Health or Safety?

So much has been happening in my life. I went to see my husband (J). The entire night before I was torn. I did not know what to do. Should I return to him as he had requested the previous day?, or should I move onto a different life?

Being with someone for 18 years creates an intense connection and "safeness", even if things are not the way you want or need them to be. I kept looking at my new friend (I) and thinking how do I know this is what I want? How do I know I want to start a new life? How do I know J will be okay? He sounded so sad, desperate and broken when I spoke with him. After 18 years I feel an obligation to help J be okay through all this.

I phoned my stepmom and talked with her about what I should do. Without telling me what to do she asked me: "Do you want to be safe, or do you want to be healthy?"

It struck me deeply. My marriage has been very difficult the past few years. My husband has been drinking a large amount everyday. I feel he is constantly mad at me. I feel I have to be someone other than myself around him. I feel constantly criticized around him. I feel so lonely when I am with him, more lonely than when I am alone.

I started to imagine what my life 10, 20, 30 years from now. I saw myself back with J still feeling disconnected, alone, dismissed, criticized. I saw myself still extremely depressed. I envisioned what it would be like to be sad the rest of my life.

I knew my health had to come before safety. Sure I do not know what my life will be like without J, but I know what it has been like with him. It hasn't always been that way, but it has for a long time. I have tried to make it better, but it never changes. I do not want the rest of my life to be that way.

I told J that I needed to be by myself. I asked if he wanted to go to counselling. He said no. I still would go if it would help him and he wanted to, but I do not believe he will ever want to see a marriage counsellor.

I am sad that we could not make it work. I am sad for J. I am sorry I did what I did. I am, however, glad I had the power to protect myself and not go home. It would have been the safe thing to do, but not the best thing for my mental well being.

Yesterday morning a disheveled man, speaking strange words and chattering to himself, approached me. He came right up to me, touched my arm and said, "Don't worry. Everything is going to be all right". I looked at him and said, "Thank god, because everything has been pretty bad lately". He looked at me like he had known that all along.

Singing Lessons

Eva Cassidy - Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Just came home from my first singing lesson. It was not easy to either go, or to actually get myself to sing in front of someone, but I know this will be so good for me if I can manage not to run away with my tail between my legs.

First off....all day I have been BEYOND wired. I have so much energy inside me I feel like trying to contain it is creating a bomb. I am afraid I will explode any second. Because I am trying hard to be and appear 'normal' I am so tense inside and I can barely breathe.

This was the big problem I had in my singing lesson; not the fact that I didn't know how to breathe properly for singing, but I was so anxious...close to panic, that I kept FORGETTING to breathe. Since when did breathing become a non-automatic thing to do? God anxiety is brutal. I swear I feel like I have shoulders as stiff and hard as rocks and my lungs want to clamp shut on me.

Anxiety aside, and I am still extremely anxious 2.5 hours later, and was anxious the whole time, ...anxiety aside I am so glad I went.

The teacher is really into old Blues/Jazz songs and our tastes in Blues/Jazz are the same. She taught me some cool exercises to help my voice loosen up and get myself breathing properly, while at the same time practicing scales.

Oh yeah...in one of the exercises I get to howl, as loud as I can like a wolf. Start as high as I can and go as low as I can. How fitting is it that I get to howl given how much wolves figure in my anxiety and fears. Maybe now I get to talk back to them!!! Look out!

After that I went down to the music store, bought a couple Jazz music books and looked into taking piano lessons (eeeeeehhhhh!) (Loud high school girl scream of excitement!) I really, really want to do this. I love music so much. More than any art form in the world. I really want to sing, and learn to play the piano.

P.S. The video above is the rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" I am going to practice and learn with my new teacher. I am singing "Blue Moon too...it is beautiful.

Oh yeah...the best part:

My teacher said I have a "gorgeous voice" ..."powerful" (quotes), she said. She said my tone is great and my pitch is good...My range is good. It's a matter of learning to breathe and train what I already have going for me.

