Blog 246 – Leaving the Pit of Despair, Part 1 – 8 May 2025

In this Blog, I talk about the eternal existence of hope and how every one of us is able to leave the Pit of Despair.

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I love this image of the butterfly so much that I am repeating it.  New life can always emerge – even from the Pit of Despair.  Look closely, this butterfly will soon fly across the whole universe.

Juan has given me permission to publish this photo.  It is covered by copyright and readers do NOT have permission to copy without prior permission.

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We can heal ourselves if we make the decision to do so.  

We may all be walking wounded, but every one of us can heal.

We must find the part of us that knows the need to heal, otherwise we will get stuck in the Pit and not get out.  Everyone in this universe wants to help you heal – it is not just me.

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On Sunday the 20th of April 2025, I posted a blog by my friend Dave in which he recounted his near death experience when his heart stopped working while he was driving his car on a busy Adelaide street.  The blog had the title “A Resurrection Story – To die or Not to Die”.  On the same day the blog received a response from someone calling himself Peter Ingham.  I have done a copy and paste of the Ingham response, so don’t blame me for the offensive content or the terrible grammar and punctuation.  This is the Peter Ingham response.

F*ck off religious idiot. There is no GOD. ONLY ME . I AM MY GOD OF EVERY THING . I HAVE EVERYTHING AT MY DISPOSAL TO KILL YOU ALL . NUCLEAR WEPONS TO K*LL ALL YOU IDIOT RELIGIOUS PEOPLE

*Note that swear words are censored. The original message was not. 

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I was interstate when Ingham posted his obscene response to a story of heroism by a close friend whose achievements would put Peter to shame – if Peter remains capable of any emotions apart from demented anger.

When I got home from Sydney on the 28th of April, I sent this response to Peter Ingham.

Go ahead. Do whatever you want. You do what you want with your life, and leave me to live my own life in peace. You didn't even notice that the post dated 20 April 2025 was about my friend and his near death experience and that it was written by my friend who survived his near death experience. Your life must be so very sad if you feel the need to abuse people you have never met – and over what? Telling a story of heroic survival. Your life must be so very, very sad. I will set you a challenge seeing as how you claim you are God of Everything. Do something impossible. Turn your life around and make yourself happy.

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I feel no anger towards the person (bot perhaps?) called Peter Ingham, but I do feel immense sadness.

If Peter Ingham does really exist, he is so deeply entrenched in his own personal Pit of Despair that he has an overwhelming need to make everyone else suffer the same overwhelming despair that he feels.

Peter does not want anyone to be reborn – not Jesus Christ, not my friend Dave, not me, not you, not anyone in the whole universe.

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I have not had the chance to meet Peter Ingham, but I have met many people like him.  And so have you.

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I have some very good news for you Peter.

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There is a way out of the Pit.

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Getting out of the Pit is easy in some ways but hard in other ways.

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The first thing to remember is easy.

Peter personally dug his own Pit of Despair.

We all dig our own Pits of Despair.

Because we all dig our own Pits, we all know how to climb out.

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The second thing to remember is this.

Before we can climb out of our Pits, we must decide it is time to start climbing.  And when we decide to start climbing, we have to do just that – we must start climbing.

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When we start climbing, our lives begin to fill with light and joy.

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Take no notice of Peter when he says “You are now a permanent resident of the Pit because there is no Exit!”

Peter doesn’t say this because he is evil.

Peter only says this because of his despair.

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Join us Peter.

Leave the Pit of Despair behind you.

There is always hope for every one of us who has lost hope because of what has happened.  Go looking for hope Peter and walk out of the Shadow Lands in which you think you are trapped.  There is not really any lock on the door of your jail cell.  There is not really even a jail cell.  Like every one of us, you are trapped in an illusion you yourself has made.

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Once again this Blog is written with much love – especially to you Peter.

