Like Rap, I think it likely that heaven and hell are pretty much whatever one imagines them to be and not destinations.

When my sister died, as I've shared elsewhere on Mudcat, I had the experience of feeling her presence flutter through my mind like the gentle wings of a butterfly accompanied by "thought insertion", i.e. I didn't hear her voice, I heard her thoughts express, "Janie, I don't know why I was so afraid. It's beautiful."

At the time and for some time afterward I contemplated that transcendent experience. Over time I have reached the personal conclusion the most likely explanation for that profound experience was a protective hallucination my unconscious devised to mitigate against the otherwise overwhelming emotional pain and devastating loss, and the intense existential angst when confronted with my powerlessness over her suffering and death - which intimated my powerlessness over my own death.


Was and is a transcendent experience for me. I could be wrong. Kaye, my grandparents, the roach I squooshed on the back porch, the chicken or cow whose body parts I ate earlier this week, or the red snapper, rock lobster, rabbit, deer, kale plant, potato, lettuce head I grew and dug up, or the "weeds", mold, mildew, powder post beetles, etc. I have killed or sanctioned the killing of either for my own sustenance or because I saw them as threats or inconveniences to my comfort and have perhaps done my best to exterminate over the years of my life might all be there to confront or embrace me in a sentient afterlife or reincarnation. I think it unlikely, but whatever....

That which has lived has died for eons, here and elsewhere in the universe. I am merely part and parcel of the universe. I see no evidence to suggest that being human is inherently any more special in the scheme of things than being a dinosaur, ant, lion, possum, bacteria or virus. Somehow, we all have a time to dance in the scheme of things, if there is a scheme of things.