The Other Side of Self: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Plurality: Other Side Series, #3

By Susan D. Kalior

Who am I? Who are you? What is an identity--really?

Our self, while generally considered a solo identity, is but one horse on the carousel of our being. On the other side of self, our connection to our plurality, and all plurality, makes up the fabric of life. The human journey is a quilt of experiencing an identity, missions that motivate us, currents that pull us in various directions, drama rich with interaction, adventures in connecting and repelling, experiences that heighten our senses, abundant folly that teaches us, tragedy that rebirths us, cycles of anything, and the synchronicity of everything. In-between it all is the reality of non reality, that of no space and time, that of creative energy before it creates.

Join a woman and her sage, known as the Fool on the Hill, in Book Three of the Other Side Trilogy on an inner world adventure to the other side of self. The woman, beat up from the torrents of life, has come home to care for her father, who is dying from dementia. Due to his dementia and metaphysical experience, he can easily connect to worlds beyond the one in which his identity resides. The Fool on the Hill appears and takes both woman and father on a wild ride into the rich wonderland of plurality where they explore quantum physical realities that weave together the mysteries of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan D. Kalior
• Release date: Jun 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386766186

Susan D. Kalior

        Susan was born in Seattle, WA.. Her first profession was a psychotherapist treating those suffering from depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, sexual abuse, family violence, and severe mental illness. She employed therapies such as communication skill building, relaxation training, systematic desensitization, bioenergetics, and psychodrama. She has facilitated stress management, parenting, and self-discovery workshops that have aided in the psycho-spiritual healing of many. She has lectured on metaphysical and psychological topics, and been involved in various social activist pursuits.          Her education includes an M.A. in Ed. in Counseling/Human Relations and Behavior (NAU), a B.S. in Sociology (ASU), and ten months of psycholog-ical and metaphysical training in a Tibetan community.          Susan writes entertaining books steeped in psychology, sociology, and metaphysics in genres such as visionary fiction, dark fantasy, horror, and romance. All her books are designed to facilitate personal growth and transformation.         In her words: I love to sing, meditate, and play in nature. I love fairy tales, going outside the box, and reading between the lines. I strive to see what is often missed, and to not miss what can't be seen. There is such a life out there, and in there—beyond all perception! So I close my eyes, feel my inner rhythm, and jump off the cliff of convention. And when I land, though I might be quaking in my boots, I gather my courage and go exploring.         Through travel, study, and work, I've gained a rich awareness of cultural differences among people and their psychosocial struggles. I have discovered that oppression often results from the unexamined adoption of outside perceptions. The healing always has been in the individual's stamina to expel outside perceptions of self and constructively exert one's unique core being into the world. I am driven to facilitate expanded awareness that people may separate who they are from who they are told to be. Embracing personal power by loving our unique selves in our strengths and weaknesses . . . forever—is a key to joyous living. My motto is: Trust your story. Live the Mystery..

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The Other Side of Self: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Plurality

Copyright©2017 by Susan D Kalior

First Printing: July 2017

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Published by Blue Wing Publications, Workshops, and Lectures

Blue Wing Publications, Workshops, and Lectures

[e-mail]

www. bluewingworkshops.com

Readers’ comments are welcomed.

Other Books by Susan D. Kalior

The Other Side of Life: The Eleven Gem Odyssey of Death

Growing Wings Self Discovery Workbook: Volume One

17 Workshops to a Better Life

Growing Wings Self Discovery Workbook: Volume Two

18 Workshops to a Better Life: Exploring the Multi-Faceted Self

The Simple Guide to Feeling Better

Warriors in the Mist: A Medieval Dark Fantasy

The Dark Side of Light: Book One-INITIATION

The Dark Side of Light: Book Two-CRESCEDO

The Dark Side of Light: Book Three-ETERNITY

The Mark of Chaos

An Angel’s Touch

The Golden Disc

To those caring for loved ones with dementia,

we know . . . don’t we.

