Twelve Years in Alaska: A Spiritual Journey

By Melissa L. Farrell

Twelve Years in Alaska; A Spiritual Journey is a series of articles that grew out of the author’s quest to find a way to live with being an open empath. The book includes some of her personal experiences in the the hope that the readers may find something that relates to their own life experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798765227480

Melissa L. Farrell

Melissa began her studies in many of the ancient and current wisdom teachings, communications and psychology in 1964 following an accident that resulted in a near-death experience. She attended classes with her mentor, Wally Skaggs, for nearly a decade. She was on the Founding Board of a church whose philosophy was based on her teachings She work at the family owned psychiatric facility for ten years, and was awarded a Bachelor's degree from Johnston Collage, University of Redlands and a Master's Degree in Comparative Religions and ordination from the Aquarian Star Temple and Wisdom School. She continues to explore new ideas as well as expanding her own spiritual growth in this time of shifting into the age of Aquarius.

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Awareness:

My Near-Death Experience

It was Saturday, August 22, 1964, and my brother, John, was home for the weekend. Mama was working at 40 Talents, her what-not shop in Lakeside, California. She came home earlier than usual for some reason, asked John to take me out to practice driving, and reminded me to clean the bathrooms and kitchen. Even though I had gotten my learner’s permit in May, I had mostly driven in the high school parking lot with Mama and one short trip with Daddy. He kept yelling at me to stay out of the ditch, and I got too nervous (and tearful) to drive for very long. I think he was more nervous.

So, with chores finally completed in the afternoon, John drove Mama’s Corvair to the subdivision that we -had lived in before moving to Lakeside. I got behind the wheel and carefully drove around the area keeping to the speed limit, stopping at the stop signs, and parking at the curbs. We probably spent an hour or so before heading for home again. John was much more patient than Daddy, and I became more relaxed with the repeated experience and light traffic.

John must have thought I was doing very well, because he told me to drive home the long way, which was east on Highway 80, heading toward the desert. The highway was a two-lane road cut through the coastal mountains, and gave the city of El Cajon (The Box) its name. The speed limit was 65 miles per hour. Most of the mountains were made of decomposed granite, which sloughed off onto the shoulders of the road. Since it was the main connector between the Imperial Valley and San Diego, it was very busy on the weekends.

I was driving pretty well, at speed limit, until we came to a pass with a blind hill. Suddenly, coming from the west, a Greyhound double-decker Scenicruiser topped the grade. To me, it seemed that the big bus filled the entire space between the sides of the mountain! I panicked and jerked the steering wheel to the right, which threw the Corvair onto the shoulder and the decomposed granite. The rear of the car slid right, and the nose to the left and then continued ahead straight toward the bus. I remember seeing John’s hand reaching for the steering wheel.

That’s all I remember until I became conscious in the car. I didn’t feel much of anything when I opened my eyes. I could see, however, that the calf of my right leg was laying next to my hip, the thigh bent in the middle, so my foot was against the back of the seat behind me. The steering wheel and dashboard were at eye-level, my left foot sticking through a gap between the door and the car frame. And there were two women standing next to the door saying, On my God! Look at the blood! Is he dead? I screamed at them, Shut up! Shut up! He’s not dead!

My memories after that are scattered, due to shock, I’m sure. I know that John and I were trapped in the car for some time before they could get us out. The car was so crumpled they had to wait for a local man to bring his blow torch to cut the roof off the car. I remember someone saying that John had quit breathing while we were still trapped.

I remember screaming when they pulled me out, although I don’t remember feeling the pain…

I remember riding in the ambulance and hearing that John had quit breathing again…

I remember telling someone in the emergency room Mama’s work number, our home number, and my boyfriend’s number in case Mama was between places…

I remember hearing that John had quit breathing a third time, and they started emergency surgery on the other side of the curtain that separated us…

I remember my boyfriend leaning over me while I was on a gurney, saying, How could you do this? We have a date tonight!

