A Graceful Upsidedowness Part 2~The Light

The way that spiritual event described in the last entry was really not detailed enough. I’d like to tell it a little better… Yes, the bottom line is that it happened, and the ecstasy not only was, but still is there, it’s a matter of finding it again, and staying in that space of always being a part of that – space –  albeit in our own physical world.

How come it takes the darkest hour, the blackest pit, to seek and remember always the bliss of the brightest and the whitest light?

I think it was summertime and I had just finished a three-day fast. I was living in a little house-behind-a-house. A tiny, two-roomed guesthouse that was originally built as a pool house. My home was behind the landlady’s full three-bedroom front house with her own backyard that anyone going to the back-house had to pass through.

My place was somewhat like the secret garden. It was fenced off by eight-foot high walls of purple and gold bougainvillea laced with orange lantana, blackberries and a myriad of wild flowers.

A large gate opened to my wonderland of another large yard complete with a full-sized swimming pool. Now mind you, the concrete pool no longer held water; the bottom had long been removed so it was full of weeds and more wildflowers. The old wooden diving board, however, was still intact and in place. All in all, it was a wonderland.

I loved that little house. I lived there for seven years with Bosco, my faithful Irish Setter, umpteen cats, and various other critters that came and went.

With the help of a clever (and very strong) friend, I was able to turn the bottom of the pool into a terraced vegetable and flower garden. Very cool.

Like I said, the house had only two rooms, I called them the “living room” and the “other room.” There was a Murphy bed in the wall of the “other room,” but I never used it. I slept on the floor in the living room on bedding that I rolled up and stuffed in the closet each day.

The place was funky. The living room was obviously a much later addition. It was paneled in rich golden pine, yet when I first moved in, the low ceiling was unfinished. The exposed insulation was an eyesore, so my first order of decorating was a trip to Cost Plus for three inexpensive East Indian type bedspreads that I stapled up to cover the pink and silver stuff. The sheets filled the spaces perfectly, the room was warm and cozy and I was a happy camper.

The “other” room was not as distinguished. It had only a small counter top with sink for a kitchen, to which I added an electric wok and a toaster oven. Nearby there was a cubby-hole in the wall for a small refrigerator, a tiny bathroom lurked around the corner, and the Murphy bed, which I covered over immediately with board and brick bookshelves and, needless to say, never used.

But it was a fairly large space. There was plenty of room for my drafting table and a large dining table that I mostly used for my art stuff.

I did love that little house-behind-a-house.

Anyway, I was at the end of a fast. I worked for a vitamin store at the time and was big into health foods and all that… still am, just not as fanatical. Earlier that evening I had been chatting with my landlady about her dance business. She was trying to think of a good name, and maybe I could come up with a logo.

I don’t recall being depressed at all at the time. I was happy, I had my dog and cats, I had a job I liked, and I had my own very private little space.

I was sitting on the floor in the living room propped up against the big stuffed gold chair – the only piece of furniture other than the bookshelves, a small TV and, the small ugly, old console stereo. (I thought nothing of driving all the way out to the valley to go pick it up from a friend of my mom’s who just wanted to get rid of it. But it worked, it was free, and I was in no position to afford a new one.)

So, there I was leaning against the chair using the seat as a table, happily doodling dancey designs. The Beatles’ song, I’m not sure of the title, but the line, “and we all shine on, like the moon and the sun and the stars…” repeated loudly and vividly through my head… then… suddenly, without trying, I slipped into a trancelike state and literally lifted right out of my body!

In no way was I trying to do this, but I didn’t fight it. I knew what was happening. It was scary, amazing, and wonderful all at the same time. From above, I watched myself sitting there frozen in mid drawing against my golden chair. Then I lifted right up and out of the building… over the houses, over my favorite beach, then back over the lights of the Los Angeles, soaring across the country, faster and faster but not too fast to know what was going on. Then, over the water again.

Meanwhile, back on the floor, my physical body sat in state of suspended animation yet fully aware of myself and my surroundings.

