Memory Time

Everything I write about is a memory. Even if I try to write about NOW it’s already a memory by the time I hit the first key.

Pretty obvious and not worth pursuing. Cut to the chase.

On the other hand, we are beings of memory and so much of it is unconscious. Like what ancient cultures call “Dream Time.” The memories from the countless lives lived by our ancestors and passed on to us. Memories that go back to the beginning. A sort of a Dream Time Déjà Vu or what I think of as “Memory Time” stored somewhere we can sometimes access.

One of the things I’ve learned since my DNA results is that much of my current life has been based on “Memory Time.” For example, there’s the very real and demonstrative realization that sounds can and do alter other realities. The sound vibrations of a medicine drum or chant come to mind.

I’ve been deeply affected by sounds and vibrations since childhood. Certain sounds would stop me in my tracks and suspend my other senses as my focus shifted to what I call “my special place.”

That’s the space where I go, or try to go, when I’m in the dentist’s chair for example. Or when I stub my toe. It’s where I used to go when I was an advertising creative director tasked with coming up with a “hook” for an ad campaign or a name for a new product for a client like Cadbury Schweppes. If it makes any sense, I think it is the unconscious part of my consciousness.

Anyway, that’s where my focus would shift when triggered by certain sounds and vibrations.

Once, I was walking from my Auckland CBD office on Hobson Street down Wellesley Street to Queen Street when I was suddenly stopped by the sound of a gong. It wasn’t a sound that came from any one direction. It came from everywhere and resonated through me like I was part of the gong … or the gong itself. My conscious mind was working to try and figure it out when I realized that everything around me had stopped. Cars had stopped. People had stopped. Everything was stopped except me.

I looked around feeling a sense of deep serenity. Yet didn’t know if I was supposed to do anything, or nothing. So I continued walking down Wellesley and was hit by the sudden blast of traffic sounds and continued activity as I stepped onto the curb on the other side.

I stepped off the footpath (sidewalk) to stand next to a building and catch my breath. I may have stopped breathing during the episode or was just taking in a breath to make sure I could breathe. But I stood there for a few moments going through the whole thing before heading off to the new Chinese restaurant I’d planned on trying out.

When I got there and sat down to look at the menu I realized that it was too late to order anything I wanted. Somehow I’d arrived moments before they would close. It had taken me over an hour and a half to walk those few blocks from my office and I had to get back to work for a meeting. Somehow the gong sound that had gone through me suspended me in a time bubble and that everything else continued on its merry way without me. Did I miss anything besides lunch?

That’s an extreme example and hasn’t happened again. More often it’s the deep, visceral vibrations created by me chanting. I call it my “medicine drum chant.” I have no idea if the words mean anything in another language, but their intent is to calm me and space around me. I also use it for protecting people and places.

I used keep this very private and would only chant when I was sure nobody else could hear me. Or see me because I often feel the need to do a shuffling dance when I’m chanting. It wasn’t until my wife and I had been unexpectedly left with our infant granddaughter that I started chanting in front of other people.

Our granddaughter was handed over to us in a very disturbed emotional state that I won’t go into here. She only stopped crying when she didn’t have the energy to continue. She literally cried herself to sleep. But once she woke up it started again. After my wife, who’d had three children and usually knew exactly what to do, handed her to me for a few moments I went to my special place for help.

It became clear that I should try one of my chants while holding our granddaughter close to my chest so she’d get the full effect of the vibrations. Then I did a little medicine dance around the living room with her tiny body held against my chest. It took only a few minutes before she calmed down and fell asleep in my arms. I call it a “medicine dance” because that’s exactly what I’ve seen it called after I started researching my Native American ancestry and watching medicine dances on YouTube. It’s what my Shawnee ancestors would have known and practiced. It was part of my Memory Time.

ADDENDUM

Earlier I wrote that the memory bubble experience hadn’t happened since. But it has happened before.

Once when I tipped over in a chair while listening to music. Nothing stopped, but it did slow down to such an extent that I could plan how to avoid a table and hit the floor at an angle so my shoulder took the brunt of the fall instead of my head and I could safely roll away from the table.

The second time was when I was fishing alone on the northern headland of Matapouri Bay near where we live. I’d been warned that this section of headland was dangerous due to the unstable nature of its shale rock face. I was carrying my fishing rod and reel and a plastic bucket with my little tackle-box. I had to traverse a section of shale and as I stepped on an outcrop it gave way completely leaving me to fall around 25 feet.

Everything went into slow motion. I could see a big ledge below me and had time to aim for that. Good thing too as the next stop down would have been the rocks and breaking waves. I not only had time to turn and aim for the ledge but plan how I would land, deciding to flex my knees to absorb the fall as best I could.

I landed as planned and real time kicked in leaving me relieved but now having to decide whether to try climbing back up the unstable section or traverse across to the more stable side. After catching my breath I decided on scooting across and making my exit that way. Even though I manged not to drop my fishing gear I decided to call it a day. The fish would be safe for another day.

By evening my right knee swelled up and became painful. The next day I took it to my GP who, upon examining it, found a hard inch and a quarter lump behind the knee like a big splinter or wooden match stick. It was was painful to the touch and he asked if I’d noticed it before. Sure … I told him I’d had if for years after a surfing injury. I’d been told that the hard lump was a blood vessel that had ruptured, atrophied and become calcified.

My doctor shook his head and said he’d never heard anything so ridiculous. And, indeed, I think it was a friend who’d come up with that theory and I’d accepted it all these years. I added that it moved around from time to time but it never caused me pain until now.

He asked if I’d mind if he cut it out so he could examine it and after being assured that the local anesthetic he’d use would mean the excision wouldn’t hurt, I agreed.

After removing it he held it up and asked if I knew what it was. Yes … it was some resined fiberglass with some lose strands of fiberglass ready to break off.

The doctor, who was familiar with fiberglass boats shook his head and told me I was “One lucky bloke.” According to him had one of those fine strands broken off and gotten into my bloodstream it could have killed me. The accident had done me a great favor.

Years later after so many of my memories became acute I remembered the incident that led to the fiberglass being there in the first place. I’d been surfing in some fairly big closeout waves in Santa Monica just up from the old Del Mar Club (now the Casa Del Mar Hotel) when I came off my board. No leashes in those days. The rising sun fin on my board already had damage from some previous encounter and the clear fiberglass beading was shattered along one edge. I’d popped up in the whitewater expecting my board to be between me and the beach. Instead it had somehow popped up behind me and hit me behind the knees with a lot of force. So much force that the area behind my knee was bleeding. I notice the pain and the blood and dismissed them. I paddled back out.

I figured I’d injured a tendon since that’s what the lump behind my knee felt like. The bleeding stopped but even if it hadn’t, getting stitches meant staying out of the water, which is why I have some prominent scars that are still visible today. I’m guessing that the section of resined fiberglass came from my surfboard fin. I’m also guessing that injuring my knee in that slow motion fall was another example of how my Holy Mother (aka Guardian Angel) has intervened on my behalf. But more on that later.