What happens when you wake from the ecstatic vision? How are you supposed to go back to an ordinary life? When the apocalypse drifts out of sight, when the doors of your perception shut themselves from the intrusion of the heavenly lights, how do you tear yourself away from the prophecy, come down from the transcendent heights? Experience has taught me a little about glimpsing infinity and never having that encounter again. You question what you saw, wonder if it was all that you thought it was, wonder from what source it was from, and then there is that deep desire to go there again: to fly once more with the angels. But more often than not, the convergence of all the forces necessary — the correct alignment of all the stars and planets — occurs at best once in a life's course. To wait for it to happen once again is most likely in vain.
And memories fade. Even the most intense of experiences, time, as it goes on, dilutes the sensations that were once felt. The ecstatic vision — no, it never does completely vanish — but (perhaps worse) it gets relegated to the status of an anecdote, an unusual little blurb in the paragraphs of one's life: the time you thought you saw God, or some little ditty like that. Whatever the fury of the perception, the main effects subside into unconscious reflex only — though deeply planted, a subterranean fruit only, never again tasted as such on the surface of one's soul. What happens when you wake from the ecstatic vision? You rise forever changed, but never in the way that you think you are, or perhaps even hope to be. And this fantastic thing may become just another page of your life, perhaps dog-eared, forgotten why it seemed so important....
me?!
6:01am friday, 29th august
Yeah ..
Rich
8:44pm thursday, 4th march
I dont know wheather or not you see the responses to the entrys that arent up to date, but its march of 2004 now and i'm seing this for the first time. I really like this passage because it questions what you are. If you believe you are what your past experiences are, what if your past is erased, or dreamed up? after a dilusional state, are you the same person? Can you relate?
me?!
Rich