Beyond Normandy Road

(This account should have been published on October 8, 2008.
It wasn't Saturn, the ruler of Time, who prevented it: it was Mercury, the ruler of communication - and spammers...
Not that it matters very much - after all, time will be time... ;-)



The following personal account comes from Darlene Kaiser, in the USA.
We find it fascinating. It not often that people glimpse into what seems to be the future.

Here is how it happened...

"It was a hot clear sunny day in the summer (July) of 1968 on Normandy Road, Fitchburg (MA) in my neighborhood, where I grew up. I was 6 years old at the time.

In my neighborhood there are three rows of houses lined up all the way down the road.
I lived on the first row. It was followed by a road, and after that by a grass lawn (uphill); then followed a second row of houses, then another road and then another grass lawn (also uphill). The third road of houses was followed by the last road; after that, the grass hill, which is located on top of Normandy Road, extended into the woods. (The road goes uphill to the third row of houses.)

It was 11:15 am. I remember I was wearing a top shirt and shorts.
I was playing by myself in the back of one of the third row of houses on top of Normandy Road and I decided to take a walk into the woods on top of the up hill.

The wood was very thick and shady. I could hardly see the sky above me - just trees and leaves. I was pulling off branches and leaves away from my body, face and hair. It was a 10 minute walk.
I don't remember everything what I was feeling at the time... just a little bit cold, being all scratched up on my legs and arms by the branches, sticks , twigs; and I remember picking up colorful leaves.

As I came out on the other side of the woods, I felt shocked and stunned by what I saw. I could describe it as a futuristic looking neighborhood. All I did was stare with my mouth open - like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, just coming out of her tornado dropped house looking at Munchkinland for the first time in her life, with her mouth wide opened staring in shock. That's how I felt.

The roads and houses looked well advanced and beautiful. The roads were not made of black tar but of white/silvery metallic cement reflecting the sunlight. It looked smooth, extremely clean, shiny and modern. This is what caught my eye first.
The houses had many huge big windows, with colorful rooftops; they looked very advanced. The streetlights were different-looking, straight clear poles with ice cream cone shaped lights on top, with an upside down bowl (that's how I can best describe it). I had never seen this before. It did not look like the late 1960's - it looked more like the year 2025.

There were no people around: just me and the futuristic scene. I could also hear a deep humming sound coming from the background; to me, it sounded like (I am not sure) like a "live" power line.

I walked up a few paces to the edge of the road and leaned over to see what was in the distance around the corner. All I could see was lined up houses going down the road on my left side. On my right side I could see the same road coming uphill, then straighten, then curved back downhill on the other side.

I started feeling lost, so I decided to go back into the woods and go home to tell my mother.
This whole event lasted about 6 minutes.

When I told my mother about it, she said, " Stay out of the woods!!"

The next day I sneaked back up into the woods to see that "futuristic" place again.
I could not find it. I looked and looked... NOTHING. There was nothing but regular old 1960's houses.

That was the last time I saw it; never again.
This experience haunts me till this day every now and then; it will remain with me for the rest of my life. I am now 46 years old and the memories of it does come back once in awhile.
So yes: it does happen to some people."

The lady vanishes

Well, no - I don't mean myself, although anyone who has been reading this blog would be excused for thinking that... ;)

Just like you, I do have a life - or two - beyond this spot of a blog.
Which is why all the amazing stories I've been itching to tell you will have to wait some more. Today, I am going to share just a very short story from a wonderfully entertaining and informative website that is among our favourites.

It was contributed by a man who calls himself "Dave".

Here's what Dave said:


"A few days ago, I was behind a girl, walking down the stairs, in the subway. Reaching the bottom, she turned right, around the corner, into a dead-end subway waiting area. I did the same and she was not there. I was about two seconds behind her, and there is no way she could have gone from view. ..."


The rest you can read here.

There are a few instances of such disappearances in previous posts, here in this blog. (See some of the March entries.)
Be sure to read them, if you haven't already.

Better yet, if anything like this has happened to you, make sure you don't disappear back into the ether of your off-line life without letting me know. ;)

A bubble in the flow of Time

Time is of your own making,

its clock ticks in your head.

The moment you stop thought

time too stops dead.


Angelus Silesius, 17th century

Considering how long has been since my last post, you would be excused if you thought I've gone to Bennington, Vermont... :)

I wish.
But no. I have been around, just not in Vermont.
Time has its way with us regardless of where we are.

Or does it?

Here is a story you might find interesting.

***

ESCAPE FROM TIME

The great thing about time is that it goes on.

Arthur Eddington

"Although theologians and philosophers wrangle over the technicalities of the logical relationship between time and eternity, many religious people believe that the most powerful insights into the subject are provided, not by academic debate, but by direct revelation:

I remember that I was going to bathe from a stretch of shingle to which the few people who stayed in the village seldom went. Suddenly the noise of the insects was hushed. Time seemed to stop. A sense of infinite power and peace came upon me. I can best liken the combination of timelessness with amazing fullness of existence to the feeling one gets in watching the rim of a great silent fly-wheel or the unmoving surface of a deep, strongly-flowing river. Nothing happened: yet existence was completely full. All was clear.

This personal story, recounted by the physicist and Anglican bishop Ernest Barnes in his 1929 Gifford Lectures, eloquently captures the combination of timelessness and clarity so often said to be associated with mystical or religious experiences."

***

Now that gives a different meaning to the expression "flow of Time"...
I wonder what Leonardo (da Vinci to you) would say to that.
Here's what he did say about water as a metaphor for time:


"In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes, so with time present."

(from LEONARDO DA VINCI'S NOTE BOOKS)


Regardless of his many - and truly great - talents, time ailed Leonardo as much as it ails any prince or pauper of this world. It seems - but I may be totally wrong - that the one thing Leonardo missed was "mystical" - or, if you prefer - profoundly spiritual insight into the nature of... well, nature. Nature as an appearance, a semblance - an illusion.

It cannot be blamed on his era, even though its defining feature - its "humanism" - relied on a fundamentally flawed foundation: the premise that man is the alpha and omega of Creation (by implication making man's faulty interpretation of the sensory input as "all there is" a generally accepted standard of "reality") .

After all, even epochs deeply steeped in "humanism" could not prevent "mystic" insights by individuals here and there. Angelus Silesius, the author of the opening quote here, was such an individual: an extremely interesting individual.

Still, I cannot blame Leonardo.
But that's yarn for a different story altogether.
In fact, I am already sorry I mentioned it here.


Anyway, the story of bishop (and before that scientist) Ernest William Barnes and the accompanying text are an excerpt from a fascinating book I would recommend reading to anyone despairing over the apparently irreversible "flow" of time: