Contemplating mortality

[Bill Ryan]

Hello, Everyone: the first thing I need to say here is — don't worry! There's nothing wrong with me. I'm in very fine shape here. :sun:

But let me explain why I decided to start this thread. And besides, I know for a fact that there are quite a few members who might like to join in a thoughtful, spiritual discussion about our limited human lifespan. Not one of us is exempt from that.

So here's the intro to the thread.

As many know, I'm still frequently active out in the high mountains with my dog, and in my day I was a rock climber, ice climber and ski-mountaineer with quite a lot of experience in the greater ranges. I've had some close calls, but have never once suffered the slightest injury, nor has anyone I've ever been climbing with.

For those who may not be familiar, here are two interesting threads. The first contains a rather remarkable human story (of mine), and the second contains a bunch of very remarkable stories shared by myself and many other members.


A day in the mountains: a tale of forgiveness (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?14409-A-day-in-the-mountains-a-tale-of-forgiveness)
I shouldn't actually be alive now... :) (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?107512-I-shouldn-t-actually-be-alive-now...--)

What prompted this new thread was an interesting experience I had just yesterday. I sometimes browse through the mountaineering and climbing websites, and I came across something I'd not known was there... a bunch of climbers' obituaries. The pages, each of them long and detailed, and all linked to each other, read like this:
Climbers we lost in 2020
Climbers we lost in 2019
Climbers we lost in 2018
...
going all the say back to
...
Climbers we lost in 2012.
The pages contained some famous names I'd known — though none personally — many of whom had come to grief on the world's dangerous, high mountains. But there were also many others I'd never heard of, little-known recreational climbers like myself, missed only by their close friends and families.

Some listed had lived to a ripe old age, passing peacefully in their sleep. Some who had been the very strongest and most heroic in their day had succumbed to debilitating illnesses, becoming great lions now fading in winter.

But some were in their early twenties or thirties, and many had been killed in accidents. The kind that I was so very potentially familiar with, but had always avoided.

And because this was written for mountaineers, in the cases of those who had perished in accidents, the accidents were fully described. It all felt very close to home.

A handhold in the rock broke while climbing solo; a falling rock cut the climbing rope; they slipped off a steep path down into a deep gorge; an avalanche had swept away their tent while sleeping. And many fell while rappelling (abseiling) — always the most dangerous thing a climber can do, often treated lightly simply through familiarity.

The obituaries were beautifully written, without exception. As I browsed the pages, at first I was skipping through the names to find those I knew of. Then I felt that I should really honor all of them, by taking time to read every one. Each one of these good people had lived a wonderful life, even though it had often been curtailed in their prime.

And I dived into that for hours and hours. It was quite an experience. The lives, families, dreams and aspirations of these active, healthy, energetic people were all laid out. Wow. And with so, so many photographs of smiling, happy faces out in the wilderness on days when nothing could go wrong.

There was one account in particular that just stopped me in my tracks. I thought about it for a long time.

There was a climber who had survived just about every situation imaginable in his climbing life, but was then caught alone in a bad car wreck when he skidded off the road.

He freed himself, and started to stagger a quarter mile toward some houses where he could find help. But half way there, he apparently realized he wasn't going to make the distance.

So he found his way down the bank to the river that ran alongside the road, where there was a big, very beautiful tree. There he sat quietly under the tree, all alone next to the river. And there, peacefully leaning against the tree, was where his body was found the next day.

:flower:

[Nasu]

Lovely post Bill. Like you I am a former climber, mountains or rock, like you I am still active just not at the level I was, nowhere close. E2 down to HVS!! They say there are old climbers and bold climber but no old bold climbers. Some of the things one witnesses when living these pursuits are so incredible and so magical and mystical that for the most part the stories go untold as they are hard to fathom let along recount or try to understand.

My own feeling is that these realizations or understandings that one comes to, could only be come to by risking everything, and surviving, often for nothing more than the risk itself. The good friends I have lost to extreme sports over the years is also the list of most of my most active alive friends. Yes they died, often tragically, but they also lived much more than most. The candle that burns the brightest burns the shortest time.

Although I don't risk to the extent that I once did, I still feel it is very important to get out into the wilds and feel close to nature, close to the edge. Ultimately living a life of measured risk gives one the confidence and understanding not to die in that moment, until we die of course. No matter what we do none of us get out of this game alive, so ergo let's enjoy the ride as best we can.

I loved the way they went down to the tree by the river to die, that's enjoying life to the fullest right there.

All of us benefit from time away from the couch.....x.... N

[Zirconian]

Bill,

Very moving story about the man who had the insight and resolve to find a tree in nature to be with. when death approached.

Having worked in hospice, I realise time is short and precious. Death and grief are part of life.

In hospice, I was in awe at those who faced death with courage, strength and dignity and to those left behind, digging deep to face their grief.

At the moment, I and some that I know are coming to terms with the death of someone young, so full of life, sadly taken away to soon in a road traffic accident.

Tragedy can happen in the blink of an eye. The world you knew can change very quickly and grief then becomes an unwelcome companion.

I'm OK in this and in a position to support.

We live in a world where death is really not that far away from our lives.

With this truth in mind, for me, as best I can. it's best to live a life of gratitude, smiles and kindness. :heart:

[Ernie Nemeth]

I too have had brushes with death and could only shake my head at the miracle of my continuation in this body.

Blown out of a mall's electrical room with my boss, through bolted steel frame doors, still holding onto melted pliers that crossed the mains, lifting ourselves up after being rendered unconscious, unscathed and intact. How could that have happened but for the grace of God?

