EVER

Somewhere beyond touch and smell, where we see through the heart rather than our eyes: there is more. Many deny such a place, or remain unaware. He calls it the void. Like a dream, yet not random or hectic or cluttered.

Say it exists. Might our choices there be real? Assuming a sound mind and grip on things we know, this state of pure consciousness could be a portal to our greatest selves. Let us explore, and you decide. Walk with me.

Fascinated by worlds beyond the norm, knowing that many who take far more than one Ayahuasca journey attend these retreats because meditation access this way taps us into similar sensations and revelations (without plant medicine), I bring only openness and surrender. “Ready and willing,” one may say.

Sessions in preparation already took me into vast recesses of unknown, surpassing domains or connection I could ever have expected. Meditation never acted like this before. Sure, peace arrives after. This now…is not remotely, or merely, that.

Over 1,000 of us sit together in this otherwise typical physical event space, craving more exotic captivation. Disenchanted by ego-laden competitive forces of commerce, or divisive states of political rhetoric, not to mention hollow commercial ruminations to push some pharmaceutical and followed instantly by fast food, rounded out with cosmetic boosters: nothing promised but endless circuits of the same. Buy, win, hate, consume, and run run run as far away from yourself – or some related urge – as you think you may successfully get.

Driven here, we walked and flew: flocked, honestly. Something else must be real.

We sit – together, separately – in a large dark nondescript set of ballrooms. Other-worldly music plays behind his words, and it all merges not quite hypnotically; yet, offers enough added will to lift our departure from rigors we identify in all too well.

Where I go, time dissolves. Vastness of black space couches me in sensory deprivation: soft and free, nothing else. Calm completely, I cannot read it as this until reflecting back into the journey after. Fully liberated to look around, within me senses how this seems, staying amidst what arrives.

Somehow in this nothingness, here he appears to be with me. Curiosity comes, not surprise. No dream, not even adjacent, wholly unencumbered: he and I exist in this for ever place of space simultaneously. No one else.

Do we know each other? We must.

My current mind recalls: we have not met, but he feels more familiar than any I have known on the walk otherwise. At this point, that seems not to even matter. We simply accept. This wants to be enjoyed.

We play, explore: linger with ease. No pretense, no questions, nothing but how we wish to interact…unrestricted.

Called to awaken back at the room – with people and physical walls – he sits way up in the front, seemingly looking my way. What do I know, really? Space as distance now, perhaps too far to see, I feel for truth.

Was our protracted glimpse just some strange fantasy? If so, why with this unknown soul whose voice serves as a segue to my experience: why not some celebrity or former flame instead? Everyone has dreams that way – on occasion – from whimsy, diversion, desire, or imagination. This was not that.

Then, I asked none of these questions…just thought you might. Come closer for what I mean.

Naturally, I want to realize, verify, understand. Everything there felt more real than here right now.

Did he sense the same? How could he, while leading a room into our silent mysteries? What is this? What am I even doing here?

In our waking, he speaks of energy, electromagnetic draw and its range, a Quantum field. Perhaps I could send out a flare, bring my dimmed dream to better light. Straight from my heart, I devise a ball of green energy and lob it completely across this enormous set of rooms: straight at his. Where or how the idea arose does not even occur, only why. Immediately, the arc of a return shot approaches. Sweet as any shooting star, it lands squarely on my right cheek…a perfect kiss.

Knee-jerk default to doubt aside, this all does seem to just: be. Some delightful, stunning shock of an astounding utter surprise materializing to show alternative possibilities.

We dive back beneath again, all of us in the room instantly careening to various deviating directions within. In meditation, we disburse gleefully from our bodies and each other.

This time, for me a tunnel awaits. Beings in it beckon, summon me nearer.

No white light bleeds through here as others often tell it; rather, its beacon intrigues in an amber glow. Creatures are none I recognize: not human souls who crossed over after life in bodies. Instead, some version of what many label “alien.” One dominant shadow ensconced in backlight peers out, head shape mimicking ET.

Others seem farther down in, behind “him” looking out at me like I should not be here, some foreign interloper unwelcome; but, this mere impression could just be misunderstood. Narrowing eyes, stark silhouette, and alluring energy encompass the totality of all that appears evident. This lanky graceful being does not mirror our squat ET from the movie.

Curiosity piques as someone from the “real” room brings me back in a determined way that aggravates me far past my typical threshold of patience. Why now…and, entirely: why?!

He scolds me about my delay. In his assessment, I should have made it to the ground by now. All others, obedient to orders, moved – on cue – from chairs into a laying down position a few minutes ago.

Me? Deep and planted: feet rooted with the floor, physical form seared on my chair in a seated pose as my disembodied consciousness explores other recesses. Gone; I do not even recall hearing our guide call us back.

