To be, or not to be.

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn’t my own. Magnified bits and pieces of a face formed within a kaleidoscope of spinning reflections upon splintered glass. The shadows changed the neutral beige into various shades of yellow, clay grey and moss green. Cold heavy clouds pressed down. The rains started. After three years of drought, everyone was still complaining. The parched land would not let the water permeate. There was flooding. The memory of former floods brought a wave of anxiety, suffocation, drowning. Gulping air through my mouth, my senses became sharp. I saw a bluish tinge. It signalled the beginning of the end. Most people shrug their shoulders in resignation, but I was prepared.

“Damn it - not this again- I know how this game of dice is played- God’s odds. Control what you can. It isn’t that the weather is bad, it’s only the choice of clothing. Stay realistic and grounded on foundations that are shifting. I repeated my mantra “Love, love, love. Be grateful. Let go.” My breathing calmed. The haunted mirror turned into a mandala, transforming suffering into joy. This was a spiritual journey to wholeness. I slapped the rubber band on my wrist and woke up from the vision.

Eliza was a seer. She wrote down her visions to lift the shroud of mystery of the message. The seer does not know everything that is in place but gains knowledge of what might come to pass. Seers do not ask why, or how things play out. Without judging, the seer neither tries to direct, control or embellish the visions but observes the pieces of the fractured reflections. The same event, person or substance can be reflected as a benefit or a curse.

Eli had learned to work with the strength of the opponent. By integrating her shadow self, from which she had detached, into a greater spirit that understood and accepted the darkness, she could access the lowest region of knowledge. In the invisible realm, she found problems hiding in plain sight. She was programmed to prepare for the inevitable disasters, that are not only a result of man’s stupidity, but a reminder of nature’s strength.

She had written several predictive papers. In the mid-seventies, before AIDS, she wrote about severe combined immunodeficiency. In the ‘80’s, she recorded the effects of low-level toxins and temperature changes that cause sex change in fish. In the ‘90’s, she focused on the use of insect as a protein supplement. Before the Twin Towers fell in 2001, she wrote about the loss of global innocence. In 2010 her writing turned to the duality written in religious sources. She was not alone in predicting the plague of 2020. Now she was writing about demographic changes affecting mandates of dying with dignity.

The ideas were in the air and came to her in dreams. Traumatic events usually were preceded by the accumulation of small annoying situations, that escalated in importance and eventually became a series of major hardships before tragedies fell like rain. Dreaming offered little personal control over events. It is hard to be helpless and watch the collapse of an era.

Eli remembered not being surprised when the phone rang. It was her friend Beth. They were the last of an era, part of the critical mass of baby boomers who had imagined a beautiful life that would alter humanity’s course away from the path to self-destruction. As adults, they realized the post WWll ‘love child’ generation was a small cog in a big machine. With technological advances, the imperative of high birth rates no longer governed affluent societies; concurrently the religious convictions that direct moral standards had decreased. Political polarities and environmental disasters, caused by poorly managed inevitabilities, had increased. It was yet to be determined if the faded power of the flower children had protected the next generation from stress and suffering, or if they had left thorns full of poisonous fungi and bacteria that could infect the future.

Eli planned to meet Beth at the café in her residence. Sipping their coffee, Eli watched the clouds’ part. The low sun streamed through the window. Dust particles danced in Brownian motion, chaotically colliding and generating trajectories. Random attraction and repulsion created fractals.

Eli smiled and said, “I have been using Biofeedback to make me conscious of the hypersynchronous Delta waves that are linked to higher sense of consciousness that Hindu’s call Turiya, a state that unites waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. High cortical activity in Delta sleep inhibits neurons letting free thoughts flow with logic and aiding in the formation of memory. I am learning to dance to a dissociative fugue, on a tightrope, balancing ignorance and the subconscious to control my night terrors and visions.”

Beth replied nonchalantly. “You never stop believing in science. Spinoza says that gaining knowledge of the world occurs by looking through a cosmic sea of energy, not by piecemeal knowledge obtained through science. Scientific research is like the story of five blind man who describe an elephant based on their contact with it. It just doesn’t give the whole picture.”

Eli replied, “True, but I am interested in learning about the elephant in the room. I’ve been studying CHARM. ‘Cognitive Holographic Associative Recall Memory.’ It examines how memory teaches the subconscious to interpret symbols that can lead to bizarre, yet memorable, synchronicities. I think you have plenty of CHARM.”

Beth appreciated the compliment delivered in word play. “Thank you. I live for synchronicities.”

