ripping my reality

I’ve always felt a bit embarrassed writing about my plans to get channelling.  It seems like such an outlandish and unreliable thing to take seriously, let alone get worked up over.  And worked up is of course what I am.  I’ve been planning to get at least one personal channelling session since early 2006.  Yep, that’s four years ago.  And every time there’s a major crisis in my life, I promise myself I’ll make it first priority and do it right away.  You can see how that’s gone. 

The thing is, that’s surprising to me.  I like to think I always do what I say I will.  And yet I’ve been utterly serious about doing this, and still it gets postponed, and postponed, and postponed.  It’s like a similar magnet-pole that no matter how you try to approach, it just slides further away.  (Which I suppose prompts the question, where’s the other pole of this magnet?  That I don’t know.) 

The truth is, every time I seriously consider doing it, I feel… well, you might call it a panic attack.  It’s a fear that seems rooted right in the core of my being.  I used to think it was a fear that Michael – the channelled entity – would tell me I was wasting my life, or dash my hopes in some way.  Now I suspect it’s something more fundamental than that.  Something instinctive. 

I remember the night I reached samadhi in a choking cloud of marijuana and desperation.  I was nineteen.  Yes, I came out of the trance with a much nicer worldview, but I remember how I felt in the days that followed.  I felt like my entire reality had had a massive hole ripped through it.  Something had ripped away the atmosphere and left my mind bare to the solar wind and hard cosmic rays.  I lost interest in my philosophy class – their questions seemed so petty and pointless – no matter, I still got a high distinction.  And while the glow of that experience kept me going for several years, I have never since had the courage to smoke marijuana.  Why not?  It was the most wonderful experience of my life!  I thought it was from fear that nothing would happen, that it would only confirm the door was shut for good. 

You know what?  I don’t think the fear of either channelling or marijuana is anything as reasoned as that.  I think it’s just the body’s primal, instinctive fear of ripping away that cosy cocoon of the incarnate mind.  It feels like if I were to pull aside that veil – even briefly – it would be a kind of death. 

And perhaps it would.  The body’s reality transcended and included by the soul’s, like a drama that goes from consuming reality to merely a picture on a screen when I hit pause.  You know, if I’d never had that samadhi experience, perhaps I wouldn’t feel this fear now.  Is it ignorance that protects others from the fear?  Is it a case of ‘fools walk boldly where angels fear to tread’?  Even so, it’s nothing to feel pious about. 

The thing that disappoints me most is that I haven’t faced the fear.  I delight in facing fears; I find them delicious, but not this one.  This one doesn’t feel sexy, just bare and empty and terrifying.  This one fogs my mind with distraction and excuses.  This one doesn’t beckon or tease.  It sits there like a wave-blasted rock in the roaring ocean, requiring a heartfelt deathwish to even approach.