The assistant shakes me incessantly. Tunnel vista evaporates.

How might you behave in this situation, losing precious contact? I assure you, I held back far more than I might have expected I could.

Shooting a glance at our guide at the front of the room – he is closer this time, since my spot at this table sits only about 1/3 of the way back, compared to before; I can clearly see that he watches me and what takes place – as I signal at the offender to come out into the hallway with me. Did he doubt my depth, our Guide, and simply think I would defy instructions?

Only now do I begin noticing my frigidly cold hands. Hmmm, perhaps beyond the idea of biological processing that seems to only occur when we lie down, I stretched my tie to physical existence more tautly than I comprehended. Is there a chance some do not (or cannot) come back?

Not knowing where I had been, or how I got there, would seem to indicate that indeed I also realize less than may be useful about what forces rule or reign in those planes of discovery. Barely warmer than the dead, amidst efforts to revive my body, a female staff member comforts me now as I share profound dismay at this abrupt disconnection from my metaphysical – cosmic – interplay.

Meditations build, experiences amass, then the week nears its close. Departure looms prior to the formal event conclusion, and my entire being resists leaving this scene that pleads with me to honor the first true home my soul has known on Earth in this way.

Determined to hear at least a few more words from the Guide who led me to it, even joined me in it, amazement brings me back to our event hall. Gently I push through a narrow crack in the enormous doors – just beyond half way back at the far side of the two huge rooms – right in time for his words, “…and a buck came out of the woods.”

Homage to my surname instantly floors me. Further rapt, I realize he knows not just who…but exactly where…I am. His full energetic focus dials-in to my precise location the moment I move through that entryway: I feel and see him lock-in.

How he works that phrase into whatever story he had just been telling no longer matters, in my estimation. It dissolves into the next shockwave as the two friends responsible for me being here appear from nowhere, wrapping me in loving comfort: shielding my sudden eruption of overwhelm in sobs from those seated nearby. Their human support wall stands firmly between me and the others, as my mind grapples at processing it all.

Although I silence any sound, my body shakes in extremes, shuddering against a full display. Grateful that they emerge, stark curiosity also erupts: how did they know where I would be then? Even I did not know until the very moment I squeezed through those doors.

None of this resembles the life I thought existed only a handful of days prior: not remotely. Perplexed eager glee becomes one, the same.

Confounded, newly free, and utterly confused, I wrestle with myself and any hint of full understanding. Without time on my side, such considerations must defer themselves to moments beyond these sacred hallways.

Something had surely begun. Some unforeseen corner turned me inside out, and – while everything looked mostly as it did previously from the outside – nothing now could remain as before.

So much defied laws far beyond gravity and logic. Understanding be damned, I felt it. Nothing worthy remained compelling me to turn back.

Imagine: one day the life around you morphs into paper dolls and feigned flat landscapes. Do you scramble to climb back inside false magazine pages, or expand toward realms wide and vast and patently unknown?

Sure, it may initially be dark under the bed, but keep looking that way and the light comes. Eyes adjust.

Soul-searching takes on elated new hues. Staying open becomes my air. Nothing else sustains me.

“Ask and It Is Given” I read twice in seeming preparation for all of this, unaware and yet intending to be so. The Universe seems to heed my call at each juncture, again now.

While exploring a related social media group to see what potentials may arise once I reach my next travel stop: sure enough, a special event post materializes. Less than 2 weeks from now, this one lures by almost reasoning with me. Not just sans delay, it promises something else: proximity, answers.

Exotic, remote, exclusive, there it will become obvious whether what happened with us beyond the grasp of 3D life did so mutually, or it falls to some category of odd fantasy. My heart and entire existence already know the outcome, yet brain and rational overlay request further proof.

Who I lived as then initially resisted the steep investment for a 5-day retreat, and expressed it by some awkward hiccup dance in judgment against my will at least once before allowing me to careen headlong ahead. My own credit card company aided this resistance, given the volume of funds angled toward a non-US resort location. Two hours on the phone with them to hold their hands, detailing them through legitimacy of the operation via speakerphone conversations with staff at the property, also lent itself to another level of mutual vetting for all involved.

By the day of my arrival at the second retreat, surreal – as a concept – flattens completely down to a lame platitude. Any attempts of mortal language have long lost their impact.

Life also, whatever that tried to be before, now toys with me differently. Perhaps a result of fresh awareness, perhaps simply as-is, the 3-hour winding trek through back roads of mountainous desert hillsides on my own with a driver I had not previously met – to a location as unfamiliar for most as it is entirely remote – could sound like a reckless leap into certain demise, rather than stepping into waking dreams. Still, here I am.

