Three Strange Hours

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Something happened to me back in December. To me, for me, with me, around me… inside of me. What? I did not know then. I do not know now.

What I do know is that I journaled, a lot. I took notes, recorded events and observations, and have since talked to some wise and caring people about it.

Yeah, that was me thinking I would figure something out. Some hack, some way to speed things up, get around obstacles. Crack the code. Man have I learned a lesson or two on that front.

Nobody really knows what happened. There are several theories, and many ideas and factors. And yet, at this juncture, I am accepting it may not be knowable. All of these unknowns make this exceedingly challenging to process, let alone share with others.

The experience has changed me in some profound ways. At the moment, I cannot honestly say that all of those ways are welcomed.

When I reflect back on these experiences, there is a specific block of time that really stands out to me. It occurred on the Solstice in December.

Before I get into this, I want to be fully transparent. I was not really even aware it was the Solstice. I had not been watching / reading / listening to ANY news. I had been completely away from social media for weeks. I wasn’t trying to do anything beyond take care of myself. This experience I describe below happened spontaneously nearly two weeks after some pretty significant disregulation began occurring with my nervous system.

Are You a Good Witch or a Bad Witch

Yeah, the Wizard of Oz made quite an impression on me as a child. What happened here pretty much felt like being picked up by a twister and being dropped into a strange land.

When it began, I didn’t know what it was or where it would go. I didn’t know if it would end in seconds or if I would be in this state for the rest of my life. Did not know if it would get better or worse, slowly or quickly.

I had no idea what to do about it because it felt entirely beyond my control or understanding. I thought about calling for help, but every fiber of my being knew that doing so would very likely make everything so much worse.

So I very consciously decided to just accept it, openly. I chose to allow, accept… and ride the waves. (Yes, we healers and mystics must take our own medicine, all of the freakin time.)

The first steps for me with this decision involved completely letting go of trying to assess “is this good or bad”. Conceptually, that might sound trivial or like an easy thing to do. It is not. Not when one of the potential outcomes you are sensing is death.

Then again, I ask myself now — is it not possible that death can be a positive experience?

Even more to the point — what if the very experience we have when we die is entirely determined by what we believe about death and dying? What if the relative goodness or badness of death is entirely correlated to whether we are in fear or if we are in a loving and accepting place about it all?

And if that’s how dying works, what about living???

I did not know the answers to these questions, but decided I had nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain by choosing acceptance in the face of complete uncertainty.

All of Me

What followed was three plus hours of what I can only describe as me being in a completely blended state of consciousness — I was simultaneously completely my same self and yet also 100% some version of my higher self. Both aspects were completely present.

Despite how this might sound, I did not feel like I was going crazy. Quite the opposite. All anxiety dropped away when I allowed in and aligned with this higher self aspect. That aspect of me was completely aware of everything, every fear, concern, worry… and also every hope, dream, and idea.

And yet, that aspect of me was attached to nothing. Not because that was the “right” thing to do. Not because there is some moral law or guidance dictating non-attachment. There is simply no reason to attach to anything. At least not from that place or state of consciousness.

For about three or so hours, I was both people — the person who had been experiencing unbelievable amounts of anxiety for nearly two weeks straight, and also at the exact same time - I was a person who knew about all of that, and yet also felt absolutely no fear or worry about anything. While that aspect of me was very compassionate and respectful about everything this version had been experiencing, to “him” - the very idea of actually feeling fear and worry was inconceivable.

It was as if he felt absolutely sure that everything already was beyond OK. Everything in my past, present, and endless future was already known to be safe, beautiful, beneficial for myself and everyone I loved — and for everyone else too. (Yes, that means you.)

I cannot convey the degree to which this was a feeling beyond my own imagining. It was absolute. It was not an idea. Even now, being my good ol’ “normal” self again, I cannot say that I truly understand it.

Here’s the funny / odd thing about all of this. I have moments where I want to try to recreate this whole experience. Yet, I do not know if it will ever happen again, at least maybe not in that exact same way. If anything, I am reminded gently that there is no need for it to occur again.

That aspect of me is outside of time. Beyond time. You could call it a state of consciousness perhaps, but to me, it felt more like just being in a different “place” altogether. I say place but I do not mean a point in space and time. Just a different place.

This is all to say, there is no need for that to happen again because it is always there. That aspect of me is always there, or maybe here is the more accurate word.

It is here now, as I write this. It will be here after die, whether that happens later today or decades from now. To that aspect of myself, there is no difference between these two possibilities. It’s ALL experience. It’s ALL precious and beautiful.

The thing that we physical humans treasure so much — time, is not precious the way we think it is. The moments are precious. Not the passage of time.

Seems we go astray when we look at time through the same lens of scarcity that we use when looking at physical objects and material. We want to buy ourselves time, or save time, or collect time. From a certain perspective, these ideas and tendencies are all a bit absurd.

“Rain rain go away, come again some other day”

Or better yet… LET IT RAIN!!!

There were many wonderful lessons embedded in all of this. One of the things that became clear to me, the sooner I accept certain experiences in my life, the sooner I can move on to more expansive territory.

I have understood this before, but I guess I was really only getting it at the conceptual level before.

The truth of it, as I felt it coming through, is that acceptance is what really allows us to learn something at a soul level. The very moment we learn something at that level — there is zero need for it to ever occur again in time/space.

There are some very specific, physical experiences that were occurring before this Solstice event that were creating for me a lot of suffering. They completely vanished after that day. This is the reason why they went away. Through that experience, I found — and allowed in — a great deal of acceptance.

Don’t get me wrong, plenty of other challenges remain. But whenever I can find time, space, and openness to really look at these challenges to see what the real, underlying patterns are — I can see how time and again, this is the way to really find the stepping stones needed to move through these challenges, for good.

I am only now really beginning to see just how haunted I have allowed myself to be by ghosts of the past. I mistook the ghosts for real life. They’re not real. They are empty, hollow, holographic imprints. They need energy to keep their form. Where do you think they get that from? You guessed it.

Letting go frees them to haunt no more, and returns your vital energy back to you for much better use in creating the life you want instead of lingering in the haunted past.

I say all of this with a lot of compassion for all of us here on this crazy beautiful planet.

It’s so understandable to want to run the other way when you bump into old, frustrating, painful patterns in your life. But that’s also the surest way to just keep inviting them back into your life at a later time.

I know you know this. But it can still help to hear it from others from time to time.

All my best dear friends. Who knows what comes next!