She and Eli had been friends most of their lives. Each respected and appreciated the similarities in their family upbringing and education that had led to conditioning how they saw the world. They had experienced shared synchronicities that supported respect of each other’s unique sentient qualities, their ability to feel.

Beth was able to tune into animals. On her farm, she recognized how they adapted to the needs of humans and mirrored this gift back to them. They gave her strength and motivation to improve what she considered a hellish existence. After the death of her husband, Beth had to leave the farm and her beloved animals. Her patience and willingness to adapt had waned. Although frequenting the doctor to resolve various illnesses, Beth proclaimed she was ready to die. She had done her best to deal with life and hoped that the afterlife might be more tolerable. She said, “I want to know if I am going to leave the world successfully after completing an important event or regretting a life that held little significance.”

Eli’s gift was presentience. She had learned to use the subconscious to augment her creative intuition. She focused her attention on honing her animal instinct. She listened to the whispers found in nothingness of thought and no thought, and did what she could to avoid pain, and to create Paradise on Earth. Throughout her life, Eli had explored various divination techniques. She had successfully predicted births, deaths, marriages, divorce, trips and transitions. Now, Beth was asking her to use these skills again, by reading her coffee grounds.

Eli said, “It takes hours of work, prayers and tears to deal with the ignorance and the death sentence with which we are born. The best teachers are pain and terror. They generate fear. Fear can waft an odor. Individuals repeatedly sniff a smelly piece of clothing, and their hands, to establish a sense of self.

The conscious brain cannot undo subconscious programmed emotions and is helpless against fear. Fear affects cognitive processing, decision making, learning and inhibitory functions that reduce memory consolidation and cause fatigue. Individuals have internal mechanisms to regain the emotional homeostasis needed to overcome fear.

To protect an individual from pain that creates fear, memories are blocked through amnesia. Fear resonates an intensive force that sets up a trauma response associated with addictions. Addiction experts suggest those who traumatize others are often themselves the victim of trauma. People get addicted to work, possessions, money, gambling, power, drugs, sex and self- affirmation by seeking contact and answers through social media. Beth, we are no strangers to trauma.”

Beth looked at her friend saying, “I am ready to untether from the root of an addictive hell loop and the scars from the past that do not heal. We’ve taken different paths trying to deal with reality. Too bad mine didn’t work. I think this soul is going to need at least another lifetime to become the best version of itself. I am ready to move on and give it a chance to find a vessel capable of self-love.”

Eli shrugged. “We are a product of our times. We have had the courage and intelligence to accept reality is harsh, but Mankind can only bear so much reality. I get that you are tired of trying to alter what causes the overwhelming and distressing feelings of pain, shame, fear, rage and more. You are not alone. There is an increased incidence in self- inflicted pain, tattoos and piercing. I am a compulsive nail picker. Occasional pain favors a heightened reality where individuals can see through the psychological fog emanating from society’s problems and glimpse at the repressed unconscious giant found in the wiring of their own brain.

“Research indicates that after long, enduring pain ends, there is a short but intense period called 'pain offset relief'. With little time to linger and doubt, the present moment is exhilarating. Dopamine is released and induces a brief period of euphoria that makes individuals feel most alive. People with temporal lobe dysfunction cherish this moment. It is as welcome as ketamine used in anaesthesia, that also increases dopamine.”

Beth smiled. “Oh, how I love that feeling of going under!”

Eli said, “We are not blind to others suffering and cannot ignore the relentless bombardment of life’s challenges. The conscious mind creates permutations and combinations of how we remember stories. Our friendship has helped us defy the warped stories of our fate that haunt us. We’ve both had to heal from multi-generational traumas that evoke a hysteric response that can impede self-love and control our free will."

Eli remembered back to when she and Beth met as children. Both were old souls in youngster’s bodies. The spirit burned into their atomic structure echoed the horrors of past lives. Then the traumas of the cold war, threats of nuclear bombs, environmental and financial disasters, parental neglect caused by confusion of a disillusioned diaspora, dysfunctional families and bad marriages had inflicted new deep wounds.

Beth replied, “Each generation experiences trauma. You deal with it through your attempts at self-hypnosis and reconditioning techniques. I have not been able to unlearn the abomination and horror of my reality.” Raising her index finger Beth said, “Given your history of traumas I can’t believe you can still have faith that anything makes a difference. How do you deal with the shit you have been dealt? Your father was murdered. How do you deal with it?”

