Cabo’s Mystical Beauty

Oct. 16, 2009

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My husband and I returned home last night after 12 days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I’m sitting here at my kitchen table, which is loaded with the Halloween motif our son put up while we were gone, an empty bottle of tequila given to me by Sammy Hagar at one of his concerts (it was half full when he gave it to me), my digital camera and camera cards, a bottle of cipro antibiotic (a must for a trip to Mexico), a colorful, hand-painted fish mobile I’d purchased at one of the shops in Cabo and a pile of junk mail and bills that’s still too intimidating to tackle. Oh, and the decorative candle in the centerpiece of my table has been replaced with one that looks like a bleeding skull.

I’m still trying to process everything that took place over the past few weeks. It rained most of the time we were in Mexico—rained in Cabo!So I didn’t get much of a tan. But when the sun came out, it was marvelous. On our last day, yesterday, I got up early to watch the sun rise over the Sea of Cortez and the rocks of Land’s End. My photos don’t do it justice.

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The sun was hot pink as it lifted out of the water and the higher it rose, the hotter it got until it drew beads of sweat from my skin. There were two cruise ships in the bay and hundreds of fishing boats heading out to sea, something that hadn’t taken place for several days due to Tropical Storm Patricia—how ironic is that name?

But yesterday morning Cabo was back to her normal, splendid self—hot, humid and sunny. It seems so dark here in Colorado, but at least it’s not snowing.

As I get back into the swing of my old life, I will tackle the task of finishing revisions of my book and keep you posted on its progress. I’m almost finished. I will also write more about Cabo and Sammy Hagar’s concerts while we were down there (my husband and I were fortunate to be able to acquire tickets to all five shows), and I’ll post a few pics.

Besides Cabo’s alluring beauty, I did have several moments during this trip that I consider somewhat mystical—interesting at least. One of those moments was when a woman sat next to me on the plane from Phoenix to Denver and the two of us hit it off as if we’d known each other before. Maybe we have—she told me that she owns a metaphysical bookstore in California. It never ceases to amaze me where the writing of my book “Wings of Rock” seems to be taking me.

For right now though, I have about 50 loads of laundry to catch up on. Stay tuned…

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Semantics

Oct. 21, 2009j0395952The other day, a man I’d never met before asked me what my book was about.

“It’s supernatural; it’s spiritual—about a mystical experience I had in the middle of a concert that changed my life. It also involves a famous rock star…” I started to say.

As I spoke, I noticed that the man, an older gentleman dressed in a biker’s vest with the word “VET” sewn onto it, was attempting to disguise the look of disappointment spreading across his face.

“Supernatural is different than spiritual,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and backing off a bit.

“No, I had an out of body experience…” I continued, and this time as I tried to explain it to him, I used the word “God.”

His eyes lit up and he moved closer. “God isn’t supernatural; God is natural. He is everything.”

“Oh yes! It’s everything!” I grinned, feeling joy moving into all my internal organs.

The man went on to tell me that he too, had had an out of body experience. “The Holy Spirit came to me as I lay dying in a hospital bed.”

“How did you know it was the Holy Spirit?” I asked him. “Did you see it?”

He gestured an arc around himself. “No, I felt it all around me.”

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He explained that the Holy Spirit told him it wasn’t his time to die yet and it would show him what to do to keep on living. “I was completely at peace and felt the presence of God,” he said. And the more he talked, the more I realized that that was exactly what had happened to me six years ago in Cabo.

When I told him the details of my experience, he suddenly became very excited about my book and wanted to know more.

What had initially misled him was my use of the word “supernatural,” which obviously had a different meaning to him than it does to me.

Semantics.

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Merriam-webster.com defines “semantics” as: “the language used to achieve a desired effect on an audience, especially through the use of words with novel or dual meanings.”

How then, do I get past semantics so as not to mislead or confuse people? According to the experts, I’m supposed to be able to describe my book in one or two sentences. Yeah, right. It takes me a paragraph at best. Maybe I just haven’t found the right words yet, or maybe it’s just the nature of my subject, I don’t know.

If I say my book is spiritual, or that it involves God, it gives the connotation that it’s religious and some may be turned off by this, as rock ‘n’ roll and religion don’t necessarily blend well.

If I use the words “supernatural,” “paranormal,” “mystical,” “metaphysical,” or “psychic,” some may immediately assume that my book is occult in nature and look at me as if I’ve lost my marbles.

If I say it’s about a famous rock star, people might think it’s a shallow account of a fan gushing over a celebrity. Even I wouldn’t read a book like that!

So how do I describe ecstasy in God, a supernatural force, psychic experiences, out-of-body realms, otherworldly connections, rock stars, self-realization and the utmost joy, in one or two sentences in order to convey the fact that I am describing one thing that encompasses all of these? These components are the means that led me to my personal definition of what God is—the realization of the ultimate perfection, the ultimate everything. It also matters not if one believes in God—self-realization is available to everyone.

Since my experience, I’ve met several people, the Veteran included, who have told me that they too, have had experiences similar to mine. And I’ve read a lot of books that say this too: “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch, “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle to name a few.

These people all describe the same feelings and emotions involved in their mystical moment and many say it changed their lives.

Author Maxwell Steer writes:

“Mystical experience may be defined as being an ‘infinite intimacy’, a sense of fulfilment in which the subject is simultaneously aware of the limitless nature of the Universe and yet of hir (sic) intimate relationship to a force sensible as an identifiable personality. It is simultaneously the experience of everything and nothing, of knowing all yet being empty, of hearing within silence all sound. Different religious traditions identify this state individually – nirvana, mushín, Shambhala, Buddhahood, mystical union, alchemical marriage, shekinah – yet it can be seen as a common goal of all esoteric teaching, an experience of oneness beyond the world of duality. It need not even occur in a religious context. To me those very rare moments of total understanding that can arise in connection with works of art are clearly in the same category – that clarity of vision and sense of contact with some archetypal personality… some archetypal source of consciousness that transcends rational knowledge.”

And while we report similar experiences, each person’s manner of expressing what happened to them is slightly different, because each person is unique in their perception of the world around them. It’s like describing the color purple—one person might call it “lilac,” while another says “lavender,” and another expresses it using the word “plum” or “violet.”

But it’s still the same color.

 

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