More on Astral Projection

Someone asked if I had more than the one experience I discussed in the first article. I have to say yes as I have had a number of experiences that I would have to say were out of body.

Since my mid-twenties, I have meditated, often twice daily. Anyone who meditates regularly will agree that not every meditation results in a spiritual experience, but the regular practice results in allowing one to attain the focused, meditative state almost instantly. That skill has helped me to do things I could not otherwise have done.

The first time I consciously reached out to help someone else who was near death, was when my father-in-law had surgery and found it difficult to breathe afterwords. He was in recovery much longer than normal. When we visited in the hope that he would rally with family around, I could feel his struggle to breathe. I dropped into a meditative state and spent a half hour breathing with him. Afterwords he was much better and continued to rally. It may have happened regardless of my intervention, but everyone believed that I had made a difference.

The second time I performed this function it was for a woman whom I had never met. We had a mutual friend, who asked me to help if possible. The lady had a brain tumor and had surgery on it three times because of cerebral fluid leaks. She was very weak and had pretty much given up. My friend told me everything she could about her friend and I was able, in meditation, find her and offer my strength and support to survive and rally for the sake of her young daughter. She did survive and a few months later, I met her. She and my friend came to my house to visit. My friend had not told her anything other than that I was a friend of hers. When I came to the door, the lady wrapped her arms around me and began to cry, telling me she knew me from when she was in the hospital. I had not visited the hospital. It was over a hundred miles away from where I was. The only way she could have recognized me was from visiting her on the spiritual level.

These experiences, coupled with my own experience of being helped back through the mist when I passed away in the ambulance and was resuscitated at the hospital last April, convinced me that the ability to affect others while in the spiritual realm is quite possible and probably happens much more regularly than we would suspect. My experience of watching my own surgery in my early twenties predisposed me to recognize subsequent experiences as out-of-body events.

There have been other experiences during meditation, some I remembered, others were more of a blank, but I would return in a state of elated calm that would last for the rest of the day.

I believe that when an event is fraught with intense emotion, it is more indelibly written on the conscious mind. When one gives ones self over to the do the bidding of the Creator, there are many experiences during both waking and sleeping, which the conscious mind does not register. The Ancients have told us repeatedly not to get distracted by the gifts and skills we receive while on the path to Enlightenment. If we do, we can be seduced off the path, believing we are more than a willing tool of the One. They also told us that we would have the skills to do the work we are assigned when needed. I have found this to be true.

Testicular Cancer-The Silent Killer

So many things I never expected to write about..............................

After I wrote the article about men’s cancers, friends shared more information with me, particularly the male point of view, and I would like to incorporate some of this new information here.

When I was young, the word breast was not to be said aloud, let alone breast cancer. By the time everyone knew someone who had it, the words had lost the stigma and could be said out loud, and even in mixed company. Lives are being saved every day because we can talk about it.
Now men are in the same situation we women were. The words prostate and testicle are spoken in whispers only, and to link them with the word cancer is not to be considered. At the time my grandfather passed away from the complications of prostate cancer at the age of 87, I did not even know what a prostate was. Lives are being lost because of it.

I heard about a man who noticed swelling in one of his legs and went to the doctor. Tests were not good but the man did nothing about it. Finally he went to a urologist, but too late. Six weeks later he passed away from prostate cancer that could have been spotted and treated and perhaps this man did not need to lose his life. I don’t believe doctors are as aggressive in educating their patients or ordering test as they could be, nor are they as informed of current methods as they should be. Men who do go for surgery often have more invasive surgery than necessary because of not being informed of the alternatives. As always, the ultimate responsibility for our health rests with us and we must be in the front line as far as educating our families and ourselves.

A very few years ago, a young friend was shoeing his horse when she kicked him in the groin, damaging one testicle to the point that it had to be removed. As is common practice, it was sent for biopsy. The report came back positive for cancer, the silent type where there is no indication that something is wrong until far too late. The only way it could have been detected was by blood tests, which would have shown elevated hormone levels. All of the cancerous tissue had been removed so he opted for follow up blood tests rather than invasive preventative treatment. He was still clear after five years and has since married and has a young son.

Another success story that I have permission to share here is another example of serendipity (for lack of a more universally acceptable word) taking a hand. A young man, not much older than my friend, with a passion for hunting and a hunting dog that was his constant companion, suddenly had to lock the dog away from his presence. The dog would not stop burying his muzzle in the man’s crotch, something he had never done before but would not be deterred if in the same room. When locked away, he constantly howled and whined, wanting to be with the man and then unable to stop sniffing at the man’s crotch. This was very strange behavior and there was no evident reason for it. Before any decision could be made as to what to do about the dog, the man had an accident where he did the splits, big time, and ended up having to go to a doctor when his testicle swelled up. The family doctor sent him to a urologist who found something he did not like on an ultrasound image. Immediate surgery showed testicular cancer tumors, which were removed successfully. Like so many people, this man had never even heard of testicular cancer until it touched his life so dramatically. After surgery, the man’s dog no longer had any interest in his crotch. The dog had smelled the cancer and tried to warn his human companion.