There must have been more we both were meant yet to accomplish. The side of good can change reality in an instant and bestow a miracle wherever it must happen, regardless of the 'Laws of Nature'. Neither nature nor science is any match for the angels of God! :angel:

What God wills is always done. :heart:

Thanks for your moving story.

[thepainterdoug]

Bill, very moving and timely. I came across your great post while watching The Grey, a very harsh and frightening movie about the harshness of nature, survival and death in the wild.
All this has been on my mind. How death awaits us all, and no one knows how far or close. I listen to NDE,S on a regular basis. Many testify to the thin veil it is that divides us from what will be met by all.
All I can say is Im very concerned. Not by the inevitably of death, but by thoughts of if our best days are over? Are we on some downturn. Is freedom and the life we have been living at threat ? It seems like the game we have collectively been playing, by choice or not, is at some end, and I don't know whats coming.

[Mike Gorman]

That final story of the man who found a tree next to the river to pass his final moments: wow, the human story embodied; is someone peeling onions?
For some reason I am reminded of the Scole experiment, verified by people of such credibility as Rupert Sheldrake: communicating with the 'spirit world' and the next
station on our journey. It is worthwhile revisiting that experiment it was something very special I think. Our mortality provides the poignant urgency in our lives, and at coming up to 63 this year I know
there is way more behind me, than in front.

[Trisher]

Learning of death as a young child I remember being outraged by the possibility that my older brother would not necessarily die first. It just felt so unfair that he got a few more years than me. Accepting that anyone at anytime can be taken from our lives is part of growing up. Living a life based on the fragility of it all is a push to being the best we can be at all times and in all situations.

I remember my grandmother telling me that you never feel old inside no matter how old you get. That is so true. Only the body ages. Deep inside I am still the very same. Through just that I know only the body dies.

It is my intent to live consciously and to pass on consciously. I can't think of anywhere better to do that than in nature, with a tree, connected to source.
:flower:

[9ideon]

A friend of mine died at 18 (together with his best friend) whilst climbing that certain mountain in Switzerland. He fell a long way down and I always dreaded what he must had going through his mind when falling to his death. I still feel sorrow when I think of that, almost 30 years later.
Your post Bill, it took me back to that time. I think of him regularly I must say, him and many other who have died before their time (I feel we all do, no matter the age), but in his case I always try to skip the thought of that moment, on the other hand, it strengthens my own resolve for some reason.

[Brigantia]

Thanks to Bill and everyone for their thoughts, there are some very poignant reflections here.

I've always been too much of a scaredy-cat for extreme sports; my only seemingly brush with death was an aborted landing coming into an airport. The plane suddenly climbed and for 5 minutes we had no idea what was happening. I was scared, prayed to every deity I could think of as I wondered, "am I going to die today?" Then acceptance of whatever may come would be out of my hands. We were then told that a plane had nipped in front of us, we were too close and had to climb, then we landed safely.

A lesson I learnt from a childhood friend who killed herself by jumping in front of a train at the age of 21 was that bad things that happen in your life will pass. She killed herself as her boyfriend had dumped her; she was so beautiful with a bubbly personality, it always seemed such a waste for her to end it all for that reason. There would have been many more fish in the sea for her, but maybe that was the path of her soul to experience a short life.

[avid]

Young lives taken too soon, a friend completed ascent of Shepherd’s Crag, Borrowdale, stood up at top and blown off by a gust of wind - in his teens - a beautiful lad. The Lake District is stunning, beautiful on a sunny quiet dawn, but unforgiving to those who are innocent and inexperienced.

Life can be snatched away in an instant, but now I am old, must prepare for the inevitable and do paperwork/declutter/make it easier for family to ‘tidy up’ after me. Do we really need all the ‘stuff’ we’ve accumulated? Go with a ‘clean’ conscience, make up with friends and family, and return to source happily.

[Journeyman]

Bill, very moving and timely. I came across your great post while watching The Grey, a very harsh and frightening movie about the harshness of nature, survival and death in the wild.
All this has been on my mind. How death awaits us all, and no one knows how far or close. I listen to NDE,S on a regular basis. Many testify to the thin veil it is that divides us from what will be met by all.
All I can say is Im very concerned. Not by the inevitably of death, but by thoughts of if our best days are over? Are we on some downturn. Is freedom and the life we have been living at threat ? It seems like the game we have collectively been playing, by choice or not, is at some end, and I don't know whats coming.

I read that with a sense of recognition. I've had much the same feeling over the past few months. However, I've also found that I'm coming to terms with my own mortality in a way I'd never really done before. It's both a recognition and an acceptance. Not passivity, I'm up for any challenge that may present itself, but I'm also readier now should the moment be imminent. :cool:

[Anka]

Bill,
Taking the time to pay homage to the courage of existence, the joy of life, and to contemplate the exposition of life and death, (both beautiful and equally in memory), and the merits and beauty of existence, in spite of each tragedy, is an honor and a virtue brought to the value itself in the greatest quality of commemorative and meditative gratitude I have ever seen.
Thank you to those who protected you, thank you for taking care of yourself.
Your speech in the simplest way is a statement of praise for the opportunity to celebrate life and the simplicity of accepting the final summary, a kind of true reminder for all of us in the heritage of what we call humanity.:flower:

Take care!:flower:

[AutumnW]

I think I missed the essence of the thread. Sorry. Very touching and sad about the mountain climbers. I was watching something the other day about a young person who was murdered. Film clips showed a girl who was in love with the idea of her future.

