A dear, dear 85+ Elder friend of ours had a sudden, frightening emergency surgery that became a life-changing event. The surgeon prepared us that survival chances of the surgery itself were low and then they foresaw 50% chances of survival through the first weekend. Friends and family gathered, waiting and holding energy for her to use however it was best. We were preparing for her passing. But our friend did survive and recovered, although her life was ever changed, as she never went back to her own home and now, after a challenging nursing home stay, lives in a pleasant assisted-living situation.

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She has been in our Orion circle for many years and when she was recovered enough, had questions and things to share with Orion. Her experience elicited some interesting material and she suggested that I might want to include it in a newsletter, as she thought others might benefit from her experience. The following is an excerpted and edited version of several Orion sessions. And as always, we share these personal sessions with deep appreciation of those willing to open moments of their lives to others.

  

Orion:   Well, well, there you are Our Dear One, here in your lovely new place.

 

Client: I don’t want to be here. I want to die and get the hell out. What the hell am I here for?

 

Orion: Why do you think you’re here? You are here. You’re here through circumstances that many other people wouldn’t have been here. So what arises right now as why you are here? 

 

Client: Probably some part of me didn’t want to leave yet. But I also don't want to be here with all the trouble and    aggravation.

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Yes. But we'd like to talk about what else we see - the fear of the unknown and the incomprehensible.

 

Client: You mean I’m here because I’m scared to go on?    

 

Orion: That is one aspect.  We see that you did touch the incomprehensible - an energy that did not match or resonate with any model you carried. All these years we have told you that everything anyone talks about 'ext' is metaphoric, as in that we used familiar words and concepts to express that which is truly other than those very words and concepts. And for many people their metaphors are strong or to them an actuality.

But you, clearly hold the difference between a metaphor and reality, actuality.   Your intellect recognizes, 'This is my idea and this is what is…' and our sense is that during surgery you entered and touched a completely unfathomable energetic and when you returned to the physical, the resonance to the connections to others became more alive. In other words, people very much did not want you to be compromised and so all of those held, 'Let her leave…we will miss her but we don’t want her compromised.'

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But the deep heart of your son recognized that you had become afraid, that something had frightened you and he reached out and said, energetically, 'You’re safe, it’s okay, you can stay.' And you took that tender energetic heart in hand and said, 'Alright, I’ll stay. I am staying.'

 

In addition to that energetic sharing, no matter what our mental ideals are about leaving, going on etc, this reality is one of an incredibly powerful physicality. Your form, your body to which you have been diligent and vigilant of all your health protocols, had her own response to leaving. And what arose was 'You’re not knocking me down - uh-uh…don’t tell me I’m done. Don’t count me out' - which, of course, is the life you’ve lived all these years; that of a survivor.

   

Client: I'm still carrying the feeling that I'm afraid to go and that I will somehow do it wrong. Now I'm left with feeling afraid to go and afraid I'll do it wrong.

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No need to worry on that account because 'you' are not going to have to do it. The part of you that is going to go on is the deep essence of you and it knows the path. Your experience was 'other', but you weren't dead or dying. Something deeper recognized, 'It's not my time.'

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 So again, it isn’t really that you weren't 'ready to go' out of fear. Rather the whole essence that stays or goes was not aligned and so you stayed. It is not that you prevented yourself from going. And being in a physical trauma and under an anesthetic, is not the same as the body truly shutting down. Fear of death arises when you are not dying; it is the mind recognizing the possibility of death in a deeper way.

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 When people are fully in the energy of dying, they know on deep levels what’s happening. When it’s really aligned, as when the body is going completely into malfunction, you will begin to naturally align to Other as the physical energy is waning and Other will feel very welcoming and known.

 

Client: Is this what people refer to as 'transition' ?

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Many people may find that word and energy reflects their experience totally. But this process is not a singularity; like everything else in Life, there is multiplicity, death included. We see Essences who do not enter these states without any what is understood as 'consciousness'. Rather, they become more at one with the body; as if they are the breath, they are the flow of blood. They merge into the body and the changing pace as the body winds down.

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Others connect with what one could call, elements of the Body/Mind. They recognize the shifts and changes. They are sensing, feeling and making images of movement, experiencing good-bye and transition. And there are many other ways of living the process of leaving physicality.

