Off the coast of North West Africa, close to southern Morocco and West Sahara lies a group of islands called the Canary Islands. One of its most western islands is called La Palma (the islands belong to the kingdom of Spain). La Palma is basically just a volcano. It has erupted many times (last time in 1971), and, although controversial, there are predictions of it being\u00c2\u00a0close to erupting again soon, with devastating results: it is thought to be very likely to dislodge a 12 mile-long slab of rock that will crash to the ocean floor, causing a dome of water a mile high, causing a tsunami, travelling at 500 mph.<\/p>\n

It would reach the US mainland \u00c2\u00a0in 9 to 12 hours and the 165 ft high waves would simply wipe Boston, New York and Miami off the face of this globe.<\/p>\n

And, of course, Palm Bay, the town I live in, would be gone as well.<\/p>\n

Last night I was reading about all these interesting facts and wondering why I wasn’t packing up my stuff and moving to Nevada. I may make that the subject of another post, but anyway, pondering all these fatalistic scenarios made me sleepy, so\u00c2\u00a0I went to bed.<\/p>\n

For some reason, ever since my ‘heart attack’ scare back in May<\/a>, I seem to need a lot less sleep\u00c2\u00a0than I \u00c2\u00a0used to. As so many times lately, I woke up around 4am, and, also as usual, started to read.<\/p>\n

It must have been around 5:30am that I heard a faint noise. Kind of a rumble, like a truck driving by on the nearby highway. But it didn’t fade. This is probably where this subtle noise entered my consciousness: I laid down my book, and I’m sure I must have looked puzzled: I’d never heard anything like it. It still was very faint and sounded\u00c2\u00a0like it came from\u00c2\u00a0far away, but it appeared to get louder. “There’s a UFO landing on my lawn” I thought. But I’m a rational guy and parted, with slightly sad feelings, with THAT notion.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed the slight trembling of the house, the windows rattling… it was a VERY subtle and a barely noticeable vibration, but it was definitely there!<\/p>\n

I got up to investigate, by now I was REALLY puzzled by it.<\/p>\n

And then suddenly it hit me! That tsunami! La Palma! It had happened! A wall of water was headed down the street and soon it would all be over.<\/p>\n

Then something strange happened: instead of panicing, I was overcome with a deep feeling of peace and I became extremely calm. It was something that I have experienced before .. in dreams! Where I was in situations with a disastrous, really inescapable and irreversible outcome, I would simply ‘resign’. If the outcome is truly inevitable, there is no point in wasting energy in trying to reverse it.<\/p>\n

I have mentioned my fear of flying here before. During flight I’m constantly in a state of semi-panic. But when that day comes, that my plane’s wings fall off (and it WILL come), I am convinced that I will then suddenly become very calm again. I probably will even smile, and while everyone around me is panicing in utter chaos, I will grab my book, start reading, and think “told you so!”.<\/p>\n

Likewise, realizing the magnitude of what was happening, I calmly walked to my computer to see what I could find out about it. What else was there to do?<\/p>\n

And then, while the\u00c2\u00a0sound and vibration,\u00c2\u00a0while ever so slightly, became more apparent … the light went out.<\/p>\n

Fortunately that lasted only a split second. But I had to restart my computer. While it was rebooting, I opened the front door and stepped outside in the dark … expecting strong wild winds.<\/p>\n

There was no wind whatsoever,\u00c2\u00a0although I definitely could still ‘sense’ the noise, but by now it was getting fainter and fainter.\u00c2\u00a0There was definitely something ‘out there’. But clearly, not the dreaded wall of water that my brain had concocted. Soon it was all over, and I was standing in a quiet warm dark central Florida night, wondering what the heck I’d just experienced.<\/p>\n

About an hour later I realized what it had been.<\/p>\n

And I also realized that, had I stepped out on the patio, instead of the front door, I immediately would \u00c2\u00a0have known what this was and I would have stood there in pure awe and admiration …<\/p>\n

I kicked myself for picking the wrong door, and went back to bed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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