Wow, what a grand question put forward by the ecoTrain this week. I hope that I haven't missed the deadline for submitting this post.
This is such a challenging question to answer. There are so many experiences that come to mind! With some of them come memories of people and places and events that happened at specific points in time. Other memories are much grander than that and are spiritual experiences that span out over a matter of weeks, months and years. In some respects, some of these experiences are timeless experiences.
It can be difficult to share specific experiences and decide what to put forward, but I am certain of this: I have had some chapters in my life where I have been more spiritually awake and receptive than other chapters. These experiences are very personal and in some way, putting them into words has felt like the true experience cannot fully be captured. Im sure we all know what this feeling is like.
When I was a young adult, I used to believe I could feel the Earth living around me. A feeling that opened me up in given moments, to this breathtaking sense of belonging. There was a period of 6 months where I had some sort of insomnia and just couldn't sleep. No one could work out what the issue was except my Aunty Yoda (yes I have an aunt who is actually called Yoda) who was a practising healer at the time. She found an underground river that passed directly below my bed which was causing the unrest when I came to sleep. To add to this, my 3rd-floor bedroom was situated at the centre of a powerful radio signal being sent between two military bases located on either side of our town. With her radio, she picked up the high-frequency encrypted transmission and concluded that the combination of the river and the signals were disrupting my sleep.
The true beginnings of my awakening to personal spirituality came into play in my late teens and early twenties as a student in Brighton and as I remember it, it happened before the beginning of my first long-term relationship with a girl who showed me the true nature of nature itself. This experience came in the form of hyper sensitivity to many different things. I think it was a sort of clairvoyance.
I used to be able to see through peoples body language, and deduce what personality they had and which month they were born in, in accordance with the Chinese calendar. I used to read up intently into Chinese astrology and Feng Shui. At first, I didn't know if it was my mind convincing itself that I could see peoples characteristics, so I put it into practice by going up to people, like it was an imperative, and telling them which month I think they are born in. More often than not it became a practice that resulted in an accuracy that was calculated and practised and I got answers similar or the same as those I thought when first seeing them. It resulted in so many awesome conversations with people and, it gave me a reason for connection with others. This ability overall gave me an overwhelming sense of connectedness to the universe. I could visualise the universe like it was hovering in front of my eyes.
I can remember one occasion very clearly when I became activated to the healing power of crystals (stones). I mean 'activated' quite literally. I was sitting next to my ex-partner beside her futon bed talking about something completely disconnected to healing. She quite randomly opened a package, saying that she had received a gift from a friend and then proceeded on to show me these two, astonishing crystals, that stopped me talking in an instant. One called Selenite and the other Blue Kyanite.
Up until that point, I had never been attracted to an inanimate object so much in my life! But the attraction was not something material or anything I had recognised before. When she allowed me to hold the selenite, I got this incredible jolt of energy that started rushing through my body like I was on drugs or something. I couldn't believe it was happening and I thought something was wrong. I even said to her that I think something is wrong with me. But there was nothing wrong at all. It took many months before I learnt what had happened. I researched, read up on and practised frequently with stones for many years after that. That ability though has also since subdued over the years and I wonder if I'll ever get it back.
Around that same chapter in my life, I was hyper sensitive to electricity, especially the electricity buzzy through the walls in my father's house. He had a lot of electrical equipment in his architect's office and the feeling I got was unmissable. I used to get very dizzy. This happened in many places with a lot of electrical appliances. (ironic that I am now becoming an electrician). I used to be able to share and debate these experiences with people, though only a few could say they felt the same. Although not a spiritual experience as such, it did, however, make me question the nature of reality and the physical build up of my body and the processes involved in making me feel what I felt.
I would, however, say with certainty that the most profound spiritual experience that I have had was during the 6 months I travelled India.
As I have shared in my posts before.
@mrfunkymonk/earthship-biotecture-and-self-sufficient-housing-my-journey-of-discovery-part-i-ecotrain
Travelling India was an eye opening and by far one of the most impressionable experiences. I felt fully in the moment and found a profound sense of gratitude for being alive.
I learnt to value myself. Travelling there for 6 months was a path that had to be taken.
Deciding to travel to India came in visions through psychedelic electronic music that I listened to at the time.
I cannot fully explain it, other than that the mountains in India were alive singing with the ancestors of the Indian people. When I closed my eyes, I could smell the Indian spices, see the smiles on the faces of the people in the streets and, hear the traffic.
It was like a ‘calling’ for me to go to India. I had to go!
There are so much more things that I could write about. I just wouldn't know where to start and end. I would, however, like to share that during this aforementioned chapter of my life, through all the ups and downs, I felt this deep underlying sense of connectedness. An eternal spiritual experience that although may not be same as what I felt before and after, it is a timeless and infinite state that resides within myself. the words I AM AWAKE really made sense back then, and although they still make sense now, the acuteness of perception is not as nearly the same.
Thanks for reading