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 In the end, in all the mysteries of consciousness, it is physicality that sustains and in many ways creates our experience of the energy of consciousness and so that process - death, transition is, like birth, a physical process and in the domain of physicality.   It is the Body who makes this journey.  Consciousness then may enter another journey. And what can be cognizant of that is varied. In our view, many people simply live the physical life. Their journey is of the physicality of this time and place.  

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Whatever aspects of continuing exist we can only say, it is nothing at all like our comprehensions, our mythos, our understandings - because naturally all of them are understood and comprehended through this reality - our physical eyes, physical forms. Our experiences may be profound, life-changing and we may be supported by what we come to believe,  but it is important to recognize that in essence they are always translations from one reality to another.  And in that, Other remains truly Other.  So do not worry, do not despair when your own experience is nothing like you understood.

 

Again and again, you can readily see why the word 'Mystery' in all eons reflects those elements that are we cannot fully comprehend, because they are indeed very Other than this reality. In the end it will all sort itself out, and you’re not the director of it, or the driver of the car or the maker of it happening.

 

In your case, the body has healed well. New arrangements have made your life easier to manage. And what is left standing, as it were, is that you are still embracing life, and Life continues to embrace you. Yet, you still have fear. Fear of not being able to learn. Fear of learning to just be, which has been a fear for years now, fear that without doing there is no value.  And it is easy to think of going on as a relief from those very fears.

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 Ironically though, when you constantly talk about not wanting to be here, you are creating defense. You are resisting that you are here and that energy isn’t really about completion, it’s about saying, 'This is too hard to be here.' And with that, there is also some place in you now that knows you need to just really be; to acknowledge and accept your actuality. 'Well, I’m here, this happened and sometimes, I don’t know what it all means or what to do.' And you'll notice you have not stopped learning. 'Oh well,' you grumpily say, 'I’ll figure it out.'' because you are a person who learns. You are a person who lives.

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 So the paradox here is to step into, 'Well, I’m here, I’m living.' And give up that you have to want it to end or make it end, and allow, more accurately, the acceptance that 'Well, this will end. In its own time.'  The very energy of, 'I want to die. I can die. I’ll think of dying,' sends energy outward. It does not allow another energy to enter. It keeps you in one place. By acknowledging 'I don’t know why I’m here. I’m a little afraid of what I don’t know of, but I’m just going to be here in this ocean because I am.', a very different energy is created - one of movement, one that allows ebb and flow and new energy to enter. The thing that seems to give you relief is partly that which keeps you full of life. The part that says, 'I’m going to die. I wish I could just get out of here,' is a big, loud, strong energy. It is the opposite of what you seek, it is not a fading or dying energy. It's an 'I am alive energy', regardless of your words.

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Client: Well, I would agree that follows my internal experience.

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 So the real challenge for you now is to keep living and face and be with the fear of living. You are carrying two things: the fear of living, but more so, the fear that it is all changed and new and that you’re not going to do it right. And although you think you have a fear of death, we feel it is more so, the fear of the unfathomable, which emerged from your experience during surgery.

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 You carried a model about the continuation of consciousness and with that you had an inner model of what it was going to be like to release consciousness and the physical. But when you touched the energy you experienced, it was so 'Other'; so alien, so unknown, you went deep inside to the familiar. A core fear you hold is 'I have to know. I have to know. I have to be right and that will give me control.' And in that, not knowing and the possibility of being incorrect, has always frightened you. From that you learned to connect control of your life through knowing and further, correct knowing. And your life experiences led you to internalize that not knowing or being wrong is connected to rejection and abandonment, even, annihilation. These life experiences did not support the model you embraced of death as a release.

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Rather, these early patterns are anchored in abandonment and in that, death feels like being kicked out, as being rejected by life, and that is what we think you felt when you touched Other, an energy you had no experience or model of. We can learn from this that even in the later stages of life, understanding what lies beneath, what drives us, may come into play to support us in seeing that which is more true.

 

 Client: Ah, not knowing and not being able to fathom the whole thing quickly and immediately felt like being kicked out.

 

And when you awakened, you could easily recognize the energy of this reality, the emotions of the other people, the love, the caring and in your depth, felt ease.

 

Client: I see this. but I don’t want to live forever.

