I remember dying twice

Panning to the right from the photograph of two day's ago, this is the view from what once was my "Sanctuary / Refuge." Again, it is South Dakota in the foreground, the Missouri River in the distance and Nebraska way, way, far away. There are liberals and there are conservatives, Protestants and Catholics, baseball fans and basketball fans, but it absolutely boggles my mind how anyone can prefer the sights of man-made streets and towers and storefronts above the majesty of nature's work. Maybe, it is a matter of differences between women and men. Anyway, for now, until forever, Nature rules, in my world. Cities are there to visit, not to dwell within.

Dreams never leave you -- or do they?

Part 2 of ??

I can remember dying twice in the past.

By remember, I sort of mean I think I recall, I believe I can recall, I have faith that I do recall. Do I know? Of course not. Neither do I know that there is a Supreme Being, a God, a Deity. It is a matter of thought and faith and belief, not one of proof positive and knowledge.

In one death, I remember my chest being crushed, smashed, demolished .... I was running .... and then there was something like an axe being slammed into the middle of my chest

and stopped me dead in my tracks

and lifted me off my feet

and threw me backward.

In that instant, I knew that I was dead. The only other thing I remember about this event is that my hair was long, and that it whipped my face when my forward momentum was stopped.

In another death, I can see when and where it happened, possibly because it seems to be more recent than the previous event I described. It was, I think, on November 20, 1943, on the atoll of Tarawa on the island of Betio in the Gilbert Islands. I was in the Marine Corps, and, any number of times, I have seen and felt myself die there in a dream -- again from a chest wound, this time atop a mound of sand on the first day of the invasion. Tarawa obsesses me. Why? Perhaps this is the primary reason I joined the Marine Corps in this lifetime. Enough for now.

Beyond what seems to be the actual in terms of events "known," I had a reoccurring dream that began when I was about age twelve and continued until I was age eighteen. In that dream, I was rolling along the ground while a man who appeared to be of Oriental descent was firing a submachine gun at me. I rolled and I rolled, and the rounds being fired at me gradually were catching up to me. I always awoke just before the rounds reached me.

Some of you who have read here in the past know this story, and know that when I was eighteen I was in my first actual (not sort of, but actual) combat. You also might recall I wrote that the dream never reoccurred after that time; after the time I was in actual combat, this dream ceased to be.

Frankly, I have my doubts that anyone reads what I write other than one or two or three people. This is not very important to me, but curiosity drives me. I wish to know what others have experienced. If anyone has experienced this manner of feeling, dream, belief or event, I would like to learn about it. Tell me, if you dare .... which means, if you dare to reveal your inner self -- not just to me, but to yourself.

As for me, lose this, laugh at it, forget it, skip it. I am increasingly beginning to believe that humanity has entered an age in which living for oneself is more important than living for another. Perhaps, that is what separates today from yesterday .... and me, from many (most ??) others.

"To a Stranger" by Walt Whitman

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.