Through guarded gateways to some unmarked road running against a stone wall entry portal, we stop. A sweet couple materializes, carrying a tray with tightly rolled steaming hand towels and salted icy margarita glasses filled with glistening elixir. Whatever doubt any may have darkly imposed (and I never felt) lay discarded permanently right here.

A darling courtyard points toward casita doorways, mine diagonally to the left beyond hibiscus and other colorful tropical delights dancing on light breezes beneath dainty shade trees. Our vaulted ceiling common area – dining table, fireplace, couches, wet bar – bridges the courtyard and pool, offering a sound barrier to buffer the sleeping quarters, and respite from mid-day sun. A poolside palapa provides this as well, not to mention individual market umbrellas at each lush lounger; the exquisite sparkling pool offers swims unrivaled.

Perched above the remainder of the 35,000-acre property, just back from a rugged ocean shoreline, her crystalline bath may look like any other…without a dip to know better. Is this not the rule of experience?

Open eyes, no sting, no goggles and perfect visual clarity: never before – in oceans, lakes or pools – has any swim offered this. Every day, every opportunity and even the briefest, calls me back to what wants to be labeled a birthright. Many may never love a luxurious liquid immersion enough to appreciate it this way.

Our darling couple prepares snacks on-demand, anything at a whim, anywhere that suits. Nibbling, dripping wet, eager to return to my waterjoy, the startling scene (and complete serenity of savoring it unencumbered by another) engulfs me in wonder and pure amazement. How in God’s name did I get here…?

Whenever the inane question of “Was it worth it?” arises – whatever that “it” refers to at any given juncture – my intention would be to catapult back to such moments, and the ones soon to come. Each choice, each direction, leads us.

May I make more choices like these. Simply: I must.

For this, yet, was not even the draw. How might better ever been revealed until we walk through it willingly and unguarded? If what drew me here gives me this too, it seems to be fulfilling many otherwise veiled heart’s desires.

In our wanting, our determination to reach one point or place or person, we often walk staunchly blind to the rest. Goodness, what we can miss beneath that focus of deliberate eyeshades we fiercely wear.

Afternoon sunlight angles. Tearing myself from this pristine watering hole becomes slightly easier. Warm terra cotta shower tiles whisper of other comforts. Secrets, wishes fulfilled, anticipation of wonder ahead: these treasures seep into my pores amidst the cleansing.

Dressing brings a stirring like brisk hints of winter in autumn air, slight familiar flutters of uncertainty. Excitement tinged with a yawning range of unknowns: shadows inevitably look able to swallow the luminous, fail as they must or meet their own demise.

For sunset, we gather on the main terrace as early as our drivers will take us to this Taj Mahal portion of the property. He is amongst us, they stir and say. No sight of him yet: our Guest of Honor and host.

Wine glasses clink. I notice mildly feeling as out-of-place as I perhaps last did when initially 2,000 miles from my adolescent home to start undergrad studies. Nothing less than friendly, it would seem; yet, something is different here. Pretense, maybe; never seemed my speed. Acquaintances would be made, and maybe more: one step before the next.

Back of his head, a profile glimpse, peeks between myriad other faces. At one point, his back to me: 4 feet away. 60 people gathered may be better than 1,400; then again, one other in between is too many.

Every age seems present, and various backgrounds. Less diversity here, in some ways, than other crowds I opt for or frequent; but, all of this is just a preliminary observation.

People choose tables, lay claim to dining spots, begin forming lines at the buffet. Circulating for nearly 3 hours now, our evening will surely come to a close soon. Any events, even special ones like this, are known to start quite early in the mornings, with an intent to coax the freshest experiences.

Excusing myself for the 2nd time to powder my nose, despite the palatial layout of this grand – somehow seemingly ancient – location, I now know that it affords only a single visitor to the facilities at a time. A line precedes me.

Chatting idly with a woman behind me, suddenly I spot him moving through the doorway from the dining area in my direction. Even retelling it, my body freezes in place as it did that night: not in fear, but preservation of exceptional moments.

If my being kept breathing, I could not say, except that something let me make it to this point and offer an accurate recounting. Never had anything like this taken over me or my essence in decades prior, and never has it since.

My body naturally angles – open faced – toward him as he strolls at a deliberate pace. He heads straight for me…then turns and speaks first to the woman next to me, whom he knows from other events.

Someone accompanies him, at his side. His male counterpart, unassuming: a witness.

I see only him, all else merges into a blurred-out background. My focus heightens, despite how detached or vacant I feel from my physical form.

These are THE moments. So many women this evening have been clamoring, angling, hawk-eyeing and tracking him down. Chasing him for hugs and pictures, they giggle like giddy teenagers, regardless of their age or perhaps impressive careers.