Prologue

▫

MY FAMILY WAS NEVER conventional. Instead of typical parents going out to dinner and a movie, they astral projected and went on drug free journeys. Instead of having parties powered by alcohol, we had meditation gatherings with wonderful people who brought laughter and depth into our lives.

My father led dream workshops, gave metaphysical lectures, and held energy circles that facilitated deep meditation. My mother was an exceptional astrological counselor. Although the validity of astrology might be questioned, after years of watching the planet’s configurations correspond with people’s life experiences, I currently believe there is something to it. Anyway, valid or not, my mother helped many understand themselves through that medium. 

My brother would slip into trances that brought forth predictions and insights. My sister had a healing touch with her hands. Although she never spoke much about it or actively pursued metaphysical events, she had her share of mystical experiences. In high school my nickname was High Priestess because I was always good at espousing wisdom that made others feel better, as well as analyzing their dreams.

So, it did not surprise me that the last year I spent with my dad before he died was extraordinary and almost impossible to document, but I’ll try.

Old age had come calling for him. Caring for himself was no longer an option. I answered with my heart and my bags at his door in the Arizona desert, eager to care for him in the stellar manner in which he’d always cared for me. He was my father, best friend, and hero for most of my life. And even in his condition, a hero once more, plucking me out of a turbulent three-year psycho-spiritual smack down.

My arrival was met with a man only half there. He was in the between worlds of life and death, just as My Fool (my psycho-spiritual mentor who died a while back) was when first we met. Physically, he was a mess, exhibiting signs of dementia, going lame and blind, and in a lot of physical pain. Death was at his door, and he was fine with that.

Being the philosophical sort and a strong proponent of meditation, he walked the most interesting worlds as he released his grip on life. He was somewhat like My Fool, and perhaps why I was drawn to My Fool in the first place. With my dad on the verge of death, and me barely escaping it, we were both ripe for a metaphysical journey. And we were about to have one.

My Fool, though dead, arrived in spirit. He took my dad and me on the quantum physical journey of our lives. While this might be deemed imagination, or an old man’s senility with his daughter’s wishful thinking, given our beginnings as an open-minded psycho-spiritual adventuring family, these perceptions fall short of the vivid events my father and I experienced that year with My Fool at the helm.

This is hard to fathom, I know, but somehow it happened. Perhaps because my father was in the in-between world. Or perhaps after a long stint of outer world turmoil, I needed to find refuge in my existential heroes. Or maybe I just never say no to journeying into dimensions of existence, that in transcending logic, broaden and brighten my reality.

I invite you to come journey with My Fool, my father, and me on the other side of self into the rich wonderland of plurality, where transcendental experiences enrich the fabric of our lives.

Buckle up now and prepare for an enlightening adventure; it is going to be a thrilling ride!

The Mighty I

GEM #1  IDENTITY

We are who we think we aren’t,

and we aren’t who we think we are.

IN THE PEARL WHITE sands of everywhere and nowhere, I fell from my dream into time and awakened in my deceased mother’s bed. The ceiling fan whirled fast above me, blowing welcoming breezes upon my face. Summer sunrays streamed through the sliding glass door and gobbled up early morning shadows. I was getting brighter too, rising from the dungeon of my grief.

After six amazing years adventuring in the Pacific Northwest, the three that followed sucked me up, drained me dry, and spit me into a metaphorical meat grinder. My pursuits were met with dead ends, I was weak from mold sickness, and the outpouring of my love and kindness, shockingly, was returned with fast balls to my heart. Even strangers were attacking me. I had somehow become fodder for people’s fictional perception of me to support their fictional perceptions of themselves. Life had become like one of those dreams when you are running hard from the monster, but can’t get out of slow motion, and the monster is gaining ground.

