All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Ithuriel's Spears in Poison Oak

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RISING

Words and Music by Jim Robbins

It could be like this rising
into a greater brightness, close now
to the source where nothing
separates us from the light.

It could be like returning
to a place we had forgotten
from a time before our migration,
rediscovering our home tree by tree,

flower by flower, always
haunted by wings
but now only timeless
like light.

Wind Poppies and Fiesta flowers

RISING

   Once, as I was hiking through Fox Canyon, I paused for a moment by the Kings River to gaze at Ithuriel’s Spears and pine trees and swallowtails and to tune into orioles and phainopeplas and frogs. Suddenly, as I watched the water flow past the moss-covered rocks, my personal consciousness shifted into Universal Consciousness—which was suddenly observing Its awesome creation through me. In ecstasy, I had in one inexplicable moment, in other words, become the eyes of God. Nothing had prepared me for this, not school, not church, not friends, not family. Someone told me once that death is an ego-shattering experience. The moment of the shift seemed like a kind of death, yet my ego had not shattered—it had vanished completely. After decades of striving to develop a tolerable personality, I suddenly knew without a doubt that my self had always been just a convincing illusion. I wanted to feel that bliss forever as I stood by the flowing water, but the more I struggled to remain in that state of ecstasy, the more it slipped away, and too soon I returned to what I had come to believe to be normal human consciousness.     

   I eventually realized that everything is God experiencing Itself through all points of awareness, animal, vegetable and mineral. In the forest, far from humanity, the veils had completely dropped away, which had suddenly enabled my mind to to become one with Universal Consciousness. 

   As human beings we are able to experience various types of consciousness, what scientists have labeled different brain waves: Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta (1). As modern humans, we spend most of our time trapped in Beta brainwaves. Since our waking hours are packed with things that require active cognitive attention, Beta brainwaves are the most common type found in brain scans (2). Based on sixty years of personal experience, I have come to believe that, besides the Gamma state of hyper concentration, and the dream state, which we usually soon forget, Beta brain waves are considered the normal mental state in this society, so much so that we usually dismiss the other types of consciousness and often even feel fear when experiencing them.

   In meditation, we can tune our minds to these different levels of consciousness and experience deep relaxation and peace, healing and regeneration, visions and epiphanies, spiritual dimensions and beings, and Universal consciousness. Moreover, Mother Earth’s natural frequency is 7.83 Hz, which is on the borderline between Alpha and Theta frequencies in the human brain (3). When immersed in nature, the brain tunes to this frequency, and we can experience the kinds of spiritual awareness that we experience in meditation. But in nature, we can feel a deep connection with the Source through love for other creatures and the Earth and know that all energy is divine. In these times of social crises and upheaval, the intentional experience of these different types of consciousness is a deeply political act, for we come to know the divinity of all people and all life.

   The song "Rising" was inspired by a trip to Mineral King in late May. In the lower foothills, the last flowers were blooming profusely on the hillsides. We rose higher and higher on a treacherous single-lane road on a cliff by the Kaweah River, then on a winding dirt road through a high mountain forest, and we eventually encountered the flowers of early spring again. As we drove into the high mountain valley, we passed water cascading down the mountain on every side. The sun seemed so close that we could almost touch it. After we parked the car we found a trailhead and kept rising higher past huge trees and small streams. Suddenly a bear ran across the path twenty feet away, heading for the meadow in the valley below.

   We were well above eight thousand feet in elevation, and oxygen was thin. I began to feel a bit dizzy. My wife and daughter were unaffected by the thin oxygen level, but we knew that we would have to hike many more miles to get to a mountain lake, and many more miles beyond that to touch the sun, so we rested on the trail before we turned around and headed back. I imagined our souls rising higher and higher into a spiritual dimension that we had known before we ever came to the earth, a place with its own forest like the one we were exploring. There we would rediscover all the flowers and trees that we had known before, just as it seemed that day we were rediscovering many trees and flowers.
   Some part of me knew then that we never completely lose anyone, that there is some dimension where we meet again and thank each other for struggling with us through the trials and tribulations, and I also knew that we thank each other for sharing the mystery and the stunning beauty and the magic of this earth.

 

1)    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agriculteral-and-biological-sciences/brain-waves

2)    https://mybraindr.com/4-types-of-brainwaves-and-how-they-impact-your-mental-health/

3)    https://www.drskinhealth.com/blog/schumann-resonance