She really did go on about how much she liked my voice. I could tell she was being honest too by the way she kept telling me. She is thrilled to have a student who wanted to learn the kinds of songs she wants to teach...And I am thrilled she likes those songs. Fifteen minutes into the lesson she asked me if I wanted to join the choir she teaches on Wednesday nights at a big arts centre in town. I am going to do that after I take a few private lessons.

This is so good for me. I think next time will be easier as hopefully in two weeks I will have slowed down a bit. Dr. X said I am still having Valium withdrawal and that's why I am so agitated. Regardless, I am going to be afraid and do it anyways.

"I Love the Whole World"

Yesterday, in my pdoc appt we discussed my going off my medication and trying to get a clearer view of what is/is not, or if anything is helping me; my starting from a blank slate. I am not certain my medications are helping me, though I do seem to have "manageable moods" more often than before, but maybe that is therapy, and teaching, and creating art, and developing friendships etc.

Dr. X said it was not clear to him that the medications were helping me. He also expressed "dismay"that I had increased my Valium, rather than decrease it as discussed. He said it is a worrisome trend. I said "dismay" in brackets, because he never lets it show if he is disappointed. The dismay aspect comes from how I felt he felt about my misstep.

I am terrified of discontinuing, or lowering my Valium. I always get so stressed out, stop sleeping, become miss crankypants from hell. Rather than express all that fear I make the excuse, "but it seem like Valium IS the only medication that helps me."

Last night I decided "fuck it" I am going of the Valium fast and I will deal with the sleeplessness, anxiety and irritability. The faster I get off it, the faster I will get over the withdraw effects.

Dr. X and I decided to have me go off the Mood Stabilizer I am on. I haven't had a joyous day in a long time, and my good moods are so good they outshine the happiest person out there in terms of radiance and pure energy, without the bad consequences of mania/hypomania. I feel like life and all its glory exudes and radiates energy through me.

I was watching the Discovery Channel last night and they have the best advertisement I have ever seen....this is me when I feel good:

I want ME back.

Last night I lowered my Tegretol from 1000 to 800mgs (as per Dr X's instructions)...but I also lowered my Valium from 20mgs to 15 and will lower to 10 tonight. Life is too short and there is too much to experience to be the way I am.

Loving Kindness Meditation

I don't know why I sometimes get so much anxiety before my pdoc appointments . I always look forward to meeting with Dr. X. I love sitting in the chair across from him. Generally, within a few minutes of sitting in his office, even if I am really stressed out, I feel a calming effect coming from him and his side of the room. That happened on Thursday.

My appointment began with me feeling intensely stressed, but I soon became aware of what was happening (that I was anxious), and that awareness helped me refocus. I'm not sure what helped me become aware.

Maybe it was Dr. X wittingly, or unwittingly, wrapping me in calmness. In a way, it feels like a Buddhist "Loving Kindness meditation" taken to the next level, the level of practice, when I sit across from him.

So many of us are compassionate and loving beings. Unfortunately, to often, for me anyways, my depression, anxiety, mood swings and frustration with not becoming well, or remaining ill take over my compassion and I become anxious or angry.

A good example is how I sometimes become filled with road rage at small indignities done (of course from my perspective TO ME), by other drivers. The driver who races to the front of the left lane and then butts in right at the front, while all of us other driver's patiently wait our turn, or the driver that cuts me off, or races past me at mach speed. I become angry sitting in my car and the anger begins to turn into anxiety.

Why do I do this? I have been really trying to let go of this rage, and accept that others may have good reasons for doing what they do, or there may be a reason I do not know that makes them need to get somewhere faster than everyone else. I have no idea what is happening in the person's life to make them need to get to the front of the line faster than anyone else.

I remember a story from when my mom was dying. She was visiting me and suddenly began going into shock. We dialed 911 and the ambulance took her to the hospital. At the hospital the Dr. told us that they believed she had sepsis(?), that she had infection raging through her body and she was going to die that night.