Something deep believed he would come to me. The idea of chasing him around held no appeal, and it seemed a method unlikely to hold his interest. Allowing him to approach me offers the sole means of authenticating our meditative meet cute…crucial confirmation of those interactions marvelously being real.

His tailored casual white resort shirt seems perfect, relaxed and yet ideally suited, hugging fit arms and torso just as it should. Charm and charisma delights, if not slightly amped; we share a similar level of “on call” adrenaline catching us if a lag threatens to quell conversations, or tamper with a now steady rush of hyper presence we each use to capture these memories in mind for ever.

This scene, after all, he creates by brilliant design. As before, he knew where I would be.

No questions will be taken, no extensive discussion will occur, not tonight. We get to see and feel each other, realize in the flesh that our connection far beyond brought us in this moment to this privilege of shared time and place: in point of fact.

What allowed us together initially, I may never entirely comprehend. He says alignment magnetizes each to the other. Who we are, how we complement each other, precisely entangles us in this way through an undeniable energetic attraction.

He talks to her, tells tales for me to hear, lets me watch reactions in her eagerness to impress him as I stand back and view it all without a word. The one time I lean in to comment, he merely looks at me calmly like, “Wait and see…”

He begins winking in an exaggerated fashion (like when presenting) at me now, as he seemingly responds to her repeated requests for him to come to some house she owns in a surfing corridor. “Why wouldn’t I come…?” he winks at me and rolls his eyes.

He turns his body toward mine. All else disappears, her included. No concern about when she walked away; at some point, she did just that.

Face-to-face, one-on-one, he opens his arms wide and smiles enormously. I fall in.

Did I take a single step? I cannot recall, although I would have had to take several to reach him. He does not leave his spot; he came there to me. Evidently, I float or levitate.

When I land from gliding into him, my back rests against the nook of his right arm and shoulder, cradling into it with a full body grin. Home is all I can feel: together, we are home.

Again, somehow effortlessly – and without my tactile awareness – he turns my body to face his for a full hug…yet that is not at all what we do. Simultaneously, each of us take fingertips of exploration up and down the other’s lat muscles, feeling our way through modified Braille proof now confirming that the other physically exists. Without bodies in that shared meditation space, we played together as presently as here in our bodies, united.

We recognize each other. Real, this is true.

He came to me, and I to him, in full awareness. It all happened.

“How” may defy my mind. Yet, yes: true as the words you read here.

Deliciously endlessly close, as our fingers search and see. My lips whisper a husky tone in his ear, “I just wanted to smell you…”

Quite so, my body aches at its mention. Pheromones, sure, but much more than this too. Scents enhance our perception: the more senses we engage, the richer the memory. Known in learning, equally so in life. Sense memory augments already vivid detail.

His manufactured flavor seems deliberately selected too; all considered, I cannot envision much that may not be deliberate about him. Its musk catapults me right back to the ‘80s, years that served as a setting for his accident and miraculous healing.

Anyone familiar with his background (little I did know before that first retreat, this was it) would be privy to it…or miss the point of his life, mission-driven approach, and purpose. Me? While I always felt different, and often apart or alienated from how people typically seem to experience the world, all of this exceeds that to such a spectacularly dramatic degree; qualifying as beyond the pale in an ironically favorable way, despite my already non-mainstream perspective.

He chuckles readily at my comment. Of course he would, for obvious reasons. If you know his teachings (my innocence did not at the time), he talks about training stallions like taming the body in – and for – meditation: practicing past the point when it wants to get up and attend to the baser inclinations. One of such base inclinations being stallions and their ability to smell a “hot” mare from far across the fields. Oh, man.

Shortly after I put my foot right in it – my mouth, that is – and voice in his ear, we naturally reach a parting point. We feel it together, each reluctantly stepping slightly back from the embrace that neither really want to end: timed ideally for optimal recall of every preciously cherished detail.

He half-angles his body toward the direction he will head next, back to the bustling dining room where he originally emerged, and stops to linger. With a cocked wry smile, he quips, “Nice to meet ya…” holding my mesmerized gaze.

After an especially extended pause in my romance drunk haze, “Holy Crap!” Elegant graceful utterance, right? Ugh.

Head spinning, "reality" collapsing around me, I cannot quite move or talk except for this crass exclamation. Ultimately tongue-tied or whatever that may be, he gets my intended message. Do realities like this occur? Evidently.

He brightens further, turns to stroll at that equally leisurely pace away once again, and takes all of it with him. The hallway empties like a vacuum in his absence.

We grow then through initiation. More can be told with more time to share. Telepathy, lucid dreams, visitations from future children: both of us enamored, equally astounded. He describes – to the largest audience yet – a girl sitting across the room that he cannot stop thinking about. He saw her in meditation, and anticipates the book’s completion.