September 3, 2002

• My Sweet Lord

  
  

  (This website plays the 2000 version of George Harrison’s song, and has a beautiful lotus-flower screensaver to download.)

  
  

  I’m consistently pleasantly amazed at how effectively music recalls my past experiences.  The first time I heard that song was in OWCC.  Each room had a built-in radio speaker behind a small steel grille.  It was just a painted-over alteration in the texture of the wall, with a lot of small holes in a circular pattern, and two knobs.  One was the on/off switch and the other allowed us to switch from one to another of the three stations available.  One played country music, one played classical, and the other was rock and pop.  The volume was low and there was no way to change it.

  
  

  My first room, in E wing, had the knobs and all, but the radio didn’t work.  Such malfunctions were common, and if it wasn’t something that affected security or inconvenienced the staff, fixing them was not a priority.  After my screw-up that got me kicked out of the librarian job, I was moved to S wing, into a room with a functioning radio.  “My Sweet Lord” was playing the first time I turned it on.  It so beautifully fit my state of consciousness at the time that I felt it must have been through some mystical synchronicity that this song played at just that time.

  
  

  Music has always been a vital part of my life.  The Douglasses are a musical family.  Every phase of my life has its theme song.  For many of them, I can’t think back over the time and tell you what the song was, but if I hear the song is takes my mind right back there.  This is one of them.

  
  

  At the beginning of the seventies I had only recently developed an interest in metaphysics.  I was “chasing the Light,” seeking enlightenment.  I had tried meditating before, but not until I was locked up was there enough time without distractions for me to really DO it.  Many days I would spend the entire afternoon lockdown on my bunk in full lotus posture, off in blissful nothingness, living in the Light.

  
  

  Being locked up was no picnic.  The dehumanization of living in a people warehouse was bad enough, but it was made worse by my being denied medication for asthma.  Meditation provided escape.  I soon learned that the relaxed meditative state was the best thing for an asthma attack, too.  How could I have spent all those years under medical care for asthma and not had any doctor or nurse tell me that relaxing would help? 

  
  

  Most asthmatics, unless they’ve been instructed and trained in relaxation techniques, tend to tense up when they become short of breath.  That’s natural, right?  When it gets hard to get enough air into your lungs, one tends to get a little tense.  And the tension increases the bronchospasm and you get even shorter of breath.  I didn’t know that, but I learned.  That was only one of more benefits than I can count, that I received through meditation.  The two young snitches who sent me to jail to save themselves not only saved my life in the short run, but they altered its course forever by providing that opportunity to meditate.

  
  

  Well, friends, Doug is up and his breakfast pizza is out of the oven, so I’m going to eat pepperoni pizza for lunch and then ascend to the roof once more on my mission of winterization.  I’ll be back another time, with more about life in prison and the surprises it brought me.

  
  

  

  • 5:08 pm
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