Mark your calendars for Erik’s interview (through Robert) on Following Your Bliss radio program Sunday beginning at 3:30 CST, 4:00 EST, 2:30 PST. I’m pretty sure Sharon will take call-ins!!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stacey_zzzz/2012/01/15/follow-your-bliss
Here’s the final segment in our interview with Mr. Dirty Dancer himself:
Me: Okay. What insights do you think you gained given your new perspective in heaven?
Jamie (giggling): His first response is that he’s going to do it again!
Me: Oh boy, some people are gluttons for punishment.
Jamie, Erik and Patrick laugh.
Me: So you want to come back and live here again. Wow. You know, you seem like the type of guy who just loves the earthly plane and the human experience. Maybe that’s why you’re so good in athletics. You just adore life on earth.
Patrick: Absolutely. And thanks so much. I tried to seize the day with everything I did from music to art to other forms of expression to dancing, anything!
Me: What movie or role or endeavor do you think you’re most proud of?
Jamie: He said he became a pilot. He took flying lessons or something?
Me: Oh, okay!
Patrick: That’s the role I was most proud of. It was something I was slightly afraid of—
Me: But you fought your fears.
Patrick: Yeah, and I ended up enjoying it a lot.
Me: Well, that’s great? Do you have any idea what you were here to learn this lifetime?
Patrick: Trust in oneself.
Me: And do you think you accomplished that?
Patrick: Yeah.
Me: Oh good! What do you think you were here to teach?
Patrick: I wasn’t teaching like you would consider in front of a classroom, but definitely I taught by example.
(Pause)
Me: To fight for life, to embrace life, to pack it on end before you die? Can you elaborate?
Patrick: Well, I like how you say “embrace life.”
Me: Okay, you taught people how to embrace life by the way you did so in your own life.
Patrick: Yes.
Jamie giggles.
Me: What?
Jamie: Just, Erik.
Me: Oh, boy. What’s he doing now?
Jamie: He’s talking to Patrick, and I’m not on the same page, so I don’t know.
Me: Oh, okay. What do you think your proudest accomplishment was while you were in the physical?
Patrick: Finding my soul mate.
Me: Aw! And clearly you two are soul mates. Can you tell us about a past life that might have affected this last one as Patrick?
Patrick: I can think of a few.
(Long pause)
Jamie: He’s showing me being a little girl. It looks like it’s in India. Dirt floors, dirt road, the buildings are close together. She’s probably four or five years old, walking by herself.
Me: Oh!
Patrick: I was, uh, my mother was injured. She couldn’t walk. So, every morning I was given the money to go purchase the bread for the day. It was only around the corner, maybe a half a block, but to me it felt like a mile away. I felt like such a little adult.
Me: Aw!
Patrick: And I remember my mother became pregnant again, and I was coming back with the bread, coming into the room—
Jamie: He’s showing me a mother sitting on the ground, but there’s fabric and clothes and cloth, and the woman is pregnant. She’s all covered, you know, the face, everything.
Patrick: I remember when the door was open, she’d keep her face covered, but when the door was closed, she’d bare her face for us. And she told me that she didn’t think she was going to make it through the pregnancy. I remember believing that I had to be a big girl for my mom to be confiding with me in this way.
Me: Yeah.
Patrick: She told me she didn’t trust my father to take care of me, that it would be up to me to take care of myself and to take care of my older brother, and she started to teach me things in the house, what needed to be done. She taught me how to be strong. And sure enough, it was six months later when she died. I know better now. What happened is she hemorrhaged.
Me: Oh no.
Patrick: She lost her life, but the baby survived. We gave the baby to a neighboring woman who was still nursing, so she had milk. As a girl, I didn’t have to raise the baby, but I did have to take care of an older brother and a father. I was just about 5 or 6 years at the time.
Me: Oh my gosh.
Patrick: It helped me not only have a strong heart because grieving wasn’t allowed, but it taught me how people that you think are strong can actually be weak. It’s the people who open up to you and show vulnerability like my mother did to me who are the strongest people.
Me: Exactly. It takes a lot of courage to open a heart.
Patrick: Yes, and that is what would carry through and affect me in this life, that I would only choose to have these types of people around me. I wouldn’t settle for anything else, and that is what I found.
Me: Very powerful.
Jamie: The visuals! Man, he can show the colors and how the blankets were sewn on the edges to keep them from fraying or unraveling. I mean, everything was just so visual and with amazing detail.
Me: I guess some spirits are better at relaying information visually. Interesting. Now, was the baby a girl or a boy?
Patrick: A little girl.
Me: Did you have any contact with her, your sister, since she was in the same neighborhood.
Patrick: Yes, I could see her and play with her, but she never lived with us.
Me: Okay. Now, Patrick, from your newfound perspective, do you have any messages for humanity? Do you have anything else you’d like to share?
Patrick: For such a simple question, it sure is a tall order.
Me: Mm hm.
Patrick: My message would be this: If you are not feeling that you’re doing the right thing, then you’re doing the wrong thing by yourself. In acknowledging how you feel, you’ll be acknowledging your strengths, but you’ll also be acknowledging your weaknesses so you can correct them.
Me: Exactly. Feelings and intuition are such great cattle prods, you know?
Jamie: Yeah. He agrees with you. It’s so sad; he got so somber when he was giving that story.
Me: Oh. Yeah, but what a beautiful story, though. Sometimes hardships hold the most beauty because they contain the most powerful lessons.
Patrick: Yeah, very true.
Me: So, Erik, do you have anything else to ask Mr. Swayze?
Erik: No thank you.
Me: Okay, well thank you so much Patrick. Is there anything you’d like me to tell Lisa?
Patrick: My wife knows exactly how I feel.
Me: Okay. Thanks so much for your time.
Patrick: Thanks very much.
Jamie (chuckling): He tells Erik to keep it cool! They shake hands, but it’s kind of ghetto-y; it’s not like the business handshake.
Me: Oh yeah, yeah.
Jamie: It’s like this slap kind of—I don’t even know how to describe it.
Me: We’ll just call it a slap and grab.
And now, enjoy two of my favorite scenes from Ghost: the pottery scene and the ending. Trust me, Yin and Yang = balance (and comic relief).
