Feeling Near Death: Memoirs of Moments Before a Death

Edit: I have renamed the blog post.
Feeling Near Death: Memoirs of Moments Before a Timely Death
How would I presume to know what's Time? And what's Timely? I haven't absorbed fully all I have learned.

I've known through stories that people display a strange behavior when they learn they are nearing death: in short, to these prescient people, nothing means anymore, except the meaningful do.

And now it has happened to me.

Since 2004, I have thought - OK, maybe, this one more step to go. Yet another step, but one more. Then it will be over. The pain will be over. And I can be free. Then I can enjoy the everyday. Then I can, actually to begin with, participate in it.

Meanwhile, I have gone through so many experiences and stages.

The experience of non-priority - when all things seem to be on an equal plane, and it's impossible to prioritize one over the other.
The experience of nearness, when everything and everyone is dear to your heart.
The experience of aloofness, when you wake up one day, and suddenly feel you are not connected.
The experience of unanimatedness, when you feel that all people you are seeing are unreal, and you are on the outside.
The experience of animatedness, to such a degree of subtlety, that you can move your fingers, and feel the winds stir with it.
The experience of silence, when you hear the hollow in your heart.
The experience of noise, when you feel whispers in every movement of the wind, in every corner you turn to.

Experiences. After experiences. And experiences.

My solace was that at least, I now feel. Anger, retribution, like, love, dislike, hate, forgiveness, empathy, lust, piety, self-pity, self-revulsion, self-acceptance - I feel. I felt them all, and went though it all. In the expectation that one day, I will be normal again.

Why did I expect that? I don't know why, except that that is what everyone seemed to be aspiring to in general. And so I thought I should give up my dreams and imaginations, and be normal.

And if you heard a sneer there, Prophecy, it's because there is. Yes, Prophecy, when I say "dream," I mean it in that grand way. I mean it when I said I will give up dreaming - I meant clearly to be understood that I value this whole dream thing.

And then what happened, Prophecy, would you want to know?

I stopped dreaming for real. I gave up, Prophecy, I gave up.

Once again.

All this struggle that I have made, in a way all my life - and ever since the tragedies that have come my way since 2000 - tragedies that turned horrible since the fateful days and nights of 2003/4... the terrors of those days and nights when I couldn't understand how will I keep my head up and straight the next day... or whether I would be alive at all... I did think I would die Prophecy, or at least there was nothing to live for.

But Propehcy, meanwhile, something happened.

Meanwhile, Prophecy, over the edge of pain, I discovered Life.

I've heard of some extreme experiences things, but I didn't know one could have them emotionally-mentally. I thought one had to dive from the sky for that kind of thing.

So in the struggle to stay alive, to find what good could there be in the hearts of people, to challenge myself to determine if I am or could be loved, I found.

I found hearts with love and giving. It's almost like discovering an invisible specie. But it's a state of mind, Prophecy, and once you have it... or wait, rather, it's a condition of heart which changes in turn the state of mind... and once you have it, you see.

You see them all around you. The quiet types. The answering "I am here" types. The talking with eyes types. The listening in silence types. The keeping an eye about types. The caring for animals and plants types. The working without complaint and with joy with their heads down type. The non self-aggrandizing types. The silently fulfilling types. The appreciators of small things types.

The types of people who are capable of giving and receiving love. You see them, Prophecy. You see them.

I saw them, and in that condition of heart, and state of mind - I found myself utterly capable of selfless love, and not ashamed to receive love. I decided to turn this power towards the elements, Prophecy, and that's when I learned how words can bring rains, and how when you run your fingers through the currents of air, you make wind stir. I knew I was the Butterfly who could flap her wings and stir the elements.

And this much I felt, Prophecy, and more, moments before I learned I was going to die.


Image: N. Wayne Taylor, The Mandala Series - after a near death experience