Being intoxicated with art, or music,
emotions or ideas
is the gateway to the world of spirit,
to God and other dimensions
where the voice of the soul
speaks…
–the writer in me
Tag Archives: spirit
My Father’s Spirit’s Christmas Gift
This is coming from my heart. Unedited.
Six years ago today, I was stepping into my car, getting ready to go to work, when the phone in the garage rang. It was my brother, telling me that paramedics were working on Dad and it didn’t look good.
But it was too late; they couldn’t save him.
My precious father left this world just days before Christmas in 2005. We were a close family. Mom joined him 51 days later.
To me, Christmastime is family time. A time to relish the blessings I have in the form of my loved ones. And every year, I go overboard in spoiling them. I figure, what good are material things if not for sharing with others? According to my husband, I spend too much money on my family and friends at Christmas. I bake too many cookies and make too much candy; I have too many decorations and too many corny Christmas CDs. It’s true. I do. I can’t help it. It’s not because I think giving material things or causing people’s waistlines to expand are the most important aspects of the holidays, it’s because I use these things to honor those I love. Because to me, it wouldn’t be Christmas without the cooking, baking, gifts, and decorations, but mostly, it wouldn’t be Christmas without my friends and family.
And because of this, coupled with the fact that we lost Dad right before Christmas, I miss my parents more than ever during the holidays.
So last night, before I sat down to meditate, I was thinking about how much I missed my dad and I wrote in my journal about how badly I wished I could see him again—hug him, smell him, look into his eyes. And as I meditated, drifting to that place of serenity in my mind, I “saw” a black tunnel about twelve inches in diameter. The opening was small and it grew wider on the opposite end, like a funnel with the small end facing me. The inside of it was swirling and there were wisps of white stuff floating in it like threads of cotton candy. And suddenly within the tunnel, like the image from an unseen projector, was my dad. He was much smaller than in human form and he was walking toward me, calling me by the pet name he used to call me when I was a little girl.
Was all this just my imagination? I wondered.
Still maintaining the controlled breathing I use during meditation—slow, rhythmic, even, measured—I opened my eyes. And then I saw it—the outline of something moving and transparent like liquid egg whites. I could see primarily just the edges of it near the dresser in my bedroom. It was the shape of a human, but I didn’t recognize it as anyone in particular. And it was about eight inches shorter than an average adult.
A tingling sensation went down the back of my head and down my spine. Tears flowed from my eyes. I knew then, that the sensations I was getting, were my body’s way of telling me that this apparition was the spirit of my dear father.
I said out loud, “Is that you, Daddy?” as tears ran down my face and my nose began to run.
There were no verbal or intuitive messages from the spirit, so once again, my mind told me, “You’re just imagining all this because you want so desperately for it to be so,” but at the same time, a part of me knew. My body knew; the chills I felt were not imagined.
I told my father that I loved him. I told him how much I missed him. And the spirit lingered for a long time, as if it was working very hard to make itself more recognizable to me, but it never quite accomplished that.
Before I knew it, I laid down on the bed and fell asleep. I never sleep soundly, but last night I did. I slept like a rock.
Perhaps this sort of thing happens to other people on a regular basis, but it has never happened to me before, which was why my mind kept telling me it was just my imagination. But I’ve heard it said that imagination is the bridge to the world of spirit. I also believe that at Christmastime, there is a kind of magic in the air even more so than at other times of the year. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve believed this. And what we believe is more powerful than any amount of scientific justification, is it not?
I believe this was the greatest Christmas gift I could ever have received—the gift of love from beyond what I see with my eyes—the gift of love, which never dies.
Wishing you and yours the blessings of love and joy in the coming year.
–Baja Rock Pat
Holiday Blessing
As the holidays approach and many of us find ourselves over-extended in so many ways, I wanted to take this opportunity to share with you, a message that was sent to me recently, as it reminds us of what is really important–the gift of self. We can’t shine our light into the lives of others unless we nurture that light within us. Enjoy.
May the Light nourish your eternal and internal longing
to reach toward the Spirit.
May you recognize the unique and powerful contribution you make
to the world and to those in your life.
May the Light shine in you, and show you who you really are.
May you be loved by someone who sees you.
May the Light transform any shame, guilt or unworthiness,
and fill you with qualities
like self-respect, confidence and compassion.
May you be at one with your own body,
recognizing it as the home of your beautiful and alive Spirit,
And may it teach you to care for yourself.
May you befriend all of your emotions.
May the Coming Light enlighten you to your inherent nature.
May you live more and more from that place:
a nature fully creative, fully powerful and intelligent,
full of awe and wonder,
completely connected to yourself and others
in loving cooperation.
And may you,
with me,
extend this wish to all beings.
-Written by Rosen Body practitioner Dorothea Hrossowyc 2011-
What is a Mystical Experience?
March 24, 2009
What is the meaning of my life?
Is there really such a thing as God?
If you find yourself asking these questions, you’re not alone. I’ve wondered the same things all my life. In 2003, I found the answers; not by looking for them but through a mystical experience that sought me.
According to merriam-webster, the term mysticism means “the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality.” It refers to an incident of connection to God, the Divine Source, the Most High or whatever term one feels comfortable calling It, accompanied by a feeling of inner peace and unimaginable bliss. It’s as if the experience itself has been orchestrated by a higher intelligence, something separate, yet inextricably entwined with one’s deepest sense of Being.
From a psychological standpoint, in “Body Mind Spirit,” K. Ramakrishna Rao describes it thus:
“Religious experience, the mystic experience, the peak experience, and all paranormal experiences may have one thing in common. They are the encounters with consciousness as such, pure consciousness in which there is no subject-object distinction … but a transformational process that often results in remarkable behavioral changes and beliefs and sometimes translates itself into informational content.”
How can I explain it so that you too, can know? I can’t, but I can give you a taste:
Have you ever felt the wonder of gazing at the stars on a warm summer night and thought about all the people over eons of time who might also have witnessed them?
Have you considered that the concept of time may be nothing but illusion or had the feeling that you’ve been here before?
Have you relished the sensation of freedom when taking off your shoes and socks and burrowing your bare feet into powdery, warm sand?
Have you known a sense of smallness as you stood at the base of a mighty glacier and questioned what a responsibility it would be to be a glacier? Or pondered what the glacier knew that you didn’t?
Have you ever strained your ears to hear the messages these things have been trying to tell you?
These are the flavors of mystical experience.
Have you appreciated the tiny eyelashes of a newborn baby or felt the fragile hand of an elderly person with its paper-thin skin, blue veins rising just below the surface? Knowing your grip could easily crush that frail hand, your instinct instantly acts to protect something so tender and vulnerable.
Have you ever fallen so deeply into art where you are no longer conscious of where your identity ends and the identity of the artist and the work itself begins?
These moments are the first steps on the path to mystical experience.