Rather than uplifting, though, I find tales of courage and people cut down in youth mountain climbing, paragliding or otherwise "doing what they loved," kind of depressing. Like, I wish they had taken up stamp collecting.:(

When I reflect on my own death, I look forward to what comes after.

[amor]

I believe I posted my, so far, ultimate experience of being one with god's heaven some time ago. As a result, I do not fear death or rather its after death experience. I awoke very early one morning. I lived near the sea cliffs. It was just before sunrise. Sitting on a rock awaiting the rise of the sun over the sea's horizon, the first ray seemed to penetrate to my pineal gland and I was transported in a moment outside of time to the presence of a great being who was located on a platform high above my head. He was looking over its side and asked me what I wanted. I had returned to the land of my birth and was away from my parents as an adult for the very first time alone. I said, "I wish a home." By this time he was standing next to and facing me, 25 feet high. Next to my left shoulder were two 3' diameter orbs of light. They had no personality but I knew they were guardian angels of God. God, replied to me, "I am your home. You will return to me." The next thing I knew was that I was facing the direction from which I had come, but my world had vanished and I was reclining on my back possibly 200 ft. away from God who was still standing. My world and its worries were no longer in my mind. Instead, I was in a conscious rest of Great Peace, love, Joy (which I had never experienced in this world), a feeling that all that ever were, and would be existed simultaneously with me and were somewhere to the back of where I was. There was a winding river to my left back and a lamb (probably Biblical symbols in my memory.) The experience subsided, God and I looked at each other and I was returned in mind to my seat by the cliff, having no memory of what had just taken place. It was an experience "Outside of Time." I cannot remember how many hours passed before I was allowed to remember. In addition to the above, I experienced being high up on a distant cliff and the Holy Spirit being poured into me. For an extended period of weeks or months, I was in a "state of grace." If you had come to kill me I would only have loved you and blessed you. I could not feel anger or fear. Thinking of what could have caused this, I remember being pierced through my pineal gland with the first ray of the sun's light as it rose over the horizon. Also, I remembered I had asked God to let me see him one week before this happened. Years later I read about the Pharaoh who "Worshiped the Sun." He had my experience, I feel sure. Also, I must mention that in this area of the Island there is a lot of UFO activity and possibly an under sea base.

[thepainterdoug]

amor, thanks for sharing your experience. I wonder, is this experience all you now need? Do you still need for more other worldly events and re assurances? Or has this singular experience filled you for a lifetime, to help you thru this ordeal we live?

I read of many others having similar other worldly moments be it OBE or NDE. They seem to be such a gift in my eyes
But why do many of us never have something like this? Something that can pull us thru when we are desperate for some sign, some re assurance that this is just a dream, an illusion, and that a true home awaits.

I wonder if you say, thank you for this ? For this one vision that proves to me that there is a true home coming. Or does it wear off and darkness seeps in again? many thanks

[Gracy]

A friend of mine died at 18 (together with his best friend) whilst climbing that certain mountain in Switzerland. He fell a long way down and I always dreaded what he must had going through his mind when falling to his death.

When I was young there was a favorite summertime water spot to cool off at, and there was a path that led up to the 40’ cliff where those so inclined could jump off. Only thing was you had to make sure and really jump out, because straight down was nothing but jagged boulders.

Well being young and dumb, I got to clowning around up there, and next thing I knew I was slipping over the edge, facing the cliff. As I awaited the inedible moment of impact that would be crushing my body, only two things went through my mind: “So this is how it ends”, and “I’m sorry my sister and parents are here to see it happen”.

There was no fear, just a calm resignation that it’s game over. I would imagine your friend had a similar mindset on his way down.

But son of a gun, I hit water and not boulders. Turns out there WAS, one tiny gap on the line of boulders just wide enough for a skinny 18 year old to barely fit through, and that was precisely where I landed with nothing but a gashed open shin that would leave a fine little scar to remember it by.

[9ideon]

A friend of mine died at 18 (together with his best friend) whilst climbing that certain mountain in Switzerland. He fell a long way down and I always dreaded what he must had going through his mind when falling to his death.

When I was young there was a favorite summertime water spot to cool off at, and there was a path that led up to the 40’ cliff where those so inclined could jump off. Only thing was you had to make sure and really jump out, because straight down was nothing but jagged boulders.

Well being young and dumb, I got to clowning around up there, and next thing I knew I was slipping over the edge, facing the cliff. As I awaited the inedible moment of impact that would be crushing my body, only two things went through my mind: “So this is how it ends”, and “I’m sorry my sister and parents are here to see it happen”.

There was no fear, just a calm resignation that it’s game over. I would imagine your friend had a similar mindset on his way down.

But son of a gun, I hit water and not boulders. Turns out there WAS, one tiny gap on the line of boulders just wide enough for a skinny 18 year old to barely fit through, and that was precisely where I landed with nothing but a gashed open shin that would leave a fine little scar to remember it by.

In your case it must have been a situation of meant to be, I mean that's just winning the lottery, if anyone ever asks you if you did, you can say yes.

My friend was one of those People that was seen as a "Saint", took care of his Grandmother for about a year, every single day, still being in Highschool, friendly as they come. He always had a special respect for me because I already was a Veteran when I met him, I was 3-4 years older. He was not in my life for long, but he is/was someone one will not forget, there's more to the story fitting this Forum, let's just say I was the 1st one to know he died without anyone else knowing, I did not even know he was out there either, he kept it from everybody because they did the Northside of the Mountain, thing is that he took all safety measures and was let down by (brandnew) equipment, meant to be? They always say that the good die young, in his case definitively true.

