal AND identifying information, I’ll share some of the conversations that lingered after the talking stopped.

Night Rider

Night time riding is not my absolute favorite thing to do. My rods are not the best, which means making distinctions between varying shades of dark things in the dark doesn’t work out too well for me. I am no owl for sure. Although I have a light on the front of my bike, its purpose is more for allowing others to see that, yes, I’m here, as opposed to me being able to see what lies on the ground ahead of me.

Despite my almost night blindness, ever so often, I do have a desire to take a ride at night. Last night was one of those nights. Fall, my favorite season, seems to be approaching based on evening temperatures. Last night felt exceptionally cool and crisp. I was not wearing sleeves and could feel a slight chill against my arms as I slowly meandered around town. Last night’s pace was just that – a slow meander. There was no real destination involved so I just meandered my way along with the most minimal pedal input I could get away with. I was out long enough to see the sky change to varying shades of color as the sun set. At one point, purple was a beautiful swath decorating the evening sky. At a certain point on my return while riding up a residential street, all was quiet along the route in a way that reminded me of the mornings I would ride in the snow. Quiet and peaceful. That was the feeling I brought with me when I returned home and before I fell asleep.

August 21 Worldwide Womb Blessing

There will be a Womb Blessing attunement on August 21 at several different times (based on the time zone for the UK). This month’s focus is on abundance. Blessings (and abundance) are nice to receive, so I thought I would share this information for wom(b)en interested in focusing on increasing their abundance. Remember, it is necessary to register in advance for the event. You’ll find the link below:

Registration

After registration, each registrant will receive an email with meditation instructions in order to prepare to receive/use the energy. In addition, men who would like to connect to the energy of this time can do a meditation as well.

Creativity: Making the Abstract Concrete

Artists such as musicians and painters (two groups who are truly considered artists) have honed the ability to tap into their creativity in order to produce new works of art. However, in the process of everyday life, non-musicians and non-painters create as well. Sometimes it’s not recognized as such. Whether it is the meal that is explained away as “something I just threw together” or the coordination of disparate clothing items to create that “look”, creativity is reflected by almost everyone.

Growing up, I could see an everyday item in different ways and then use it for alternate purposes. My grandmother’s old bushel basket became a round telephone table with the help of some cloth draped over it. I learned how to crochet early but it was so early that I can’t remember what I made because I also stopped relatively early. I learned how to sew almost by intuition and ended up making a pair of pants, a top and a jacket in seventh grade home economics instead of the pair of recommended elasticized shorts. As a preview for the future, I didn’t do so well when it came to the cooking part though. In addition to creating physical things such as clothes or innovative furniture, I also wrote poetry and could deeply visualize the plot of books I read. Even today, sometimes the longest laughter comes when someone tells me something rather innocuous and I’ve visualized it in my head. To them, they probably didn’t find it that funny, to me, the mental picture is a hoot.

With the passage of time, creativity manages to fade into the background as worries, concerns, deadlines and, basically, life steps in to redirect the focus. Skills once learned lie dormant. Hobbies once practiced are forgotten. Memories of being in the flow recede. And life goes on.

Such was the case for me. However, I recently decided to pick up several creative activities and tap into the creative flow once again in order to create something concrete from the abstract. I started crocheting a cap a while ago and finished within two days. However, I followed the directions for the wrong size and it seemed only appropriate for a boy’s head and not that of an adult. The rework is in progress. In addition, over three years ago, I purchased a variety of gemstone beads in order to make jewelry. A few pieces were made on-demand for my sister’s birthday and as gifts to two people (with one design being duplicated for me). Life got in the way and the hundreds of dollars of supplies just moved around from spot to spot, place to place. I finally started working on pieces that I had already begun but needed to finish and created another piece from the beginning. I now have two totally complete necklaces and matching earrings for one necklace; two almost-complete necklaces that just need clasps in order to consider them done and some abstract ideas for other pieces that need to be fleshed out with the appropriate materials. The box(es) of gemstones are still very much full with stones of various sizes and colors awaiting the transition from abstract concept to concrete design. So, when 3am arrives and I’m struggling to return to sleep, maybe, just maybe, I’ll lie in bed, not with visions of sugarplums dancing in my head but the next necklace or earrings arranging themselves in my mind’s eye. As for the poetry, it is still on hiatus at the moment. However, it could make a comeback as well.

Supportive partnerships and encouragement help in any endeavor, creative or otherwise. I recently met a photographer and hope that we can be creative sounding boards for each other. At some point, I’ll even have a recent photo of me and she will have a new necklace.

Creative flow is always swirling around in the ether; it’s just a matter of tapping into it. I’m trying to consciously tap into it so that I may produce items that will provide alternative revenue streams. Yet, with or without the revenue (hopefully with it), it feels good to make an abstract idea take on a concrete shape.

