Edge Walker: The Many Lives And Deaths Of PMH Atwater

The following is excerpted from Edge Walker: The Many Lives And Deaths Of PMH Atwater, the new memoir by PMH Atwater. She is an international authority on near-death states who has written 19 books (and counting). Her research has included the experiences of over 5,000 adults and children. You can read previous posts featuring her work on our blog. We hope you enjoy! 

You can order it from Amazon HERE.

 
Edges

I love them. For me, the most perfect place in the world to stand is at the very edge of a yawn between rock sheets that define a canyon. One move out of sync with the moment is all it takes to be swallowed by the thunder-spray of a gorge hundreds of feet below. It's comfortable here. Nice. Canyon tops baked naked by a large sun remind me of my youth. I played on them as a child and well into womanhood—on edges hardly wide enough for the tuck of my shoe.

One day, as I stood on a canyon edge remembering the passage of decades, I saw something hovering in the air above a nearby waterfall: a crowd. It was perfectly balanced. Every soul I'd ever known since childhood, everyone who had ever come into my life (even for a short time), loved ones, those that frightened or hurt me, every single soul—they were all there smiling at me. No words, good or bad just all the people who had been a part of my life suddenly in my life once more.

Never had I seen, read, imagined, or heard of such a thing. But it was no mirage. Even in the heat. All of these people helped me live a meaningful life—and they wanted me to know how happy they were to have been a part of it. They made certain I suffered, laughed, screamed, and skipped through each squeeze of air my mind sculpted. Like players on a stage, they ensured I never missed a cue. This now, right now, was when I absolutely knew the game of life was love.

 
Chapter 1
Rainstorm

"Hope is the bird who feels the light and sings while dawn is still dark." —Rabindranath Tagore

Way past midnight. Hardly anyone knew of my birth. Hush. Hush. Childbirth out of wedlock was considered a crime in 1937, so my mother fled Kansas to be near her two sisters living in the reclaimed deserts of southern Idaho. No support. Damned by her sisters' husbands. Dark omens.

I was born in a private clinic near the city of Twin Falls and the Snake River Canyon gorge. As a child, Shoshone Falls (higher than Niagara), was my favorite playground whenever water was diverted away from it for farming. I climbed it and many other waterfalls when I was young—reaching for burning skies, hugging cliffs and pressing against jagged rock faces as if born of them. A life defined by edges. Nothing full frontal.

My birth intertwined with the lives of the Sogns—Norwegian folk—who were once extremely wealthy before the stock market crash. They found themselves stranded in Twin Falls because of a business deal gone sour. One day a gypsy fortune teller offered to read Momma Sogn's tea leaves. She saw two things: Daddy Sogn—while outside doing yardwork—would be offered a job and he would do that job until he could work no more. And the daughter they'd both prayed for would come to them in the middle of a rainstorm.

Bull's eye exact. A few days later, while outside trimming a hedge, a veterinarian walked up to Daddy Sogn and offered him a job at an animal hospital. He took it and worked there until old age and poor health forced him to retire.

Soon after Daddy started working at the animal hospital, the fortune teller's second prediction came true. Daddy was downtown in the middle of a rainstorm and saw a young woman clinging to a lamppost and crying. Curious, he approached and asked what was wrong. Her tearful answer: she'd just had a baby, her landlady had kicked her out, and she had no place to go. Moved by the tragedy before him, he invited her home, saying his wife could care for the infant. As you might guess, I became the Sogn's prayed-for-daughter. The Sogns even kept my crib in their bedroom, not my birth mother's.

I was four years old when I learned that the pretty woman going in and out of the house, hardly paying any attention to me, was actually my real mother. I couldn't handle it. Nor did I learn my legal status until years later. From the very start, I'd cry whenever she touched or held me. Photos taken at the time, even as a babe, show me trying to get away from her, screaming to get away. She blamed the Sogns for spoiling me, never thinking the cause of my behavior might be something else.

Although the Sogns read the Bible every night of their lives, they (like me), still openly accepted "things mysterious" as true. I would often play with fairies and giggle as they spun in whirlygigs of wind across my open palms, through leaves and bushes, near the roots of big trees. I would gaze at the "rivers" that flowed across open skies, predicting weather to come. Stuff like that. Always accurate. Always very much okay.

When I was about five years old, a minister came to call. He heard me talking to God at a tea party in what had become my bedroom. He asked if he could take a peek and see for himself. Sure enough, he saw me at my little table passing pretend cookies and tiny glasses of milk to God as we busily conversed. Momma Sogn said the minister glowed when he left, convinced that all he saw and heard truly revealed the presence of God. No need for questions.

I was always the odd kid. Other worlds were very visible and deeply real to me. I'd dwell in those places, sometimes as much as this one. Often, I'd sit on the edge of windows and sing to worms. Whenever it rained, I'd sing to them. No one had window screens then. Open a window and you could sit on the ledge, unprotected— daring, yet comfy.

