To mentally break free from the monotonous pain and deprivation, I thirsted for other souls of substance. To my surprise, I had found some who not only felt the same wrenching pain but made art out of it, either as a healing cry or formative experience. Unfortunately, I could only know them through their artistic medium of music since our physical paths didn’t cross. And the music genre didn’t matter – be it grunge, hip-hop or other revolutionaries like The Beatles – these souls provided us a sort of water. A much needed rejuvenation in the exhausting grind we call reality.
And it never mattered who the recipient of the water was, or even if that person was present at the moment the water first emerged. The source, the sustenance itself, is eternal. Just as inexplicable are the ways that both nature and man meander, and how the former comes to nourish or satisfy the latter at some point, the work of these creative water bearers I speak of is engrained in the continuum of time/humanity. Once the work is born into life, it remained in life in original form to nurture and tend to man. Whether their water bearer’s character was rigid or soft, their genuine truth and empathy could only strengthen their fellow man or woman – never hurt – and always gives way to a greater, restorative wisdom.
Revered for their creative work, critics would often call them ‘immortal’ or ‘timeless’. But for me, their music was much more uniquely intimate, if not strangely personal. With an overwhelming feeling that these creators and I had been blood from some distant point in eternity, I embraced them like kin. And on a day-to-day basis, their wisdom helped me form a more accepting personality ... to deal with the things and people that were.
When close friends and I convened and spun some of their albums, an empathy seemed to come out of both the music and ourselves. Although riddled with troubled home/social lives that we were born into, we began shedding our unwarranted inhibitions and innocent anxieties, experiencing a sort of blessing. And even as we welcomed upon ourselves a new softer faith, softer still was the awakening of consciousness that followed. It wrapped us up, hugged us, draped and hid us from the outsiders.
We were only at the tender age of 16 or so, but we couldn’t help feeling that we were being prepped for a huge meaningful transformation. With each gathering we had, our spirits grew larger. And the smiles and care we had for each other ... it was as if we broke down the traditional mold of church or religion and forged a new-age trinity amongst ourselves: in the name of the hollowed, hurt and holey friends. Amen.
As we got to know this way of living, even if we were considered pagans or trash by our suburban religious counterparts, our faith extended beyond feeling holy spirit to actually embracing it as our own identity. It, or rather we, mystically replenished each other with a water and wind of God that transcended time and barrier. More magnificent was how nature seemed to come to our side each time we convened within it. We shared a covenant that none of us asked for, but which all of us immediately recognized as a holy matrimony. Each step our feet took into the woods, every branch and leaf we gathered barehanded, the crackles of fire large and small, and all of the enamored words/laughter/tears that were born within this divinity. We shared - as One.
The daily transformations taking place were like a shower of stars, shooting down into the atmosphere, into our beings. Creating sparks of rebirth individually and collectively amongst us - and calling out to the unconscious and unaware to move nearer.
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Living in truth as God intended, but still ...
These happenings were authentic, holy, and made the pain seem less magnified. Despite this, and not out of willful defiance, I couldn’t shake my own personal feeling of agony or fate.
Speaking in simplest terms, have you ever woken up and felt that something great, or horrible, was going to happen? And then only be able to watch it come to fruition against all odds? Even if you wanted to escape it, you couldn’t or wouldn’t because it was bigger than you?
That is what this was. And that is what seemed to block me from fully embracing this good life I found.
It was subtle, but distinct. And this fate liked to pull reality out from underneath me at times, and oppositely, push me into realms of thinking and being that I had never encountered before.
To give it some actual terms, it gifted me the following: a level of empathy that shook me to my core, an intuition that could see people in a 3-dimensional lens, and moments of displacement. I usually could handle all my daily responsibilities and ‘roles’, but there was an intensity in these new gifts. And some of the ‘regular’ happenings made my waking hours that much more of challenge.
At times, I felt like my Native American ancestors/guides chose to step in for me, knowing of all that was piling up. It seems a bit oxymoronic if that’s the case. I was already experiencing emotional and mental dealings beyond what a normal kid should. But even still, I swear that I could feel them there walking right beside me, answering questions directed to me, and tending to my day-to-day movements in place of me – because they knew that I was beyond all reasonable levels of stress and pain.
A strange euphoric feeling of nirvana began to dance with me, too. Despite my vibrantly lifeless stature, I remained calm and humble enough to examine and nurture the truths others couldn’t acknowledge.