Thank you for your reply, I can see how he would have thought of his family.

Glad you made it, :-)

[Kindred]

I've had my share of hiking, but never ventured into mountain climbing... just never gave a thought to experiencing that level of chance. The chances I took had more to do with the sea/sailing as I felt a bit more 'control' over my situation.

That said, I'd love for Bill to provide 'commentary' on a story from Col. Wendell Steven's trove of encounters, particularly as he's currently in the same general vicinity of this particular encounter (South America / Andes mountains) ... that of the story "Apu".
(The 'really good part' is on page 2! An affirmation that "We Create Our Reality")
http://www.galactic-server.net/RUNE/apu1.html

As a side note: I was looking to see if this story is archived in Avalon's library... I could not find it, but I do have a pdf version to add if it doesn't exist!

In Unity, Peace and Love

[Anchor]

--


Stop ! I'm far too young to be thinking about all this :)

[Satori]

I’ve had a number of close calls in my life.

Nearly drowning at age 8 or so when I decided to dive into the deep end, knowing I could not swim. Near miss car accidents. That is, being in a car when another driver missed me, head on, but hit the cars behind me killing others. (That happened twice.)

Nearly being shot while in the Army when a round “cooked off” in another soldiers weapon just as I was about to step in front of him down range and equipment failure when parachuting out of C-130s or C-141s. In the “cook off” incident, I literally felt a “hand” grab my right shoulder and pull me back and stop me from taking the next, and perhaps final, step. (In fact I stopped myself from taking that next step but simultaneously it felt as if I was pulled back.) A cook off is when a weapon has been fired so much, that a round in the chamber will fire, not because the trigger was pulled but because the weapon is so hot that gunpowder expands in the rounds in the chamber without pulling the trigger causing all rounds in the magazine to fire; hence the term cook off.

In the parachuting incidents, it was not my equipment that failed, but the equipment of others. I was safely on the ground after jumping, but helmets, weapons, canteens and other things were falling on the landing zone around me because others did not properly secure their equipment before exiting the aircraft. More injuries and deaths occur during military jumps by falling equipment than by a parachuting not opening. At least that was true at one time.

I do not fear death. I’m more concerned about the quality of my life (and my loved ones), not the quantity. On that point, I believe there is more cause for concern on both fronts now than in the past 50 or so years.

[thepainterdoug]

I WAS INSPIRED TO SHARE THIS NDE, after reading all posted here. Contemplate this. There is an outside force governing and controlling our existence. We are left here to fend for ourselves, but sometimes, that hand reaches in to help
///

Gender: Male
Date NDE Occurred: November, 1966

I was sledding down an alleyway that intersected with an avenue at the bottom. I could not stop before entering the avenue. I went out into the street and struck the front bumper of the white Cadillac with my head.

That very moment, I left myself and was out on the sidewalk. I was not standing on the ground; I was hovering. There was a girl, my age, standing on the ground next to me holding her head and screaming. I could hear her and I looked at her. She was very afraid of what she was seeing, so I turned and looked in the direction she was looking. It was ‘Me’ and I was in the process of about to be run over by the car. At that time, the knowledge came to me that if I wanted any chance to live that I needed to slow the car down so when the tire went over me, the body had to be on its back. I knew, somehow, that if the car ran me over on my stomach, it would not survive.

I slowed the car down and was directing it when to go over the body. I did get it to run over the body facing up and now I had to have the same thing happen with the back tire. The car, being so low to the ground, was making the body that was my body, to roll over and over. Once it got near the rear tire I slowed down the car, again, so it ran over me facing upwards. It did, it ran me over facing upwards. Now the body was stuck behind the rear tire and a big clump of snow that was stuck to the car. I watched the car drag my body down the road until it intersected the next road. When the car hit the dip in the road, the body fell out.

I remember being glad that it was over but the girl was still screaming. She screamed all the way through this experience. Because she was screaming, a man came out of his house at the back door, looked towards us and looked in the direction the girl that is ‘we’) were looking. He saw my body and he ran over to it. The body was crawling, using only the left arm. I think it was trying to go home. Not sure. While the man was running over to my body, I tried to tell the girl that I was okay. But she couldn’t hear me nor see me. I tried to grab her but my hands went through her.

That was the point where I was beginning to understand what was happening. I looked towards my body. The man arrived and grabbed it and turned it over cradling its head. He looked back towards his wife and said ‘call an ambulance the kid is dying.’ The girl was crying very hard holding her head. At that time and moment, I was told to go back or come forward. I went over to my body; I did not walk I just floated.

I was hovering over my body when again I was told, ‘It’s getting late, make up your mind what you’re going to do’. As I was looking, down I said, ‘I am not going in there’. The body was bleeding out of its mouth, ears, and nose. I could see the pain it was in so I said, ‘I am not going back in there.’ That is when I left the site.

It sounded like some kind of machine turned on and I was in this very dark tunnel with a very tiny spot of light way, way far in front of me. I could feel myself going forward towards the light. As I got closer to the light I noticed the light was brighter than any other light I had seen in my life, but it did not hurt my eyes. The FEELING I had, as I was getting closer, was a feeling of love: Kind of being in your mother’s arms, but much, much more.