 

Blog 245 – Rebirth: How I Am Making Myself Come Alive Again, Part 6 – 7 May 2025

Blog 244 I promised to set out some of the tools I have used to survive.  I keep that promise in this blog.

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This image is also courtesy of my friend Juan Acosta.  To my eye, Juan had painted perfect images of the four magical elements - earth, air, fire and water: this is another perfect painting to go with this blog about rebirth.  

Juan has given me permission to publish this photo.  I again remind readers that my photo and the painting itself are covered by copyright and readers do NOT have permission to copy them without prior permission.

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The earth itself will help us heal if we let it.  

We are all walking wounded.  

We must help each other to heal ourselves and our wonderful universe.

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3.00 am Tuesday 29 April 2025 – Rebirth Day 10 I am back in Adelaide and my life has resumed the rhythm it developed in the months since Margaret’s death one year and eight months ago. On 7 March 2023, Margaret had her final session of immunotherapy.  Immunotherapy had shrunk the cancer but another result was dangerous diarrhoea.  The immunotherapy had to stop while the oncologist vainly tried to stop the diarrhoea.  Margaret suffered constant night sweats which saturated the bed, plus the diarrhoea, plus a bladder that gave her no rest – and she also had broken bones in her back and broken ribs. I suffered during every moment that Margaret suffered.  I watched her life shrivel into a pain-filled shell In 2023, Easter Sunday took place on 9 April 2023 – eleven days and 2 years before my rebirth day on Sunday 20 April 2025. I no longer have to worry about Margaret being in pain because she is no longer in any pain. Margaret has left her pain behind her and because of my rebirth, I am evolving into a man who sometimes manages to be pain free. … and then something happens and in an eye blink, I am in pain all over again – suffering because she suffered so much. So, I dive back into my box of tools looking for something that will ease my pain.  I have experimented with so many tools hoping they will ease the pain.  I throw away the tools that do not help me. Meditation sometimes helps … but sometimes it is no help at all. I went to a meditation retreat starting late afternoon on Friday 28 March 2025 and it lasted until early afternoon Sunday 30 March. I was doing fine until the afternoon of the Saturday when one of the retreat staff told me to stop talking.  This completely ruined the rest of the retreat.  I wrote the words “retreat blues” in my diary. Margaret would have had her 75th birthday on Saturday 29 March 2025.  The well meaning idiot who told me to shut up did not know this, but I did. The well meaning idiot should have noticed I immediately plunged into retreat blues, but he did not. The retreat blues lasted a whole two weeks.  I slowly got rid of them by promising myself that I would be able to get by - not into the indefinite future - but for the next two weeks.  I trick myself this way.  If I can put the blues onto a shelf for a short period, they might just stay on the shelf and not come back.  It is easier to persuade myself to keep going for a short period than it is to persuade myself that I have to get rid of the blues for a long period like a year.  I cannot manage a year, but sometimes I can manage two weeks. Give this a go, it might help you sometimes. Yoga always helps in the rebirth process.  My yoga session on the day Margaret died, quite literally helped me to keep breathing.  My body wanted only one thing – to shut down completely.  My body decided it had gone past its expiry date and wanted to do nothing at all, except rejoin Margaret once more.   But I had to stop my body from doing this.  I had promised Margaret that I would be okay.  That meant I had to force my body to keep functioning.  I had to stay alive or I would break my solemn promise. I forced myself to do yoga and after one solid hour of yoga, the tears stopped.  And then they started up again.  To stop the tears this time around, I went for a walk in the Park.  If there were other people in the Park wondering why this grown man was sobbing, I have no memory of them. Eventually, the walking also brought a temporary stop to the tears. So, those are my primary tools.   I walk, I do yoga and I meditate. Every day, I try to create a brand new universe with my thoughts – one where I do not always want to cry; one where everyday things make more sense. As yet, my reborn universe is most noticeable for the people who are not in it. There is no Margaret in it. Margaret’s brother, sister, nephew and niece have chosen to ignore my new universe. Margaret’s former friends have chosen to ignore it and Margaret’s former closest friend Ann Ryan wants to blow it up. Being born again is extremely hard work, but my promise to Margaret means I must make it happen. Margaret wants me to live, so I must live. You may think you have no reason to be reborn or to live, but you are so very wrong. You matter.   The universe will be unable to sing if you are not in it. The very air you breathe will notice your absence and lapse into deep mourning. You matter and I matter too. We all matter equally. If you help me, I will help you. The whole world can be reborn if we come together and make it happen.

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In tomorrow’s blog I will discuss the sad case of someone called Peter Ingham.  Peter is so very, very unhappy.  He is much sadder than I have ever been.

Once again, with much love.

Blog No. 244 – Rebirth: How I Am Making Myself Come Alive Again, Part 5 – 6 May 2025

Blog 243 finished with extracts from my diary for Sunday 27 April 2025, the day after I went to Sydney and attended a concert by Hans Zimmer.

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My friend Juan Acosta knows how to paint the perfect Tree of Life – and the Tree of Life is the perfect image to accompany this blog about rebirth.  

Juan has given me permission to publish this photo.  I again remind readers that my photo and the painting itself are covered by copyright and readers do NOT have permission to copy them without prior permission.

The interpretation of this photo is obvious.  The Tree of Life grows far into the air and is supported by a network of life that extends far below the surface.  

Let us all become like the Tree of Life – reborn continually and with branches that can be seen in the air and branches that cannot be seen because we usually see only the surface soil and not what is below the surface soil. 

Let us learn to heal ourselves and this wonderful universe in which we live.

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9.35 am Monday 28 April 2025 – Rebirth Day 9 This is day 9 of my rebirth.  Exactly 1 week and 2 days ago, I decided I had to breathe new life into the not quite alive me that has existed since Margaret’s death. I am in Sydney staying with some very dear friends.  It has been raining.  Every time I visit Sydney, I am overwhelmed by its great physical size and by the presence of rain.  It is always raining when I am in Sydney but it never really rains in Adelaide – not in the way it rains in Sydney. Today, I return to Adelaide to the home Margaret and I shared.  Our house knows she is gone just as much as I do.  It is now my home.  It is no longer the home that Margaret and I shared together when we were joined in love.  Now it is the home of someone who still aches for her presence. But she is gone and I must continue with my own rebirth. When Margaret was seconds away from death, I promised her I would be okay.  It was a sacred promise.  I must keep it and I will keep it. There are now so many empty spaces in my life – empty spaces that were once filled by people. That yawning abyss is where Margaret used to laugh at me when I was being stupid.  Now, when Margaret laughs, I hear her only in my memory. In that smaller crevasse, Mario used to sit.  The prostate cancer took him on his final journey just before Christmas 2024.  He no longer has to battle the pain just to keep walking.  Mario has finished his final walk at Morialta. That pit over there was dug out by earth moving equipment operated by Margaret’s former best friend Ann Ryan.  When Ann finished digging this hole, she crawled into it and pulled the earth in over the top of herself.  I forgave her long ago, but I doubt she will ever be able to forgive herself for what she did. Side by side with the Ann Ryan excavation are the gaps that were once filled by Margaret’s former friends Sue Chapman, Heather Long and Cheryl Scopazzi.  Over there are the gaps made by Margaret’s closest family members – her brother Jim Redden, sister Maurine, nephew Jameson Henderson-Redden and Jameson’s partner Charli. The best thing about absences is that when you are reborn, you get to fill in the gaps and the gaps cease to be gaps.  The gaps become places filled by others who value you for one simple reason. The gaps filled by others who value you, value you because you are someone no one else can ever be.  No one else can ever be you and you become valued because of who you are. The importance of simply being yourself is usually overlooked – especially by me in relation to me. Without your presence in it, the universe would blink out of existence.  That is how supremely important you are. Everyone matters. There are no exceptions. Whoever you are and no matter how unimportant you have convinced yourself that you are, without you in it, the universe would stop existing. The universe exists because you are in it. I look forward to meeting all of you on our rebirth journeys. See you soon.