Eli shrugged. “I have taken to sleepwalking. I live the dream of being who I want to be. I imagine that I am part of a superconducting current of a cosmic power, flowing with what I call love, an attachment to others and nature. I work with darkness in my Sci-Fi world of psi phi. I use the opponent’s strength to look for the inner light in the search for self-realization. I imagine controlling phosphine, released from the phosphates in DNA creating floating bursts of brilliant light that trigger the brain sands of the pineal to vibrate.

Light affects brain chemicals and hippocampal memories that transmit mental maps of associations and intuitive instinct, through space and time. Internal conflicts and stress have led to fragmentation. Uniting physics and the psyche, I meld the fragments of positive emotions to get a sense of self-worth and wholeness. I put Humpty Dumpty together again.”

“You are a good egg, albeit a bit cracked," quipped Beth, "but I'm tired of looking for the fragments of light in darkness.”

Eli nodded. “It has taken the better part of a lifetime for me to separate my preferred emotional response from the barbaric interpretation of life and death that I had learned. How is it that beautiful babies can grow into men and women of war, or slaves to a system that uses them as pawns?

“It’s hard to accept how we are wired. We deal with a lot of genetic anomalies. Plus, our environment has not been optimal. We have experienced hyperarousal, because of stress hormones born of the emotional distress and horrors that are common everywhere in our world. I cannot imagine how the next generation will feel with population pressures and resource shortages added to the mix.

“I am so thankful that you were there for me after my dad was killed. Mom was too busy trying to survive to give me much attention. I was left to translate a rude, bare reflection of an experience of life. Beth, you were the only one willing to listen to me. You opened a window through which buried memories could be released. You shared your stories of the pain that humanity, and even members of a family, are capable of inflicting. Hearing about your crotchety grandmother and disillusioned father and mother who had become unhinged after leaving their embattled homeland, I realized I was not alone. We shared emotional suffering. It had manifested in physical, biochemical psychosomatic illnesses that are not a figment of the imagination, but a protective response against reality.”

Beth asked, “Can you remind me about the story of when your hair turned grey?”

Eli shared the script of her memories, formed 60 years ago. “I was sitting in the grade four/five split class of 40 students. I had diligently worked through the steps and proof of the assigned math problems. On that June day, warm breezes blew in through the open window. I looked at the clouds in the blue sky and had a vision, more like a lucid day terror. I saw the white shirt, grey pants and crooked smile on my father’s face. He glanced upwards, and raising his hands did a shoulder shrug while uttering the words “What can you do?” The clouds changed and within them, the churning spirits in the air showed me what I had not wanted to see. It was his death. At that moment, the boy sitting behind tapped me saying, “What the heck just happened? Your hair just turned grey.” This is said not to happen, but a streak of white appeared down from the crown of my jet-black hair at that moment.

“When I returned home, I told my dad about the vision He yelled and was angry. Father’s Day was in two days. I remember going to the corner Metropolitan store. There was a selection of candies and cookies. Bulk buying was a novelty. I felt clever purchasing a package of Dad’s cookies. I never got a chance to deliver him that package. He was hit by a car driven by a drunk driver, bounced on the hood and died days later.

"I have no memories of the following three years until visiting my grandmother after a dream. She had been admitted to the hospital for phlebitis. In her immigrant ways, Baba had mourned the loss of her murdered son, for the traditional three-year period. In her broken English she said, “Call your mother; I am going to die tonight.” The father, the son and the holy ghost prompted me to call mom on a payphone. Baba’s worries were downplayed. “Tell her not to worry, she will be fine.” Baba willed herself to die the night of his death anniversary.”

Beth said, “That story still gives me shivers.”

Eli continued, “It took me experiencing a lot of death and loss to finally accept that everyone dies. We need to do our best to make some good of this life. I am so grateful that you let me share my dreams with you when they caused me fear. You know, I had hoped, by doing so, I could prevent them from recurring. I am sorry to have burdened you with my fears when you have your own. I thought that having someone witness my premonitions would stop them because I would be proven wrong. I was oblivious of the impact on you.”

Beth said, “What has been done can never be undone. We are not only victims of stupidity, but of ignorance. We suffer the maddening frustration of not knowing how to protect ourselves and those we love. I used to think I could pour my vegan jello self in an idealized mold, but it never set.”

Eli chuckled, “Friend, we belong to the tribe of mother goddesses, sisters to the Egyptian Isis of ten thousand names, the Greek Titan women and their Amazon offspring, Kama the Indian god of love, the Celtic Etain, and others. Come on, we’ve worked hard to be our best self.”

