prompt 6: three of my spiritual experiences (excluding those with trees)
Topaz's prompt for today: What are the 3 most spiritual experiences you've ever had... excluding interactions with trees. (But plz link back to posts about spiritual interactions with trees in the post) Oh good Godde. I can't possibly do the 'most' because my memory is so shit (and I wouldn't have a clue how to sort them), so I'll tell the first three that come to mind.
When I was 15, I was deeply depressed, and I prayed every day, many times per day, to God to let me die. I didn't feel like it was okay to kill myself (I was very religious) but I didn't want to live; living was torture. I was sent to a christian summer camp and while I was there, I cried a lot and spent a lot of time alone talking to God and wanting to die, feeling completely irrelevant and unseen. At one point after crying for a while I went and stood next to a stone wall, looking over it at water and just feeling empty, when suddenly I felt love flow over me from head to toe like a slow waterfall of warm honey. I was stunned and changed, because it was a tangible feeling of love and for the first time I can remember, I knew I was loved, genuinely and freely. It only lasted about a minute, but it was so real, and there was no other explanation for it than spiritual -- it was and still is the most unambiguously externally-initiated spiritual experience I've ever had. I've never felt anything like it before or since.
And, well, the next that comes to mind is this time when I was about 10 I think, and I was playing in a riverbed next to a covered bridge. I was barefoot (as I was most times back then) and clambering around, imagining worlds in the moss and loving the play of water over rocks. I went to take a step into a crevice and very clearly 'heard' (not with my ears) "no, don't step there" but I had already been trained not to listen, and so I stepped, and nearly sliced off a toe on the bottom or a broken bottle. As my parents rushed me to the hospital, I was euphoric, feeling that God had spoken to me for the first time in my life. Now, I am not so sure it was God -- I think it was more likely the river itself, which I had just been communing with and was very open to, or simply my intuition. Either way, that experience showed me that it was possible to get knowledge from non-physical sources. However it was about 15 years after that before I 'heard' any word-like impressions again.
This isn't one particular experience, but the next set that comes to mind is various concerts, over the years. And at the same time, church. With church it was when music played and I danced that I felt connection to all beings, to Godde, to beauty. I almost always danced. Sometimes it felt like my body was moving on its own. I'd have bursts of clarity and feel resonance of love. At some concerts, I felt the same thing. The Benjamin Gate (many years ago), Bat for Lashes, Beats Antique, Massive Attack, CocoRosie, and Zoe Keating have all been that for me. I'll feel the music move into my body and flow through my veins, I'll dance and breathe the music. I'll get overwhelmed and cry or shiver as a line slides down my spine. Other artists I like don't necessarily give me that -- it has to be an artist that makes music with spiritual meaning to me. Noe Venable has given me this with music even not-live, which is almost unheard of and is the reason why I feel a need (more than a desire) to see zir perform live.
When I was 15, I was deeply depressed, and I prayed every day, many times per day, to God to let me die. I didn't feel like it was okay to kill myself (I was very religious) but I didn't want to live; living was torture. I was sent to a christian summer camp and while I was there, I cried a lot and spent a lot of time alone talking to God and wanting to die, feeling completely irrelevant and unseen. At one point after crying for a while I went and stood next to a stone wall, looking over it at water and just feeling empty, when suddenly I felt love flow over me from head to toe like a slow waterfall of warm honey. I was stunned and changed, because it was a tangible feeling of love and for the first time I can remember, I knew I was loved, genuinely and freely. It only lasted about a minute, but it was so real, and there was no other explanation for it than spiritual -- it was and still is the most unambiguously externally-initiated spiritual experience I've ever had. I've never felt anything like it before or since.
And, well, the next that comes to mind is this time when I was about 10 I think, and I was playing in a riverbed next to a covered bridge. I was barefoot (as I was most times back then) and clambering around, imagining worlds in the moss and loving the play of water over rocks. I went to take a step into a crevice and very clearly 'heard' (not with my ears) "no, don't step there" but I had already been trained not to listen, and so I stepped, and nearly sliced off a toe on the bottom or a broken bottle. As my parents rushed me to the hospital, I was euphoric, feeling that God had spoken to me for the first time in my life. Now, I am not so sure it was God -- I think it was more likely the river itself, which I had just been communing with and was very open to, or simply my intuition. Either way, that experience showed me that it was possible to get knowledge from non-physical sources. However it was about 15 years after that before I 'heard' any word-like impressions again.
This isn't one particular experience, but the next set that comes to mind is various concerts, over the years. And at the same time, church. With church it was when music played and I danced that I felt connection to all beings, to Godde, to beauty. I almost always danced. Sometimes it felt like my body was moving on its own. I'd have bursts of clarity and feel resonance of love. At some concerts, I felt the same thing. The Benjamin Gate (many years ago), Bat for Lashes, Beats Antique, Massive Attack, CocoRosie, and Zoe Keating have all been that for me. I'll feel the music move into my body and flow through my veins, I'll dance and breathe the music. I'll get overwhelmed and cry or shiver as a line slides down my spine. Other artists I like don't necessarily give me that -- it has to be an artist that makes music with spiritual meaning to me. Noe Venable has given me this with music even not-live, which is almost unheard of and is the reason why I feel a need (more than a desire) to see zir perform live.