Meditation Journey: There Is Only Remembering or Forgetting
I had an exquisite enlightening experience with my morning meditation today. It was the kind of experience that will leave me forever changed.
I woke up early and decided I would meditate. I looked at the clock at 6:15 a.m. This is a type of meditation where you just breathe in and out through your nose, noticing how it feels in one spot of your nose. If your mind wanders, it’s no big deal, just keep bringing it back to the sensation in your nose. If you feel yourself going into something deeper, go with it. Your goal is to meditate for at least an hour. Mine ended up lasting two.
As my meditation progressed, I had some mantras come into my mind, “I am that I am” was one I remember. Eventually, I released the mantras, and I started to feel myself sink into a deeper place. I began to relax and enjoy the experience. My mind wandered less.
My Guide – Great Blue Heron
As I was in this really calm, relaxed space, I saw a great blue heron standing by a pond. There was a dock, and he was standing on the shore.
I came up to him and stood beside him. He stood there calmly and elegantly, regal in his stature. I felt as if he invited me to model him, to stand tall, to be in his same regal, calm, and confident space. I did.
The heron lifted his wings, and I lifted my arms. He put his wings down, and I lowered my arms. He gracefully took flight, and I rose into the sky beside him. We soared over the field and to the creek and over the creek, following it along.
And then I was the sap running up the Old Woman of the Woods (a pre-civil war oak on our property). I climbed up her trunk, into a branch, until I was a leaf at the top of her. A bird came and perched on the branch and hovered directly over me. I believe it was a king bird.
Then I was flowing through the roots of the Old Woman, deep in the ground, going through the dirt, reaching, diving deeper and out. Then, I was a white grub in the dirt. Then, I was simultaneously squashing the white grub between my gloved fingers. The grub – me as the grub — exploded and splattered out. It was okay. I, as the grub, was not destroyed. I was still there, still existing.
The thought or understanding came that rather than smashing the grubs, it would be better to fish with them so they can be part of the circle of life and feed the fish.
The Light
Again, I was with the heron standing on the shore of a pond. I looked down at my arms, and I was light. My arms and hands were light, my legs were light, my body was light. I looked at the heron and he was light and everything around me – the trees, the grass, the other birds were light.
Then I saw behind my closed eyes a pulsing light. Not a bright light, but a gradual dimming and growing, dimming and growing light. It pulsed at a steady pace and felt very peaceful.
My head was lying over to the side, and I was becoming uncomfortable, yet I was enjoying the pulsing light. I didn’t want to move at first, but decided to. When I moved, the pulsing light stopped. I relaxed back in, noticing the breath in my nostrils. I felt myself go deeper.
Remembering Or Forgetting
I saw a loved one who has had health issues. This person was made of light. There were some dark blobs on this person – one in the head, one on the heart, some on the back. I reached out toward my loved one, and my hands were light. I scooped up the blobs of darker matter and removed them from this person… first from the head, then the heart, then from the back. I understood that the blobs were not evil or darkness, but simply points that had not received the light or had somehow gummed up and obstructed the light from flowing freely.
I looked down at myself, and I had some blobs on me that I removed and discarded.
I saw Jesus standing beside me and he reached out His hand to me. I heard Him say, “I am the vine, you are the branches. I am in all things; through all things. All things are made of me and by me. You are me and I am you. If you are not one, you are not mine. There is only remembering or forgetting.”
I instantly understood that the black blobs were points of “forgetting” … parts of us that had forgotten who we are, forgotten Him, had been isolated or disconnected from the Vine.
He kept repeating, “I am the vine, you are the branches. There is only remembering or forgetting.”
And then I heard the words of the sacrament prayer in a way that I had never understood or heard them before:
“…that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, O God, the Eternal Father, that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son, and always remember him…that they may always have his spirit to be with them”
Moroni 4:3
Jesus held a piece of sacrament bread in his palm for me to take. I thought of the scene from Matrix where Morpheus gives Neo the option of the red pill or the blue pill. The bread is the pill that shows you the truth … the matrix of all living things. I received the bread and put it in my mouth.
I thought of this passage:
“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father— That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.”
Doctrine and Covenants 76:23-24
Christ is in all things and through all things. All things are made by Him and of Him. All things. ALL THINGS. We are all made of Him and connected through Him. We are one with all things. There is no separation between the heron, the tree, the dirt, or each other.
There is only REMEMBERING or FORGETTING the oneness of everything.
There is only REMEMBERING or FORGETTING Him.
There is only REMEMBERING or FORGETTING who we are.
To the extent we forget, to that extent we become lost, and to that extent, parts of us die.
So Plain, Yet Not Understood
I had this overwhelming emotion come over me, tears flowed, as I thought of the sacrament prayer. This truth has been in front of my face all along … so simple, so pure, so plain, and precious. And I have completely missed it. I’ve skirted around it, felt glimpses of it, but today it was all illustrated and nut-shelled so simply and beautifully to me that my soul soaked it up like parched earth drinking in the rain.
In so many ways Jesus told us this truth. We hear, we read, but we do not comprehend.
Simple Practical Application of the Oneness
When I got dressed and went into the living room, my daughter asked for an iron. I never use an iron. I knew it was beneath a pile of stuff in a closet. Normally, I would have been irritated to have to stop and dig for it. Instead, I squatted down at the closet door and the thought entered my mind, “I am one with the iron.”
I started pulling things from the closet, without concern that I was making a mess. I swiftly found the iron and a little ironing board. My daughter was shocked at how quickly I located it. I replaced the stuff without any irritation. The whole process of finding something I hadn’t used in years, which was buried in a messy closet, and putting everything back took a matter of 90 seconds, tops.
After putting things back, I walked back to the living room and my daughter was struggling to figure out how the little ironing board opened up. She asked for my help. I am normally not too mechanically inclined, and this little ironing board worked differently than my big one.
Again, the thought entered my mind, “I am one with the ironing board.”
I didn’t think. I didn’t study. I just shifted something, and it worked.
Could it all be this simple? We are one with everything; and through Him all things are made known to us in the moment the need arises?
Classic Shamanic Initiation
I shared this experience with my friend who introduced me to the type of meditation I’m doing. She said I had a classic Shamanic initiation experience. I know nothing about Shamanism. It’s not something I’ve ever taken the time to learn about. As she began to dissect my experience and share with me a few of the elements of a typical Shamanic journey, I was amazed. I have always believed that truth is truth wherever we find it. This seems to be an example of that.
My friend recommended a few books for me to read, so I’ll be getting those and learning more. I’ve ordered Tom Cowan’s Shamanism As A Practical Practice for Daily Life and The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harmer.
Great Blue Heron Featured Image Copyright: Brita01 / BigStockPhoto.com
