I have only
experienced true darkness in the bowels of the earth we call caves. A trip through a cave provided me a
remarkable first person glimpse of the time before what we now call the Big
Bang or the Creation Story. I am neither a science authority nor a religious
scholar and it is not my purpose during my walkabout to explore the relative
agreements and disagreements of this observed event. It is enough to share that
the science story is covered by such a luminary as Stephen Hawking and the
religious interpreted story found in the book of Genesis. Who or what you
choose to explore and believe is your own journey.
Today, I
will merely share some of what I have observed and experienced in mind and body
because a major part of the walkabout is remembering and sharing. It is why I begin in a cave. Whether you take
the journey with a single spelunker friend in a secluded personal outing or you
choose a professionally guided tour in the company of fellow travelers, every
cave provides a remarkable transition just for you. The ever handy dictionary states
that a transition is a process or a period of changing one state or condition
to another. Consider these synonyms as you look for a transition in your life:
change, passage, move, transformation, conversion, metamorphosis and
alteration.
At some
point in the exploration of a cave you are handed the gift of experience. On
this trip, I knew what was coming and I had made a conscious effort to allow
time for my eyes to adjust to the transition from the provided low level
electrical lighting to darkness. I also knew
it would make no difference. A simple flick of a finger on a switch and I found
myself in a remarkable place. Nothing that was there before the lights were put
away remained and the roof of the cave became a sky devoid of everything I had
grown to know. For all practical purposes, the demonstration gave me a vision
of what did and did not exist before the transition to we call the beginning of
time. I wish for you the experience of the absence of created light. The only
things that remained were the sounds of falling drops of water and the varied
sounds from those who were unprepared. I also wish that each of you, far away from unnatural light and in the
middle of night, will someday experience the gasp in your breath when you realize that you
are surrounded by a level of light you thought impossible.
