🎵🎸Does Heaven have 🎶🎹🥁Rock-n-Roll?
I was born during the latter Boomer years, so as rock-n-roll was growing up, I was growing up. I listened to the radio, and popular music, so I listened to rock-n-roll music. In my adolescence and earlier adulthood, the early rock bands that became the first Classic Rock bands were the rock bands I was listening to.
That continued to 1992; as discussed in other writings, in 1992 I experienced profound spiritual changes that changed my life and me. I did not have a mentor or someone to guide me as I sought to learn how to live with these spiritual changes, so I bumbled and fumbled on my own. That was one of the realities I soon realized; experiencing profound spiritual changes with our Blessed Author of Life does not confer instant knowledge of how to work out living with these changes. So, I made mistakes, started out with preconceived ideas that I later realized had to be adjusted, and I learned and grew. One of the living changes I made was how I managed my entertainment decisions. Later, as I continued learning and growing, I started adjusting some of these decisions, but for the most part, I started making all of my entertainment decisions with a spiritually-based focus.
In 1992 I was already living with psychological traumas, and by the latter 1990's and early 2000's I was living with significant increases in psychological traumas that included what I now know was chronic and complex traumas, different types of traumas, symptoms of PTSD, and persistently occurring trauma trigger episodes. One of the types of traumas I was living with, but at the time did not recognize, was religious and God-associated traumas. These trauma difficulties had a direct impact on my state of mind and daily living. In about 2006, I bought a CD of religious-focused music, and when I started listening to it I went into a complete psychological tailspin of trauma trigger episodes. Remember, trauma triggers and trauma trigger episodes are involuntary, so what happened had nothing to do with will power or getting a grip by controlling myself. I immediately stopped listening to the CD; I didn't want to throw it away, so at a collection of gifts to send to American troops overseas, I put it in the gift box. I was able to listen to other types of spiritual music, for a time, and then I was involved in a serious car accident in 2008.
One afternoon in March 2008, I woke up in the hospital, found out I'd been in a car accident, got an early introduction into why I could not remember being in a car accident (closed head trauma), and began the next part of my life journey (I had actually not been knocked out, and had been vocalizing, but from my perspective I woke up). I was only in the hospital a couple of days, however, me and my life were forever changed. I was at home for three weeks, and then released to go back to work. My first day driving was terrifying, but obviously I managed it; still here. At home I had mostly stayed in my room; pertaining to the head injury, I had initially noticed difficulty watching TV, and difficulty recalling words and names. When I went back to work, everything fell apart. I had trouble forming sentences, saying things in the correct order, I was extremely slow at anything I tried to do, I could not manage the sounds around me, the lights were intolerable, I became exhausted after short periods of time, I could not remember how to do job tasks, I had to have frequent breaks, I frequently left work early, and while I was able to control myself around others, as soon as I was alone I would sometimes start having emotional explosions. I had previously purged cussing out of my speech patterns, but after the car accident the cussing started again, though not in front of others. I dealt with other memory problems (e.g. I sometimes forgot routes I had known), and as discussed before, my coping capacity nosedived. There were other problems; and added to that, I was living with chronic and complex psychological traumas, did not yet understand my head trauma injury, did not understand the psychological traumas, and in the more immediate aftermath of the accident, I did not realize how these two injuries would collide. I was a mess.
One day, during the early time of returning to work, I decided to listen to music, and I only wanted to listen to rock-n-roll, the rock-n-roll I grew up with. The first song I heard was Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird. I had to keep the volume down, and I had trouble with the high notes, but I listened and it was perfect.
By early 2010, I was more of a mess. My efforts to recover what I'd lost failed, I was not doing well at work, and after my Mom died in late 2009 I had a lot more coping problems. Then I was sent home to use up my PTO, no new job was available, and I lost my apartment. Someone else sheltered and fed me, and saved my life by that. I started a job search that did not produce a job (some temp jobs but I only completed some of the assignments), and then I had to wait for other things to work out. During that time, I was mostly in my room; no TV, no internet, no smartphone, no radio, just thinking, sometimes writing. Even during still, quiet thinking there were the internal storms.
I started listening to music, Classic Rock, what I grew up with, other bands from the 1990's, and more recent bands, always rock-n-roll. I started writing a story I hoped would become a screenplay, and I started writing a free style poem about my head injury and trauma problems, about my cynicism and anger. I worked on writing the poem for a while, maybe a year or more; it kept going, to about 7 or 8 pages. One of the things I wrote about in the poem was the possibility of ending my own life, and the fact that one of the reasons I didn't was because of the music. I loved the music.