I called my sister's to come over. My one sister had to fly from the island. She had 10 minutes to get to the airport or she would miss the last plane. She lives in the country and was racing down the road when she came upon her neighbours car in front of her. She tried to pass him, but he kept driving into the middle of the road to stop her passing. He also slowed to a speed well below the speed limit to physically force her to slow her down. She began honking and flashing her lights to no avail. Finally she managed to pass him despite his efforts to "keep her in line". She was mad as hell, but she made the plane, and managed to see my Mom, who pulled through for another month.

What if she had missed the plane because this man tried to aggressively stop her from passing him. What if she had missed the plane and my Mom had died before she was able to say goodbye? He may be right in that the speed limit was lower than she needed to go, but he had no idea how important her race down the road was. I try now to let go and to understand that I only see the behaviour, I don't see WHY people are behaving the way they do. I try to be more compassionate.

Dr. X. just seems to live and breathe compassion. I do not think I have ever heard him say anything negative about anyone. My Mom was like that to. The only other person I met like that was my grade 12 English teacher. He was a Buddhist and he was calm in the face of daily interaction with a bunch of riotous teenagers. It always amazed me.

On Thursday, part way through my session I felt my body relax, my hands stop twirling my hair and tapping my eyebrow (this is a strange habit I picked up over the past few years when I'm really stressed. Either that or I did it before and was unaware of it), my shoulders and arms became relaxed, and I leaned back in the chair. I suddenly felt calm. It felt like the presence of Dr. X was making me calm. It reminded me of the power of a Buddhist "Loving Kindness" meditation. He seems like loving kindness personified.

A Loving Kindness meditation is meant to fill your heart with compassion and love for yourself and then extend it towards all other beings.

• In the loving kindness meditation I know you begin by imagining yourself wrapping yourself in warm white light. You say to yourself, "may I be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy , well and happy.
• You then think of someone who is a mentor or leader to you, and you take the warm white light that is wrapped around you and you extend it to surround them, and you say out loud, or in your head, e.g. "May Dr X. be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• Then you extend the white light to wrap around yourself, your mentor and someone you love, and repeat the mantra, "May (my loved person) be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• You then think of someone you are having difficulty with and you then extend that radiant warm white light around the person you are having difficulty with and say, may (the person you are having troubles with) be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• then wrap the light around all the beings in your family and repeat: may all beings in my family be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"

Then you continue to increase the size and magnitude of the warm white light and wrap it around:

• All beings in the house: "May all beings in this house be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings/people in the building: "May all beings in this building be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings on the block:" May all beings on my block be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in your city: "May all beings in my town or city be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in your country: "May all beings in my country be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings on the continent: "May all beings on this continent be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• All the beings in the world: "May all beings in this world be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"
• and finally out into space: "May all beings in the universe be filled with loving kindness, and be healthy, well and happy"

Note the meditation is embracing all "beings", not just people. I would suggest beings in my version of the meditation includes all life; plants and animals, the ocean, the lakes and rivers, and also all the earth, space, planets and universe. The meditation is a means for a person to embrace all beings lovingly and compassionately in their mind. It feels really good to do.

The more I do this meditation the more compassionate I feel. When I do it my anger towards others subsides and I begin to recognize that we all struggle, we all want health and love and wellness, and we all deserve love and compassion.

Sleep Deprivation and Mood

As part of a "Fatigue Busters" plan, a plan than entails removing anything from my life that is making me exhausted, listless tired etc., I am slowly (trying) to wean myself of Valium. I am not on a large dose, but have been taking benzodiazepines for a great deal of the time I have been in this Depressive Episode.

It may sound stupid to take a depressant when you are depressed, but a huge component of my depression, or something that makes my depression worse is anxiety. Valium really helps relieve me of much of my anxiety.