As I approached the light, I felt no fear nor was I worried about anything. I felt everything was okay. As I walked out of the tunnel, everything got very cloudy, but I could make out figures of people walking towards me. I did not see their faces; they just walked by me on my left and right. I walked further away from the tunnel and got scared again. Afraid that I would not find my way back. I kept hearing water dripping like being in a tunnel with an echo. I walked some more and came upon a pair of steps. The steps were solid gold. I remember thinking that if I could take some of these steps back to my mother, everything would be fine. My mom was a widow for a long time and we suffered hardships along the way.

On the side of the steps was a plaque and it read ‘flight ###’, I can't remember the number but it was a three digit number. That is when I heard or noticed someone coming down the stairs. I ran a short distance away from the steps and knelt down in the fog, so I would not be seen. As this person began to come down the steps, I could see his feet and ankles, then his legs. I felt now that I knew this person but wasn't sure who it was. As he came down the steps, I could see his chest and his chest had a white corsage on it. I should have known, at that point, who he was but I didn't.

My dad had a white corsage on his chest lying in his casket before we buried him. When his face came into view, I saw that it was my daddy! I was six years old when he died. I got up and started to run towards the stairs yelling ‘Dad, Dad, oh Daddy I am sorry for what I have done.’ He smiled at me, I could see his gold tooth, and he stopped coming down the steps. He then said to me, ‘It doesn't matter, as long as you are truly sorry for what you have done.’ I replied, ‘Yes, Dad, I am really sorry.’ Then he said, ‘well then, that's all you need. How about you come to live with me for a while?’ I answered, ‘yes, I would like that.’ He stretched out his hand for me to come and I did. He took me by the hand and turned around and we started walking up the steps.

We took a few steps and we stopped. He sighed and asked me ‘what's wrong?’ His head was down looking towards the ground, he never looked at me again, I answered, ‘I can't go with you, Mommy and Richie, (my little brother) will cry.’ At that very moment, I heard something like a record player going backwards.

I felt pain, a lot of pain and I could not breathe. I opened my eyes and saw a man holding me. It was the man who came out of his house when the girl was screaming. I tried to talk to him but I could not talk. It hurt very badly to breathe. I finally got out the words, I am not proud of what I said but I said, ‘I can't breathe you son of a bitch.’ He said okay just hang on; an ambulance is on its way. There were at this time, a lot of people around. They must have come there when I was gone. Some said they knew the man and me sent them to tell my mother. Our apartment was a block away.

As the ambulance was arriving, so did my mother. She fell in the snow running towards me and I laughed to myself and commented. As we were traveling in the ambulance to leave, I remember going in and out of my body, watching my mother, the nurse and myself. Every time we would hit a bump or make a turn, the pain was so bad, that it threatened my life. I found out later that my body was crushed. Most of my ribs were broken and stuck into my lungs. My body cavity was filling up with blood. The doctors at the hospital told my mother there was nothing they could do. ‘He is filling up his cavity with blood and if we cut him open he will bleed out.’ I remember things going on, off, and on.

My whole family was there at the hospital. Six doctors were around me talking. My mother sent for a priest for my last rights. She did not know nor did any doctor know what I knew: I was going to be okay. When Father T arrived, I tried to talk to him, but couldn't. I could only move my left arm and my head side to side. I kept reaching out to him over and over again. Father T looked into my eyes and I shook my head ‘no’. We did not talk but we did. He looked again in my eyes with a smile as if saying, ‘You’ve been there and you’re going to be okay’. I shook my head, ‘Yes’. He then told my mother, ‘He is going to be fine’, and that I did not need last rights. She insisted that he did. As he began the last rights, we kept smiling at each other, like in conversation that ‘We know but they don't’.

The hospital kept a 24-hour vigil over me, taking vitals at times. The doctors told my mother ‘if we can stabilize him we will operate’. I knew that there would be no operation. In the early morning hours, I fell asleep. The nurse panicked and started giving me oxygen and calling for help. Little did she know that blowing up my lungs with oxygen was piercing my lungs from the broken ribs. I could not fight her off or the others that had answered her call for help. I could only move my left arm.

Again, I left my body and watched as they tried to help. Finally, a male nurse said ‘take the oxygen off’ and they did. I was fine. In the morning, the doctors began coming in, one by one. They were discussing my condition and could not explain what happened to me with each other. But I knew. Finally, the doctors went out and told my family, ‘We cannot explain it, but we cannot find any blood in his cavity. He is stable and we will continue watching me.’ Later during my hospital stay, they sent in psychiatrist to talk to me about my experience. I did not tell them anything.

[amor]

Dear Doug: I found your response seemingly quite by accident. I no longer believe in accidents. I have been left with the assurance that there is no death, and I do not fear leaving this vale. However, from time to time, I swear that the first entity on the other side who makes me relive my experiences to see where I went wrong or was unkind is going to get a smack in the nose. My sleeves are rolled up and ready to take aim. However, I suspect it already knows this and is prepared to duck.

Here is an experience which I was shown in a dream about actual events which occurred in my life. I married at 24 to the first man in my life who was older than I. He was from a family of ten children and they were poor; therefore, he did not wish children and did something to have himself fixed, which he never told me. After many years we decided to separate, as friends. Some time later he admitted to my parents what he had done to me. A short time after that confession he met a girl one-half his age and married her. I discovered accidentally that he never told her and she was visiting doctors to discover what was wrong with her that there were no babies. Years passed, my father died, then he died and I had this dream.

