For over a year now, I’ve been moving through intense challenges and profound changes. Some of those challenges have come to a close, and I’ve begun to accept certain changes with grace. Yet the long stretch of sustained stress has taken a toll. Still, I continue to say yes to life. I allow myself to feel it all, the good, the bad, and the undeniably uncomfortable because I trust that the depth of my sorrow makes space for the height of my joy.
At times, the so-called “low” emotions, sadness, grief and fatigue can feel dense and heavy. But I do not resist them. I honor them. I let them pass through me. When the heart is navigating multiple, ongoing hardships, it can seem like they’ll never end. But they do. They always do.
Recently, on a warm and sunny afternoon, I wandered around my property without destination or agenda. I simply walked in a state of openness. At some point, I came to a natural pause and stood still. No thoughts, no effort, just presence. Just being.
Then something extraordinary happened.
In that stillness, I was suddenly filled with light. Everything became light. I couldn’t tell where the light began or ended. There was no separation. I was the light, and the light was me. Time fell away. The moment stretched into eternity. I was immersed in pure awareness, peaceful, radiant, and completely free.
For an instant, the intensity felt almost unbearable. There was absolutely nothing for me to hold on to. Yet because I’ve practiced the art of allowing for so long, I let myself stay open. I surrendered. And then the tears came, tears of recognition, tears of release.
The light entered every cell of my being. I was being cleansed, healed, unburdened, set free and deeply loved. The light wasn’t just illumination, it was a presence. A presence that cradled me like a mother holds her newborn. I couldn’t feel the ground beneath my feet. I had no sense of weight or boundary. I was being embraced by something infinite, something holy.
It reminded me of the book Embraced by the Light, a near-death experience story. Only, I was not near death. I was the closest to life I have ever been.
The light felt like unconditional love itself. Blinding in its brilliance, but not to my eyes, because my eyes weren’t involved. This was not a sight-based experience. It was a soul-based one.
There was a moment when I felt that if I completely surrendered to the light, I might not return to ordinary reality. Somewhere deep inside, I sensed I was being offered a choice: to merge fully with the light, or to return and share it. If I chose to merge, I might not remember my personal self. But in choosing to return, I was choosing to carry the light back into the world, to embody and share it.
The moment I made that choice, the light gently released me from its embrace. I was back. But not the same.
I don’t know how long the experience lasted. Maybe just minutes but it felt like lifetimes. What I saw, felt, and learned in that moment is more than I can express in one post. I’ll be sitting with this, letting it unfold within me, translating its wisdom into words as best I can before the memory fades.
What I now know with certainty is this: We choose to come here. We choose to be here. And we choose when we leave… then we choose again, and again, and again, until…
As Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
“The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air… and become only half real… What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”