Seeing in the Dark

The genesis of an idea began when I was eight years old. My father had just died suddenly of a heart attack, but that's not all that happened, and that's what this piece is about - not why a young father died so young, but what happened just before he did.

Setting up a little perspective, first. Look up from a computer screen and another world reveals itself, one that was there all along. Look back down at the screen, and worlds reveal themselves there. They, too, were there all along. What changed was where we put our attention.

I mention shifting perspective because for me, all that we know to be signs of good health or poor, a happy life or an unhappy one - they are a 'world' of sorts, a reality that absorbs our attention. But there are other worlds, too, happening right now, that are simply beyond our current vision. We haven't noticed them yet because our awareness was focused elsewhere.

Information keeps evolving as our awareness evolves. For instance, when I was a teen in the 70's, it was vaguely known that you could eat some yogurt after you have antibiotics. Did I notice anything different? No, so I didn't keep it up, but now, scientists know a great deal about the consequences of even one round of antibiotics and a couple of bowls of yogurt isn't going to wrap it up. Plus, we've learned that we're mostly microbial! 47% of our cells are bacteria, fungus and others; only 43% of our cells are human.* We're a community of cells, only part of them human. That's an eye-opener.

For me, there is another crucial terrain involved in issues of wellness and stress, and that is the energetic terrain. If we were to shift perspective and adjust our lens to map out any scene as a vibration of energies, we'd know that we're All energy - our houses, our bodies, our food... Our relationships share energy fields, as do our neighborhoods, our cities, our nations. Our illnesses have an energy field and our unhappiness has an energy field.

All of these fields are intelligent and part of our community of being, just like the microbial communities that make up most of us. They're out to help us, unless they've been altered by a wayward current. My point here is that whether it's the biological terrain of critters or the energies in the supraphysical terrain, we are in the dark of what's really going on, using flashlights to see better. Remembering the scale of the known to the unknown helps us to get better answers, because it shifts our attention from one small screen to a broadening view.

Back in 1967, my father and his secretary had been driving for many hours from San Francisco to Bakersfield and were close to their destination that night. It was full dark when they entered a section of the highway that was no longer lit by the business developments on either side. Traffic still streamed from both directions.

Suddenly my dad yelled out with amazement "LOOK at THAT!" His secretary looked in all directions as he pulled over to the side of the road - she could see nothing. And then he died.

My mother was called from the hospital and the secretary called afterwards. She wanted us all to know that he died happy and unafraid. She wanted to make sure that we knew what he said just before he passed. Maybe it was an angel.

My parents were atheists, having long ago left the church of their upbringing. Attending church had been a social requirement and an intellectual absurdity, not a source of comfort and insight. It is likely that the secretary was an atheist as well - such was the norm in their milieu. But on that night, what happened just before my father died changed at least two people's lives - the secretary's and my own.

Not only had she been driven safely to the side of the highway, she watched a man have an experience that could not be denied. She had been given a miracle. If my father hadn't seen whatever it was that he saw that night, he would have died at high speed on the highway, threatening not only her life but all those other people streaming towards Bakersfield that night- the domino effect would have been terrible.

For me, in the midst of all that was gone, all that was lost, all that was devastating, a part of me looked up in a new way, as if I was looking up from a TV screen. Something amazing had just happened. I had no words to describe it or even think about such a thing. Remember, in my world, there was no God and there were no angels. But my father had seen something - something really important - right when he needed it most.

The tragedy and its miracle put in motion two strong tracks in my eight year old mind. One was - how can we be safe? How can we stop anything like this happening again? How can we be healthy? And the second was - what did he see?! Are angels a possibility?

These questions and their answers have rolled through my life like stones in a stream. Sometimes they're settled and the waters of life roll over them comfortably. Other times they're ejected from their position and deposited dripping somewhere completely new. What is "Real" keeps getting recalibrated.

But throughout it all, I've had the opportunity to find out for myself, more about who was helping me on the other side of the veil. And for some reason, health challenges and sudden loss are often the fast track to that kind of thing. But the wonders of the worlds beyond our ordinary senses are visible, audible, touchable - everyday - in simple joys, in all the moments when our heart sings - seeing the sun, the new leaves, the birds singing, children playing... I'm sure you have your own list. They're moments when the world of the physical and the worlds of spirit are showing themselves in all their raiment.

And in those moments, we've looked up from the small screen and joined the greatness of the Whole. And That is the energy that creates health.

"LOOK at THAT!" my father yelled out just before he passed.

Yes. Let's look at THAT! It's here, all around us.

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Shed the Unnecessary, Harvest the Extraordinary www.tracy-mcallum.com

*Elizabeth Lee, May 26, 2019, "We're Only About 43% Human, Study Shows,"