Sometimes when I am reminiscing about my life, favorite moments of the past, the lighting is very striking. More intense than in everyday life it is an actual presence in the scene, as solid in feel as a person or an animal. It’s tangible. They are soft yellow days or the purple-gray dusk and dawn and they cast mysterious light and breathe life into every other object in the picture. They cast a timelessness that evokes another sensory stimulation; I can smell Nag Champa and white sage burning.
I close my eyes and the scene becomes nothing but the colors and I float up into them. I can see my house from here; it grows ever more distant as I travel upwards. The colors change of their own accord and I see my house again. The house I lived in as a child. I see myself, alone. I remember it was in my youth that I learned to be alone yet not lonely, and I am thankful to have learned that so young and thankful to those who cast me out so I could learn it. Gratitude fills me and I float back into the familiar colors I remember, the soft yellow surrounds me.
I open my minds-eye and am basked in green the likes of which one sees when the sun is diffused through the canopy of an ancient emerald forest as one walks through it on a narrow and winding path. I can see my house from here, it’s the open road. It’s the Pacific Crest Trail, it’s the Appalachian Trail, and it’s the trails that make up what is now the American Discovery Trail before they decided to market them. I see myself on a trail, sleeping in a park, meditating on the side of the road. I see myself, dancing around at a Grateful Dead show a chorus of mushrooms singing in my head, and I am grateful all over again for having done those things. For learning to love not only others, but myself through the realizations I came across on those trails as I tripped the fantastic through Mother Nature’s Magical Kingdom.
Now I am flying more than floating, not like superman, laid out flat, arms out front like I’m prying my way through the air as I go. Instead, I’m more like the mythical fae, flying almost upright but without wings, I don’t need them here, my legs and feet lag slightly behind me as I lead with my upper body feeling the air on my skin and taking the time to enjoy it. As I look down through the blue I notice I can see my house from here. It’s an apple orchard, there is a drum circle, later my coven will come together to pay homage to nature and growth. For now the drums move me to sing, I find my voice and people join in. We are so much more than content in this moment, we are all one listening to the heartbeat of the drums, and we raise our voices together and feel alive in our communication with one another and with the Universe itself.
I find myself now floating into indigos and violets, at first I see a field of lupines, purple and green and then I see a landscape. I see the past, I see a myriad of futures and I feel everything all at once. It comes in waves and it enters me through every pore of my body and from every direction until it becomes too much and I find myself…adrift again, and there is no me, I am a part of the great tapestry that is the universe, at first like a thread in it, then not even that as I simply no longer exist nor do I have any desire to. Desire is gone, it’s all gone and it’s impossible to explain.
I’ve no idea how much time passes before I see a soft reddish-orange glow and realize I have eyes to see again. I look down and notice I can see my house from here. In the house I see a child, my daughter, looking out the window. I meet her at the stream behind the house and we skip rocks for a time before I have to finally go back to the real world where she is waking just as I am, again, and again and again. I allow myself to bathe in all these colors together one last time and am awash with gratitude at my good fortune, that I have learned so much and still get to learn so much more. I feel electrified as the energy moves from the base of my spine, up, spiraling like a helix one moving up connecting me to the heavens, one going down connecting me to the Earth. I am simultaneously connected to both but not pulled in either direction, there is no other freedom I have ever felt that compares.
I open my minds-eye and am basked in green the likes of which one sees when the sun is diffused through the canopy of an ancient emerald forest as one walks through it on a narrow and winding path. I can see my house from here, it’s the open road. It’s the Pacific Crest Trail, it’s the Appalachian Trail, and it’s the trails that make up what is now the American Discovery Trail before they decided to market them. I see myself on a trail, sleeping in a park, meditating on the side of the road. I see myself, dancing around at a Grateful Dead show a chorus of mushrooms singing in my head, and I am grateful all over again for having done those things. For learning to love not only others, but myself through the realizations I came across on those trails as I tripped the fantastic through Mother Nature’s Magical Kingdom.
Now I am flying more than floating, not like superman, laid out flat, arms out front like I’m prying my way through the air as I go. Instead, I’m more like the mythical fae, flying almost upright but without wings, I don’t need them here, my legs and feet lag slightly behind me as I lead with my upper body feeling the air on my skin and taking the time to enjoy it. As I look down through the blue I notice I can see my house from here. It’s an apple orchard, there is a drum circle, later my coven will come together to pay homage to nature and growth. For now the drums move me to sing, I find my voice and people join in. We are so much more than content in this moment, we are all one listening to the heartbeat of the drums, and we raise our voices together and feel alive in our communication with one another and with the Universe itself.
I find myself now floating into indigos and violets, at first I see a field of lupines, purple and green and then I see a landscape. I see the past, I see a myriad of futures and I feel everything all at once. It comes in waves and it enters me through every pore of my body and from every direction until it becomes too much and I find myself…adrift again, and there is no me, I am a part of the great tapestry that is the universe, at first like a thread in it, then not even that as I simply no longer exist nor do I have any desire to. Desire is gone, it’s all gone and it’s impossible to explain.
I’ve no idea how much time passes before I see a soft reddish-orange glow and realize I have eyes to see again. I look down and notice I can see my house from here. In the house I see a child, my daughter, looking out the window. I meet her at the stream behind the house and we skip rocks for a time before I have to finally go back to the real world where she is waking just as I am, again, and again and again. I allow myself to bathe in all these colors together one last time and am awash with gratitude at my good fortune, that I have learned so much and still get to learn so much more. I feel electrified as the energy moves from the base of my spine, up, spiraling like a helix one moving up connecting me to the heavens, one going down connecting me to the Earth. I am simultaneously connected to both but not pulled in either direction, there is no other freedom I have ever felt that compares.