I remember being pushed down the hall to the X-ray room and screaming when the technician nudged my leg as he moved around the corner of the table…

The next thing I know, I’m in a space that is totally dark. I know my eyes are open, and I don’t see anything. I hear people – several hundred of them – talking to me. really listening, although it seems that they insistent that I choose to live. Then there was a person who drifted into my range of vision from the left. It is as if this person in a spotlight against the black, and I can only see the person’s head and shoulders. Still, so clearly I can see the shading of honey-blond hair, piercing blue eyes behind glasses, tanned and wrinkled skin, and a small scar just under and to my right of the chin. I cannot determine whether this person is male or female; and that is only a passing thought. The person is telling me – without words – that it is always appropriate to choose Life.

I am drifting (with no sense of time) in a bank of luminescent pearl-gray clouds, in what seems to be an upward direction. There appears a place that feels as if it were a vale, filled with entities who are my – family? Group? (Words are so inadequate.) I am compelled to cross the vale, and the family are hugging and kissing as I go, and I explain that I have to go into the Light on the other side.

I enter and am enfolded in the Light. Then I am crossing back through my family-filled vale, saying to all that I need to return…

I woke up in a sunny room, yawned, and stretched my hands behind my neck to lift my long hair off my neck – and a screamed! The back of my head was absolutely smooth! What happened to my hair!

A nurse came running into my room. She was very angry with me for screaming, and told me not to do that again. I think I asked her what happened to my hair, and she didn’t respond.

I don’t have many clear memories of the next several days – only nurses who were angry because I dribbled urine, the orthopedic surgeon who roughly pulled the stitches out of my thigh and denied that my nose was broken, even though I could feel the spike of bone or cartilage. I think the neurosurgeon came to check me at some point. Mama visited with me, telling me a little about John who was in Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. Eventually, my right leg was put in a hip to ankle cast, and I spent some time learning to walk with crutches.

(Time was not something that I marked; and still don’t give much importance to, although I went to school, went to work, paid bills, and all those normal activities of life on the physical level of existence.)

Mama told me that, in addition to the break mid-thigh, the lower-left corner of my kneecap had been shattered to about half its depth. The surgeon had cleared off the shattered bone and reattached the muscle and tendon so I would still be able to walk. I had a cut between the second and third toes on my left foot, a small cut on the left side of my head at the hairline, and a minor concussion. All in all, very little trauma considering the severity of the impacts. My neck – which still has to be adjusted regularly – had severe whiplash; the first five vertebrae were locked together and rotated forty-five degrees to my right. It took thirteen years to find a chiropractor who had a wide enough range of knowledge to correct the alignment; I will have at least bimonthly adjustments for the rest of this life.

Then there was the coma that led to my near-death experience. Mama told me that, after the surgery on my right leg and knee, I was put into the same recovery room as John. Shortly afterward, John was taken out of the room to be transported the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, I went into coma, for no reason that anyone could determine. A neurosurgeon was called in, and decided to try pricking the lining of my brain, hoping that would relieve any pressure that might be causing the coma. That had no effect, and for a time (one day, two days? Less?) I quit breathing. A special nurse stayed in my room and periodically told me to breathe – which I would when she told me.

Mama went to Balboa every day to care for John (who was in a large ward), and would visit me in the mornings and evenings on her way there and back. She believed that I had gone into the coma because I thought John was dead; so she would talk to me about where he was and how he was doing. She told me that, when she was talking to me about him, I would shake my head. So, she decided that when she visited me the next evening, she would talk to the special nurse instead. When she arrived home – a matter of maybe 20 minutes – the hospital was on the phone to let her know that I had come out of the coma… Very perceptive, my Mama, and highly intuitive!

The day finally came when I was able to go home. Mama told me that she had ordered a recliner for me to sit in the family room, but it would not be delivered until the next day. With the straight-leg cast on my leg, I couldn’t sit in a chair, so I could only lay on my bed or in the living room on the couch. The trip out of the hospital and then into my bedroom was exhausting, and I chose the bed.

Shortly after I laid down, a person came into my room for a visit. It was the person I had seen in the dark space, and, in great surprise, I said, "I know you! My visitor looked as surprised and asked, How? We’ve never