Friday, March 4, 2016

THIRD ENTRY

More and more, I've been thinking lately of how at peace and balanced I was when traversing through my college days at Stony Brook. There was a harmony with the Earth that I felt during my days there. Maybe it was partly because of the type of courses that were there, or the professors that taught them, or my thirst to learn, to grow, to expand my thinking or maybe it was all of these things.

College. It is the one place in the world, the one chapter in our adult lives where we truly feel like idealists. We feel we can do anything. We can bring about the change we want to see in the outside broken world. We can be the tipping piece. We can. We are. Those are powerful words and it's a powerful thought. It's a thought that I felt in the very deepest depth of my spirit. However, that idealism was shattered in college as well.  There was no outside force that shattered it but myself. The idealistic world that our professors taught us that we could be a part of, to bring the change for the betterment of the world. That thought was shattered by me and it all started with a vision.

In breaks between classes, I used to sit and meditate. When I did it and the practice became a way of calming and grounding myself to the planet, I felt a peace that I've never been able to replicate since. It was during this time that I learned that about a few hundred square feet of forest land was slated to be destroyed to make room for a new science building. The irony of progress. In order to put up that building, they were going to clear cut and level ancient trees that had been there for hundreds of years and weathered so many changes. I came to know the plight of those trees when I was walking to my car in the parking lot adjacent to the land and there was a flyer placed on my car about the road leading to progress for our beloved university.

For the first time, I felt a sense of helplessness and a war began inside where I was at war with myself. One half of me wanted to raise awareness on campus, start a petition, save the trees for they had more of a right to be there than we ever did. In my mind, I yelled the words "They were here first! They should be given the right to stay. Build the science building somewhere else. They are as much alive as all of us are." I wanted to scream those words from the roof tops but I, the loner that I am, never worked well with crowds. Why would anybody listen to me? Why would anybody want to sign a petition that I would start? Why?

Self doubt. Self doubt is our only enemy in this world when it is over a noble cause. When we begin to doubt ourselves for the stand that we've taken, we've already admitted defeat. Once defeat takes hold, there isn't much left to do.

My sister remembers this conversation well. I had voiced my concerns, my thoughts and my uneasiness since learning of the plans to clear cut that land on our weekend drive home. She encouraged me to start a petition like I had wanted to but I lacked faith in myself. It was that weekend that I had my first true vision and it was so strong that after it was over I felt haunted by it. So much so that I went into a state of depression.

I used to own a small metal dragon (probably still do and it's most likely misplaced somewhere in the move) that could fit in the palm of my hands. The dragon sat on its hind legs and in its forelegs it held a small round blue gemstone. When I bought it, I had felt a deep connection to it, and so I decided to meditate that night holding it in my left hand, cupped by my right. I closed my eyes to meditate and immediately I saw the back of a man. He was dressed in a black and red plaid shirt and blue trousers. The typical lumber jack. Blue cap on his head and he was lashing away at a giant tree that stood at the very center of a vast forest. A forest of stumps. The single tree left was being chopped into pieces by him. The grass was green and the stumps were covered in blood. The tree that he was chopping was dripping blood. Blood as red as the deepest red rose.

Instinctively, I yelled at him to stop. I saw myself in the vision, still holding the dragon now in my right hand and I held up my left hand to stop him.  I walked around so that he could see me and I could see him to plead with him to stop. When I came around, I saw that he himself was covered in blood. The blood of all those trees that he had killed and he kept at it. He couldn't hear me. I couldn't hear me.  My yells, my screams were without any sound. Trying to rush to him, I dropped the dragon. Realizing this I looked down at my hands. They were dripping in blood. I looked up and it was me that was dressed as the lumber jack. It was me that had killed all of those trees. I was the one responsible for it all and the blood of those trees was on my hands.

My eyes opened with a jolt and I realized that I had been crying profusely aloud while in my vision. My stomach lurched and I felt as if I was going to through up. My insides all hurt and it was as if I had committed such a grave crime that I still looked at my hands and felt as if that blood was still there. That blood IS still there today because I didn't speak up and become the voice for those trees that needed one. That weekend, I couldn't eat, I could barely sleep and whenever I showered, I cried there too. I felt as if I had done something so vile and loathing that I did not deserve to live. If they could not live and I did not have the courage to be their voice, then I too, did not deserve to live.

In the midst of the vision, when I was crying alone in my room, I felt as if someone was speaking to me. I can't say that it was a voice but it felt as if it was both male and female at the same time and was encouraging me to accept my vision.  Telling me that it's a gift and I should accept it and that I was ready. I just blabbered repeatedly between sobs because I was so distraught by it that I wasn't ready and that I don't want this gift. I still remember my exact words. "No. No. No. I'm not ready. I don't want this. No, I don't want it." The perceived voice was silenced and I was left to deal with what I had just seen in the vision. It had left me so paralyzed with grief that, for the first time in my life, I truly cried. I cried from my heart. I cried from my soul. I cried until I couldn't cry anymore.

It was a terrible vision and my visions, whenever they come, are never happy ones. It is probably the real reason why I fear to start meditating again. If I do, they'll come back and I never know how to deal with them. Never know when to believe that they are foretelling something real and when it's something completely disjointed from reality. For instance, if I had known that the vision I had in April 2001 would be a foretelling of the future September 11 attacks, this time around, I would've done something. That was another very disturbing vision and that will be reserved for a different post.

Getting back to my first vision, that week when I returned to Stony Brook, I spoke with one of my Earth Sciences professors and asked him what could be done. He had said that the faculty had spoken to the school about their plans to make a new science building and that they did not agree with the school. They didn't feel a new science building was needed but that the school board would not listen to them. I asked him if a petition to save the land would help to which he said it's a possibility but that in order for it to be counted as a valid petition, I'd have to obtain at least 100 signatures. 100 signatures! I didn't know 10 people at the university and out of the four or five friends I had, how would I be able to get 100 petitions to save the land. He also mentioned that in order for my petition to be valid, I would have to get school approval to start one and I could ask the university president for the approval.

Empowered by his words, I emailed our university president and implored her to allow us to petition to save the land that was surrounding the Student Union parking lot and save those trees from being cut. My words, my plea was answered by her the next morning. Though she encouraged and praised my thoughts and wishes to start a petition, she said that the development phase would soon be starting and so a petition would not help save those trees. However, she promised that for every tree they took down, the university would plant another two trees somewhere else on campus. I believed her, but somewhere, deep down, I didn't think the university would do it. I still wonder if they did as she promised or was it just a false promise to silence me. Maybe it was and maybe that's why I still feel as if I helped murder those trees.

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