I had a solar hot water heating tank in the kitchen. Someone was threatening him and he was cowering and begging for mercy in my presence. I did not make any connection with our past and the present dream and showed no indication that I wished revenge. Suddenly, he turned into this sweat little boy who went into the corner and was praying for forgiveness. What did I make of this experience? Our heavenly guardian threatened him with hell (symbolized by the hot water heater. I only made this connection some time after), and as I showed no hurt, he was not harmed. Many years later, I was at the computer in the same house, and I turned to look at the doorway at the head of the passage just in time to see him peeping around the doorway looking at me. I must explain that this vision seemed more spiritual than physical, but it was sight nevertheless. I have, in the same manner, seen my grandmother, larger than life standing over her grave along with her sister, smiling at me as I decorated my mother's grave with flowers. I recently had a dream about several of my ancestors who had been summoned by my anger against what they had done to my mother and her descendants. They were there in full formal regalia. Apparently anger against the dead is more powerful than I thought.

I happened on this wonderful video and thought Doug would just love to see this!
It is: Bitchute.com/David Zublick/June Lundgrun/Dark Entities 5/21/20.
She had written five books on what you want to know. She is the real thing, and what a beautiful face, an angel on Earth. You must see it. Do also look at the other videos on David Zublick's site. General McInerney (who is with Trump) has declared that World War III has begun, a must see. I have looked at your video interviews. You are a sweatheart and I wish you well with your play.

[amor]

Doug: I believe God loves us. We should focus on him in prayer. Words are not required. It is heart to heart. Focus on the gland in the middle of your head. If you think of it you will feel it pulsing, then connect. I believe we are already in him a part of God and our excursion outward is really the mental part. When the dream of life comes to an end, we are with God, as we had never left, nor can we. If you have done anything in your life for which you feel guilty, commune with God and ask him to show you why you did this or that and what you can do to be better. I have had other experiences about which I have written on Avalon. I am sorry you feel so alone. We all do in this crazy world and you are loved and not alone. By being who you are, you unknowingly make others feel safer in the world. Your friends love you, I can tell.

[amor]

To answer Doug's question about whether my above experience has satisfied me. This is something I have wondered myself. Looking at my life, never being settled in one place for life similar to the seemingly settled existence of others, not having a family, etc., having to care for others more than myself, having to witness experiences that I would not wish on anyone and quietly endure in disbelief. Perhaps God felt sorry for me. However, I know I have lived other lives as there have been very fleeting but intense memories of being elsewhere, even once being a small boy. He was on the front porch of a mansion with a very large family looking onto a great lawn. He had the most blessed experience of perfect security, what peace. The next fleeting memory was of being a young woman in a long dress in the same mansion, looking out the Library window which was an immense sash window, almost floor to ceiling. Behind me was a large table, floor to ceiling bookshelves with a sliding ladder. In NYC at the Metropolitan Museum, there was a period room display with a similar looking sash window. I experienced a loving, longing memory for that place I knew. A third fleeting memory was being in a small town among the Pennsylvania Dutch. At nine years old I spent several weeks in a hospital with an infected ankle. It was a Ward with adult women and we were talking. I remember saying that the reason we cannot remember our past lives was that we were bad and God hid our memories from us. Now there was no consciousness of that subject in my empty child mind. It had to have come from subconscious knowledge. Knowledge, it seems, was always my ultimate goal and I feel, correctly or not, that I have been given it. There is only one thing that I feel cheated of and perhaps that is the trap that will bring me back. Drat it!

[Bill Ryan]

This is a little specialized, but it fits this thread perfectly. It's a veteran, classic climbing article written nearly 40 years ago by John Long, one of the finest climbers of his generation, greatly loved and respected.

Part of what gains respect is a searing personal honesty. In this article, which starts easy but then quickly skids into a desperate life-or-death situation, John Long admits he was "terrified", staring his own death right in the face.

He recognizes "the only blasphemy, to willfully jeopardize his own existence". That becomes the title of his short piece.

It's worth reading. Even if you know nothing about climbing and care even less, you'll get the message. This is a great man, as strong as they come, confessing to the fatal mistake he so very nearly made.

Here's the cast of characters. John Bachar, who everyone thought was a blond immortal god, died soloing (climbing with no rope) in 2009. No-one knows what happened, because he was on his own. His lifeless body was found at the foot of the cliff.

John Long is still very much alive, as revered and beloved now as he ever was then.

