Phone Home — Contact With Consciousness
When last did you, in the well-known words from the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial “phone home?”
Here I’m not referring to messaging our physical home, whether that be on this planet or Mars.
Nor am I naming a figment of our imagination “somewhere over the rainbow.”
I speak of a capability we all have to connect with a stream of consciousness. Like many a river this disappears underground throughout life only to pop up at some unexpected moment.
Sometimes this river manifests as God. Other times it’s an eternal dimension where our ancestors jostle each other to communicate with us.
I find evidence of this world in dreams, visions, music, animals, nature, near death experiences, and meetings with ancestors (See my article “The Day I Met An Ancestor” ttps://medium.com/p/237b740d0fa6)
What happens after we make contact?
It’s not about the ‘buzz’ we get when we enter this mysterious world.
Nor is it some help from “outside” that
Does our thinking or makes choices for us.
Or heals our diseases or removes our grief.
Or gives us a clear-eyed perspective on the mystery of life.
Most of the time, we catch glimpses of this world from the corner of our eyes.
But when contact is made we have,
- An openness to others, ourselves, and the Cosmic mind or the “other” world beyond our skin or five senses.
- Our feet still grounded in this world. Such encounters deposit us back into the realities of daily life. As the saying goes, “After enlightenment — the dishes.”
- Access to many ways of knowing, including intuition, a gut sense, or psychic and mystical experiences.
In other cultures, especially in Latin America and Native American peoples, the barrier between this life and the next is permeable.
Mexicans gather at the Day of the Dead celebration at the grave of a departed loved one. All are conscious that the person is actually there with them. The ancient Hebraic sacred writings have records of visits from the other world, like angels meeting with Abraham.
Native Americans routinely call out to their ancestors for wisdom and courage to cross the River Styx when they die. The departed dead surround, protect, and encourage us even when we are not conscious of them.
I’ve never had any of those “big” mystical experiences seen throughout religious history. For example, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to the prophet Muhammad over twenty-three years and revealed the Qur’an, Moses on the mountain received the 10 Commandments, and the Theresa of Avila experienced ecstasy; they were hardly typical revelations and certainly not mine.
My experience of the other world is always fleeting. While embedded in silence and in nature, I catch glimpses out of the corner of my eye. My goal is that through practice and distance from my chattering mind, I will have a sustained resting in that consciousness.
My garden-variety “contact” experiences are more mundane but not necessarily less significant. For instance, when I shovel dirt in my garden dampened by the rain, I am at one with what I am doing. When I experience a close emotional connection with my dogs, I encounter the divine in them. When I stop to contemplate a powerful line in a poem, I stand on heaven’s threshold. When I sit silently with a friend in deep sorrow, I experience oneness with him. In those moments of delicious newness, I am there.
Each experience of ordinary mysticism helps me glide through the portals to another world, go inward towards a place with infinite possibilities, instruct my intuitive capacities, enable me to hear the voice of the Spirit, and open my heart to love.
When last did you phone home?