I believe we all grow up with a case of amnesia. A certain way of seeing that we had as a child which fades to the background. There is enough to learn, see, and feel from the world we enter that our mind seems to play Indiana Jones with our childhood senses. A slow switch from one channel to the next, from chaos to confused order.
There are few better examples of confused order than that of the Catholic Church, which is how I was raised. At a young age, I could tell the logic was goofy. The wine actually turns into blood? Wait to mingle with ladies until marriage? Oh, and if you miss church or don’t play by the rules, you’re going to hell (where there is a giant monster who tortures you forever with no escape). Just goofy. A few things I liked about it was the singing together, the art and decorations, friends, and the mystery of God.
Even after I told my parents I was done with the church, I still loved to pray. The silent chat with my consciousness and the secret world. A place where I could talk with a voice inside to let out feelings of pain and gratitude, desire and regret. As I got older, prayer started to mix with meditation ideas I learned on the internet. After a good amount of practice in quieting my mind of internal thoughts and outside irritations, I started to see movement in the mist.
Movement became darkness visible. A city of dreamlike motion with slip slides to visions of chance happenings and future potentials. Slight sounds that enter as hypnotic undertones of quasi language echo in between. At times, there is a cloud-like tunnel of invisible light that gets brighter and faster moving until it is almost entirely white. Seeing this is sometimes painful or a brain-full and it takes me a while to relax and step away.
But is it inside or outside? A fantasy or a sense? Am I starting to see a hidden world or becoming maddened by the attempt? Hard to say, even still. One thing I know is it is vividly real to me and that it is one of the only realities I can truly trust.
Much Love,
Chris Dock