Rock-n-roll is often toe-tapping music, music to dance to, music that inspires a lot of moving and jumping around. Sometimes it is quieter; sometimes it is happy; sometimes it is sensual; and sometimes it is dark, with lyrics about the tough parts of life. I loved all of it. The lyrics of difficult things, and the music of darker songs, I enjoyed as much as the lighter music. I learned more about the incredible talent of Jimmi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Janis Joplin; I re-enjoyed Aerosmith, Bob Seger, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Santana, Deep Purple, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jethro Tull, Heart, Boston, Journey, Rush, Styx, CCR, Allman Brothers Band, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Cream, Eric Clapton, The Eagles, Chicago, Blue Oyster Cult, The Doobie Brothers, David Bowie, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, The Doors, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. I discovered newer music by some of these artists; e.g. some thoughtful and beautiful songs that had been more recently released by Ozzie Osborne. I learned about and enjoyed newer artists (from the 1990's and 2000's) and alternative rock. Some of the bands I listened to were metal, heavy metal and alternative metal. Music of metal bands tends to have the darker themes, and lyrics about the tough stuff. I was living with some of the tough stuff, and metal rock music helped me deal with it.
I want to add a special mention of the Beatles. Everyone of our generations knows about the Beatles. I listened to some of their music; however, a deeper appreciation came later, after I watched the 2019 film "Yesterday", directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Himesh Patel and Lily James. Along with an entertaining story line, I was entranced by the incredible musical performances of Himesh Patel, and the wonderful performances of him, Lily James, and so many others, and I found a new deepest appreciation for the talent of all four of the Beatles. I also very much enjoyed the films Bohemian Rhapsody, about Queen and Freddie Mercury, and Rocket Man, about Elton John.
Eventually, circumstances worked out so that I was able to more or less get back on my feet; everything was not ok, but I was looking forward, thinking circumstances would get better. That didn't work out as I'd expected, and by 2018, I was more of a mess (again), more cynical, more angry, more traumatized. After Great Spirit rescued me in 2018, these problems were not all instantly "fixed". The first healing Great Spirit did for me healed my anger, animosity and cynicism about and towards God. After this healing started, I able to love Great Spirit, i.e. God, and I started to pray again. (I really do not like to use the name, God; I prefer Great Spirit; however, as the Charging Complainant, it is important for me to write in ways that take others into account, and clarifying with the name God is part of that.)
As I learned from Great Spirit, Great Spirit gave me patience, compassion, grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, kindness, and particularly important to me, trauma accommodations. How did Great Spirit do trauma accommodations? All of those other graces, as I continued living each day all day with distress, frustration, grief, anger and trauma; having consistent trauma trigger episodes that included--isolated from others--trauma explosions and cussing.
Great Spirit continued teaching me, and I learned that people who are now in the Next Place (i.e. Heaven), who lived here and departed from here with traumas, continue trauma healing in the Next Place. Great Spirit provides healing when each moves on; but when it comes to psychological traumas, Great Spirit doesn't do a "repair job", like a mechanic repairs a machine; Great Spirit does some healing, and the remainder of the healing continues for however long is necessary. As it is here, Animals and Animal companionship can be an important part of the healing in the Next Place.
Another part of the Next Place? For Life of the Universe, there are areas of the Next Place that Great Spirit designates for the Life of each planet of Life (at this time, I know of two, Earth and one other). In the areas designated for Life of Earth, there are areas for Lives of different stages of development in Earth's history; of Humanity, people tend to gather with others who are part of their time and culture, and their loved ones; there are social structures in the form of social groups, activities to do, art, music, performances, places to gather, and learning; everyone can travel freely, and visits are shared all around.
What kind of music? All kinds of music. Rock-n-roll? Yes, rock-n-roll💃🏾🕺🏼🎸🥁🎺🎷🪕🎹🎶 in the Next Place🥰 I was happy about that🙂 The Next Place is purity of good, a place of light and healing, so the music and lyrics in the Next Place are different than here, none of the darkness of the difficulties and stress coping that we have dealt with here. But the toe-tapping, dance inspiring, exuberant, jumping for joy beats and rhythms of rock-n-roll, and thoughtful and thought-provoking sharing in rock songs, are part of the wonders and joy of the Next Place. One of my favorite soft rock songs is Doby Gray's "Drift Away"; I have a pending special request for him to perform this song🥰 I also have pending special requests for music from Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, and others.
🥳Rock on🎸🥁❣❣❣
Carol Etta Kelso
🙏👩💻🙏✍👉♾⏳👑🪔⚛🧬💝🛡