This would have been manageable if my support system there had not been carried out of my life into their own adventures. But they had. Not only did no one have my back, but I could no longer see my reflection in the eyes of anyone who truly knew me. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me then to move back to Arizona where my family and friends resided, except that I so loved the Pacific Northwest, the ocean, forests, and rain.

Sometimes we humans get tunnel vision and refuse to quit treading in stagnate waters, and we begin to drown. And I was drowning in a life chapter that had stopped producing pages. Yet, I soldiered on.

I glanced about my mother’s room, staring at the pictures on the wall of pensive women in nature, reflective of the current me: contemplative, quiet, and still, just trying to recover from a dramatic overstay in a played out location. Sometimes I am too tenacious for my own good.

I had been caught in what felt like a never ending rip current sucking me farther and farther away, not only from everyone who loved me, but from myself. My energy continued to drain, and I grew fragile.

This is what happens when we have gone too long without a kindly touch or genuine interaction.

I began to understand then how people can let themselves die, or have a mental break and harm others. They are lost and feeling hopeless, like treading dark water in a cold and cruel sea.

I began to feel unreal, like a shell of a person going through the motions. I had fallen away from the clarity, energy, and inner brightness that was always mine. I couldn’t understand why I was losing all that. Losing me. I always thought I was fine going it alone, but I was wrong. We all need kindred connections to keep us grounded in our lives. Without that grounding, we fade into all sorts of unpleasant realities.

Exhausted on every imaginable level, I had let go of trying to figure it out, or direct my life, or hang on to who I knew myself to be. I was in a free fall of constant uncertainty, punches coming at me, and no current to pull me out of my demise. I was going down, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

Then came the net, the direction, and my salvation. My aged father was flailing, falling fast and hard, just like me, but unwilling to burden his children, he hid his suffering and would not ask for help.

I had needed him too, his kindness, and his love to save me from obscurity, but I was unwilling to invade his space because he seemed content. I, like he, would not ask for help. But when I read between the lines and could see he did need me, I mean really need me (as I was the only of his children in a position to help) I was then quite okay letting him know I needed him too. Apparently, I really am my father’s daughter.

So, as life does, it closes and opens doors directing us along our life path. Synchronicity, it is always there, if only we will see.

On a hot July day, I returned to the nest, to my family, to those who knew and loved me. In the month I’d been back, I had seen them all and began to feel real again.

Home sweet home. I stretched my arms out over the soft sage green comforter under me, more contented on top than confined beneath. I wiggled my bare toes with a smile, despite the 110 degree weather, and that the desert wasn’t really my thing. My father was here, and I needed him more than the trees and rain. My father always treated me wonderfully, ever giving me room to grow into my true self. He understood me, appreciated me, respected me, and oh how I needed that now!

I could feel my mother too. Here, nestled atop her bed, I felt all cozy and wonderful, as if in her womb. She had been gone a while now, but here in her bedroom, I could feel her mothering energy comfort me still. She was a fiercely nurturing sort, and I basked in the lingering afterglow of her death.

My recently acquired black kitten, Christopher, sprung up on the bed, and started purring and pawing my stomach, enjoying my soft white pajamas. I pet him, thinking how we all really do need each other, animals, and humans alike, even we fiercely independent types.

This was a new experience for me, needing people that is, my people. I had taken them for granted and underestimated how critical they were to my well-being. After a few minutes, Christopher jumped off the bed, mewing for food.

Well, time to rise and shine, and tend my beloved father. My bare feet landed on the cushy blue carpet as my pajama legs dropped over my ankles. I trust my life story, I murmured out loud. All I need do is nurture my being, live in the moment, and embrace my day.

Christopher rubbed affectionately against my shin. I crouched down, landing my elbows on the carpet so he could nuzzle my face and lick my cheek, our morning ritual. All my other cats had aged out and died. Christopher and I would begin this next life chapter together, comrades in the journey.

I made my way toward the kitchen for coffee with Christopher prancing alongside my feet.