The flying me (as one often does in dreams), came to very high, very beautiful, very vertical white cliffs. I turned upwards and soared straight into the heavens.

The stars raced by me like a light show until it vortexed into a tunnel, a dark curved tunnel. I could see a glimpse of a very bright light ahead. As I curved towards the light, it got bigger and brighter. I didn’t think anything could be so bright, but it was.. and it got nearer, it became brighter still! It was almost scary, but there was no turning back…

WHAM, I was there, I was IN the light, but I wasn’t IN the light—

I WAS THE LIGHT, and the LIGHT WAS ME!

Omnipotent, omnipresent, omni-everything!

I remember thinking, perhaps my physical self even saying out loud over and over, “Oh, my God! It’s got me! Oh, my God!”

I don’t think I can even begin to explain how magnificent it felt! To be absorbed into this… energy. The ultimate orgasm is about as close as I can get.

Remember “Beam me up, Scottie,” from the old Star Trek days? And when Scottie lifts the lever they turn into little light energy fields and disappear only to be reassembled on the mother ship?

Well, that’s kind of what it’s like.. except you’re beamed in a bigger energy. There is no distinguishing any bit of you, of your energy of your being, from it… because you are IT. You are IT… God, the Universe, Spirit, Light, Love, call IT what you may, but IT is real… very, very real. And very, very wonderful.

I did not want to come back, no siree, but something somehow told me, I couldn’t stay, at least not there, like that at the time. Next thing I knew, I was reluctantly back in my body, but ecstatic over the journey.

For the next, at least month, I walked around in a state of absolute ecstasy. The journey was so remarkable.

I learned, first and foremost, that death is not at all a bad thing. Pain and suffering.. not a great thing… but in the end, death is wonderful, it is a rebirth in a much better place. And, I’ll bet you anything, you’ll forget all about physical cause you’re just not physical anymore, you are so much BETTER! You get to go to that extraordinary place! There is absolutely no need to fear dying.

But the biggest question I’ve faced ever since is, why? Why me?

I know I am not alone in being blessed with this glimpse, many have gone to that heaven and come back to our earthly plane only to tell of the wonders. I’ve read many near-death encounters that tell of the lifting of the spirit, the gazing down at the body, the tunnel, the white light… then the zap back.

In my case, this was not a near death situation. Not at all. I know it now and I knew it then. At all times my body was right there sitting on the floor… in a way “with” me.

It was a gift. An amazing magnificent gift… a gift of knowing there is so much more than most mortals care to believe, or can conceive. Thank you, God! Thank you, Universe!

I still wonder. I feel so… privileged. I like to know the reasons for things, but this one is still puzzling. Why me? Why the gift? What makes me so special?

Don’t get me wrong, I certainly do not feel superior or better than those who don’t know this
I do appreciate the gift, the gift of absolute knowing that there is another realm. And that we are of that oneness, of that energy and bliss.

And all I can suppose, is that the reason is… I’m supposed to tell about it. To help reassure others, that there is life, or another realm, after death. It’s taken me over twenty-five years to finally get the courage to blurt it out… but more possible still is that NOW is the time. NOW is when the people are ready to listen… to hear… to strive to feel the bliss.

At the time, I told only my brother and sister of the experience. I was afraid to tell anyone else because I figured they’d just think I was nuts or making it up. Spiritual awaking wasn’t something many people talked about those days, or at least any body I knew. It was kind of like, if you weren’t of a formal “religion” you were bad, a witch, evil, “hiss, get the crucifix!”

I told my mother about it years later. She, almost upset, asked me why I didn’t tell her back then. Don’t know? My mom was pretty in tune with it all, it took me a long time to figure that out too. I knew at an early age she was psychic, but I didn’t know how any of this all linked together. I knew too, that we are all one. That God is everywhere and everything, we are only physical forms inhabiting this body, this earth. It just made sense to me.

I am honored to be shown the proof. To be part of the proof... as are we all.

Blessings
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