Coming to Spirit at the Edge of Life & Death
From scuba diving Philippines to rediscovering Autobiography of a Yogi in Vietnam
You know when you only fully realize after the fact that you came a bit too close to the end? Sometimes we almost inadvertently dance with the void of bodily extinguishment. Perhaps more so these days, what with the constant dissociation of our screen-based existence e.g., how some folks lose three-dimensional acuity in high stakes situations like cliffs and balconies.
I spent the first three weeks of my recent time abroad scuba diving in the Philippines. I was on the island of Mindoro in the town of Puerto Galera, the most popular dive destination in a country world-renowned for scuba. What that meant on the ground was that in every single resort along the bay of Sabang (a lovely crescent-shaped promenade surrounded by gorgeous hills that reminded me quite a bit of Avalon, Catalina Island off the coast of LA), the business of diving was preeminent.
As I told a dear friend about my adventures in PG, she nodded her head and said, “Sounds like the stuff that happens at Everest.” Her comment made me think of the film, Everest, which I thought was an excellent elucidation of the awe-inspiring and merciless power of Mother Nature; she won’t let you fudge or bullshit your way out of a bad situation. What I think my friend meant was when everyone wants to do something grand and risky in nature and there is a lot of money, ego and competition involved; how that tends to make people forget just how dangerous and unnatural the actual activity inherently is.
When humans go into environments which we cannot survive in without technological aid, it can be a harrowing wake up call. We are so not used to high stakes living within our comfortable modern existence, particularly those of us who live in urban landscapes without extreme weather. We are given training wheels and buffered, rarely having to face physical consequences. But in real life, everything can change on a dime.
My first warning sign was before I left. I had mentioned that I would be diving PG and an acquaintance said, “Oh, you must be an advanced diver. PG is known for intense drift dives.” This was an interesting observation, as it did not mirror what I was hearing from the resort-based dive operation I would be going with. Then when I first arrived, I heard in passing that a technical diver had died the week prior in a wreck (said by a local with a Bahala na shrug).
After only a handful of dives, my traveling companion complained that their sinuses were giving them trouble and bowed out; I do believe their own intuition was urging them to lay low. But I persisted, diving near-daily and logging a total of 17 dives. I used to be deathly afraid of the water, literally aquaphobic from watching Jaws and nearly drowning at the beach as a kid. So part of me loves conquering that challenge. Yet mostly, I love the feeling of being surrounded by water. Of feeling amphibious, an otherworldly explorer of magical places.
Once at depth, there is nothing like the feeling of peace and relaxation that overcomes me. I enjoy the stillness, the slowing down of my breath, the instinctual way my lungs regulate my buoyancy. I love that there is no talking at the bottom of the sea. How it feels so dreamy. And how, with presence and subtle fluid movements, the fish can get so comfortable they just start to school around you. At PG, I had a large turtle surprise me by swimming alongside me. On three different dives, I had a thresher shark circle right above me. These moments astounded and humbled me.
And yet. . . I had never experienced dive masters who seemed so blasé about safety, and who were so lacking in communication during the briefings. I tried following their quick descents, which ended up straining my inner ears during decompression (when the diver pinches their nose or rolls their jaw to recalibrate to the increasing pressure). I watched older, out-of-shape-looking fellow divers ascend so quickly, I worried they’d get the bends. I went on a dive to a wreck where the current was so strong we had to let go and just drift—but this possibility hadn’t even been hinted at by the dive master during the pre-check.
It was my penultimate dive that felt the most on the edge. Even before we got there, I was already saying a prayer for protection as the boat bounced to its destination. Somehow it all just felt off. The water was super choppy. Having dove the site before, I knew there was a good 30 feet of “black water”—meaning zero visibility—before we would break through into clearer water below. It was also a deeper dive, which is inherently more risky. Add in a lot of macho old men tourists who lacked buoyancy control and sucked up their air too quickly. I contemplated how this expedition might be a recipe for disaster.
Once we rolled overboard, I watched a young Turkish diver struggle with his mask. I waited a bit at the surface to make sure he was alright. The boatmen, typical of my experience thus far, did not look for our “okay” signals. On the boat, I’d even had to ask the dive master who my buddy was, as he hadn’t assigned us into pairs. But none of that mattered in the water because you couldn’t see anyone anyways. Just below the surface, there was zero viz. As waves knocked me about, I considered aborting the dive. But the boatmen were drifting away and not paying me any heed. I figured it was easier just to go through with it. I pushed myself down a few feet with my arms. All I could see was inky grayness enveloping me. You could totally get disoriented like this. You could die doing this. I felt my chest tighten with anxiety, the world closing in a little. I suddenly sensed the weirdness of the mask and regulator set-up more acutely: how my nose was blocked from breathing, how the reg air felt so dry, how the skin under my mask itched. Stay calm, breathe normally. Remember: only you can save yourself. It’s just you now.
