Cosmic consciousness
Sun 9.24.23
Today I take up the matter I broached in the essay “The Encounter,” that is, cosmic consciousness. How to explain something that is otherworldly? There are no words in our language to describe it accurately, and what words used lead one further away from what one is trying to grasp. So let us hear first from those who have experienced a state of cosmic consciousness and who offer their brief acquaintance with it, https://www.reddit.com/r/AlanWatts/comments/eyr5e4/has_anyone_experienced_cosmic_consciousness/. Below is an experience I’ve had.
My daughter and I were at a crosspoint in our lives where we would go our separate ways. In the fall she would be leaving home for college. I was also leaving to attend a graduate school. We decided that we should do something to inaugurate this new direction in our lives. We chose to take the American Journey of driving across country, and visiting Mexico.
Going from Maine to Mexico is a very long trip, long hours every day at the wheel, Diane doesn’t drive. We are getting cranky, snipping at each other and one night, after a nasty quarrel. Diane gets out of the car, in the middle of nowhere; she’s leaving. What should I do? I am panic-stricken. I can’t stop her; that wouldn’t be right. She’s going out in the world, to college, to make her way. I must respect her decision. She came back around 3 or 4 in the morning. I don’t know where she went, what she did, we were on some wooded back road. This was Diane’s experience, and mine, of the coming parting of our way. We didn’t talk about it.
Mexicans and South Americans are more conscious of the otherworldly, the psychic, the spiritual, than North Americans. There are powerful murals on buildings depicting the human experience of transcendence. It was a great trip, a true adventure, some of it scary, also great fun and exquisitely beautiful. I met a man, Michaelangel Martinez Butron, and we spent the last two and a half days of my vacation together. I knew that I would never meet another such a man back home. We spent our last time together telling each other everything we knew about life, to prepare, to protect each other on our journey. And then home.
I had a little bit of a joint that I tought I should finish off before approaching the Mexican/American border. After finishing it, it occurred to me that if I did not put my full weight and all my energy into holding the car down on the tarmac as I drove along, it would rise up to the heaven. This went on for quite a while.
Back home, I had work to finish up at the university as director of the University Women’s Forum. We women were greeting new incoming students, finishing programs, wrilte-ups etc. There were 6 of us, in summer, most students were gone, an easy time. I began to see things. We have no idea what’s going on in the world. It’s much more intricate, interconnected and absolutely purposeful; there were no mistakes, there were no accidents, that children died of cancer was correct, that others worked to resolve this was also correct. I could see that relationships are based on the knowledge we exchange with each other, love is the frosting. You may not see a person for many years, but on reconnecting you will pick up the conversation where you left it lo those many years ago.
I was perfect so were my friends, and wise. Why were we always striving? I knew I was in an altered state of awareness. It was wonderful, it was beautiful, and I knew I would lose it and go back to being a stupid, stumbling fool. What’s worse, I didn’t even realize I lost it till several weeks later when it came to me I was back into the struggle, but with a key of knowledge.
I would wish that experience on everyone.
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MANHATTAN SEERESS NOW ON EBOOKS
Eight o'clock Sunday morning, the police arrive at her apartment in Greenwich Village, "How long have you been living here?" The roommate Elizabeth, after having accepted her half of the deposit money and rent for their new apartment, has called the police.
New York City doesn’t open its arms to welcome her, but she’s arrived and the adventure of her life is about to unfold. She’s come from Maine with an invitation from Sarah Lawrence College to participate in the graduate writing program.
How one becomes a seeress is what this memoir explores. Stories have been specifically selected to illustrate, from the sublime to the practical, a spiritual journey introduced in each chapter by an atout, the Tarot’s major archetypes. From the Fool, to The World, our human journey with its risk and folly unfolds. There is also an artist here alive to her new world seeking inspiration among artists on the Lower East side, learning the ways and foods of her Chinese neighbors, falling in love.
