THE VOID

Our lives are full of experiences of all types. In 1958, in Spokane, Washington, the most “real” experience of my life occurred. Nothing has every replaced it in terms of “realness” or intensity. It happened while giving birth to my second child, Patrick.

A little background on my upbringing and state of consciousness at the time might be helpful.

Spokane had a very conservative, small town feeling in the years I was growing up. Life was simple and easy. It was a bit like the old TV sit-coms, “Leave it to Beaver” and “Happy Days.”

My spiritual life consisted of visiting every church my girl friends attended. As I was quite gregarious, I was “saved” in many Baptist churches and prayed earnestly in many other Presbyterian, Methodist, and various other Christian churches. The sermons always stirred my teen age heart and I wanted to know the serious questions about God and what our connection with that being was. Even though I had many questions regarding spirituality and the “after life” I was pretty much told to read the Bible and not be so inquisitive.

My Aunt raised me from the time I was in the first grade until I married at seventeen. She became a Jehovah’s Witness when I entered high school. Now, that religion was very different for my young mind to get around. I couldn’t understand why I was not supposed to salute the American Flag during assemblies in the high school auditorium.

All in all, my curiosity about God and religion was never truly satisfied, but un-like the cat, it didn’t kill me!

So, that was the state of my simple young mind when I entered Sacred Heart Hospital at 3:30 a.m. on July 3, 1958. The baby was on his way and my body was in the throws of labor and in those days, you were immediately given shots and “put out” of your pain.

The next thing I knew I was in a very dark place without a body and had just a consciousness. I was propelled over and over in a figure eight pattern with great force and my mind was consumed with the fact that I was alone and in space. Thoughts raced through my mind and pictures of my neighbors, the Johnsons, and my friends and family kept surfacing and I heard the words, “they do not exist.” Over and over I would have feelings of hope and then the realization would hit and the understanding that the illusions of reality were just that, illusions. Life did not truly exist as I had thought and had experienced it. It was a dream and this place was “real.”

When I awoke and was talking with my young 6’4”, 220 pound, handsome husband, I thought, “He doesn’t even know that he doesn’t exist.”

A few years later while devouring spiritual and self help books, I read that this place was called “The Void” and is an initiation of sorts.

This experience has always remained the most “real” event in my life. It has colored all of my life experiences…and to this day nothing has surpassed it. It has been very easy for me to accept the theory that this third dimension that we live in is truly a hologram and an illusion.

Words fail to describe the soul wrenching shift that took place within my spirit due to this experience. I was not and never have been the “same” person that entered the hospital that summer morning in 1958. My vision of life and myself changed forever.

In many ways, it was an awakening and a freeing up of the heavy drama that this third dimension seems to be. There is always a part of me that stands back and looks at whatever is going on in a very detached way and I have become very grateful for the experience. It has served me well and made my life much easier in many respects.