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In yesterday’s blog I promised that the blog I have just written would set out some of the tools I have used to help me survive what has happened to me.  Sorry, I messed up.  My survival tools will be set out in the next blog.

Once again, with much love.

Blog No. 243 – Rebirth: How I Am Making Myself Come Alive Again, Part 4 – 5 May 2025

 Blog 241 finished with extracts from my diary for Saturday 26 April 2025, the day I went to Sydney and attended a concert by Hans Zimmer.

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My friend Juan Acosta is talented in so many areas, and his work leaves me breathless.  He told me once that he was taught how to paint by a homeless man in his original home, Venezuela.  The homeless man must, like Juan, have been astonishingly talented - and kind.  Although he had no home of his own, he still found the energy to teach my friend how to pain.  

Juan has given me permission to publish this photo.  I again remind readers that my photo and the painting itself are covered by copyright and readers do NOT have permission to copy them without prior permission.

I interpret this painting as also revealing the total magic of the process of birth and rebirth.  The sun is a diamond and it radiates light and life throughout the universe.  Thank you my friend for letting me use your work in my blogs.  

Although every one of us is walking wounded, the universe does not want us to stay this way forever.  You very definitely matter, and without you, the world cannot continue to exist and it cannot heal.  

Let us heal ourselves and the universe in which we live.

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11.40 am Sunday 27 April 2025 – Rebirth Day 8 Sunday is officially the first day of the week, so I have now officially been reborn for one complete week. Day 7 of my rebirth finished with a tumultuous concert celebrating God’s creation of the universe through sound. The Hans Zimmer concert started with complete silence interrupted occasionally by almost unnoticeable sounds.  The unnoticeable sounds somehow joined together and formed a coherent noisy structure … and the structure became the universe in miniature, complete with the explosive noise of stars as they became supernovas. When the supernova explosions had finished, back we were with silence, but somehow, now the silence had physical structure. Music is sound and sound is surely one of the instruments used by the creator to bring the universe into existence. God yawns and makes a yawning noise … and we humans acquire structure and substance. Or maybe I have it all wrong.  Perhaps God makes a yawning noise and the universe is filled with nothing except the sound of God yawning. If God could be bothered trying to explain, I probably would not be able to understand the explanation anyway.  How can I understand God when I am not God?  I might as well ask an ant what it thinks I am.  I would be wasting my energy on the stupid and impossible. In zombie movies, the plots revolve around humans trying to exist in a world filled with the dead who are dead … but not quite dead. Here is a question. Is not being dead the same thing as being alive? This is my answer. To be alive, you have to be alive.  Simply being a not quite dead corpse (or zombie) does not mean you are alive. Since Margaret’s death, I have been an animated corpse – breathing, walking, talking and going through the motions of being alive – but I have not really been alive.  The spark that kept me alive was Margaret.  Deprived of the Margaret spark, I have been a zombie. I have not been dead, but I have not been alive either. I am reminded of graffiti painted on a fence I used to see as I travelled by train to Flinders Street Station in Melbourne.  The graffiti said “Is unbeing dead being alive?”  I can easily answer the graffiti question.  Unbeing dead is definitely not the same thing as being alive. Now though, I am doing something that never happens in zombie movies. I have become a zombie who has breathed life back into himself.  The undead has become reborn and I am now exactly one week old. We can all be reborn.  We can all do this impossible feat. Join me. Walk away from your sorrow. Look at the rain drizzling down outside the window and see what it truly is. Before rain can fall, part of the universe must die. When part of the universe dies, it evaporates into the sky. In the sky, the evaporation becomes rain. The rain renews life on Earth and the cycle of life is renewed once more. Life renews itself. We can all walk away from the shadow lands. We can all be reborn. Let us all be reborn together.

