Years ago, I mean really years ago, when I was a teenager, I had an experience that was mind bending.

I’ve never used any kind of mind altering substances. I’ve never felt the need. So it wasn’t some sort of drug-induced hallucinogenic trip.

I read an article a few mornings ago titled, “How Higher States of Consciousness can forever Change your perception of Reality.” It can be found here: https://theconversation.com/how-higher-states-of-consciousness-can-forever-change-your-perception-of-reality-265151

In it, the author mentioned that they had not found that psychedelics triggered higher states, basically only altered states.

The article reminded me of what happened all those years ago.

I was sitting in the family room. I don’t remember what I was doing just before it happened. Suddenly, my focus became very sharp and very small. Almost like I was looking down a small dark tube. Then, just as suddenly, it became very large. So large that I couldn’t really see anything else. It was as if I was both big and small at the same time.

What I saw I now know was an expression of the Fibonacci sequence. I’ve read that it is what is behind a lot of naturally occurring patterns in nature; as in the way the seeds organize in a sunflower.

I seemed to fall into the pattern and I was following it as it went deeper and deeper. I wanted desperately to get to the end of it because I knew that everything I needed was there. But it seemed to have no end.

Suddenly, I became aware of a hand on my knee. I looked down to see my mother’s hand there. I looked up at her where she stood before me and she said, “Where were you? I said your name over and over.”

I looked hard into her eyes and said, “I almost had the answer.”

She said, “To what?”

I said, “To everything.” And that was exactly how it felt to me.

Then she said something like, “Well goody. Now get your butt off the sofa and go collect the trash.”

It was such a profound experience that I have never forgotten it. And it changed me forever.

I knew that I could know.

I’ve had similar experiences over the years, but that was the most intense and meaningful.

The author, Steve Taylor, calls these sorts of things “awakening experiences.” Most people he studied had a more positive outlook after having had one.

Sometimes when I am outside with the cat, sitting on the bench in our backyard while she wanders around, I will be totally taken up by the wind in the trees. The way the wind sounds as it slides through the poplar leaves. The way the juniper trees sway back and forth.

Often the songs of the birds become something I feel inside of me. While the blue of the sky or the white of the clouds fill me with a peacefulness that defies definition.

In those moments, I feel totally connected and as if I know what life is. These moments always give me joy and I cherish them.

But I can’t make them happen. For a short time after that first awakening experience, I tried to repeat it. I was young and I desperately wanted to know the why of everything and I thought I could find it there.

But you can’t force that sort of thing.

At this stage of my life, it’s enough that I know they will happen from time to time. I just have to be patient and have faith.

Images courtesy of Meditation Music Library and BrainyQuote, respectively.