How the Path to Enlightenment Took Me to My Roots
Over the past year I have gone deeper into myself, exploring the facets of meditation, yoga and dabbling in a bit of eastern philosophy. I firmly believe in the universal truth of love and the fundamental nature of human beings as energy and light. I recognize and embrace the temporal nature of love and life.
So when I decided to take LSD for the first time, I was hoping to further that journey. I was looking to open my third eye — which according to my 14-year-old is shut tight.
The experience started out promisingly in that direction. I was at a friend’s house who had a popcorn ceiling — you know the kind where you just have to wonder “why was this even a thing?”
As the acid hit me, I lay on my back, the tips of the popcorn ceiling turned bright gem-like colors and the random stucco on the ceiling turned into beautiful moving arabesque shapes. It reminded me of the Mirror Palace I had visited in Jaipur, India. I did indeed feel like I was on a trip. Sound came to me as light.
I listened to classical music. There must have been a preponderance of Germanic composers on the Apple music station I was listening to, because all of the sudden, rather than a mystical eastern presence, I felt my German and Prussian lineage envelop me. I felt a love of the land and my heritage, and of my people generations before me.
When I was younger I had pride of that heritage. But as I grew to know about some of the traits of German people, (which were solidly infused in my father and our household) their stereotypical joylessness, their adherence to work — I rejected that heritage.
Yet here I was in the middle of my trip, and this feeling of place — most definitely not India — was overwhelming.
As I was laying there, rolling in the waves of this sense of place, I had a vision… a deep sense of belonging to a family long ago in Germany. It was a feeling that was so sweet —a feeling of honey, sunshine and of earth and love—that I wept. It was a vision of a long-ago partnership and a relationship with a man built of mutual respect, love and balance. Of a solid loving and warm family. It was a feeling of unity and strength.
It was a vision so real —not of my present or future, but of my past— and what I had left behind in another lifetime. Then, I grieved for that long ago life. I wept like I haven’t wept since I was a child. And still, several days later, I can still weep over that remembrance of a life that may or may not have been.
There’s a German word “fernweh” that is a sense of longing for a place that you’ve never been. A heart-sickness for that place. That’s what this vision was. I have never been to Germany, but that’s beside the point. Going there physically, now, wouldn’t take me to this place in my vision. I feel like I’ve already been there, and I can’t go back.
As I came out of this vision, with this fernweh still overwhelming me, I realized that while I had been reaching for enlightenment, the universe was telling me I needed to work on my foundation, my sacral chakra. That I need to acknowledge and work from within my tribe and my roots, not from the seeds of another culture.
My whole life I’ve been trying to be something I’m not. Thinner, sweeter, more compliant, more docile, less brash. This vision helped me realize that within the context of where I belong and the people I belong with and to, that I am loved, I am beautiful and I am exceptional. That I am accepted for who I am, right now, at this very moment.
This is not something that’s easy to do. After a lifetime of feeling like I don’t belong, to accept acceptance, to accept belonging.
To continue this journey, I need to learn to embrace and rely upon my roots, which, thanks to this vision, I realize go further than my immediate nuclear family. I thought I had a strong sacral chakra, but those roots and connections to my parents and my brother just pierce the topsoil. We all belong to a family, to a tribe, that goes much deeper. We also have the ability to put down our roots where we chose with whom we chose. The people outside of my tribe who think don’t accept me? Well, they aren’t part of my tribe and don’t get to define me.
So for now, before I strive for enlightenment, I’m going to focus on being with my chosen family and strengthening those bonds and nourishing my roots. Only with a firm foundation can any of us reach for something more.
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