Beth nodded in agreement, “We have both resisted being the prisoner of a body without a soul or an animated corpse that will do anything for survival. I still refuse to be governed by the cold-blooded reptilian brain, wired for automatic self-preservation.”

Eli said, “We each have own internal GPS. We are a stock of humans, bred in the manner of good cattle, like a zebu, once a beast of burden and now the sacred cow. We are programmed to carry the reincarnated highest universal cosmic principle.

“When we were kids, you claimed me to be your pet Fubsy. Knowing you love your pets made me feel special. We follow self-imposed rules based on spoken and unspoken interpretations of what is reasonable, even when the rest of the world does not always agree. We do not have imagined expectations. Knowing our limits lets us form a connection that gives me a sense of happiness and hope. It reduces my suffering."

Beth looked at her friend and said, “I appreciate our limits, but have long given up the illusion of hope and trying to find happiness. I chose medication, shock therapy and institutionalized care to ease the horror stories and pain of my memories. Writing my blogs amuses me. I unload my thoughts on people I don’t know. It appears that misery loves company. There is a demand for stories of the world’s horrors.”

Eli felt the fluid air become a sticky catalyst. It produced nanoscale multi-fibers needed to close the loop between subconscious memory and knowledge, experiences and habitual activities, what was said and observed. She said, “Time to read the cup to see what is says about the interface between matter and energy.”

Eli introduced her reading. “You know that this is just a way for me to let my subconscious surface. By not judging the real and imaginary symbols, I instinctively see patterns that match my conditioning, and my best guess at what I believe is possible. I open my mind to possibilities so the silent voice of the universe can connect my thoughts to what I learned through experience. I find the strength to listen to the voice of my heart, as it communicates with the mind, about what is felt in the gut.

“The cup is equally divided. You are experiencing both darkness and light. There are thousands of insects following columns of air that form vertically to laterally move through the calm and stable middle of the stratosphere. A spider is testing the winds. With a tightened gut, on tiptoes it takes to the invisible highway, spinning gossamer silk web fibers while defying gravity. Floating like a balloon, it locks arms with another spider. They form a raft, like a group of otters, to get some rest. They go where the wind blows but do not make it across the gap. They leave a blanket of woven threads over the ground. Any insect that approaches generates a positive force of electromagnetism that attracts them to the web. The web deforms and bends inward to form a trap.”

Eli put down the cup and explained. “You know I don’t intentionally prey on weaknesses or try to prevent problems or guess at a desired outcome. I intend to do the least harm to self and others, while providing the forcible impulsive momentum of hope and love. I depend on differentials of thought, to avoid repeating harmful patterns. I leave it to you to interpret what I say. Really, I don’t know what it means. What do you think?”

Beth answered, “It's obvious; it's about the blog."

Eli looked at Beth, nodded and continued. “There is little room for remorse for how things turn out because of a domino effect that stems from a moment in time.”

Beth said, “True enough. I found relief in writing my blogs. I never realized that they would make me an influencer. I couldn’t care less that optimists and pessimists are drawn to follow my perception of equanimity. My premise is love and hate are both found on the same side of a coin, with the flip side being despair and indifference. I never intended to hurt others. I just voiced my version of truth.”

Eli nodded. “You cannot control how others think. When people see an alternate belief that appears to work they are like lemmings and follow, even if it takes them over a cliff. I once thought hate was an emotion of extreme dislike, that arises from a narrow-minded, short-sighted rage with the malicious intent of inflicting sorrow and grief on another spirit. I thought forgiveness and trust, love and compassion could magically transform hate by alleviating suffering. It doesn’t work that way.

“Pain leads to fear responses that lead to trauma. Trauma affects the processing of attention, emotion, memory, reward and risk responses and increases the likelihood of self-loathing, hate and withdrawal from social interactions. Studies show that trauma rewires the brain, so it runs in a hate circuit that sabotages the individual and others from having happiness. Depressed people cannot easily uncouple the hate circuit, that stops or impairs the activation of the love circuit.”

Beth replied “Ain’t science grand. And is there any cure.”

Eli continued. “Not guaranteed. Reading a moral compass depends on more than the magic bullets that culture, religion, medicine or governments dictate. A magic quick fix comes with a cost. False hope can cloud judgement."

Beth commented, “Life as we might want it is doomed. It looks like there are genetic predispositions to depression. You once explained how it is impossible to get rid of heterozygotes that carry a harmful trait."