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The first step is to see Life as it is. Consider that it's okay to be afraid, to not know. It’s okay to make a mistake. This is your challenge. 'I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have to do what I did before. I don’t have to be the best student. I can just say well, 'It’s okay, I’m up and I’m down,' and in that way the natural course of this river of Life coming to her natural end, in her own alignment and time, can come more easily. Can you consider it is not your responsibility to make this shift occur? Can you consider that it may not even be in your purview? Can you consider the alignments of Great Mystery may not be known to us?

 

Client: Yes, once before I had felt a different energy. I plotted very carefully to make my own exit and then the feelings around it all went away. I still knew how to do it, but something else made me clearly comfortable to not act on it. And now you are suggesting that even though I still carry the drivers of my childhood, it is better for me to just relax and let life flow.

 

That’s right and you can. You may say life is boring, it's not the best. But in the end the reality is  'Here I am! What the hell?' You don't have to like it, but it will be easier and more supportive if you stop fighting it. And in that choice, you may be open to discovering other meanings of why you are here, other things that are still significant that you cannot see when you are putting all your energy into wanting to leave.

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 Again, our personality, character elements stay with us and influence us. So seeing 'Oh, I was afraid of the unknown and being wrong is my core fear.' opens the door to deeper understanding.

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 In the hospital when you were deeply ill, other people asked Elisabeth, 'Does Orion have anything to say?' What was most important to share was that rather than using images in their affirmations of energy to you that you were going up and out of your body, which is a most prevalent 'releasing' image, we suggested that they should visualize you going deep into your body -   telling her she can sleep and be safe curled up deep inside - because we recognized that you had had this fearful touch into the unfathomable. And now your own concept has broadened, as in, 'I don’t know what it will be like,' and now you can be comfortable with a more expansive view.

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Others may hold their inner models more deeply and may indeed experience the Light or 'meeting' others in a totally aligned way. You have discovered that although you had ideas, you actually had not internalized a definite, abiding model and when you touched this very different energy naturally it was like, 'What the hell is that? This is too weird. I am not aligned to this.'

 Now you can carry a new model which is, 'I have no single idea of what it will be like,' but even in that, know it is only your mind that has no idea. Your core, your essence, knows, so it’s really not frightening. The mind was frightened; not the essence, not the heart. It is the mind who thinks, 'I must be perfect and I must know.' These are all the worlds of the mind. They are not the worlds of intuition or empathy. They are not the worlds of empathy. They are not those worlds.

 Today's culture holds dearly the model that personal control is always available, around the corner, after the next 'try'. The culture wants accuracy and correctness. And even when a culture is sure it knows and this has been seen again and again, they were wrong! Decades and centuries of understanding are thrown out the window with a new development. So it’s all right to not know. It’s all right to make a mistake. It’s all right to just be.  

 

There need be caution in holding, without question,  that our thoughts and our ideas are Truth and that our physicality is under the control of those things. It is a much more complex dance and, in our view, physicality will lead the way because it is much more based in actuality.   Asking a child to toilet train by the mind before the body can physically do it, makes conflict does it not? The child cannot have that control by mental will until the physical body can. You cannot talk until the tongue, the lips and the pallet and on are developed enough to do so. You can’t see in certain ways until the eyes can focus. Physicality leads. And in that it will also take you to the last progression in a deep, knowing, natural way, if you seem to consciously know or not.

 

So, when the Mind wants to control everything you have to listen to something else - the Heart, the Essence, just the 'I don’t know.' It’s all right that you don’t know. That’s the wisdom. That’s why it’s always called the Mysteries. Every religion and spiritual tradition has an element of the Mystery. Everything on this earth has to recognize there is that not yet known; there is that we do not know and may not come to know.

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 In the end, this Life, right now, IS Reality. It is your commitment, your focus, your actuality. Even when we touch into and deeply experiences expansiveness, we are experiencing it through this physicality, this reality. The Other realities we can consider after physicality are truly that, Other. And if and how they are to be  experienced is another aspect of the fullness of Being. But it is not within the purview of this life to fully comprehend.  

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You are here.  This is your time. This is you. Embrace this time, this place, this you and live it all in all it's multiplicity - up, down, ease, stress, joy, sadness and so forth. Live with wonder. Live letting yourself feel you are part of the Whole and in that knowing, that you are in a dance that is in movement, that reveals but also has that which you cannot see or know, but perhaps, can sense. Dance with Great Mystery and be at ease.

 

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