Dear Readers,

There is a bright turn occurring for the nineteen-year-old. The ‘medicine’ that “will help you feel better” is taking effect.

As she transmits this part of her experience I am at the tree farm, eight days off-grid on 50-acres of completely quiet land (save for the wind and the birds). I am compelled by, called, and fully committed to sharing her experience in her own words.

When each daily writing session is over I move to work outdoors. My farm project at this time is the unwrapping and removing of invasive honeysuckle vines from tree saplings. The vines choke young native trees killing them. Removing the vines is hard, quiet, patient work. One vine, one tree at a time (though some trees are wrapped in a dense weave of multiple vines, no easy task). These long periods of time silent and alone in the forest allow me to experience some Aha moments. For example, in Buddhism, the teachings remind again and again, ‘do not look in the rearview mirror’.

Be present.

Be here now.

Take the next step.

Move forward.

Don’t look back.

I have struggled with this awareness. I have tried to bury the young girl’s story. Then I attempt to tell it from my adult perspective. Neither of those approaches is creative. 

As the story unfolds I am beginning to see the beauty of these young girl-woman reflections. They act as reminders. There is a synchronicity taking place. I couldn’t have foreseen this happening. The beauty of the ‘Aha’ of the true creative process.

This story is not so much a look back as it is a way for me to look forward.

I know the power of being intimately connected to nature. I become ‘aware’ of the healing properties in her story, she is experiencing a mind being set free from dark forces. The mind of the nineteen-year-old is being drastically and dramatically transformed when she most needs it.

I see that during Covid-19, her story offers the reminder and the awareness that there is a deeper realm. There is an unseen world. There is for each one of us on our journey unseen Holy Helpers and Inner Guides. 

We witness these Mighty Companions in fairy tales, myths, and dreams, and also through the study of divination tools such as Runes, Tarot, and countless other oracles. The Unseen Forces come to visit us through our personal faith structures, the ways that we pray, and even when we are otherwise gently engaged: i.e.; washing dishes by hand, gardening, walking the dog, gazing at the night sky. These aspects of Infinite Creative Intelligence rise to support and sponsor growth and evolution with each breath, all through life.

The breath.

The Spirit. 

I invite you to take some time to be still. See what rises to meet you when you listen with your inner ears and see with your inner eyes. Notice what happens when you practice lifting up above the fray. See if you can observe yourself from perspectives that allow for a longer/eagle-like view. She learned and she reminds us that there is an aliveness vibrating and radiating just out of sight. She describes an alive world, rich in beauty flowing below the surface and beyond the horizon. She hears a softer, subtle singing sound.

This entry led me to pull up and listen to the music of Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow. It’s stunning to recognize that this is the music that J brought over the fence within the first hours of this intense inner journey.

Thank you for being here. 

 

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”
― Henry David Thoreau

I am a kite untethered. Without a string, I float through the roof and beyond anything familiar. I float higher and higher in the sparkle of the atmosphere.

Gorgeous views.

The curve of the earth makes the small room from which I rise appear as an island.

I float a bird on the wing, moving away from everything ever known or not known, seen, or not seen. Free. 

Each breath lifts me higher. Each exhale gently brings me back to the surface of the bed.

I am a bellows.

I swell and shrink, swell, and shrink. Natural. Expansive.

Tinsel dangles and glimmers from every direction. Shimmering lights twinkle inside my eyes. Dancing molecules that makeup both pen and hand move on their own volition with an ease the ink scrolls onto the white bedsheets. Black lines of swirling patterning cover the white surface. The marks flow back and forth, rise, and fall. I wrap my thick terrycloth robe around my body attempting to find my body; now translucent. The electric lemon yellow paisley pattern swims over the surface down the bell sleeves, gathers around my bare feet. I see where I once was, wrapped inside the fabric. I see through me. X-ray microscopic/telescopic eyes.

I crave music and my friend. 

Space, floors, walls, sensations of movement within other dimensions become more and more cartoon-animated. I move like a snail leaving a glittery trail behind. No sound. I softly inch forward; slip-slide steps.

I need to make my way across this attic room, down, down, down, these attic stairs, I must move past and beyond the closed door where Mr. and Mrs. sleep. I must make my way across their small living room, open the front door of their home without a sound, step out of this house, then I must begin the journey across the lawn.

I need to journey beyond the glistening cotton candy asphalt drive. I must climb the short steps to the back porch door, enter into the swaying house where my parents, my three sisters, and my little brother sleep in their floating boat beds. I must be quiet. 

I travel.

I am an explorer.

Monumental achievement! I am out of the front door.

OH! Here I am!

Instantaneously the atmosphere balloons outward exploding into surreal-magic gardens: surround-light-show-symphony. Crickets and cicadas blast summer waves of rhythmic percussion. Fireflies emit dash-dot light show codes floating above stalks of shoulder-high clover umbrellas shielding nodding grasses. I slow-dance twirl in the center of it all.  Twirling in the glimmer of this never before seen world.

In a stretch of time-out-of-time, I slowly, silently make my way through the surreal shimmer of the rainbow-radiant landscape. Inside the kitchen, the shrinking and expanding wall clock spins so fast I cannot make sense of time. I need music. I wonder if I can make a call to J. We have not spoken since she and her dad took me to the hospital. Her mother warns her to keep a distance. Her mother knows I am too much. I am dangerous.

