Experiencing Expanded States of Consciousness - part 1

Part 1: When I was twenty, I moved with one of my best high school friends to Kauai. My dad had recently died suddenly, at age 50, of a massive heart attack. My dad had been a stable person for me, emotionally. I had always felt truly loved and accepted by him. He was a warm person, who was easy to like. He was complex, and I’m sure there were aspects of himself that he didn’t show others (with an 8th house Moon)…but when he died, I can only describe as shocking. When I was told he had died, just a day after I had last seen him, a fog subtly came around me. I couldn’t feel anything and I couldn’t digest the information. And even to this day (many, many years later), I haven’t had grief around his death. Which is weird, because at this point, I am quite comfortable crying and feeling.

So, in the next weeks after his death, I had the feeling that my dad was closer to me than ever. It felt like without the body to contain his Soul, he could mingle with me (my Soul), and it was expansive and beautiful. He gave me a message, through feeling, which was: “Live your life to the fullest. Don’t hold back, don’t let fear stop you.”

Back to the main story, when my High School friend called me and said she was going to move to Hawaii…I just hoped she’d ask me to go with her. And in the next breath, she asked me. It took me half a second to say YES! I knew this was my next step, moving into something incredible.

Although we didn’t choose which island on Hawaii we were going to move to, we chose Kauai after arriving on Oahu. We were warned it might not be safe for us haole (white people). We weren’t concerned. As we flew over Kauai and were about to land, I could feel the energy of this magical island. I knew I had arrived “home”. As I settled into our new surroundings, on the most beautiful place I had ever seen or could ever imagine, I felt a powerful, often Blissful energy wrap around me. I felt the power of the Eternal Moment. While living there, each moment had profound, timeless quality. The depth in each moment is indescribable. It can only be experienced to be understood. I wondered if all the tourists visiting Kauai felt the way I did…I didn’t know how they wouldn’t be able to feel it, as it was so instantaneous and obvious to me. But I wasn’t sure. There were moments that I just had to stop what I was doing, because the Bliss would overwhelm me. I would stop and crack a huge smile and bask in the incredible, heart opening Perfection. How easy Life is in this state. When there are no problems, no suffering, it is obvious that that is the natural state of Being. Suffering is unnatural. Not our true state.

Just after arriving on Kauai, I made straight for the first organic farm I could find. I had worked on an organic “community supported agriculture” farm in Oregon, and loved many things about it. In Kauai, the farm I ended up on was a place called Kauai Organics. I got lucky, because it turned out to be a great fit for me, as far as what I needed at that time. The people that worked there also lived there, a bit of a trek through the farm - with many rows of salad greens, a variety of vegetables, and ginger and turmeric roots - and down a hill, where it was cozily hidden from view of anyone traveling by on the main road that circles Kauai. The camp was very close the Ocean, we had a great view and a small trail that lead directly to a small beach.

I moved into the encampment with the others - there were perhaps 10 of us living there in exchange for “room and board”. We lived in homemade bamboo huts with tarps over the top for rain protection. It was a fun time and a great place to land. We were required to do perhaps 12 hours a week for a hut and food. We ordered the food only once every couple weeks at best. Unfortunately, we usually ate most of the food within the first week, so there were times when we ate really well, and times when we had slim pickin’s. We were all pretty young (under 30), so not the best a rationing and planning ahead. The group were all more outgoing and confident than me. I admired many of the people I met there. They played instruments, sang as a group and were just free with their expression. This is an area that I felt so stunted in. So, while I wanted to fully fit in, I was too self-conscious to feel truly good in pretty much any situation.

While I was experiencing the most beautiful time of my life in Kauai, feeling naturally high many days, at the same time, the shadows inside, that I was pushing down, not recognizing or accepting, were threatening to come up. I had been repressing my true self for a long time. I have always been a very sensitive person, aware of how everyone around me thinks and feels, even when they’re trying to hide their true thoughts and feelings. When I was younger, it was difficult to cope with, because I had no idea how to have boundaries between myself and others. I hadn’t even had the concept to know that I needed boundaries.

After a few months or so on Kauai, I had moved off the farm. I moved with a friend under a big-leafed tree, next to a private beach that barely anyone ever came to. This tree was designed to live under. From the walking path that lead to the beach, the tree sat a little way off the path. It had an opening at the front, that the leaves didn’t cover, but all you could see was black in that opening, so no one could see that anyone lived in there from the path. That was our door. The rest of the leaves of the tree went all the way down to the ground, in a big, arching round shape. We immediately knew that it was the perfect home for us. We each had a small tent, and we pitched them under the cover of this tree. There was plenty of space for both tents, and still more open space to move around. It was a perfect slice of paradise.

At this time, the the comet Hale-Bopp was a nightly fixture in the star speckled sky. Being out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, not near any city lights, we could see everything in the sky. Hale-Bopp felt to me like an omen of the incredible magic of that time.

Another odd experience that happened, that was a once in a lifetime (so far) experience for me was when some friends and I were lying on the beach, just watching the night sky. Over our heads, toward the Ocean, flew a huge ball of fire. Maybe it was a meteorite…I’m not sure. But it flew over our heads and landed somewhere in the Ocean. I felt that I was in some alternate Universe where things you don’t see everyday, were a normal occurrence.

Not long after we moved under the tree by the beach, I started to get a sore throat. I didn’t think much of it, I just thought it was just a cold. But it just kept getting worse and worse. I had a boyfriend at that time, that I’d left behind on the Mainland when I moved. He came to visit me. It turns out, he came just in time, because within a day or two of his arrival, I became so sick that I became tent-ridden (I later found out that it was probably strep throat that turned into rheumatic fever).

But soon, I was more than okay. I began to experience a Bliss and Completeness that made me not care at all what happened to my body in the tent. The body in the tent was far away for me. Just a small portion of my reality, that I was aware of only intermittently. This is when I learned about parallel realities, because I was suddenly experiencing them. I’d never heard of parallel realities back in 1997. We didn’t have internet back then, and I hadn’t read any books describing living multiple lives at one time. But, the best way to learn about anything is through direct experience.

I knew from shifting between these different realities that the 3D Earth life is the most limited life we Souls live. What I came to know by finding myself experiencing other lives simultaneous to this one is: Life is so difficult in this reality because we are very cut off from our full Awareness. In the other realities, the range of our senses is not limited to degree that it is “here”. All that we can be aware of, through direct experience, is much more than what most people perceive in this particular life. In all the other realities I bounced around between, we communicate telepathically. We don’t need to fumble around with words. Words are so limited, and easily misunderstood. But with telepathy, all is sent back and forth and is understood instantaneously and clearly. We can put our attention INTO anything and become it. When we put our attention into something (anything and anyone) and become it, we fully understand that person, plant or other “thing”. For instance, I put my awareness into different plants and knew what the medicinal properties of the plant was and how to use it. All senses, senses that most people probably don’t even know exist, are much more awake and alive. And love and acceptance are a natural, lived experience - not something we have to strive to feel.