WILL THE MOON STILL HANG IN THE SKY…WHEN I DIE?

Jefferson Airplane,

AFTER BATHING AT BAXTERS

By Chiggers Stokes

Special to the Forks Forum

I am not the first person to wonder if, when I am gone, my version of “reality” goes with me. I would guess THAT it is the reason that many of us fear death: our reality dies with us. That is what this column has been about. There have been interruptions while I explored my own relationship with cancer and death. But also interruptions occasioned by wondering if the message of Seeing Through… was getting through. Are these ruminations about “reality” too personal; and what benefit to the people of Forks will come of any exploration of these matters.

It matters to me! Let’s review some of these observations, which are easily verifiable by an Internet search. Behold the subject matter of this column, which you have enjoyed or suffered for five years:

When we say that we are mostly material beings, we are mostly incorrect. In we inflated our view of our atomic makeup and saw our atomic/molecular structure. In an atom the size of Safeco Field, we are protons and neutrons the size of grapes. Our electrons on the movable ceiling are the size of dust. The rest of us is time/space. We are NOT material creatures. We are almost entirely time/space beings.

Then there is the question of SCALE from the other end. How tiny we are in a known universe that is 18.7 billion years in radius. If you could keep a car running in space for 186,000 miles (the distance of light per second and about the life expectancy of a modern car), you would use up 97.7616 billion cars to drive one light year. Like it or not, we are reference points. Without our consciousness as an anchor, how do you find your way back to this point in such vast time/space?

We look at the expanding universe and scientists agree it started with a BIG BANG 18.7 million years ago. Our ultra telescopes can’t see anything beyond 18.7 billion light-years. The compounding effect of the expanding universe causes a violation of the cosmic speed limit of light, and every day hundreds of galaxies fall off our map and disappear from the “known universe.” The known universe, according to Stephen Hawkings and Wikipedia, will become more lonely until trillions of years from now it burns out like a spent firework. This universe has a beginning and an end…and it has boundaries.

There is the issue of frequency: how many frequencies there are in reality and how the human brain focuses on the frequency of light or “visible light” (A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 380 to 740 nanometers). Our eyes are crude antennae. When we “look” we direct our gaze with our eyes to light stimulae. The message of Creation is broadcast 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at 160.23 gigahurtz. The station is called The Universal Background Noise. There are so many more reliable frequencies than light, but our human brains are stuck on it.

What we call “reality” is a hologram in the dark box of our heads. Whatever resemblance it has to what is outside of our heads is contestable by those of us who have greater powers of perception and every other creature that calls Earth “home.” A spider, a snake, a goose, a blind man … they all have different “realities” than you and I. You can take it from me … or you can talk to a blind man … or accept that a spider has eight eyes, a snake feels and “hears” from the ground, a goose “sees” 360 degrees. We humans put our own spin on reality and every human carries their own version. What you see is NOT what is there.

What IS there are particles whizzing through time/space. That is all that is. And upon that we build our dramas; our hopes; our dreams; and our Love.

And our Love is everlasting beyond the bounds of time/space.

We look at Time/Space from the wrong perspective – which is: we dissect Time from Space. We view one element from the other and ignore that such BIG fields as Time or Space are only in our heads. For example, we think we know Time, when what we know is a metronome inside our brains working at about 10 waves per second – faster when we are scared or bored. Which is why time slows down when we look at the clock or run from a bear.

There is no universal stop watch or clock in the universe. The closest thing is a speedometer based on velocity of reference point against the backdrop of the known universe.

Gravity, according to Einstein’s General Relativity is the opposite of acceleration. Period. Your feet are held to this planet by the glue of collapsing time/space – like your back is pinned back to the seat in a fast accelerating vehicle.

In 2016, I pitched to Forks Forum editor, Christi Baron the idea of publishing a column called Seeing Through to reveal the fragility of our perspective on reality. At the time, I thought I was dying of cancer. Since then I have been dying, not dying, dying and not dying again. We are ALL dying, so any words from my physicians are weighted upon the moment.

What I know in my heart, from 69 years of pumping, is that Love is all that matters. LOVE is all that exists beyond the limits of Time/Space. WE are not material beings and without Love in the field of Time/Space…we are nothing.

Dear people of Forks, I lived in our community for 41 years … and you made home for me. I have sold the Flying S Ranch and have relocated to California for reasons of health and Love. I thank you for the Home I will carry in my heart until I am no longer … until the moon doesn’t hang in the sky.

Thank you.