GOING BACK TO IDAHO

by P. M. H. Atwater, L.H.D.

I've gone back to the place of my birth many times. Family is there; Mom and Dad - memories. My folks still live on the home place near the city of Twin Falls, although now in a trailer closer to Rock Creek Canyon's lip. My brother and his wife bought the house. Mom's 88. Dad's 83. She stays in a lounge chair mostly, her legs propped up as she awaits the day when congestive heart failure ends her earth journey. Dad I know will quickly follow. There's no separating those two. The love bond between them remains strong. He's presently her caregiver.

I wanted to see them again, as well as my sister and her husband's new ca- bin in the high country and what relatives I could in one trip. A letter announcing my 50th High School Reunion convinced me that July 2005 was the time to go.

My sister is a dream boat. She took me everywhere once I arrived in Boise. We both share the same birth date, 10 years apart. Her two boys are one year apart, same day, one day before ours. So in two days, we have four birthdays. We laugh a lot about that. I had almost forgotten how clear the air is in Idaho, how bright the colors, and how bold and huge the land. You can see 360 degrees in all directions, all the time. That openness defined my character from the beginning. Volcanic soil, sagebrush, Snake River Canyon, Shoshone Falls, Twin Falls, Perrine Bridge, Sawtooth Mountains, South Hills, the bigness of everything - I have always loved this country and I still do.

The overnight at her cabin, just the two of us, brought back so many childhood memories. I was comforted to know that mountains here still thrum, pine still creaks as it bends, cottonwoods and brush still rattle, and creeks still sing of stories as wind skips by. It was as if I had never left - except for the hummingbirds. Hummingbirds? Yup, three of them, fighting over sugar water, doing body slams in midair. I never realized the tiny things could be that aggressive. We watched their antics from the deck as evening turned off the light. No television. No phones. Just lots of talking 'til sleep came.

One of my aunts had broken her hip in a fall, yet her healing was remarkably fast. A visit to a cousin's place delighted both eyes and heart, for we had never had intimate moments like we were able to share this time. Mom looked somehow better than she had during my last trip, her mind bright. Dad hovered around her, concerned, yet fully present. I went back to see them every chance I had, tucked into a full schedule of events. Among them was the long drive to Ontario, Oregon, to see Dr. Reimer and his partner Jeanie. I owe my life to Doc Reimer. He brought me back after my three experiences with death in 1977. I have yet to meet a healer who could compare with his level of ability, knowledge, and devotion to calling. Sadly, a lifetime of smoking has taken a heavy toll of his health. He could heal everyone but himself. Now it is Jeanie Reimer and the angels she communicates with who do wondrous things for others.

My 50th High School Reunion surprised me. The large turnout was so friendly and so caring, the people so loving, that you couldn't tell the difference between the millionaires and those who struggled on social security. Everyone was equal, members of the one family we had become. The love we shared with each other was extraordinary.

On Sunday my classmates were abuzz about water gushing over Shoshone Falls, almost as much as during the "good ole days" (the Western drought had necessitated cutting most of its flow). My sister had loaned me an extra car so I hurried over. That feeling sense within me that has become so acute since my experiences with death bid me to park atop the grade, and not drive into the canyon itself. I have no idea how high the rim is from the canyon floor, maybe several thousand feet. The falls are higher than Niagara's but not as wide. Sunshine stretched heavenward as I clamored up and down rim rocks seeking a better view. I was a kid again doing what I had always done, much to the chagrin of my parents who often held their breath lest I lose my footing and fall. The rock shelf where the water tore loose was my playground when dry. I never missed an opportunity then to explore every nook and cranny, hang from every cliff. Mom used to yell, "I wish you'd learn the meaning of fear someday." I did, but not from such explorations. Adventure was my middle name.

When I reached the perfect spot, the panorama before me parted like a curtain does and I stepped through - physically, sensorially, hyper alert - to view all the people who had ever had a role to play in the unfoldment of my life up to the point where I married and had children. Scenery served as a backdrop to an assembled mass of relatives, friends, strangers, attackers, interested and disinterested folk - all smiling at me, all exuding pure love.

