Preface

Since I was a child—a very young child—I have been aware of something that was there with me. It begins with a sense of quiet. This presence grips me, and it has the resonance of something primal.

            I remember it coming early in my life, when I was a young child, lying flat on my back, mostly naked, the expanse of my naked skin fascinating as I was aware of my arms, wrists, and supple skin as I lay there. I brought my leg up, my foot a shadow hovering just above me. Then I slowly drew it down, down as the tendons in my hips, very elastic at that age, stretched with a supple warmth and allowed me to bring my foot to within inches of my eyes, nose, and teeth. I then would nibble the callous on my big toe, not quite certain why I was doing that, just as I could never understand why I wandered in the scruffy woods at the edge of our yard and rubbed the bark of trees, nibbling little green shoots of plants. One time I sucked the green, curved stem of a yellow dandelion and was abruptly shocked by the wild bitterness of the sap that exploded its taste along my tongue.

            And amidst all of this, I felt a restless, deepening understanding of a presence which was surrounding me in every moment. When I was lying there on the wooden floor in my room in the soft, liquid shadows of early morning, I could feel something, and I wondered in one part of my mind, birds chirping in the trees just outside the open window and insects beginning to flutter against the wire screen that covered the window, and sweet, cool morning mountain air seeping in, heavy and spilling along the floor as though it, too, were alive and real. And in it all, whether it was the larvae I would find white and bloated under the flat rocks I felt compelled to prize up from the damp earth, or the wild moths with spiraled antennae poking from heads that I sometimes wickedly killed and ran over with the rubber wheels of tricycle or toy tractor, I was aware of this presence. And as a child, as I began to be aware of it, the way a person is slowly aware of something nearby, something seen unconsciously with peripheral vision, just at the edge, something we sense more than see, I became accustomed to it and was mildly curious.

             As I grew older, I began a long, slow journey which would ultimately bring me near, as though suddenly kneeling in the grass and looking up, would find myself so near. I could feel its warm breath flowing across my neck and shoulders, spilling into me and rubbing me vigorously inside, waking me up to possibilities. I was curious, and nearly always it is an experience of transcending time.

            Well, this first small volume is intended to begin a transformation that is long overdue even as it is an indictment of all, for we the impertinent ones of this era, are beyond outrageous in our relation to this entity, this presence which has stalked us since the beginning and does so even today. We are on the edge of a precipice from which there is no alternative but to jump, and this presence is preparing to push us off with the loving attention of a mother bird nudging her fledgling offspring when they are ready to fly. It is simply a necessary step, though fraught with danger and fear. We are its offspring, and the focus of a great anticipation in the universe.

I have always been plagued by this hunch, this inner knowledge that once there was more in the human experience of the world. Once upon a time, we knew more. There was more that we intuitively understood. We surfed with this presence, this entity. Once we did and now we have lost what we once most definitely had. But yes, from my earliest memories I was aware of something.

            I grew up in a world very different from the one we are in now. In that world, I was surrounded by people who were aware of this presence. Of course for me in those formative years, this focus was on the Church and Christianity. Through family, community, and even the nation, I was submerged in the Protestant church and its understanding of this entity we refer to as God.

            But in retrospect, glimpsing my life and my experience of this presence from the perspective of years, I believe my experience of this presence transcended what we allow is normal in today’s protestant experience of God. And yet I credit the Church and family and teachers with guiding me toward what eventually became a deep and abiding relationship with this presence. In the beginning, yes it was family, the Church, and teachers who guided me and spoke of this presence that, if we allowed, would transform our lives and guide us as it did so.

            But as I have travelled with this presence as guide, I sensed hidden aspects of all parts of the world, and I have been especially fascinated with the lingering suspicion, always near, that there is an entire world we simply do not see.

            The experience of this presence nearly always involves a sense of movement in time, or in what we would call time. It is as though the presence comes and lifts me and carries me along—a rangy tiger filled with quiet power. I sense that power and feel little prickles rising along my spine as it strides, its body lithe and comfortable, flowing with this impenetrable grace which itself transcends the present time.

            I realize this may seem strange, demented, and outrageous. I can only invite you to read. Let any who have the courage and minds mature, able to consider ideas even when they seem far outside the box. Read on at your peril, though, for the ideas here may shatter the delicate crystal barriers so carefully and deliberately put in place by our species, our culture, as we have attempted to wrest control ourselves, even flaunting this presence.

            And yet it is time we yield, taking a huge breath in anticipation of the breathtakingly wild fall that awaits us as we are nudged and then pushed. It is time that we begin to awaken.