VOICES FROM ?
One of my favorite TV shows is Blue Bloods, and on the recent episode they had a woman who helped solve a crime by telling the detectives that she “heard the voice of God”. Of course, everyone wrote her off, at first, as a crazy woman. We all know that “hearing voices” is a true sign of lunacy. And as it turned out in this fictional story, she was accurate. The whole thing really got me, because, I have heard voices several times in my life and was always reluctant to share that. Hey, no one wants to be crazy.
So, here they are, the main instances of the “voices” that have come to me in this life. The first one was at about 10 years old. I was playing a game at night in my neighborhood. I ran toward a telephone pole that was “home base” to come in “free” in the game, and just as I got close to the pole, one of my friends running toward the same pole, bumped into me and knocked me, at full tilt, into the pole. I was immediately knocked unconscious. The next thing I knew, I was being carried up the hill toward my house with 2 of my friends under each arm. As I woke for a second or two, and before I slipped back into unconsciousness, a clear voice said to me, “do your multiplication tables”. It was a nondescript voice in a very calm tone, and I started to do my multiplication tables. Next thing I knew, I was in my dining room and my mother was putting ice on the big bump on my forehead.
I did not tell anyone that “voice” thing and really did not think much of it until only recently, when I discovered that people with severe brain injuries, are often told to practice their multiplication tables to restore brain function. I probably had a concussion of some sort, but I never was treated for it. (OK, hold the “so that’s why” jokes)
My second experience was when I was in my 20’s and I was driving from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio on Interstate 71. This was when the speed limit was 70 and most people drove much higher than that. As I drove along on a beautiful evening, I was admiring a wonderful sunset and had slowed to about 60 as I crested a small hill. In front of me, was an accident and all the traffic was backed up and stopped. As I approached the stopped cars, I easily braked to a stop, and then that same voice, very clearly said to me, “pull off the road”. At first I balked at that and the voice repeated the message so I became the first car in line to pull onto the side of the road. The next car behind me crested the hill at about 90 mph and slammed on the brakes and slid sideways past me and within a foot of the car I would have been stopped behind. I just sat there to the side, looking as this happening beside me and wondering why I was not in the path of that.
The next major hearing of the voice, was at Bethel Maine when I was between seminars and heard the voice that changed my life. I have written about this before and it was not a voice of warning, but a voice of awakening. It said, “words do not describe the world, they limit it” and at that I was blessed with seeing the oneness of life. Everything changed after that.
There were several more times that the “voice” (and I do not claim that it is the voice of God), spoke to me. One was in my back yard in Dayton, when I was out raking leaves in the fall. It said, “you will not have children in this lifetime” and I can remember just standing there and accepting that. And finally, years later, I had another time that is the only time I did not listen. I had been out of town shopping for some new stereo speakers. After I had purchased two of them, I was leaving the mall and decided to go to another store away from home and just as I began to turn toward it, the voice said “go home”. For the only time, I did not listen, and later that eve, as I came out of a store, I saw that my car had been broken into and the speakers were gone! I just smiled and shook my head for not listening.
Finally, one afternoon while driving out in the country on a pretty summer day, the voice said to me, “separation is to see the creation”. And at that instant, I could see that the “one” could not experience the creation of this world unless it separated from it and looked from outside itself. Just as we can not “see” ourselves unless we can stand back and detach from our being, to witness our own life.
There are some smaller incidents that have come along and they seem to get less and less as I get older, but all this happened and changed my life in small and very big ways. I do not claim any “special-ness” with this. I know this happened. I have no idea why or why me. I am not religious and have not been to church in almost 50 years, except at weddings or funerals. What I do know is that it has led me to do what I do, it has made my life very easy and blessed, and to keep me in a state of amazement of what this is all about. Tlane 2/12/12
For some time it has been on the edge of my mind to mention the work of James Hillman to you. Given this current piece titled “Voices from ?” now seems to be a good time. I’ve read two of Hillman’s books: The Soul’s Code and The Force of Character. I recommend them to you, in that order.
In The Soul’s Code, Hillman talks of a personal daimon that each of us has. Some of us hear and feel the influence of our daimon and others don’t. His writing spoke to me because I hear and feel the influence of mine; yet, my experience is not the same as yours, Tom. There is a quote, I think from Einstein, that says: “what I have to say about the book can be found between its covers” so I leave the rest to others to discover for themselves.
For me, the beauty of Hillman’s work, as with the works of poets and philosophers and others, is that it explores, posits and conjectures without averring a right and true and only one answer.
Enjoy.
Thank you Rita!! I had never heard of Hillman, but a quick look into his writing and viewing of the world spoke to me. A “daimon” is like a spiritual guide or mentor of our living that expresses a “destiny” in our living. I immediately resonated with that and can see how I did not fit with my family at all. I really liked his notion that we “grow out from heaven in a top down way” and how the normal culture dismiss this notion. I will pursue more of his stuff. I wrote a paper on “fate versus free will” somewhere in this blog that kind of touches this point. again, my thanks…t