Two years ago on my 79th birthday, I experienced two things.
One was ‘feeling’ a very large hand placed between my shoulder blades, gently but firmly pushing me ‘through the air’. It reminded me of when I was eight or nine, sailing a dingy in the Balboa Bay. I remember, to this day, the way ‘the slight breeze’ felt on my face, shoulders, arms, and body.
The other thing I experienced was seeing my life as if through a telescopic lens. Visually, your sight ‘backs up’ from the close up, while the image is moving away from you. There is a feeling you are pulling back from the image you are looking at.
The feeling of the hand on my back lasted through my 80th birthday. The telescopic lens sensation is still going on. It’s as if I have pulled back somehow from the life I am living. Somehow I exist both deep inside of ‘me’, and outside of me at the same time.
In September 1985 I made a two-week Shaman’s Journey of Initiation to Peru. The Shamans talk about living your life from above, to be grounded on the earth, but not be caught up in ‘the stuff ’ of your life.
I’m no longer ‘rushing’; the air around me, and the world, is really quite still. When I stop and listen for ‘the stillness’ it’s like one of those magical times in the desert, around twilight when the breeze driven by the setting sun settles into ‘absence’ and your ears are filled with ‘no thing’, no sound…all is still and so are you. From above, I am still 5 years old and at the same time 81. My body may creak and strain when I get on my knees in my garden, but I’m still 5 years old playing in the mud.
Bruce Whizin still exists much to the chagrin of himself and those who love him. He’d like to be remembered for his smile.
