Surfacing

I’ve had several moments in my life when I’ve seen through the veil. Lucid dreams, preadolescence, psychedelic experiences, meditation, and being seemingly near death.

Earlier in life, my moments of reflection were as fleeting as a dream after waking. I’ve often dismissed what I’ve seen as an intangible figment of my imagination. Like a short cartoon, indifferent to reality. Convoluted beyond comprehension. Irrelevant and illogical.

I’ve had dreams all my life that transpire during the REM sleep that feel like an entire lifetime. Multiple unrelating story lines colliding. People I’ve met and places I’ve been throughout my life all slurred together and yet intertwined into one scene. Even the physical landscape I’m walking in is distorted into a small planet, made up of only places I can recall.

Memories from early childhood slurring into recent time lines with no seeming correlation. I could taste the smell in the air. I could feel the texture of the old musty curtains that hung above the French doors of our old home. When I pass into the next room I’m in another completely familiar place drawn at random from my memories.

Convoluted situations that make no logical sense. Fighting an enemy, trying to change the magazine on my rifle during a battle on a mountain, only to look up and see it has become a stick and I am standing under the old acorn tree at my primary school.

Waking from a dream always feels like resurfacing from beneath the waves. I’m gasping for air, clutching for the surface. I’ve always feared how deep the ocean is beneath me. The righteous and unforgiving power of the waves. The dark vastness of the ocean floor. The creatures beneath with no comprehension of what lies above. Yet somehow I’m always drawn to it.

The power of the universe extends thru everything. We’re connected to everything that was, is, and will be. Connections beyond sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

Part of our conscious journey thru time and space takes place within this curious meat vehicle made from flesh and bone. Human consciousness is in equal parts our gift as it is our curse. We are bestowed with inherent attributes like reasoning, understanding and logic, as well as the burdens of guilt, shame and despair.

I choose to dive beneath and feel what I’m meant to feel. See what I’m being shown.

I don’t fear drowning anymore because as above, so below.