My Mystical Experience

This feels very vulnerable for me to type into a public platform, and yet I feel like it is time for me to express more/deeper parts of myself.

I was going to write about my mystical experience in my journal, tucked away with the dozens of other journals that chronicle the spiritual dimension of my life.

I have always felt different, strange and even in danger because of the depth of the spiritual expression in my life. Thanks to the amazing support of so many people, I am taking the next step and coming out of the spiritual closet a bit more.

This latest mystical, numinous, experience has rocked my world. Thank you to the friends and healers who have been instrumental in helping me to put myself back together over the past few days. Between the wisdom and guidance of my Father, the anchoring presence of Matt, the spiritual circle at Firefly Hollow, the Kundalini Yoga techniques from Devi Japa, and the compassionate solidity of my bodhisattva husband, I am feeling a bit more whole today.

Here is how it went down:

I was feeling some emotional turmoil and was sitting in nature to be with my thoughts.

Suddenly, everything became very beautiful. The sunlight took on another dimension of glowing and radiance, everything slowed down considerably, and I felt my focus start to shift.

I began to perceive a reality beyond the physical reality of matter. My muscles began to twitch somewhat involuntarily and there were many small movements, like when you are starting to fall asleep and your leg twitches, except this was happening all over my body.

I felt no fear, but a warmth and oozing type love all through my body. I watched as all of the physical beauty around me became transparent and I began to perceive trillions of tiny suns burning through space. These tiny points of light became constellations that I perceived as a cat, trees, millions of blades of grass. Everything in the physical world was now composed of a constellation of millions of tiny suns.

I could see that our reality is actually space, and that what we perceive to be matter is actually just the way our brains translate these constellations of energy. My brain sees this certain constellation as a cat, and translates it into cat. My brain translates this constellation into "tree" and this one into "house" but they are all just a sea of tiny explosions of light.

I was immediately grateful for the beauty that my brain translates this energy into. I was immediately grateful for the perception of colors, sounds, feelings, breezes, smells, etc. What an amazing organ the brain and nervous system are! They create paradise out of sea of light! I was also immediately struck with a sadness that reality is sort of stark, a bit cold, lacking in the vibrancy of this world that our brain creates for us.

Just as I was feeling the sadness of this stark reality, I began to perceive the dance of life within my own body. This body, this "me" that I identify with was suddenly presented to me as a place or an address, rather than a person. This body that I have inhabited for thirty six years was suddenly a GPS coordinate where a dance of light was taking place. With every inhale, thousands of little suns entered my body. With every exhale, thousands more left my body to be mingled with the infinite universe of tiny suns that make up all of reality.

Within this body was a dance of light. Organs, matter, energy, all of it like a choreography dancing and flowing within me. It was incredibly beautiful. The feeling of reality being stark or lacking vibrancy dissolved and I was enraptured with wonder at the miracle of life. This dance of energy, of light, is the reality of my physical body. Sensations arise and pass away. Thoughts move through this form. Hunger, cold, pleasure, pain, all moving through and changing the music that this dance is choreographed with, and none of it is me.

I perceived a light, more like a glow, around the constellation of stars that are "me." This light appeared to be my consciousness or awareness that was docked to or aligned with this address or location that is my body. My physical form was now clearly a location in space where my consciousness comes to experience being human. It is the "home" of my consciousness, my glow, my soul, but it is not who I am.

I became aware of a similar glow around the cat, around the trees, even the grasses glowed. The gazebo and the houses had a very faint glow around them, but not the kind of luminous radiance that the trees and the animals and myself emitted.

The twitching and muscle movements continued and my eyes shifted focus many times. Slowly, my vision returned to normal but everything looked different than before, somehow distorted.

The next day was a real doozy. I had a headache and felt hungover. I also felt very strange and disconnected from myself. Thanks to watching many rounds of monster truck racing with Torrin, having a baking competition with my sister and our kids, and the help and guidance of friends and family, I am feeling much better today.

I share this because it is part of who I am. It is part of my nature to perceive reality in this way. It is part of my uniqueness and I don't want to hide these parts of myself any longer.

I believe that any of us/all of us can and do have experiences like this in our lives. They are our birthright as spiritual beings having a human experience. I don't think anything about this makes me special, and yet I realize that experiences like this seem rare in our world. I am not convinced that they actually are rare, however. I am hoping that by talking about them we can help raise awareness that many of us are experiencing the spiritual nature of our existence, even if we are afraid to talk about it openly.

Also, I don't believe that my spiritual seeking or goodness or anything like that provided me this experience. I believe that I work really hard to be open to experiences like this one because that is part of my nature, it is how I am wired. I also struggle with very human problems like jealousy, comparison, anger, impatience, intolerance, addiction to sugar and caffeine, fear of intimacy, etc. I am in no way "evolved" above human limitations. I take this to be even more evidence that experiences like this can happen to anyone, anytime. I do believe that we can cultivate a readiness for these experiences through spiritual practice, but that we don't "earn" them.

Now, back to normal life. Learning to live in a way that honors and integrates these experiences is the ultimate spiritual practice. Having a mystical or peak experience is great, but how do I go to a meeting with this experience in mind? How do I have that difficult conversation? How do I say no to the cupcake? How do I discipline my kids, decide what food to put on the table, stay within my budget? All of these finite human experiences are also part of this mystical experience....how do I hold it all together?

Until next time......the light in me recognizes the light in you and bows in reverence, Namaste. <3