Heaven as I see it. part 1
circa 1997
An anecdote
How does it feel? To be on your own? With no direction home? Like a complete unknown? Like a rolling stone? ~ Bob Dylan
So,.. here I am. Standing in front of a Blood/Plasma donation center. It’s chilly. There is a half smoked cigarette on the grass next to the side walk. I bend over and pick it up.
“Sure! It’s an easy 25 bucks” (that’s Bob. he’s my drinking buddy.) I light the cigarette. I offer a puff to Bob and he takes a drag. “finally!”, he says. He rolls his head upwards a bit and rolls his eyes into the top of his head. A devilish grin on his unshaven red stubble.
Laying on the table i had this really strange sensation. The next thing I know I was awake but unaware of who I was or where I was. I heard voices. “What’s your name?” “Bill! What’s your name?”
Light appeared. The classic tunnel. I slipped through it. and I was awake but very disoriented. “Bill”. My name is Bill.”
They paid me half and said they had to stop during the procedure because I was having bad reactions. Bob told me I was Dead and they were freaking out.
What’ya think I saw…?
I was in a green field of grass where a white picket fence ran along the right side of me. Ahead of me was a tree not unlike this one.
I believe in heaven. My vision and interpretation of it may not sit well with everybody. But this is how I see it.
“What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it.”–Carl Jung (Psychologist)
The image to the left is an attempt by philosophers and mystics to communicate an idea which is not easily grasped by the human mind. It is both a cosmological and physiological model of “life”.
It is frequently found mostly in ‘occult’ literature. Because of this association it is immediately presumed to be either fantasy or or even evil. There are those who even go so far as to use its image as an amulet or talisman.
Carl Jung ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung ) “…proposed the existence of a second, far deeper form of the unconscious underlying the personal one. This was the collective unconscious, where the archetypes themselves resided, represented in mythology by a lake or other body of water, and in some cases a jug or other container.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm
Heaven (Anglo-Saxon heofon, O.S. hevan and himil, originally himin) corresponds to the Gothic himin-s. Both heaven and himil are formed from himin by a regular change of consonants: heaven, by changing m before n into v; and himil, by changing n of the unaccented ending into l. Some derive heaven from the root ham, “to cover” (cf. the Gothic ham-ôn and the German Hem-d). According to this derivation heaven would be conceived as the roof of the world. Others trace a connection between himin (heaven) and home; according to this view, which seems to be the more probable, heaven would be the abode of the Godhead.
The Latin coelum (koilon, a vault) is derived by many from the root of celare “to cover, to conceal” (coelum, “ceiling” “roof of the world”). Others, however think it is connected with the Germanic himin. The Greek ouranos is probably derived from the root var, which also connotes the idea of covering. The Hebrew name for heaven is thought to be derived from a word meaning “on high”; accordingly, heaven would designate the upper region of the world.
Casting pearls before swine 