I had a noticeable mole on the right side of my forehead. One day I climbed up to the mirror and spoke to the mole, angry that it was so far to the right. "You're supposed to be in the very middle, straight up from my nose. Move." As if one order would fix it, I forgot about the whole thing until about three months later. Another look in the mirror revealed that the mole had moved, right to where I'd told it to go. That pleased me.

I was about to begin grade school when innocence suddenly turned black. Death was everywhere around me. People were talking about it, some were crying. The news spread far and wide on radios, newspaper headlines, and movie reels. Men felt like failures if they were turned down at recruitment centers. They wanted to fight. Save our country. No matter where you were, who you talked to, everyone was involved. Some ran right outside their doors onto the open streets so their screams could be heard.

World War II. President Roosevelt asked everyone to help—even children. In households across the nation, empty food cans were washed, flattened, and set aside until the metal could be collected by the Army to be used in the war effort. People planted Victory Gardens. If you didn't grow your own food you didn't eat much. Going to a grocery store in some parts of town meant taking your own food with you and canning it while at the store. There was little else there. Check-out meant paying for the tin you used to can your food, along with what few items you bought.

Mama Sogn made sandwiches for the beggars who would pound at the back door. They lived in caves that spanned Rock Creek Canyon, outside Twin Falls. Daddy Sogn would scold her. "What if you get raped? You don't know these men." She never stopped sharing what food she could spare though. "You need to take care of people," she'd say. I'd help her when I could. Nothing bad happened to either of us.

Neighborhoods devised a way to handle food shortages and help those in need. If you had extra food, you'd put it in a paper bag, set it on someone's porch, ring the doorbell, then run. People were proud. You didn't want to embarrass anyone.

When I was about four, maybe a little older, Momma Sogn and I were in the downtown area when, suddenly, I couldn't walk anymore. I fell down, and, when I was finally able to stand again, my legs wobbled. Momma Sogn insisted that my mother take me to see Dr. Valdi Fundling for tests. Verdict: polio. Luckily it was a mild case, because after a few months I was almost back to normal. During that time, however (and when no one was looking), I'd slide off the bed and practice using my legs. No doctor could tell me I'd never walk again. No way. This determination steadied my resolve. I practiced more each time. Pain didn't matter. Walking normally again did. According to my birth mother, my quick recovery proved that I made the whole thing up. I had done it for attention. 

 
A simple fact soon became very apparent to me: like it or not, I had two mothers, not one. Each expected different behaviors and responses (and there would sometimes be unpleasant consequences if I forgot who expected what, when). Momma Sogn's version of living life meant love and forgiveness. My birth mother's was about strict obedience, always.

Still, I envisioned myself part of the Sogn family—a good Norwegian—and vowed that someday I would visit the Sognefjord and walk the paths of Viking lore. After all, I ate raw fish for breakfast like the rest of them. I also ate sweet soup (figs, prunes, tapioca pearls, plus a jigger of whiskey, slow-cooked for hours), and that special desert they made from the milk of a cow just freshened (baked in a dish sitting in water until the milk turned into custard and cake all by itself). Pastries for breakfast. Never dinner. Always choices of cheese. Yes, Norwegian. Me.

No matter my heart, the truth is...I was my mother's mistake. Just admitting this, writing it down, catches me. I never really thought of my situation that way. Born into a world chock full of curiosities—well, that seemed enough. Contradiction crowded every inch, every minute of my youth. Curiosity reigned. I did my first double-blind study with a control group when I was about five. Mud pies. I wanted to know why some were one color, others another. Texture too. What controlled that? So I set up lids and cups of different kinds of dirt from everywhere I could find. Some in shade. Some in the sun. All contained some degree of water. I tried the experiment several ways. My discovery? The sun caused the variations in colors and textures: it didn't matter what kind of dirt it was, where it came from, how much water was added, or the size of containers I used.

Endless questions. Clever experiments. My big reveal? Trust only what you can verify yourself. Nothing else is true.

To continue reading, you can purchase the book on Amazon HERE.

PMH ATWATER

An international authority on near-death states, PMH Atwater, L.H.D. uses the culmination of her research to establish that the near-death phenomenon is not some kind of anomaly, but is rather part of the larger genre of transformations of consciousness. She combines her 38 years of near-death research with what she was doing in the 60s and 70s, experiencing, experimenting with, and researching altered states of consciousness, mysticism, psychic phenomena, and the transformational process, to reveal what transformations of consciousness really are, why we have them, and where they lead us. This lifetime endeavor covers over 43 years of work, involving nearly 7,000 people. Her meticulous and unique protocol gives validity to what she has discovered, and verified, about the percentage worldwide of people who have undergone near-death experiences.

She is an author of numerous books, including The Big Book of Near Death Experiences. Her Amazon page can be found HERE.

She had been previously featured on this blog HERE.