I Fainted At The Beach

I fainted at the beach. And fell face first into a boulder.

At the hospital, the nurses and doctor went straight into action, more determined to find the cause of my blackout than to stitch up the hole punctured into my face by the rock. I smiled wryly at them. “You won’t find anything.” I said with a woozy voice.

 

They checked my heart. Strong as an ox. They checked my blood sugar. Normal level. They checked my iron levels. Excellent. They checked and checked. Soon the doctor was returning my wry smile. “You knew we wouldn’t find anything.” His crow’s feet seemed to say.

 

I have had “absent” and fainting spells since I was a little girl. The doctors checked me for epilepsy when I was young and then settled on the idea of hypoglycemia (without doing any testing). For a good chunk of my life, I went with that – hypoglycemia. It added up – my metabolism is through the roof and I metabolize sugars, particularly, with socking efficiency.

 

But, as I got older, and other health issues started to enter the picture, my doctor started doing a LOT of blood work. What was interesting was how, even after a 12-hour fast, even after blacking out, my glucose levels never came back as low. Hypoglycemia, it seemed, was being ruled out.

 

So…what was making me become so cognitively checked out that the doctors thought I might have epilepsy as a child? What was causing me to faint periodically throughout my adult life? What was MY wry smile all about?

 

I have come to believe that this “checking out” is a result of my little soul reaching her limit of what she feels she can cope with in this life, and she “leaves the building”, so to speak. Or “leaves the meat suit” might be a better way of putting it.

 

I have watched myself closely and I am very introspective. I am a good pattern seeker as well as a person with eyes to see the spiritual side of life. And, it is my conclusion, after enough of these episodes and enough medical testing to rule out different factors, that my soul longs to return. That when she has had enough, when the pain becomes too great, the stresses beyond overwhelming, the shattered idealism crushing, my soul exits my body and returns to pure spirit.

 

Whenever I come back from one of these episodes, I am filled with a sense of euphoria. I feel pure love, light and peace. There is no more serene feeling in the world. And then, quickly, reality comes rushing in. “Where am I? What is happening? Why is there a tooth in my mouth where it shouldn’t be? I can’t breathe. What is going on? Am I dreaming. I can’t breathe!” I pull my face from the sand and take a breath. My mouth and nose are full of blood. Reality. Life. The meatsuit. Back again. For more. It was just a little tea break. A mini vacation. I didn’t leave forever. Just temporary relief. But, enough to put me back on track again. To ground me and center me in what’s important – what to stress about and what to let go of, the gift of pain and heartbreak, the truth of existence.

My partner says that when I black out, I look like I die. He gets very afraid. My eyes roll back in my head and all life leaves my body. He is constantly checking my nose and mouth for breath. This time was no exception. He wasn’t with me at the beach, but on the way to the hospital I blacked out again.

 

I wonder. Is death when our heart stops beating? Is it when our brain shuts down? Is it when our soul leaves the body? Do we even have a soul? What is death, exactly? Do we go somewhere? Is our consciousness snuffed out or does it live on?

 

If we have a soul, and if it leaves our body when we die, then, perhaps I am dead when I leave my body for a little break. Or, as Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride, “mostly dead”. Maybe the force that animates me is gone for those moments. For my partner, those moments last seconds, less than a minute. But, for me, they go on and on like an eternity and, when I come back, I have no sense of time, space or identity. That comes tumbling in after.

 

I am not the only person who has blackout episodes that are not explained. The nurse who was tending me in the hospital told me that most patients with this issue are never given a medical answer as to why they blackout. Not with heart monitors, glucose monitors nor blood tests. They just have to live in the mystery of not knowing.

 

What a beautiful invitation. So “unmedical” and yet so sage. We are at the height of “understanding” our material world right now and yet, with all of this information, are we healthier? Are we happier? Was there greater promise when we knew less…was there more to be felt in the not knowing?

Photo by Nick Onken, @nickonken on insta, Waimea Canyon, Kauai

What we find in the unknown is space. And space equals possibility. Without making room, there is no space for revelation to enter, nowhere for a deeper, greater, more profound knowing to come in. Rumi says, “The quieter you become, the more you will be able to hear.” Einstein napped to make room for insight.

 

The past few months have been incredibly demanding. I have tried to attend to my daily meditative, breathing and prayer practices, to create more space, to listen more closely, but I have also chosen to attend to my body, my babies and my dreams. We can not have it all. This is my firm belief from empirical evidence over forty-five years of living. We simply can’t. My blackout and resulting injuries forced me to drop everything. I was forced into stillness. From there, deep joy, peace and clarity arose that started in the liminal space I left to when I blacked out. It began there and has continued on for days since. It might seem crazy looking at my face and my busted tooth, but I feel so grateful that I blacked out. I needed the reset.

 

Looking at the joy that can arise from putting everything in its proper place, I wonder about a medical system that would make room for knowing that goes beyond the cellular and into the quantum - the spaces between. We are so fixated on the matter, the stuff, the ideas, and thoughts, and doing. Hospitals are busy, busy places.

 

I am imagining a future where hospitals are not just places of doing, but places of stillness, too. Where not knowing is as valued as knowing. Where listening is of the highest importance and speaking is remembered to be a low-order choice. I can picture hospitals where doctors are trained not just in biology, but also in philosophy and the mystic arts of healing; where patients are held not pushed along, seen not filed, heard not interrogated; where nurses are trusted not suspected, where doctors are given space to consult their deepest self when solving the hardest riddles. This is the new hybrid of science and medicine that I am inviting into our consciousness. True medicine attends to the deeper parts of us that are screaming to belong in a world of ‘0’s and ‘1’s, diagnosis and prescriptions.

 

Do you think a soul can leave a body and return? Do you think we have a soul? Can you imagine a medical system that is a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science? If you can, let’s be still together, and imagine it now. 🦋

Photo by Nick Onken, @nickonken on Insta, Waimea Canyon, Kauai