Eli replied, “I am volunteering as a guinea pig for studies that show thoughts, action patterns and behaviour can shape genetics through epigenetic control. As we gain awareness of options, we coevolve to face change. I have arrived at a stage in life where I have witnessed much of the sadness known to befall mankind. I appreciate each day and am grateful for my health and my experiences of love. I no longer guard against the darkness and pain of life as if they are weaknesses. I no longer close my heart believing this is a safer way to live. I still suffer from fragmentation."

The day had turned hot and muggy. A fresh breeze carrying the birds’ songs and the perfume of flowers was welcomed. Eli looked at Beth to determine if she held the crepuscular blue-green light that often reflects death. Beth was orange. The lower chakras were firing. She took a selfie of the two of them and showed it to Beth.

Eli said, “I can’t get away from receiving the messages. See the lens glare, the green spot and a band of light between our hearts. It is said to represent the energy of lingering sentiments of deceased spirits. Our ancestors, the root foundations of our past, are connecting us to the universal energy through the green heart chakra.”

Beth looked at Eli with clear eyes. “I am looking forward to death. My reality of life has no value. Heavy sedation and shock treatment have not worked. I keep thinking I have reached the lowest point, but every day is worse than the one before. Will you agree to champion my request for euthanasia based on irredeemable psychiatric mental illness?”

Eli said, “My friend, I know mental illness is a complex disease and that you are suffering. It is hard to see and measure suffering. This case is going to set a precedent. The increase in suicides that have been tied to followers of your blog has already gained attention. Your choosing euthanasia is going to take it to the next level. I do not want to inherit or spread your suffering, without proof that you have done everything to alleviate pain of depression. Give me two months of cognitive behaviour therapy and active reflection to see if this might establish neuroplasticity.”

Beth argued, “Such training is just faking it.”

Eli countered, “I read a sign on the way to the sacred woods of the Po Lin monastery on Lantau. It said, ‘fake or true it depends on you’.

Beth had tried the therapy but to no avail. As promised Eli advocated and stood by Beth in her last minutes on Earth. Then came the nightmares.

Weeks after winning the critical case, permitting euthanasia for psychological suffering, the government changed. Then came the conclusive results of the hallmark studies. The power of sacred narcotic lilies, narcissus, healing snowdrops, amaryllis and love lies bleeding, that Odysseus used as an antidote to transform the effects of hallucinations and amnesia from the jimson weed, were now found to combat depression.

Moly, chemically manufactured as MDMA in the drug Ecstasy, Ketamine, DMT and LSD micro doses were reported to have good results. What was fringe science during the psychedelic revolution had spun into mainstream acceptance of drug-assisted therapies. The use of drugs suggested by Timothy Leary, who Nixon called the most dangerous man in America, was a testament to the effects of ignorance and untruths. God and the devil switched places as society redefined good and evil.

Eli was left in the crossfire. She was suffering from the sin of omission and that of ignorance. When she agreed to help Beth, there had been no other options available. She accepted responsibility for her choices. By supporting Beth’s end-of-life decision, to escape from the darkness, sadness and despair in the nightmare of what a depressed person feels in daily life, she had inherited the darkness of pain from regret. Mental anguish consumed her spirit.

Beth had bequeathed Eli her estate. Now she was being accused of having had a self-serving ulterior motivate. The opponents claimed that Eli had argued Beth’s suffering for selfish financial and emotional personal gain. Eli knew now, that if she was not convicted, there would be no controlling if suffering could be defined by the costs if inconveniences imposed on families and society.

As Eli awaited sentencing, she felt her awareness sharpen and time slow down. She accepted the vision. She was walking through crowds of people on a busy street. She saw the lights flicker. The winds blew particulates forming a veil over the light. She was part of a moving vortex, a microscopic biophysiological expression of the universe. The tornado effect swept the superconducting path of the collective mind of humanity behind a splintered Alice's looking glass, where the whole is fractionated into backwards, upside down or distorted reflections.

She saw through the kaleidoscope. It was a spinning St. Catherine’s wheel. If the torture wheel is not balanced, it breaks. Humanity witnesses a confused state of possibilities. Humans are trained and conditioned to deny and refuse what is unfamiliar because the risks of an unknown future incite fear, that the future might not be as good as the present. When an option appears to work, it is perceived as a miracle. The wave of humanity insists on compliance. Then a new option appears. The tides shift. The cycle repeats and creates a new horror.

Breathing in deeply Eli repeated her mantra, “Love, love, love. Be grateful. Let go.” She snapped the elastic on her wrist.