I work with deep concentration to make the phone work. After many attempts, I engage the square buttons correctly. Mrs. picks up the phone, in a sleepy voice she demands, “Who’s calling?” (her voice creates an alarming echo) When she hears me ask for J she bellows into my cavernous ear canal, “Do you have any idea what time it is!? (echo, echo, echo) It’s 3:30 in the morning! (echo, echo, echo) Why are you calling?” (echo, echo, echo)

Stay focused. Don’t get lost in the cave.

I beg for her help, “Please send J over, ask her to bring albums.”

J lives close. Cutting through the empty lot jumping the fence, albums under her arm. Soon Surrealistic Pillow is on the spindle of the large console stereo at the base of the stairs. This is a delicate operation. Mom and dad are asleep in their room at the top of the stairs. J sets the volume as low as it can go; I lean against the cloth-covered speaker pressing into the fabric. I evaporate into the psychedelic sound stream of flash paradise time travel. 

The album ends. I am back in the cramped living room. J is lying on her side radiating lights of many colors as she sleeps on the twisting and turning brown and orange shag carpet.

Morning light.

I doze.

Waking I hear voices in the kitchen, J is saying bye to mom, heading out the back door. I pretend to sleep until I feel Lori step over my legs as she is heading into the kitchen.

I wonder if I can stand.

I wonder if I can walk.

I am wondering if I will be able to act normally.

The dull river of brown and orange colors, the blond deadwood of the Scandinavian dining room table and chairs, the drab imprisoned wall paneling, the shag carpeting (still moving dramatically), and the geometric patterns crawling up the curtains make me yearn for outdoors.

Wrapped in the thick terrycloth I move slowly and carefully, into the doorway of the small kitchen. Swaying I lean into the door frame. Lori is chatting happily. Mom stands at the sink, her back to me. I see rings of light circling the appliances as well as their bodies. I feel the hum of my body and its internal processes creating a sparkly sensation from scalp to toes. Lori turns to leave the room. She exclaims, “Donna! Mom! Look at Donna’s eyes!” Lori’s eyes enter my eyes, a merging takes place. I smile. I state that I am perfectly fine, nothing wrong here. She asks again, “Donna, what is wrong with your eyes!?”

I look away.

I need to not be here.

I ask if she can do me a favor and drive me ‘to the lake’. Mom does not acknowledge me. Lori looks at mom, then back at me nodding yes, she will drive me. I make the journey next door to put on clothes.

I ask to go to Huntington Park in Bay Village. Lori pulls into the near-empty parking lot and drops me off. She asks, “Are you sure you’re okay?”  I nod. I am exactly where I want to be.  I am surrounded by towering trees and I look out at the limitless expanse of water stretching below. Barefoot, I carefully pick my way across the gravel parking lot then make my way down the steep wooden stairway to the thin strip of rocky Lake Erie beach far below.

Peaceful quiet pulsating, vibrating, rainbow-hued beauty; pines shimmer, sky radiates, sand glitters, water mirror. The lake’s glass surface reflects the soft morning light. For as far as my eye can see I can see. 

My feet are transparent. They sparkle and glitter with each pressed-down grain of sand. I make my way along the thin swirling ribbon of shoreline to the break-walls made of cut stone boulders. They are a row of massive walruses lounging content in the surf. Barefoot, I walk their smooth damp backs until I reach the last one in the long parade. There I step down to a smaller boulder/body submerged inches beneath the surface, washed by the gently lapping waves. I settle onto its back, sitting in the shallow water, unseen from the shore.

The in-out rhythm of the shallow water meets the huge half-submerged walrus-stones. This last giant, upon whom I sit, is covered with a layer of slick seaweed waving its bright neon-green back and forth slow-dancing with the lapping water. Soon I become a wave. I am the seagrass. I am the massive water-soaked stone. I am the clear blue dome. I am the calling fishing birds stitching the surface of the water. I rise. I fall. I am the breathing. I am the brilliant dazzle of the shimmering water feeding the fish swimming in my cells.

I do not remember eating or going to the restroom at the top of the stairs at the end of the sand strip. I do not recall the time-lapse of people coming to the summer beach, putting blankets down, listening to ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’ on their transistor radios, opening coolers filled with peanut butter sandwiches and creme sodas, or climbing the stairs to the concession stand for boiled hot dogs and icy cokes. I recall nothing of the little kids playing on blow-up rafts or tossing beach balls.

I am the rhythm of the gentle waves pushing my body toward the shore pulling my body to the open expanse.  I am water-me.

I doze. 

Gaze.

Listen.

The horizon line fades, water-sky merging. Dark. Chill. I walk carefully over the backs of the sleeping walrus-boulders. I make my way slowly down the empty beach. I climb the high wooden stairs to the ridge where the parking lot, restrooms, concession stand, and picnic tables gather beneath the pine grove. Coming out of the restroom I gingerly pick my way across the gravel path, my feet tender from a day of being water-me.

A car turns into the empty parking lot, pulls up, a girl jumps out, waves as she passes going into the restroom. We recognize one another. A friendly wave. When L comes out, she says, “Hi! Howyadoin’? She asks, “Whereyagoin’?” I shrug. She and everything else appears radiant in a moon dance of rainbow light.

L is going to the Greyhound bus station.

I climb, barefoot and damp, into the back seat of the car.