I embraced this fate of mine in a pretty courageous manner. After all, I was not about to turn on myself and deny my identity or the life lessons it brought. On some level, I knew that I owed it to people to help them understand the pain. Like an unspoken promise. So much so that when hanging out with my friends (most of whom were also similarly tortured souls), I couldn’t NOT tend to their pain. The good news was … I got so attuned to the vibrations of pain and healing, that I guess you could add “shaman” to the mix.
It got to the point where only a few words or sentences wrapped with honest empathy marked the spot/source of their suffering. I didn’t always have to follow it down to the actual root nor guide them that deep, because as long as they were connecting mind, body, and soul ... I knew healing was sure to follow. Yet on my own, I was often a mess with so many layers to tend to.
I carried the sensitivity of a tormented child, the emotions of a person who has lost all of their loved ones in some tragic accident, and a soul that yearned for peace but could not reach it within the deep pain. Simply put, I had no idea of how to heal myself.
At certain instances, tears would suddenly well up in my eyes at school - my safe place to be me. Ones that seemed to be soaking in my entity, but also wanted to come out of all bodily and spiritual pores at random times. I was careful not to mistake this for my own pain, but being an empath and not realizing it very much confused me. How people felt pain, where it came from, the cycles of abuse and abused, false faces, true hatred, hidden love, and tossed aside spiritual identity ... I felt not only the destruction that my peers held inside, but also how it was passed on to them and by whom.
And the sadness … the wet weeping that surrounded and engulfed me. It carried a strength which made me waver more than anything else I’d experienced even though there was no pain when it surfaced. Only a warm knowingness and comfort which whispered all that was meant to be. And after going through all of this day in and day out, hearing those soft sweet nothings of sadness – both personal and empathically – it shook free the last remaining anchors of security within.
And, eventually, it released me into a free fall void without a safety net.
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The here-and-now before the then …
As I got weary within and wary of the God I was blindly following in faith, the nature around me seemed to serenade me more. As vividly as ever, I still remember hearing for the first time the lyrical epitaph “the night the earth cried”.
The song's sentiment had a level of wisdom I had yet to encounter, but more than that, it reminded me of a life-altering experience that happened months prior that. I wish to share that experience with you now … as it will help me explain my final descent. Please make sure you're properly fastened in as you might experience some turbulence.
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Take a little breather …
One night at a small party, I found myself with a building anxiety I couldn’t shake. I escaped to a quiet room where unbeknownst to me a friend had been meditating.
He quietly let me sit down next to him and asked me some simple questions to soothe my anxiety. As I began to follow his lead, some deep breaths and tender points opened way to a very comfortable state. It was then, precisely at the time when I felt I had disconnected from both the emotional and mental worries that my soul must have seen an opportunity to be released.
I remember entering a light place, after which all physical sounds and senses ceased – It was an out-of-body experience.
On the other side, at first, I felt as though I was awakened by a light which penetrated everything around me. Soon startled, I was even sooner relaxed as I realized it was the place I had been longing for – heaven. My very brief and dry explanation might leave you to wonder or doubt. But, for me, it was though I’d finally gotten back home after almost a lifetime of being lost.
The embracement was made of an all-encompassing light and freedom, and left one with nothing to think or do. All time and matter was irrelevant to the infinite beauty pulsating with love. The sights I saw I truly wish to share … but am told I cannot because it’s a very personal experience and one which you (as a human with both ego and soul) may not be ready to know right now.
I assure you, it is worth the wait. It was a combination of ecstatic, pure joyousness with absolutely nothing left to long for. Again, I felt I had returned to my home, my refuge. But it was far too short-lived, as I felt my self being pulled in a different direction. I desperately wanted to stay, however, a sort of universal gravity attached to my soul taking me through some sort of celestial travel – for lack of any other accurate term.
The next thing I sensed was a very hard transition into a darker shadowy environment. “Perhaps I’m dreaming, and this dark is my eyelids, and I’m about to wake up”, my ego grasping at straws.
Please realize I’d never left my body to another dimension before that (to my recollection), nor had I even heard of such a concept. And despite being very much out-of-body, I (my ego) tried again to protect myself. “Hey, wait. This must be a dream”. Despite my push to reach back-and-forward into the unconscious mind layers, it brought me even closer to the silent reality before me and more fear crept in.
Shadowy light forms, emerged which I tried not to look at or focus on. Yet, their presence was so strong – no … so powerful – that it was impossible not to open my eyes and look right at them. My eyes felt a wash of energy charge upon them, wash them, and fill them with a wisdom of natural antiquity.
They were Trees. The magnificent, ancient spirit of trees.
Pulling myself together and out of the initial shock of it all, I let myself feel their awe. Each was blue in essence, and unlike the heavenly beams of bliss, these didn’t radiate nearly the same energy.