Although I felt better, lingering still was that feeling of navigating treacherous waters. I was unable to let down my guard, waiting for another sock to the heart, a post-traumatic stress thing, I suppose. I was often short of breath, and seemed to have a chronic clench to my jaw.

I would heal. I just had to work at it. Breathe, Susan. Relax. Let go. Trust life. I had been meditating several times daily to stay calm, but had trouble getting deep enough. Part of the problem was that I kept rehashing the painful memories of my recent past. I had worked too hard and come too far to let that novice lack of control consume me. I needed to get deeper, fast.

I made it to the large blue kitchen. While Christopher ate from a dish of cat food my father had apparently set out, I made my morning coffee. My dad was up at all hours, often lost in other worlds, on missions no one else could see.

I poured my coffee into a sky blue mug, watching the steam rise. I sighed heavily, then took a sip, another, and yet another. So good, that first cup of morning coffee! I needed more of that pleasantness in other areas of my life. I craved a hiatus from the confusing mundane world into the deeper realms where everything made sense. A metaphysical adventure would be the ticket to get me there.

However, the kind of adventure I was imagining, I had always done with My Fool, even after He died. I wasn’t sure I could do without Him. I hadn’t seen Him once in the three years of my grueling descent. Maybe I never would again. His last departure into Pure Creative Energy felt final.

I headed for the living room sofa, sipping my coffee along the way. I never liked sitting at tables. Just like covers over my body, it always felt so confining. I sank back into the billowy beige sofa, and propped my bare feet on the bulky, square, brown marble top coffee table. As I drank my coffee, I stared at my toes. An upbeat attitude washed over me. I will openly flow with whatever comes next in the Book of Me. Fear be damned.

My dad always seemed fearless. Even these days when I gazed into his tired eyes that bespoke a longing to end the staled experience of his daily life, he seemed fearless. Ever since my mom died, he had lost his will to mingle in the outside world, or bring others into his fray. His words touched only the ears of his children, grandchildren, and the occasional grocery store clerk or banker.

He often awoke at night, acting out his dreams, which generally involved a struggle to get inside his house in which he’d been locked out, or to escape what he believed was a replica of his house, designed by pranksters who had locked him in.

I theorized that this happened when he couldn’t quite awaken from a deep sleep (locked out of his house) or because he was going through the mere motions of living, and in a way, wasn’t really here any more (thinking his house a replica).

He had other experiences too, like being in worlds where he could see people, but they couldn’t see him. Or commonly seeing a woman appear in the loft window where he listened to music. This might be viewed as senility in the public eye, and yes, on one level it was, but what is senility?

Senility by the medical community would be explained by changes in the brain, but who says what comes first? When an aged person’s time to die nears, they often begin to release their current reality without realizing it. If they are not focused in this reality, why would they be anchored to it?

Those who have briefly died often report seeing a bright white light and have a positive life changing experience. It has been said this is due to something happening in the brain. But could the near death event be causing the brain change? In this, is dementia necessarily the cause of a diseased brain, or could the time spent in other realities manifest the disease?

My meditative experiences have given me the impression that brain and existential changes often happen simultaneously. Even in the case of brain damage due to an accident, perhaps on a soulic level, the vibratory configuration of that identity called for that experience, and that any consequential skewed thinking or ‘hallucinations’ are true in another reality.

I had to shake my head, mind-boggling myself. I guess my main point was that in old age, the veils of reality often thin, and a variety of metaphysical experiences can be had. So, my dad’s invisible world was real, as are our dream worlds and even our imaginings, perhaps just not real to anyone else.

Christopher jumped up on the sofa and curled up next to me, giving me a rush of warmth. Oh, to feel that peaceful again! My dad and I both needed to sink deep into the core of our being where we could reenergize at our source—Creative Energy. While this would likely renew me in the life of Susan, it would probably help my dad die, and transition to a new existence.

