About a year after I finished grad school in California, I found myself alone at Christmas with nowhere to go. All my friends had gone back East to be with their families for the holidays, but I was saving up for a big move (to Bali) and recovering from abdominal surgery. I couldn’t make the trip back East to see my family.
Since mostly I was sleeping off the anemia and anesthesia related to the surgery, I didn’t really think ahead. Then the day arrived and I realized I didn’t want to be alone for Christmas.
(photo credit: VSCO - Frangipani)
I had been reading a book about female spiritual teachers and thinking that I would like to connect with such a teacher. And one of the teachers in the book was giving a workshop about an hour south of where I was staying, so I decided to drive down and spend the day there.
When I got there, the greeter at the door asked me if I had ever been to see the teacher before. I said I had not. She then sat me rather close to the front, maybe 5-6 rows back. As it turns out, I was also seated right between two cameras that were broadcasting the event worldwide.
Two women were seated next to me struck up a conversation with me. They had seen the teacher many times before and sort of took me under their wing. When the teacher walked into the room from the rear entrance, the room fell silent and my mind went still. I felt a peace and calm I had forgotten ever feeling.
Then the teacher took her seat at the front, and a chorus began singing. My mother was Jehovah’s Witness from the year I was born off-and-on until I was about 15, so I had never celebrated Christmas as a child. But there was one Christmas when I was in second grade that the teacher played Christmas carols on the radio for the class. There was this one song I loved so much. It was the most lovely thing I had ever heard. But by the time all the songs were over I didn’t know how to indicate that particular song to my teacher to find out what it was called. I never heard the song again and had forgotten about it.
The first song the chorus sang that day was that song. Turns out it is called “Carole of the Bells.” I started crying uncontrollably. It felt like the song was being sung just for me. It was as if God was real and was present and was saying, “I love you.”
I hadn’t realized how unloved I had felt for so many years until that moment. I was overcome with gratitude and just couldn’t manage to choke back the tears.
Meanwhile, the teacher was sitting on the stage, watching me cry. I really kept trying to stop, not wanting to ruin her beautiful event and what I knew was supposed to be an uplifting opening moment for everyone. Eventually they moved on to other songs and my tears subsided some. And then a couple songs later the teacher began to speak.
She looked right at me and said, “Just a glance of compassion from the eye of a guru, can change your entire life.” She said it three times and each time would look somewhere in the room, but as she said it she was looking right at me. Now again, I was seated right between the cameras, so it would make sense she would direct a good deal of her talk in my general direction. But it really seemed like she was speaking these words to me.
After the talk was done the women I was seated with invited me to join them for lunch. I agreed gratefully, not wanting to be alone after such an experience. They then asked if I didn’t mind first waiting with them in this long line they pointed at. I didn’t know what the line was for, but was ready to tag along wherever they went, so agreed.
We waited in line and I could only see the people standing right in front of me. Eventually I made my way to the front and found myself standing at an altar. On the altar were flowers, candles, incense, photos, and a pair of sandals. I wondered what on Earth someone’s sandals were doing on the beautiful altar.
Then I had this irresistible urge to put my head on the shoes. I resisted of course, thinking it a foolish thing to do and that people looking on would be offended if I did such a thing. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to do up there. Eventually I heard people behind me getting restless, so decided my time was up, but as I turned away, I just couldn’t stop myself from reaching out my right hand to touch the shoes with my index finger.
As soon as I did something ran up my finger, up my arm, and then into my heart. The next thing I knew I was skipping across the floor like a maniac, smiling from ear to ear and giggling. I hopped over to the women I was to each lunch with and they looked at me like I was out of my mind, which made sense, since I was. We then had the most delicious meal and I had nectarine chutney for the first time.
I asked the women about the line we had been in at the altar, and what we were supposed to do up there. It turns out, you were supposed to put your head on the shoes to receive a blessing from the teacher who once owned them, who died about 14 years earlier! So much for not following one’s instincts. But at least I had touched the shoes. I can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d actually gone straight for the head-to-shoe experience!
After lunch I went home and got back to my normal life. Only life wasn’t normal. Now again, I was recovering from surgery, and so very tired and kind of “out of it” much of the time because of that. So I didn’t immediately notice the change the experience at the Christmas workshop had caused. Not until a few days later when I was having lunch at a café in Oakland, CA, waiting for the café staff to make me a fish taco.