In contrast, they were uniquely blue. Fully completely blue, without any warm feeling of love or heartfelt compromise like the heaven world before. No. Quite enormous in both stature and roots, and very much alive, I worried whether to move even an inch. With their arched backs and branches sprawling over my would-be path, I saw no space to move forward, and remained frozen.
Continuously staring at them and starting to pray, my physical fear waned a little. I felt how the will of soul or spirit very much outweighing the boorish ego, perhaps because of being out-of-body and in another dimension. So that in the sequence of bends and breaks in consciousness and ego, I became more comfortable with the fact that this was a different kind of reality, but a reality nonetheless.
And what’s more, it was very possibly the afterlife I had been anticipating for some time.
As a test, or maybe just an attempt to ground myself, I tried speaking out. “Who (is there)?” and “What (is this place)?” , only to realize there was no need to do so. Because no voice mattered here, neither did the will of fear. The echo and tapering off of my ‘voice’ merely represented the fading of an illusory reality which I’d been living in my human physical form. Well … up until a few moments earlier when my soul made a giant leap for it.
The emotional fear that I might be crushed by them, the trees, was next to vanish. And a feeling of knowing, or a deep omniscient knowingness, entered. Suddenly, I was struck with soft flashes of the sadness I battled on a daily basis.
“Wait, is this … is this the moment/place when you reconcile your life and go into the light?”, my heart wanted to skip. Something was keeping me calm, “but what?”.
I then realized that these ancient creatures’ were connecting with me. Not just one, but All of Them. The blue light seemed to be vibrating at a higher rate now with the trees decoding my energy. Still bent over, I began to see that these beings were not scary or cryptic, but rather marked by a debilitating hurt and sadness. They held a feeling of lonely.
The communication that followed is indescribable. If only the impressions I speak of could become the letters of these words, and peel off from the page to stand on the most sensitivity parts of your heart.
In simply devastating terms, they’d been weeping for millenniums, now turned weak, and were ready to die. A vulnerability I quickly identified with. I closed my eyes to cry but felt it necessary for me to hold them, to comfort them in their state.
Somehow spirit was working on all levels for me to understand inward and also communicate outward. The thought of wanting to give a warm embrace quite literally moved from my mind to my heart and then out of me into the realm and their essence.
As it flowed through the air particles and touched each branch and root, it sparked life within them. The Realm seemed to lighten in weight and in color. And I, myself, did not just feel their healing … I felt them healing me.
A very real embrace was taking place and I wanted to know them more, to learn how this happened and how to help them more.
The ease of the initial eery emptiness, now fuller with light, I felt my soul being pulled along the opened pathway. Passing each tree I felt various depths of sorrow, each tree with a unique story or lineage, they felt like grandmothers and grandfathers showing me how long they have given and been a part of this life.
Their unique entities somehow comprised into a singular identity of collectiveness. And their love … it went beyond any sort of human or spiritual empathy one could ever imagine.
Streams of certainty began wrapping around my legs, torso and all parts of my being. Even as much as out of my physical element as I was, I knew this was indeed a rare transcendence.
“GOD? Where am I? Gramma?”
Despite my seeming solitude and questions, I found myself wrapped in faith fully. I tried seeing if I could control or move my soul body but then a wind-like whisper danced into my soul consciousness and softly commanded ... “Please understand”. More than words, it was a feeling that seemed to iterate Truth rather than speak it.
It powerfully reverberated to my deepest core, gracefully destroying every microcosm of my ego's reality. More than I could ever fathom, the revelations continued to be ignited. I knew … this Energy Pure is not mine, nor will it ever be mine. But as One, this IS me. These trees my ancestors of some kind.
Branches growing outward in all directions, you could feel the Growth and Rejuvenation. Within their connective tissue of Spirit, like veins sending essentials from the heart to the body wholly, they were to flowing with the same vigor and purity of my occurring thoughts and intentions.
I burrowed my head in the Source of the Light before me, offering the deepest meaningful prayer I had. Feeling a real blanket of warmth cover me, the trees, Us as One.
Enlightenment.
As if someone had planted me as a seed eons ago and my first celestial rainfall of spring had arrived, I felt the my spirit completely grow, expanding up and down and outward. And in almost silent agreement, my self worries and doubt gracefully imploded allowing the Light to access and fill the last remaining vestiges of incarnate ego.
From a higher vantage point floating above where I stood, I knew an evolution had took place. The realm was completely lit with ebbs and flows of the iridescent blues, now softer and gentle, other hues and tints of light indescribable to man even to Spirit. Out from my meekness, I knew I’d stumbled across my heartfelt spiritual identity that had been masked and victimized by the world, by ‘me’. Knowing this, but free of judgment by any part of myself, loved and understood by each and every particle of matter in this wondrous realm.