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My next diary entry sets out some of the tools I have used to help me survive what has happened to me.  Some of those tools may also help you in your own voyage of rebirth.  I most certainly hope so.  You will need to try them and see whether they help you or not.

With much love.

Blog 242 – Rebirth: How I Am Making Myself Come Alive Again, Part 3 – 4 May 2025

Blog 241 finished with extracts from my diary for the Friday, 25th of April 2025, when I took part in the Anzac Day march in Albury.

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Yet another photo of a wonderful painting by my talented friend Juan Acosta.  Yet again, Juan has given me permission to publish this photo.  I remind readers that my photo and the painting itself are covered by copyright and readers do NOT have permission to copy them without prior permission.

I interpret this painting as revealing rebirth in space.  Look closely, eagles can fly in space even though there is no air to help their wings.  Hands of love envelop the Earth and flowers grow easily in this version of space.  Although every one of us is walking wounded, the universe does not require us to stay this way forever.  We are needed.  Without us the world cannot heal.  Take my hand so we can learn how to heal ourselves, and the world we live in.

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12.15 pm Saturday 26 April 2025 – Rebirth Day 7 I leave for Sydney this afternoon.  I travel straight from the airport to a Hans Zimmer concert.  Hans has composed music for movies such as Interstellar.  His music is mostly orchestral and one label that could be applied to some of his music is Space Music. I have heard plenty of Space Music before, but it often carries different labels. I have collected music all my life and I give my own labels to the music I collect. One label I use is Space Music – and Hans Zimmer fits nicely into this label. Another label I use is Angel Music.   One example of Angel Music is Peter Sterling.  Peter was walking one day and had a vision of many angels playing music.  Soon after this, Peter walked into a second hand shop where he found a harp for sale.  Peter bought the harp even though he had never played the harp before.  Six months later, Peter had taught himself how to play the harp and released an album of wonderful music called (naturally enough) Harp Music. To me, Peter’s gorgeous harp music sound very much like Space Music. An Angel Music album called Endless Light by Erik Berglund also sounds like Space Music. I have a different music category for music albums I group under the label Near Death Experience Music. Steve Roach nearly died in a motor bike accident.  His three disc album Structures from Silence reproduces as best he was able, the sounds he heard while he hovered just on the other side of life. Structures from Silence is eerily similar (to me) to the albums I group under Space Music and it reminds me in many ways of the music of Hans Zimmer. So, on Day 7 after my rebirth, I will hear Space Music that is also Near Death Experience Music and Space Music that is also Angel Music. I know Margaret definitely died.   I was there.   In 2018, during my open heart surgery, I was offered the opportunity to die.  I rejected that opportunity because somehow, I knew Margaret would need my help very soon. From July 2020, when Margaret was diagnosed with untreatable cancer, until mid July 2021, my body kept insisting that it had the right to die – but I would not let it do this.   Because Margaret needed me, death had to wait. From July 2021 until August 2023, I forced myself not to die because Margaret needed me so very much. From the day of Margaret’s death until Sunday 20 April 2025, I so much wanted to die but permission to do this was flatly refused.  I wanted to die but was unable. Now on 26 April 2025, I have been reborn and I am 7 days old in this reborn format. I don't really want to be here at all, but I accept that a power greater than me wants me to start again.  So, start again, I will. I accept the task that has been given to me, whatever it is.  I can and I will do the impossible.  I will create a life of beauty and meaning to replace the beauty and meaning that has been torn away from me. I have this message for every one of you who has lost everything that ever meant anything to you. You too can be reborn. One day at a time, one step at a time, let us recreate life.  Let us recreate hope and meaning in the waste land that is currently a land of shadows and complete ruin. If we help each other, we can all heal together. Rebirth is for every one of us.  This is especially the case for those who, like me, have been lost for such a very long time.