After what felt like too long, I finally broke through the black water. It was like coming out from the bottom of a cloud. The rest of the divers were hovering at the bottom, another 45 feet below, staring up at me. I let myself drift down to their level, but kept a fair amount of distance from them. The less skillful ones had tended to bump into me on other dives. On this one, I watched a diver kick another in the head as they all piled on to look at something the dive master was pointing out. Yeah, it’s so worth it to get your mask or reg kicked off your face to look at something you’ve probably seen before, I griped to myself. Indeed, I found I had to take on a harder, more mercenary attitude about safety. Meaning, every diver for themselves. Not risking my own life if I saw one of these guys start to panic or what have you. That was the dive master’s duty, after all. It was hard to think this way, but I felt deeply that the universe wanted my prime directive to remain keeping my own life safe.
Anyways, the rest of the dive went well. I saw an octopus and another thresher shark before we all had to go up within the half-hour because someone ran out of air and had to buddy-breathe with the dive master. But two days later, I was in a hospital in Vietnam because of vertigo. The enterologist showed me images of my inner ear and compared it to a normal picture. In mine, the capillaries were more prominent and red, the rest of the tissue purplish and obviously stressed. I had been this close to bursting my eardrums.
By the time I arrived in Thailand ten days after that, the deaths of two divers on Verde Island—a PG-adjacent site—were making international headlines. Apparently, they had gotten sucked down an extra hundred feet in a powerful current during a technical drift dive. One of their bodies was actually recovered by the dive operation I went with. The other was found being towed by a shark, which was scavenging on its body. Can you imagine realizing that you are so deep underwater with such little air, that you know you won’t be able to make it back to the surface alive? I saw a lot of questions and answers on the scuba subreddit about what happened. A lot of newer divers trying to understand if this was an inherent risk or something specific to that area and type of diving. I didn’t see a lot of straight answers from more experienced divers. My answer is this: yes, that was an inherently more risky dive (a technical dive always is, and they went down with hooks which meant they knew there was some risk of a dangerous current; in which case, you are supposed to hook into the reef, coral-care be damned). At the same time, the entire sport entails a fair amount of risk. It is akin to a space walk. Nothing should be assumed, safety-wise, and everything should be double- and triple-checked by the diver personally.
But this post is not meant to be a lecture on dive safety. So I will come to a more on-topic point for this blog. In the next leg of my trip, we stayed with a Vietnamese family we knew in Saigon. I spent almost the whole time there weakened and in recovery—the latter much aided by eating delicious local cuisine. Though after the vertigo subsided, I did eat bad oysters at a Japanese restaurant and got sick in a different way. A one-two punch, it felt very much that the universe wanted me to take a break. To go into beingness after all this risky doing.
Bedridden, everything hurt, including just trying to zone out on my phone. Somehow, I was drawn to my e-reader and specifically to a book I had downloaded years ago but never read. It was Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. I found I had a totally different reaction to the book than I did four years ago, when I first tried to read it. Instantly, my connection to my dreams was enlivened and filled with expansiveness and insight. Recuperating and reading this book, I found myself in a naturally trippy state. I would close my eyes to meditate and find myself transported into a vast inner space, experiencing powerful energy bursts. It felt that I was coming back to Source. Like coming into brightness after swirling along on that murky aqueous edge.
And it continues. This circling back, this sense of the upward spiral returning to territory formerly visited but not fully explored. I have been drawn to another book again, Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew. I first tried reading that in 2013, around the time of my first metaphysical awakening via Jane Roberts’ Seth works. Back then, I just wasn’t ready, as was evident by how my ego chafed and sputtered at Andrew’s words. What a difference 12 years makes! I am now enrolled in a monthly sacred writing journey class with the author, having attended my first class last week.
This new community of writers feels different in an important way: that they are spiritual seekers first, and writers second. Somehow, that feels just right for me in this moment. After publishing three books, I feel ready to drop the label of “writer” as a primary aspiration. Instead, to see this precious gift of wordsmithery as a sacred tool in a larger journey. To name to myself that my role as spiritual seeker is first and foremost. Still getting used to this shift, which looks like a ripple on the outside but feels much more seismic on the inside. More to come. . .