Thursday, January 06, 2011

Mirror Synchronicity: A musical message

I am a hospice social worker, so it is expected that all of my patients will die eventually. Yesterday, however, a 31-year old patient of mine died suddenly and without much warning. I was supposed to visit him yesterday and the last two times I saw him he reminded me of his 32nd birthday coming up in less than a week and that I better not forget it. He had been sick for a long time and was so excited to make it to 32.
I was scheduled to see him on the day he happened to die and so it was a bit of a shock that I've been processing over the past 24 hours. I have been thinking about him a lot. On my way home from work, I said his name out loud and asked him for a sign that he was ok. I don't know what I expected, but I was looking for something... a license plate...something. I turned on the radio and strangely enough, it was a classical music piano piece. (My alternative rock station had apparently converted to classical the day before). He had sung hymns for me 2 weeks ago and I thought maybe it would be a hymn, but it wasn't. If it was a sign, I thought, it wasn't a strong enough one for me to feel the connection. I don't listen to classical and I was confused, but the piece was calming and so I left it on.

Then I felt cold air and I could not seem to get the heater high enough. Still, I was thinking that would be silly to think that it was his presence. I thought about him the whole time I while I was listening to the piano music and I chided myself for expecting him to respond to my request for a sign. He's new to heaven, I told myself. He wouldn't even know how to send a sign. I'm just his social worker... if he is watching from heaven he would be looking after his family, not me. Then the song ended. The DJ said something along the lines of:

"We were just listening to Klavierstucke No. 2 in E-flat, D. 946 by Franz Schubert. Franz wrote that song when he was 31 about 6 months before he died. He never did make it to his 32nd birthday."

wow. I got my sign.

RIP and Happy Birthday buddy.

I didn't know much about Schubert before but I've been reading about him and apparently this piece is often described as haunting as it was written after Schubert knew he was ill.

Not the same performer, but you can still get a sense of the intensity of the emotions of the piece here

Proof of ESP and thoughts about skeptics

Here is a NYT article about an upcoming journal article which seeks to scientifically proof ESP. What makes me laugh is the gist of the Times article that there is an uproar over the publication. Despite the repitition of experiments and the credibility of the author, the journal article is still getting shredded.

Here is what i think: for the skeptics, there is no amount of 'proof' that will ever be enough for them, even if they experience the phenomenon themselves. What I am realizing is that for some reason they must strongly need to hold on to the tangible, because the intangible is too frightening for them. I used to try to convince skeptics to have an open mind but now I see the closed mind is a form of self protection. They are like frightened children who must believe that "belief" means a lack of control... the funny thing is that I believe that the more I acknowledge the power of the universe, the more Power I have to make change, make a difference, etc. That is my hope anyways...