The problem is it comes with a price. Dr. X. uses the metaphor of a credit card. You use it upfront to get what you desire, but you always need to pay it back.

He's right. Going off Valium is always an ordeal for me. I managed to go from 15mgs to 10 mgs over a week and that seemed okay. I hadn't been sleeping well anyways, so never really noticed the difference. I am now taking it down to 7.5 mgs, which may not seem like much of a difference, but I pretty much haven't slept more than 2-3 hours a night since I started taking only 7.5mgs.

The not sleeping is bring on an unexpected side effect. One I know can happen with decreased sleep, but unexpected nonetheless. I feel my mood lifting a bit this morning. To the point that I bounced out of bed at 7:30, read the paper and then went for a walk in the blueberry field.

I saw the intense beauty of the flame coloured bushes enveloped in fog and encased in frost. I watched as the sun lifted the fog and the frost began to melt. In the field I saw the life force slowly returning to the crisp green grass.

I gazed in a dreamlike state as the warmth and melting frost began returning the quick to the blooms of the requisite dandelions strewn amongst the bushes, grasping for one last chance to bloom and turn to seed, thereby enabling them to release their parachuting progeny into the wind; ensuring a return of their children to life in the spring ahead.

I stared intently as the drifting, disappearing frost melted in conjunction with the rising sun. An unnatural parallel line appeared to be dividing the field in two: On one side the red leaves on the blueberry bushes appeared as flames, the richness of the red enhanced by the dampness left behind by the melted frost, the flaming red colour rising and racing across the frosted blueberry bushes.

On the other side of the line the leaves of the bushes stood at attention; cold, deathly silent, stiff, and ice encased. The red was hidden. Instead of flaming red the frosty army of bushes appeared pink because of the combined colours of red leaves and white frost.

As the moments passed the sun became warmer and more intense. Red flames roared faster and faster towards the pink army; an army that stood defenseless and silent in the face of the oncoming heat of the sun. The frost melting more quickly with the passing of time.

I raced home to get my camera, because I was awestruck and wanted to share the blueberry bushes joyous return to life. It felt like I was returning to life with each waking bush.

The moment had passed. My camera was too late. That moment is however, captured in my mind as a beautiful moment in a difficult life. If I were not here the moment, as I experienced it, would not have existed. I will remember those moments are worth living for.

The Slow Pace of Acceptance and Change

I am so tired I feel literally sick, but I cannot sleep. 1:30am wide awake, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30 still wide awake. I started taking a low dose of Trazadone on top of everything else, but it hasn't helped me sleep and makes me feel really awful in the morning. Even more tired than before.

Part of it is the puppy, but I wasn't sleeping even before I knew of or brought the puppy home. Unfortunately, it's not that, "I feel so happy/wired I can't sleep". The kind that happens when my mood shoots up.

No, this sleep is my old, "I have a millions ruminations going through my head and my mind won't shut up, so I can't sleep" insomnia.

Today was my first day teaching a "Teen Group" at the Art Clubhouse. It was during the hours I regularly take a nap 4-6/7. I was so tired, until I began and then my enthusiasm and energy kicked in. Thank god. The class was really good and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. I also have a really great helper...which makes such a difference...YAY!

I see so many improvements in my life over the past few months. Actually, I look back, and even before any medication helped me I now recognize that I have been slowly improving over the past few years. The problem is the lability in my mood is such that when I feel good I feel I will always be perfectly well, but when I crash I feel like I am never going to be well.

I am trying really hard to accept I have a mental illness; to say to myself, "My fatigue is a symptom (of the medicine or the illness...who knows), my memory problems, concentration and word finding problems. my sleeplessness and sleepiness...they are all symptoms. Are these better than wanting to die all the time? Yes.

So life is improving, but I am trying to allow myself to accept that life has changed dramatically for me, and needs to change even more for me to become "well" (whatever that means). I am a different person because of the experiences with depression and anxiety I have gone through over the years. My functioning is different than it was. That is hard to accept.