Sleep or the Lack Thereof

When I was a little girl, I used to sleep the sleep of the dead. I would fall out of bed in the night and not wake up due to the fall but rather because my mother was waking me up telling me to get back in bed. When we moved from my grandfather’s I had my own room with princess furniture. I continued to fall out of the bed, but now, the floor was less forgiving. It was a concrete floor instead of wood. When I rolled one time too many, I probably sounded like a dead body. The few times I fell from the bed at that place, I would wake up crying and disoriented because the impact hurt enough to awaken me. However, my mother found a workaround – she placed fold up chairs next to the bed so that when I rolled over the third time of two allowances I would roll onto the chairs. It worked. The chairs caught me and I never hit the floor after that. Who knows how long it took me to not roll out of the bed though…

In college, our dorm had a serious prankster who would trip the fire alarm at 2 and 3am – repeatedly. Usually, I would scurry downstairs and out of the building with my roommates and complain about it with everyone else the next day. However, there was one day where everyone else was complaining about evacuating the building – except me because I knew nothing of it. When I returned to my dorm, I confronted one of my roommates and told her (full of righteous indignation) that I could not believe they left me in the apartment to potentially die (there were times the prankster would start a fire in the trash chute as well). At that moment she gave me a look of complete incredulity – and cursed me out. She explained that I was awake and in my robe when she last saw me. I was going to put on clothes to go outside. She and our other roommates left because we were all awake and preparing to leave. The only problem was I wasn’t really awake but sleep walking. I managed to crawl right back into bed and go back to sleep (or resume the position of sleep since I never really woke up). When they returned, they assumed I somehow was the first to get back in the room and thought nothing of it.

In my thirties, I was presented with another sleep conundrum – seizure-like behavior during my sleep. The first times I heard about it, the reports were innocent sounding “you must have gotten cold last night because you were shivering” or “what were YOU dreaming about because all of a sudden you started shaking.” Because the behaviors were described rather innocently and were random at best, I never thought anything of it other than, “oh, that again.” That is, until it was thought I was having a seizure. As in the scenario with the fire alarm, I woke up innocently the next morning feeling like “hello world.” Until I saw the worried look on his face. Instead of the innocent descriptions of shivering, I was presented with a report that my body was shaking all over. It started in one part of my body and increased to include my entire body. Behavior that was perceived as innocent tics had now turned into an alarming case of something else. So much so that he was scrambling trying to figure out if he needed to get a spoon and struggling to remember what else you do in the event of a seizure. I had no realization of what had transpired and would have thought he was joking, so fantastical was the nature of his description, if it had not been the look of “there is something severely wrong” on his face.

It was then that I scheduled the sleep study. I spent the night with electrodes attached to places all over my face and scalp for one night. I went back to the doctor for the results. No seizure-like behavior ever presented itself (of course). However, he did note that I had the WORST sleep pattern possible. I never remained in REM long enough, I cycled into and out of REM repeatedly. For that, he prescribed a sleeping pill which I took until just before the bottle ran out. I lived alone and didn’t want to be soooo out of it that I didn’t know what I was doing, although, come to think of it, that was the state I was in anyway. He also suggested/recommended/advised that I stay away from caffeine. He made it very clear that he meant caffeine and not coffee by rattling off a list of things that contained caffeine – including chocolate.

Years later, here I am awake at 2:56am writing. I woke up around 1:20 or so and felt fully awake although I couldn’t have fallen asleep until around 11pm or so. Usually, the three o’clock hour is my waking time. It would seem coffee could be a culprit (I did have some today) but I quit Starbucks a while back and have had sporadic coffee since then but regular three o’clock (or some other off hour) awakenings.

Sleep (or better yet, sleep of the dead), I miss you. Come back. Soon.

PS: One night, while not sleeping, I ran into this short story on insomnia from Jackie Summers who posts at The Good Men Project.

Tales from the Bikeside

Yesterday I was riding home on my bike when I saw a little girl safely riding her bike on the sidewalk in front of her house. I noticed her bike was exceptionally small sized and still had training wheels attached. Once she reached the end of the block (they lived on the corner), she stopped. At that moment, I was approaching her corner to turn and did a “girls on bikes” solidarity wave. She smiled and returned the wave. Hopefully in seeing me ride my bike, she realized that someday, she too would be able to handle her bike with ease. I believe strongly in the empowering feeling attained from either seeing someone do that which you wish to achieve or being able to envision yourself achieving that goal.

As I pedaled away, I realized that when I was her age, riding a bike was completely foreign to me. I doubt if, at that time, I could have imagined myself ever successfully riding a bike. Growing up, I was underweight and undersized. I rode a Big Wheel for an abnormally long period of time. Other kids around my age were whizzing by with actual bicycles and I was pumping pistons of fury (left and right legs) on my Big Wheel. We won’t even discuss the countless times the pistons were pumping but the plastic tires didn’t gain traction and I remained rooted to the spot. I would imagine I didn’t learn how to ride a bike until I was around 13, maybe.

Despite the slow start, I’ve managed to make up for lost time. Recently, I’ve pedaled on a local bike trail for about six miles out (then pedaled six miles back with adult pistons of fury as I became increasingly concerned about being caught in a thunderstorm). Last year, I used to ride my bike as a part of my daily commute to work. Just last night, I rode home from work with a coworker trailing me because she didn’t think it would be safe pedaling the short distance from work to home in the dark despite my flashing bicycle lights. According to her estimations, I made it home in about ten minutes. When we spoke, I wasn’t out of breath but felt somewhat invigorated due to the fast, high-gear pedaling I had just done.

Because of the route I typically take when I meander out and about, it is quite likely the little girl and I will see each other again. Hopefully as she navigates the scary process of learning to ride with and without training wheels, she will remember seeing the big girl on a bike and realize it’s possible.

PS: Two years ago, the last view I had of my friend in Germany is her on her bike with her daughter in a basket on the front, holding an umbrella in one hand and pedaling away from the metro station. I was in awe of her ability to be able to coordinate so many things on a bike simultaneously. I recently shared my awe regarding her abilities during a conversation while I myself was riding my bike. It’s not the same as an umbrella and a toddler but I feel that maybe, just maybe, I’m a little closer to her skill league.

Favorite Stephen King Quote

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them – words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.

Stephen King