At the time I wasn't feeling much emotion in response to life. I felt oddly numb actually. There was a feeling of peace and a buzzing feeling of bliss within my body, but it was more like a blanket feeling that had no variation no matter what was happening, than like an emotion. I was completely non-reactive. It was as if the world was a hazy, very far away place and yet fully inside me at the same time.
I wasn't accustomed to that energy state of utter peace within my emotions. I could still feel emotions arising in my emotional body, but there was nothing arising out of me. All I could feel in my emotional body were other people's emotions. Yet even the "feeling" of their emotions wasn't really a feeling.
I had decided to pass the time watching people walk down the street outside the café's huge windows. As each person walked past the café's windows I got a general impression of their emotional state that my mind would spontaneously label with names like sadness, fear, or withdrawal.
However, this was all happening between my newly super-perceptive emotional body and my keen mental body, which had no confusion as to where the emotions were being generated. Meanwhile, I was actually identified within my spiritual body, which was feeling no variations, just an infinite field of peace.
I was in complete security, abundance, and self-love. I was also in complete compassion, so firmly knowing my oneness with all beings that I could experience all that was within them as if it was within me. But there was nothing actually within me.
It's a shame I wasn't ready to stabilize in that expansive state, because I had amazing powers not only to compassionately feel what others were feeling during that time, but I could heal people with a glance!
As each person walked past the café I could perceive their emotional state and the wholeness of my core self at the same time. I could also perceive that wholeness within me as if it was within them. That "only one of us" thing goes both ways. I could feel them within me and me within them.
The darkness within their energy bodies and the light shining through me could not exist simultaneously within their energy field. So the clear light obliterated the darkness. It happened instantly. I had just enough time to notice them, perceive whatever their hang up was, and feel my wholeness. Then it was as if the first perception just evaporated.
Suddenly the man who was walking along in a daze, distracted completely by a mind spinning out of control, stopped dead in his tracks and, looking down at himself, realized he was in a body. Imagine that, a body!
And the woman who was in deep despair, suddenly stopped in her tracks, looked blankly in my direction, then proceeded down the street with a gentle smile spreading across her face.
One after another, they walked past and one by one they let it all go. Each one would look in my direction before continuing down the street, but the glare from the late afternoon sun on the glass windows seemed to cause them to see only their own reflections.
Compassion means to experience your oneness with others so clearly that you literally feel with them (com=with, passion=feeling). I was able to heal people without even thinking about it, but my new boundless perception wasn't restricted to humans.
A few weeks after that I was at Golden Gate Park and for the first time in my life I could communicate with trees. By then I had already started to rebel against my new energy state so I was feeling some emotion within me again, but I was still pretty open and still awfully perceptive. I'm glad I was because it was an unforgettable experience.
Did you know that Pine trees are incredibly loving? They are like mothers. Their love is warm and sweet, very intimate. Eucalyptus are emotional purifiers. You can pour out your tears and they will cleanse every corner of your heart. No problem for them at all. I found Oaks to be a little intimidating. I know people love them, but they were intense to me in my newly “wide open” state.
Not only do different families of trees have distinct family characteristics, but the individual trees also have unique personalities. I noticed this especially among the Pine trees I met. There are as many different kinds of mother's love among the Pines as there are among human mothers. I could have stayed with the Pines forever. I loved feeling their emotions. Unfortunately San Francisco is rather cold at night and eventually I had to go indoors.
Alone I was emotionally flat – just rock-steady peace and well-being with no concept of time passing or anything being accomplished. With humans I was an endless ocean watching waves of other people's misery and relief pass through it with no response within my emotional body. Everything felt thoroughly unreal and fairly irrelevant. Given that I was still identified with my ego, it was not fun.
After a month I managed to reignite my emotional karma and I was back in the game. I was able to identify with my emotions again and once more able to feel the cycles of suffering and relief that I called enjoyment. It would be many more years before I would come to understand what true joy was.
Though the experience has left me, the teachings of it never will. I will always know that our truth is well-being, and that the truth has a power all its own once it is merely allowed into our experience. And I will never forget that the trees are someone.