I truly believe my old life is gone. I think my last wolf dream told me that, but my new life is just beginning and hopefully despite the side effects/residual symptoms it will be a life worth living.

I may fall into a depression again, but I think I have some skills now that I didn't have before, and I have a pdoc I trust and know is right for me. I know he will help me even if I get fully well and become sick later on. I also am working hard at integrating myself into a community that matters to me.

So I'm sickly tired, but I am much better off than I was. My being able to say that proves the point. I think my Mom sent me my new puppy as a symbol of the beginning of my new life. The black wolf killed the old me, and the white dog will protect and help the new me grow.

I say my Mom instigated the change, because my puppy came from a breeder named "Casamoonen". Casa means house...I see the name as "house of the moon". My sisters and I all decided when my mom died she became the moon. (which is full tonight by the way). Every night I step outside and see the moon and say hello to my Mom. My new puppy was sent to me by her. I believe that. He is a messenger sent to help me with my transition into my new life.

It is strange how I get sent all these messages in dreams, in life, in everything around me. Does this happen to others? Do you get sent messages that you feel compelled to heed or follow? It happens too often for me to ignore.

Today is My New Birthday

(Photo: by Aqua, "Transformation", August 2008)

In respect of, and to reinforce the powerful message, Wednesday's dream , "The Wolf Returns", sent me: Today I am changing my life. I am throwing away the old me and moving in a different direction. From this day forward I am reborn.

I will never feel any remorse or guilt over anything I did in the past. I accept that I did what I was able to do at the time. I will never again feel guilt for being depressed, or on disability for depression. I will accept that I did not cause this illness. It happened and all I can be expected to do is try to make myself feel better. I will also accept that sometimes my illness makes it difficult to do anything to help myself. During those times I will do whatever I CAN do to keep trying.

As of today here is the new me:

• I am a painter.
• I am an artist.
• I am a writer.
• I am an art teacher.
• I am a photographer.
• I am creative.
• I am disabled by my depression right now, but I am NOT my disability.
• I will accept my disability income as a blessing and a gift that allows me the opportunity to grow into the human being I am meant to become.
• I will be here today, and present now.
• I will not worry about tomorrow.
• I will soak up today.
• I will see all the beauty in the world, like a new child, through my new eyes.
• My life will be full of beauty, and I will recognize that.
• My new life will be full of love and I will pass that on.
• My new life will be full of compassion, for myself and for others.
• I will accept my mental illness as the catalyst, the mother and the origin of, my new and improved life.
• I will embrace my depression like a mother embraces a crying child. I will hold it, and care for it, and accept that the crying may pass, or it may not, but the crying child is always a beautiful being trying to express his or her needs to the world.

The Wolf Returns

(Photo by Aqua, Grey Wolf at Grouse Mountain)


I could not both get to sleep and stay asleep on Wednesday night. My anxiety is increasing and with that my sleep is getting worse again. I slept in snippets of a half hour here, and an hour there. After a pattern of waking and sleeping I woke at 4:30am and finally must have fallen asleep sometime between 6 and 7:00am, because I had an awful nightmare right before waking to go see my pdoc.

I dreamt my two sisters and I climbed towards the top of a mountain. The final climb was a set of stairs that zig-zagged up to the top of the mountain. Atop the mountain was a huge modern building, not unlike the building I used to work in.

We went inside and instantaneously I began being attacked by 3 coyotes who were trying to bring me to the ground so their big, pure black wolf companion could finish me off. I was trying to protect my sisters, but none of the canines seemed interested in them. The coyotes kept grabbing my hands and arms, and trying to attack my head; kept trying to force me to the ground. All the while the black wolf was stalking me, waiting for me to slip to the ground so he could pounce on me. I kept fighting back, calling to my sisters to help. It appeared no one would help me.