As an aside, I have heard other stories of animals saving lives and warning of such things as cancer, seizures, and other medical conditions, We have barely tapped the surface of what these animals can know and can do for us if we are able to understand them. Animals are incredible and their love for us knows no bounds. I believe that if we do not ache for them when they leave us, we have not properly appreciated their gift to us and we do not deserve such gifts. Makes the crying easier, and I think I am right in that anyone who has truly loved an animal has seen the humanity in the eyes that look back at us.

In order to have more success stories, we must help to do the same for men as we women have done for ourselves…we must desensitize the words so that it is OK to talk about, OK to perform self examinations to spot changes in the early stages, OK to go to the doctor for regular check ups or if there is a suspected problem.

As women, wives, mothers, sisters, daughters… we need to help make men’s cancers as freely discussed as breast, cervical, ovary and uterine cancer. We can help save lives that way. Men are beginning to talk; boys are beginning to receive health education in school, including reproductive systems and cancer potential. It is not enough. Boys still squirm, blush and shuffle their feet when the reproductive systems are given their proper names. Men still feel guilt when they contemplate self-examination, left over from boys having it drilled into them that they must not play with themselves.

We women are our own worst enemies. Women raised those poor husbands out there. Why we don't raise our sons with the values necessary to become good husbands and fathers, I truly don't know. We don't make sure they are taught to do self-examinations and we don't teach them the risks inherent in being male. We are not well enough informed ourselves, as shown by the many sides to the circumcision issue. Maybe we think that is the father's job, but since women also raised him, he doesn't know either.

We somehow teach our daughters how to look after themselves medically, (or at least we allow schools to do so), what to expect from a husband, how to be the best mothers we know how to be.... Ultimately it comes down to the fact that children are much more resilient and much more hardy than we give them credit for. By the time we learn how to parent, the child is grown and on his/her own, and miracle of miracles, they somehow managed to grow up to be good adults in spite of our blunders.

I wish there was a guide for men to hang on the shower at home like the one that walks women through breast self examination. I wish there was a campaign for men like the pink ribbon campaign for women. I wish there was a screening program for high-risk men. I certainly wish there was information available as to what makes men high risk.

I Forgot

I had a minor melt-down after the car left us stranded in town before Christmas, and when it did so again just before New Year's Eve, the melt-down was more severe. It just all got to be too much and I was flooded with a feeling of helplessness that I haven't felt in well over 30 years.
The chimney still needs to be fixed, the kitchen roof needs to be replaced, the barn and shanty need to be torn down for safety reasons. The car problem is intermittent and we can not find what it is so it is not dependable, and our locked in financial situation has no solution. I just could not see a way out.

Keep reading, it starts to get better..............

The road crew that spent the summer rebuilding the under-side of the bridge had promised to repoint the chimney as reparation for the cedar tree and rose bushes they ruined. They did fix the lower driveway and cleaned up down there as best they could. When they went to repoint the chimney, they discovered the cement had blown out from between all the ceramic liner pieces and the bricks at the top were rotten. This was due to the original mason using inferior materials and taking shortcuts, but there was no way we could make him come good on his work.

The head of the road crew thought he could cut a hole in the bottom of the chimney and break the liner pieces out one at a time with a sledge hammer, then replace it with a steel liner, dropped down from the top. He successfully removed the liner, repointed the top of the chimney, covered it with a piece of plywood, brought some new bricks, sand and cement and then disappeared before Christmas.

Yesterday, he phoned and told us that the Highways Department was not willing to foot the bill, but he wanted to come and discuss it with us. In the afternoon, he arrived and told us he was going to be able to get a liner, and that he was also going to replace the kitchen roof as he had some shingles left over from another job. We had offered him the timbers and boards from the old barn and shanty if he wanted to tear them down and cart them away. There is a real market for old barn wood and there is a lot of salvageable beams and boards in ours. I think he is doing the roof in return for the barn and shanty and he assures us he will not be out any money on the whole deal. He went after the brick manufacturer for the rotten bricks and plans to get a new liner from the previous mason, whom he has known for quite some time. He will be back next week with liner and shingles.

In being so involved in the here and now, I forgot that when I do everything I can to be the best person I can be, the Cosmos looks after my needs. After all these years of being looked after, I forgot to trust. It certainly does not provide everything I would like, but it has always looked after what I needed, often just in the nick of time, but I have always had enough to eat, a roof over my head and clothes to wear, in addition to being blessed with so much love and caring.