I am in space. Ejected? Abandoned? Just outside. Space-suited and surrounded by stars in the brilliant void. I am falling toward earth. I see the planet below me, down at my feet, and I am moving steadily and quickly towards its surface. Its like all of the pictures you’ve ever seen, wispy gorgeous swirling clouds flowing over deep blue oceans and barely distinguishable land masses. I’m calm as I realize that I will die quite soon. I’ve read too much science fiction not to know that I will burn up upon re-entry, a fiery ball shooting across the sky as I am quickly incinerated by contact with the planet’s atmosphere. A grizzly reality, yet I am calm and somewhat distant as I contemplate this, and I know, as one knows any simple truth, that I am going to die.
I fall. The earth grows until it’s all I can see and I am starting to touch the outer reaches of the atmosphere. As I dive deeper my arms come up and out to my sides and a vortex opens and begins to churn and swirl beneath me. I feel my body slowly begin to spin, gaining speed and revolutions as I plunge downward. I fall deeper and faster and faster still, into a giant storm which rages around me, like a crucified Jesus hurtling through a gigantic and violent tornado, arms outstretched, head up and eyes clear. And it’s all okay. I have no fear, no overpowering terror of the unknown that is about to embrace me. I do not pray, nor worry, nor scream bloody terror, I am calm. I am the eye. I simply, am.
I explode through the bottom of the vortex, a flash of blinding light and suddenly I am walking quickly across my parent’s front yard. It is the house I grew up in and what are now tall trees and overgrown shrubs, are small, newly planted. The yard where I spent my childhood is covered with snow yet I feel no cold, notice no crisp breath escaping from my mouth. I walk a little faster. I take a few more steps and then I lean into a wind that isn’t there and suddenly I feel this power press against me and I spread my arms, (wings?) like some great eagle and my body lifts up from the ground and I am flying! I feel myself moving forward but my mind sees the ground fall below and away from me like I am flying up and slightly backwards. And the power! Good God! I am overwhelmed by the strange incredible power I feel! I am using no muscles, not beating my arms, but some newly discovered strength courses through my body and pushes against the gust in my face. I look at my right hand and slowly open and close it, feeling this energy, embracing it, noticing how I can sense it coursing through every fiber. I fly on an invisible wind made up of the same incredible energy, I can feel the sensation of it pressing against my chest and legs and arms, giving me life as I rise up above my house. Then higher still so that I can see the whole subdivision, then the whole town, all falling away beneath me. It feels so good, so right and I soar.
I soar knowing I am dead, yet I wonder if perhaps I am living all this in the last milliseconds of my minds consciousness. It occurs to me that this could be one of those near-death experiences. That while the flesh of my body is incinerating my mind has somehow gone into hyper-drive, creating all kinds of experiences and feelings and sensations because any instant now I am just going to blink into oblivion and there will be no more. Or perhaps, I think, I am really moving on to some higher level of consciousness, or another dimension, or meet to God. But none of that really matters at the moment because all of this feels so right and I am calm and clear and relaxed and strong.
Then I am coming down. I fly quickly, and a little too suddenly, back to the ground and I land flat on my stomach like a plane scuttling in some deserted farmer’s field. Only I am back in my folks front yard and as I land my coat is open at the collar and it acts like a giant scoop filling my clothes with snow. I stand, my chest packed tight, but I don't feel the cold. I don’t scramble to remove it like I am thinking I should and I notice that it has an odd sensation, like a life-force or something. I feel its power. It’s simple and crystalline and clean and beautiful, and I cock my head to one side as I contemplate this magnificent snow. It has the same power I do. And it’s okay that it has become stuffed down the front of my coat, I don’t have to remove it, it’s alright if it just stays there because it’s a part of me, we are made of the same energy me and this snow. Like the trees and the house and the cold and my hand and all that surrounds me, all that I can drink into myself as each second progresses into the next and I realize that I am recognizing, and relishing, absolutely everything around me. We are all one! Each crystal and cell and thought all connected in a way that I do not yet understand, but still it seems to be as obvious as holding a clear glass marble in your hand and recognizing how smooth and round and solid and singular it is.
But I think I brush the snow out anyway. Funny that. Old habits.