Suddenly I looked up and my sisters were behind a counter with the coyotes on the other side. My siblings were negotiating our release with the coyotes and offering them food in return for our safe escape. The coyotes agreed and told my sisters to leave through one door and me to leave through another a bit farther down the hall.

I saw my sister's safely on the outside of the building, but as I went to go out my door I saw the black wolf standing on the other side of the glass door; waiting to kill me. The coyotes told me to open the door and let the wolf in, quickly slip out and slam the door shut.

I did what they said, and the wolf slipped in, and I out. However, as I shut the door I quickly realized that the door opened outwards and it would be easy for the wolf to simply push the door open and come after me. I saw my sisters had disappeared and knew they were safe.

I began to run in terror. The wolf pushed the door open and began chasing me down the stairs. I was running so fast my feet were not touching the stairs. I was hanging onto the handrail and leaping from stair landing to stair landing. Each landing was 6 stairs apart. I was becoming dizzy from the switchback like staircase. I misjudged one of the landings and flew over the railing and into the abyss of the mountain gorge below.

The wolf followed me, but I was dead before he got to me.

I woke absolutely terrified.

Interpretation ideas?

The Coyotes: They are trickster figures. Figures who, in North American First Nations mythology, facilitate our seeing the lighter side of life, who sometimes have noble purposes, but also sometimes are playing with us and can be cruel. They represent the uncertainty of life, the uncertainty of the direction life can take us. They can bring light to dark situations (in fact the Raven...a trickster figure in Westcoast First Nation's mythology tricked a princess into opening a box that contained the sun, thereby releasing light into the world. ("The Raven Stealing the Sun" myth).

I run into coyotes on our farm all the time. They are a symbol of hope for me. They seem to appear when I am desperately depressed and need a reminder that I can survive this illness. It seems strange that they seemed to be doing the opposite in my dream..trying to facilitate my death. Although maybe my death is the only hope I have?

Or maybe they are referencing my being saved by a symbolic death? The death of my old life; the life I keep clinging to, the life that drags into feeling guilty for the new life I am trying to make for myself? My change from doing what I think is right, into having a life filled with doing what I WANT to do.

I know in the dream I wanted to survive. I fought and fought when the coyotes were trying to bring me down (but maybe I was fighting there lesson to allow my symbolic death, my important change, to happen. I ran hard from the wolf to try to save myself. It just did not work. I died anyways...and not even from the wolf, from a mistake I made. (my misjudgement of where the stair's landing was.

The Wolf: He has never appeared to me as pure black before. Throughout the dream I knew and felt it was symbolically important that he was pure black. He was impending doom, stealth and pure fear. He was patient in his efforts to bring me down. He waited, not once interrupting the coyotes efforts to drag me to the ground. He was over confident that he would succeed in killing me one way or another.

Dr. X and I discussed my dream. He said I needed to challenge the wolf. I get that, but what is it I am supposed to challenge? What does the wolf represent? If it is death, that is an inevitability...it would be futile. It could be my depression...but I don't know how to challenge it any more than I do. This dream is haunting me. It is telling me something. It feels so important. I cannot stop thinking about it.

Maybe the challenge is to STOP challenging the inevitability of real death (and the impending fear attached to that that comes from feeling like I will not achieve what I need to achieve, (.i.e. death anxiety) which is the cause of much of my life's anxiety and I think my depression. I fear I will not complete my purpose on earth.

Maybe the challenge is to ACCEPT my symbolic death, the death of my previous life, the fact that I am changed by my depression, by the difficult experiences I have encountered with each Major Depressive Episode...especially this latest one. I am changed. My old life is dead. Let it go. Move on bravely to my new life.

The wolf is black, because unlike all the other frightening wolves in my dreams who chase me and try to kill me and never quite succeed; this wolf succeeded, and the death of my old life is FINAL.

Zebra Mountains Painting

I just completed the first of three 12 x 12 paintings for one of my nieces. She just had her bedroom renovated and it is purple...what girl didn't go through a purple period??? When I was 24 almost every single piece of clothing I owned was purple, I painted my window frame purple. I was OBSESSED with purple.