I did not have a pleasant childhood. Five fathers, two mothers, the horrors of school, Pearl Harbor, rationing, an uncle who molested me, frustrating confusion. I had been born with dyslexia and synesthesia and developed a stuttering problem because of the trauma this caused me. Some claim I was a spoiled brat as a child. Those who saw deeper said I didn't fit in; I couldn't be what others expected of me. A need to prove the difference between reality and imagination became an intense drive. I pushed, prodded, and examined everything. And I survived this way.

The people who filled the first phase of my life now stood before me, smiling. Their presence revealed a living truth - that we had all been players acting out scripts - my purpose for being was the script I followed; the orchestration of their roles and mine, how we gifted each other. Each of us as the souls we really were had known all along what we were doing and why and who we were to each other.

The reality of our companionship, and of the greater love that enfolded and embraced us, overwhelmed me. I knew all was forgiven; the first phase was over.

The presence of these people was neither a perception, a memory, a dream, nor a fantasy. Each was real and fully dimensional, and I viewed them standing on the edge of the world as I saw through the world. In love's truth, I recognized love's power to acknowledge me, to validate, forgive, and set free.

Love defined my entire trip. My 50th High School Reunion, every relative I had time to visit, every person I greeted or spoke to, even the police officer who pulled me to one side in Wendell and cautioned that I was driving too fast - 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile zone. His broad smile and friendly banter betrayed any threat. When I needed to leave, both my parents walked me to the door, arms around each other, waving, smiling, love personified. I could hardly believe my eyes. Everywhere I looked there was only love; anything else but an illusion, put there to fulfill a purpose, to teach or awaken.

On Monday, my brother drove me to Boise to catch the plane. We arrived early, so I asked to be taken to Julia Davis Park in the downtown area. That park had been the scene of many events when I lived there and I wanted to see it again. He parked his pickup near the bandshell. Directly across from the span of where I sat at a picnic table, there I stood, a young mother with picnic baskets interrupted in her stride to keep up with family by the sound of a man's voice. On the floor of the bandshell stage sat a man in the yogic lotus position speaking to a crowd, microphone in hand. He wore plain white garments. Nothing fancy.

There was something about his voice. He spoke of a greater reality, that we were all one family, children of the same God, and that the universe and all of creation were good, and that we as co-creators with the Creator, determined what happened in our lives by our intention, our thoughts, and the choices we made. He said he experienced this truth while taking the drug LSD, and then he described the glory of what he beheld while under the influence of its psychedelics. He called himself Ram Das.

One little old lady, seated on the front row of the crowd, jumped up and ran to the stage. Straining to see the man above her, she excitedly shouted out for all to hear, "I experience the same thing every time I crochet!" As the crowd roared, he admitted that there were many ways to discover the truth about life without taking drugs as he had. I echoed his comment for I had had such experiences too, drug free.

My family motioned me to hurry so I walked away. But that moment, that specific moment in time, was the beginning of the second phase of my life. A seed had been planned that day. And, like the former Richard Alpert, esteemed Harvard professor whose controversial explorations of human consciousness ended one career while jumpstarting another as the "Servant of God," Ram Das, I also began to research human consciousness - which opened up whole new worlds for me that led in very different directions from anything I had ever known.

Sitting at the picnic table that morning I witnessed my turning point back in the sixties. The "me" I saw, everyone else present at that time in my personal history, were completely and utterly real, fully dimensional, and sensorially experienced. I did not ask my brother if he saw any of it because I knew he hadn't. I described that day to him, though, because I wanted him to know how important it had been to me.

The many phases of each of our lives have definitive beginnings and endings. Most of us seldom give heed to such things. Although I could have surmised when mine were, going back to Idaho in July of 2005 stopped me short. The revelations given were so surprisingly intense and involved, they were beyond my reckoning - living proof that forgiveness really does heal and love does indeed conquer all

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