Where I’ve Been Lately

Yeah, I’ve sort of missed blogging, but I’ve been busy.  It’s this alternate-reality thing.  No, really.  A few weeks ago I discovered I can slip into this other form of reality.  It’s way cool and yet sort of frightening at once, so of course I like it, I’m fascinated by it, and I can’t wait to do it again slash never want to do it again.

So this is what happened:

Matthew put on some music, and I became immobile.  Went somewhere else.  Spent an hour looking up at the skylight and the trees and whatever other little slice of outside I could see, the rain dripping on the glass a little.  For an hour.  I couldn’t move anything but my eyes.  I sort of thought I could and that somehow I was faking this, but when it came down to it … I couldn’t.

The music?  Mercan Dede.  Went through an entire album, whatever was there on his iPod, and there I was, immobile and thinking that here I was in this world and there Matthew was in his, and somehow the worlds  just didn’t quite intersect.

After an hour he started getting a little concerned.  An hour is a long time in that place, but he could unlock the spell by touching my hands (though I had no idea what to do with the cup of tea he gave me).  Some voice in my head whispered commands to me but I couldn’t make my body do them.  Walking was new (how did I get so high up from the ground?), and who was that person in the mirror?  Driving was interesting, all those distractions from the “furry trees” (trees with moss on them) and the excitement of passing the “ocean,” (a lake) and having to read every sign out loud and realizing I was the one driving, I mean how funny is that?  Trusting the crazy child-woman behind the wheel.

I’m still not convinced I’m not totally making this up, but I did stand motionless on a chair, paint brush raised in hand, for several minutes after Matthew put Madonna’s “Ray of Light” on and I found I couldn’t move.

New Age and hypnotic music does this, but I think that’s just an entry point and that there are other ways to get there.

So this was all happening at about the time I was finishing “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and musing about one’s possible descent into other worlds and what that might be like and what a total relief that would be.  Coincidence, I scoff at thee!

(Books, incidentally, have always been a sort of beacon for me, illustrating in a surface way the things that are happening inside me as well, and I take my reading choices very seriously, allowing an intuitive guidance to occur and always enjoying the juxtaposition of the inner world with the outer.)

So … that’s where I’ve been.

Also I’ve been delving into fear a little.  From skydiving I went to getting my motorcycle license and riding around on one.

But, as always, the things I fear most are the ones I hide best.  The ones deep within.  Unlocking that monster-in-a-closet is next on the list, I swear.