Anyways, this painting is the beginning of a conceptual idea I had about honing in on the smaller picture. Taking pictures up so close that it is not readily apparent what they are. Well of course...with zebras that is kind of hard, and on top of that my sister wanted them to be purple

...so here is my first of three paintings and the pictures I edited to paint the picture from. I thought it might be cool for you to see the process. I took the zebras drinking water, cropped the picture so it looked like mountains (the zebras' backs, and then painted it using black, purple and a complimentary yellow instead of black, brown and tan:

Religion, Mysticism and Spirituality

This post is inspired by something my pdoc wrote, and also a discussion we had last week in my session. We were talking about spirituality and the difficulty many of us have (me included) with the dogmatic beliefs found in all kinds of religions and spiritual beliefs. Before I begin this post I would like to mention that I think whatever your spiritual beliefs are is certainly not an issue with me. I believe we all have the right to believe what ever it is we do.

I know for my Mom, her belief in God played a huge part in her allowing her to have both a better life and accept her particularly difficult death. Her belief in God strengthened her every step of the way. I am so happy she had God's love to turn to when she needed it. This post is not about telling anyone what is or is not right, or wrong. It is simply a post about my beliefs, lack of beliefs and struggle to believe in something beyond this one plane of existence and experience.

I am not sure what I believe. To me insisting there definitely is a God, or insisting there definitely is not a God are both impossible statements to prove. So for me both fundamentalism (in any religion) and atheism are equally difficult positions to logically hold. This does not mean either are not correct; simply that no one can prove either the existence or non-existence of God.

I would say I am agnostic but hopeful their is something beyond this existence. I really struggle with the idea that everything begins and ends here in the world we experience on a sensual level. I also have had so many experiences that point to something beyond the scientifically proven and accepted theories of evolution and existence. They happen too often for me to ignore them. Maybe there is some kind of mystical force running through our lives.

Believe me it is very difficult for me to say that last statement. I am vehemently opposed to believing things with no proof, but sometimes my experiences seem to be showing me the proof and I keep ignoring the messages. Maybe there are "instances" where people are connected to another plane of existence, or experience beyond the here and now. No I am not being delusional. I'm just trying to understand what I experience.

After last weeks session it happened again; something that felt like a communication had taken place between my sister and I with no words being spoken. My sisters, and my Mom when she was alive , seem particularly in sync with one another, despite living very far away from each other and not talking that often.

In my last session Dr. X asked me what I was working on with my paintings. I told him am working hard to develop a series of conceptual paintings based on extreme close ups of images, taken out of context. Anyways, as our conversation ended we somehow got onto the topic of "foresight"; the ability to see/know something before either it happens, or before you have any knowledge of it happening.

I was telling Dr. X. how it seems like too many things happen to me this way for me not to have some kind of foresight. The last thing he said to me before my session was up was, I do seem to have foresight and he has seen proof of it.

I have dreams that come real, especially about animals dying...which is awful. Years ago I dreamt my cat was drowning. I went outside at 4am in my rain gear and found him dead in a puddle at the side of the road. I dreamt about dead dogs laying in the ditch and woke to find my neighbours dog dead. I dreamt I would find my cat that had been lost for 8 months and told my husband in the morning to look for him...he laughed and told me I was out of my mind...but at 10:00 am I got a call saying he had found the cat, but under the shed. Unfortunately, he was dead.

Last week, when I came home from my appt, there was a message from my sister. I called her and she asked me if it would be possible to paint three paintings based on parts of zebras for my nieces newly decorated bedroom. She didn't want whole Zebras, but exactly the type of paintings I had been thinking about (I never told anyone before D. X). It was strangely familiar to have things happen magically right when I am thinking hard about them. I don't believe in this stuff, but it sure seems like something/someone wants me to.