His one good eye was going bad, his once adventurous gait had turned to slow motion limping, and he talked more and more of my mother, how much he missed, loved, and appreciated her.

He cherished his children, knowing they wished him alive, but hanging on was becoming a less tolerable ordeal with each passing day.

He would often get comments from others like, You have lots of years left. You are healthy! He actually was quite healthy, save the aforementioned. What they didn’t understand is that you don’t have to be unhealthy to die.

I swigged down the last of my coffee, and set the empty cup on the marble table. The empty cup, like my dad’s body, was just a vessel. What is in it always goes somewhere. The coffee I just drank made a long journey to get into my body, and it will continue its journey long after it runs through me, making its way back into the earth. It never meets its demise and neither do we. Neither does anything. On we go through passages of seeming death and birth in any number of realities. In that, energy itself experiences its own constant transformation.

Still, on a human level, my dad nearing death was a hard thing. Tears pooled in my eyes. I had to let him go. Living with him daily and watching him up close, I had touched upon his deep suffering. Though he was often lucid, he regularly fell into what I term, ‘episodes’. One particular midnight he woke me asking where my mother was, that he’d been looking for her everywhere. In his hand, he held her picture. It was heart breaking. Another time, he went rifling through my drawers, very frustrated because he couldn’t find the air conditioner. Then there were the hours of constant moaning, groaning, and sighing.

His suffering was sad to me, and evidence of his decline, much like an old leaf drying up on the tree, longing to fall to the earth and decay into the soil from whence its roots sprang. It would be cruel of me to try and keep him here just because I did not want to let him go.

Only for his children would his death be an adjustment, but for me mostly, seeing him every day, he who saved me so many times throughout my life.

Being so sensitive, highly intuitive, and seeing only the best in others, led me into many dangerous situations with sociopaths and the mentally unstable.

In my work world as a therapist, I could handle it because they were there wanting to get better; but outside work, when these sorts got on my tail, shaking them was an ordeal, especially since they weren’t always embodied. Sometimes the unembodied hitch on to unstable humans and encourage unsavory behavior. Or sometimes the unembodied are from other worlds, or other dimensions with their own agenda. My dad understood this, and knew how to guide me to ward them off. So, for me, even though he taught me well, his death would be as removing a shell of protection.

I pet Christopher, which started his little purr motor. I would really need the comfort he gave me after my dad was gone. Christopher’s head popped up as a fly buzzed by his head. He bopped about on the sofa trying to get it, flipping onto the floor, chasing it about the family room. I laughed and laughed. It felt good to laugh.

I heard my dad’s cane tapping on the floor. I looked to the sound. My dad came hobbling toward me, bare-chested, wearing only his white boxer shorts. He was not a modest man, nor really ever seemed to be too affected by human drama, for that matter.

My eyes trailed him until he reached me. Good morning, dad. How was your night?

Exhausting. He plopped down beside me, our shoulders touching. His French brown eyes and English nose gave him an interesting look. The top of his head was bald, but the remaining hair, even at his age, was mostly black. This was my dad, eccentric and outside the norm, and this wasn’t an age thing.

So dad, tell me about your night while I put your glaucoma drops in and your compression socks on.

Well, he began as I reached for the clear vial of drops on the coffee table. I had a night experience of being in an upside down world. Everything was upside down.

Wow! I exclaimed, popping a drop in his good eye. I’ve never heard anyone say that before. I put the vial back on the coffee table. Go on.

I also had an experience where I was born an orange baby. Everyone was orange. It was an orange world.

Orange? I said with interest as I reached for his compression socks in a little basket under the coffee table.

I had another experience too, where I was a Roman trying to create Rome, the way it was supposed to be before it went off course. It was to be a place of exceptional law and order, defined by mutual respect, and a unified community with equal rights for all.

I began tugging a white compression sock onto his one foot. You have had that dream, I mean night experience about Rome before.

Adopting what My Fool once said, my dad called dreams night experiences because the word dream often