https://projectavalon.net/John_Bachar_and_John_Long.jpg

~~~

The Only Blasphemy

John Long, 1982

At speeds beyond 80 mph, the cops jail you. I cruise at a prudent 79. Tobin Sorenson drove 100 - did so till his Datsun blew. It came as no surprise when he perished attempting to solo the North Face of Mt. Alberta. Tobin never drew the line. His rapacious motivation and a boundless fear threshold enamored him of soloing.

I charge towards Joshua Tree National Monument, where two weeks prior, another pal had tweeked while soloing. After his fall, I inspected the base of the route, wincing at the grisly blood stains, the grated flesh and tufts of matted hair: soloing is unforgiving. Yet I mull these calamities like a salty dog, considering them avoidable. Soloing is OK, I think; you just have to be realistic, not some knave abetted by peer pressure or ego.

At 85, Joshua Tree comes quickly, but the stark night drags. The morning sun peers over the flat horizon, gilding the countless rocks that bespeckle the desert carpet. The biggest stones are little more than 150ft. high.

I hook up with John Bachar, probably the world's premier free-climber. John lives at that climbing area featuring the most sun. He has been at Joshua for two months and his soloing feats astonish everyone. It is winter, when school checks my climbing to weekends, so my motivation is fabulous, but my fitness only so-so.

Bachar suggests a Half Dome day, which translates as: Half Dome is 2,000 ft high, or about twenty pitches. Hence, we must climb twenty pitches to get our Half Dome day. In a wink, Bachar is shod and cinching his waist sling from which his chalk bag hangs. "Ready?"

Only now do I realize he intends to climb all 2,000 ft solo. To save face, I agree, thinking: Well, if he suggests something too asinine, I'll just draw the line.

We embark on familiar ground, twisting feet and jamming hands into vertical cracks; smearing the toes of our skin tight boots onto tenuous bumps; pulling over roofs on bulbous holds; palming off rough rock and marveling at it all. We're soloing: no rope. A little voice sometimes asks how good a quarter-inch, pliable hold can be. If you're tight, you set an aquiline hand or pointed toe on that quarter-incher and push or pull perfunctorily.

After three hours, we've disposed with a dozen pitches, feel invincible. We up the ante to 5.10 [a more difficult rock climbing grade]. We slow considerably, but by 2:30, we've climbed twenty pitches.

As a finale, Bachar suggests soloing a 5.11, which is pretty much my wintertime limit... when I'm fresh and sharp. But now I am thrashed and stolid from the past 2,000 ft, having cruised the last four or five pitches on rhythm and momentum. Regardless, we trot over to Intersection Rock, the 'hang' for local climbers; also, the locale for Bachar's final solo.

He wastes no time, and scores of milling climbers freeze like salt statues when he begins. He moves with dauntless precision, plugging fingertips into shallow pockets in the 105 degree wall. I scrutinize his moves, taking mental notes on the sequence. He pauses at 50ft. level, directly beneath the crux bulge. Splaying out his left foot onto a slanting rugosity, he pinches a minute wafer and pulls through to a gigantic bucket hold. He walks over the last 100ft. which is only dead vertical.

By virtue of boots, chalk bag, location and reputation, the crowd, with its heartless avarice, has already committed me. All eyes pan to me, as if to say: Well?!

He did make it look trivial, I think, stepping up for a crack. I draw several audible breaths, as if to convince myself if nobody else. A body length of easy moves, then those incipient pockets which I finger adroitly before yarding with maximum might. 50ft. passes quickly, unconsciously.

Then, as I splay my left foot out onto that slanting rugosity, the chilling realization comes that, in my haste, I have bungled the sequence, that my hands are too low on that puny wafer which I'm now pinching with waning power, my foot vibrating, and I'm desperate, wondering if and when my body will seize and plummet before those heartless salt statues, cutting the air like a swift. A montage of abysmal images flood my brain.

I glance beneath my legs and my gut churns at the thought of a hideous free fall onto the gilded boulders. That 'little' voice is bellowing: "Do something! Pronto!" My breathing is frenzied while my arms, trashed from the previous 2,000 ft, feel like titanium beef steaks.

Pinching that little wafer, I suck my feet up so as to extend my arm and jam my hand in the bottoming crack above; the crack is too shallow, will accept only a third of my hand. I'm stuck, terrified, and my whole existence is focused down to a pinpoint which sears my everything like the torrid amber dot from a magnifying glass.

Shamefully I understand the only blasphemy: to willfully jeopardize my own existence, which I've done, and this sickens me. I know that wasted seconds could ... then a flash, the world stops, or is it preservation instincts booting my brain into hyper gear? In the time it takes a hummingbird to wave its wings - once - I've realized my implacable desire to live, not die!; but my regrets cannot alter my situation: arms shot, legs wobbling, head ablaze.

My fear has devoured itself, leaving me hollow and mortified. To concede, to quit would be easy. Another little voice calmly intones: "At least die trying ..."

I agree and again punch my tremulous hand into the bottoming crack. If only I can execute this one crux move, I'll get an incut jug-hold, can rest on it before the final section. I'm afraid to eyeball my crimped hand, jokingly jammed in the shallow crack. It must hold my 190lbs, on an overhanging wall, and this seems ludicrous, impossible. My body has jittered in this spot for millennium, but that hummingbird has moved but one centimeter. My jammed hand says "NO WAY!," but that other little voice adds "might as well try it."

I pull up slowly - my left foot is still pasted to that sloping edge - and that big bucket hold is right there ... I almost have it, I do! And simultaneously my right hand rips from the crack and my left foot flies off that rugosity; all my weight hangs from an enfeebled left arm. Adrenalin rockets me atop that Thank God hold when I press my chest to the wall, get that 190lbs over my feet and start quaking like no metaphor can depict.

That hummingbird is halfway to Rio before I consider pushing on. I would rather extract my wisdom teeth with vice grips. Dancing black orbs dot my vision when I finally claw over the summit.

"Looked a little shaky," Bachar croons, flashing that candid, disarming snicker. That night, I drove into town and got a bottle, and Sunday, while Bachar went for an El Capitan day (3,000 ft), I listlessly wandered through dark desert corridors, scouting for turtles, making garlands from wild flowers, relishing the skyscape, doing all those things a person does on borrowed time.