I vowed to take care of it – this me, this gifted spirit and truth. With conviction in my soul, I felt and knew deeply that I was to pay homage to my kin – The Trees. Not just for now, but in eternity.
Feeling that ‘time’ was coming short … more illuminating flashes and truths poured in.
The trees of the earth were there as sustenance for our souls. At the center of every creature lies the same creation, the same substance, that composes the universe. Man has denied this substance, disowning the nature that was gifted to him for a good life. The trees were purely selfless and only existed for the purpose of continuing to create and nurture creation.
And now, with their essence no longer valued, they were dying off at the will of man. God to me, me to trees, trees to humanity was the one commonality. And just as humans can understand the birds tweets and songs if we cared enough to try, I was able to easily decode the one prevailing message.
“We need you.”
My heart full and broken at the same time. The Truth continued to emanate out of the light shadows ...
“You need not wonder anymore what made you suffer and pain”.
Overwhelmed by the softness of empathy all around me, I breathed in the energy and felt tears melt inside of me. My love for God, nature, creation was being reverberated a kazillion infinities with me ... by simply being ... there.
As the embodiment of Truth took firmer form, I noticed I was moving ahead on my path. Glancing upon this still sad ancient forest of trees again, I noticed that the love I embraced them with earlier had already became a part of them. Similarly, I felt how the sense of urgency which brought me here had brought me closer to myself - solidifying all of my light and dark matter cohesively. I knew this was the beginning of a new life … just wasn't sure as to what kind.
Your birth up to this now was what brought me to you. I am you, just as you are you. And as you are to me, is as I love you. This is not new. You will remember now.
Beyond any usual capacity of self, the “I” and all of its ego disappeared. While I couldn’t make sense of any of this pause in time, nor how or to whom I was communicating with, there was a certainty attached to the message and awakening. "Am I crazy?" would be the obvious next question, but nothing in my fragile 16-year-old head could have dreamt this in or out of imagination.
As glimpses of the ego’s purpose started to flash in and out, I realized the moment that had started would always remain at a beginning but was simultaneously coming to an end. It breathing through me, and I through it, we were together pulsating through the expanse called ‘universe’. The immense, incomparable love was a fully restorative energy making every part of my spirit upright and whole.
The only feeling left was healing. I gleamed towards the Source and tried wishing thanks for the iridescent glow of God as everything one. I focused.
“What can I show or give in return?”
Nothing because you are giving it now. You’re giving it now, by recognizing, by returning … by your acceptance and made choice.
The appreciation I gave had already been received in time infinite – in the culmination of past, present and future nows. In choice to love beyond myself, to commune with creation, eternally. Finally, in myself, at this bend, at this break … there was no need to question or wonder anything. Hearing, or Knowing, these truths freed me from my chains of pain, even if it was temporarily. Yet, sensing that this blue realm of creation was not my final destination and would come to an end soon, I kept aware of the fluttering pace of this universal pulse.
My heartbeat aligned … I felt as a butterfly or other creature must when they grace the earth, without any thought but moved by an invisible presence. Had I selflessly fulfilled a love entirely unrequited to the universe? Was it my true nature to be as an instrument, and then love the Essence of One like this?
As I held onto the silent peace, I chose to take a piece of the Spirit with me. The ancient wondrous Trees, the beautiful presence of Truth, and the Awakening from darkness to light - a bit of each so that I could keep this sense of belonging, of home. The distance quickly began to grow, just as the space in-between expanded, gracefully and mercifully letting me go once again.
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Slap, slap, slap …. “Wake the fuck up!!”. Slap, slap …
Me: “Hey, what are you doing?”
Friend D: “Man, oh my god. What the hell?! You were like, passed out for minutes … I thought you died!”
Friend B (who had helped me relax into meditation): “He did die. Man, you weren’t breathing. Your face was all white. What happened to you?”
Me: “Nothing. I mean, I don’t know. I’m okay though. I’m fine.”
Friend D: “No, you’re not. Did you die, or what happened? I thought you were dead.”
Besides the dread on D’s face was a relief and intimate love that only a true friend could hold.
The shocked expression of B soon gave way to a few shy anxious chuckles and then a short apology, as if he’d done something wrong.
Well, I didn’t correct them. There was no need to correct them. They weren’t wrong. And, moreover, their souls and spirit were perfect just as they were.
Now if only I could tell them or anyone else the Truth.
