By GEORGE ROBERTSON, M.D.

I was on the second floor balcony of the June Bee motel when all of a sudden the pages turned on my writing paper upsetting a bottle of pills on the mildewed table where I perched overlooking the ocean. It would’ve been a scary thing if I had thought it was some sort of paranormal phenomenon, but I knew right away the cause. All around in the night things were happening and it would have become easy to become frightened by them if I hadn’t appreciated their source. It was apparent that the wind had stirred the pages of my book and made me have to pick up all the tablets strewn on the table top.

I knew it was the wind because I could feel its effect on my face, the slight force that is, of its presence. I could also feel the cooling of its passage on my arms, a pleasant sensation in this tropical climate that if encountered at the other extremes of the earth’s location, the polls might be unpleasant and even life-threatening. And yet now, with the sun down and its infrared heat rays still engulfing me, the wind made the surroundings enjoyable, almost blissful, because of its soothing effects.

By GEORGE ROBERTSON, M.D.

I was on the second floor balcony of the June Bee motel when all of a sudden the pages turned on my writing paper upsetting a bottle of pills on the mildewed table where I perched overlooking the ocean. It would’ve been a scary thing if I had thought it was some sort of paranormal phenomenon, but I knew right away the cause. All around in the night things were happening and it would have become easy to become frightened by them if I hadn’t appreciated their source. It was apparent that the wind had stirred the pages of my book and made me have to pick up all the tablets strewn on the table top.

I knew it was the wind because I could feel its effect on my face, the slight force that is, of its presence. I could also feel the cooling of its passage on my arms, a pleasant sensation in this tropical climate that if encountered at the other extremes of the earth’s location, the polls might be unpleasant and even life-threatening. And yet now, with the sun down and its infrared heat rays still engulfing me, the wind made the surroundings enjoyable, almost blissful, because of its soothing effects.

As I was sitting facing the ocean the wind was in my face. All the inhabitants of the little town of Conception in the island of Iloilo in the Philippines could feel its effects. Not only did it blow my papers, but it blew the hair back from my face, stroking my skin in the process. Another pleasant feature of its presence was the general rhythmic motion I could hear in the soft breaking waves on the sandy beach, the waves gently lapping with each crest of water driving by it in rapid succession striking the soft sand, pushing it down and preparing it for the next roll of water.

I was having a difficult time sleeping because of the hard beds and the disorientation of different times zones so that this was a sound I was seeking to put me to sleep, to erase with each succeeding wave the now from the effects of the former and transmit me more toward the anticipation of the next wave. The process beating off the flow of time, the gradual march of time itself as it leads on into the unknown.

Now the wind has done it: It has pushed me into the psychedelic dream world where all can be one and truth can be pushed around almost randomly by some strange unknown force that you at first dare to trust and then give in to, into its leading with faith hoping for a pleasant outcome and knowing somehow that the giver of spirits is the guide.

Editor’s Note: George Robertson is a physician with Family Medical Associates, PC, in Lebanon.