[Delight]

I did not know what soloing means.


John Bachar
American rock climber and leading exponent of the technique known as soloing (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jul/10/john-bacher-rock-climber)In the early 1980s, John Bachar, who has died in a climbing accident aged 52, found himself near the top of a rock climb in the Yosemite valley in California called the Moratorium. Four hundred feet off the ground and hanging from his fingertips, he faced an imminent death. He had deliberately chosen to climb with no rope, a technique called "soloing", on a route he had never experienced before. His decision was backfiring.

Bachar survived that time. Drawing on his high level of fitness, he pushed through his moment of crisis and reached safety, adding to his reputation as one of the boldest rock climbers in history. But he took little pride in it.

Recalling the incident recently, he said: "I felt hollow. I'd gotten away with something. I hadn't conquered anything. The mountain had just let me off."

For Bachar, soloing a climb in this way was the ultimate expression of his craft. Oscillating between overbearing egotism and humility, he made soloing seem both gloriously reckless and shrewdly calculating. His was not an easy trick to imitate and he never recommended anyone should try.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, the son of a maths professor, Bachar excelled in his youth as a pole-vaulter at the Santa Monica Track Club, coached by Joe Douglas, who later trained the Olympic medallist Carl Lewis. He discovered rock climbing at Stoney Point, an LA hangout for renowned 1950s climbers such as Yvon Chouinard, founder of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. By the early 1970s, Bachar and his friends were calling themselves the Stonemasters.

His athletics background had switched him on to methodical, properly researched training methods. He wondered what might happen if a rock climber trained like that, and decided to find out. Together with a fellow Californian, John Long, Bachar started exploring further afield, particularly on the granite crags of Joshua Tree. It was here that Long introduced him to soloing, which Bachar quickly saw as the purist form of his new craft.

Determined, as he put it, to be the best rock climber in the world, Bachar dropped out of University College Los Angeles, where he was a maths major, and headed for Camp IV in the Yosemite valley, a kind of dirtbag Camelot for the knights of rock climbing.

Here, he set up a climbing gym which he named Gunsmoke, arranged among the campsite trees, including a hanging rope ladder which he would climb using only his arms. The apparatus is still known as a Bachar ladder. He took up the saxophone, buying his first instrument after a previous owner threatened to turn it into a bong, and would serenade climbers high on the big granite walls above Camp IV.

Devouring books such as Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery, Bachar worked on his flexibility until he could do the splits, and studied martial arts and Chinese philosophy to find the perfect state of mind in which to push the boundaries of what was possible. Despite the Californian froth, top climbers from around the world eagerly absorbed his approach and ideas.

In 1981, he was the first to ascend the bold Bachar-Yerian route on nearby Tuolumne Meadows, which was subsequently named after him and his colleague Dave Yerian. In 1986, Bachar and Peter Croft climbed the famous El Capitan and Half Dome cliffs in 14 hours, some 5,000ft of climbing.

Bachar was also famous for his ability at bouldering, a kind of haiku version of climbing where moves of intense difficulty, called problems, are done on short stretches of rock. The presiding American genius of this sub-genre was John Gill, and Bachar made a pilgrimage with Long to Pueblo, Colorado, to visit the master and repeat the hardest problems Gill had completed.

But it was for making solos of hard routes hundreds of feet long that Bachar secured his reputation as one of the best in the world. Apart from Moratorium, he made solo ascents of other Yosemite routes such as Butterballs and Nabisco Wall. These routes were at the limit of what the very best climbers were doing - but with a rope to catch them if they failed. Bachar's unroped ascents were almost shocking.

In the mid-1980s, rock climbing went through one of its periodic revolutions. Bachar found he was suddenly out of step with the new French tactics of drilling bolts into the rockface. He disapproved, his previous intensity turning to rage at what he saw as the dilution of the sport's ethos, sometimes defending his position with his fists. After some spectacular solo climbs in the early 1990s, he drifted away from the sport he loved, taking up snowboarding and even golf.

Latterly, however, he rediscovered his passion, and slowly recovered his physical shape too. He had spent years designing climbing shoes for a Spanish manufacturer and, in 2003, set up in partnership with Steve Karafa. On the way back from a trade fair in 2006, their car crashed and Karafa was killed. Bachar broke four vertebrae. Lacking medical insurance, he was touched when the climbing community raised money for his treatment.

Despite his fused back, he was eventually able to climb well again and continued to solo. Several of his friends who were equally devoted to solo climbing had been killed doing it, and he was acutely aware of the risks.

No one witnessed the fall that killed him at Dike Wall, near his home in Mammoth Lakes, but help arrived very quickly. He is survived by his son Tyrus by a previous relationship.

John Bachar, rock climber, born 23 March 1957; died 5 July 2009

[Ankle Biter]

Reading these experiences reminds me of times when my own mortality was tested. Often in times of foolishness which goes hand in hand with youth and inexperience I guess. Lately though, after learning a school friend had passed, I have replayed my close calls over and over in my mind.

My departed friend and I were only 1 day apart in age, barely passed 40, way too early, well he's gone I'm still here though not for a lack of instances where I could easily not be here. Anyway hearing he left hit really close to home for me this time compared to other times of hearing someone left because of the expression we sometimes use... his number was up.. and well, our numbers were almost the same, different by 1.

The day comes for us all and age is no indication of the likelihood of checking out. It's random for all but since I said goodbye to my friend I became more sure in my resolve that I live well. If tomorrow I went then what would be the story of me I wondered. Will anyone be thankful to have known me that in someway did I help them live better, feel happier, feel appreciated. And therefore if I could be the best version of me each day then there's maybe a better chance of when time is determined I also die well.