I've just typed in everything I wanted to say and wiped it all off so I'm starting again. Better luck this time!

I have a question which has been going around for me for years. Its about when a different Reality breaks into our consciousness and I'm not talking about a prayer situation.

Years ago I was in Yosemite National Park in America. I felt totally overwhelmed by it but I refused to acknowledge this and found myself saying "This isn't what its cracked up to be. Ireland is just as good" (which it is - only its different). Eventually it got to me, so after walking up a valley for a while I lay down on a rock to sort myself out. What I discovered was that I was totally overawed by the ancientness and majesty of nature surrounding me. I felt dwarfed and insignificant by comparison and I couldn't cope with it. But as I lay there I realised if I could just take on board one thing, like the nearby tree, this might lead me into being able to take the whole Park on board. So I began to imagine what it might be like to be a tree standing in this valley and lo and behold after a while I found something like my spirit going out of me and connecting to the tree and I felt myself and the tree were One. That changed my whole response. Now I was completely at home in the place and it felt so right, so wholesome. A similar thing happened to me on two different occasions with the sea. It felt as if my ego-self with my day-to-day boundaries gave way to my spirit self which reached out to the sea and again I experienced Oneness though not as dramatically as the first time.

But the question is How does this happen? I didn't do anything to bring these episodes about. So far as I am concerned they were totally outside my control. I have tried, many times since to make this happen but I can't. So was it just random?

Anybody got any ideas?

I don't have a computer at home so if you do reply to me I will not be able to get back to you as quickly as I would like so please bear with me. As it is I can hardly believe I have actually got on to this website, and I'm in fear and trrr-embling that I mightn't ever manage it again, but anyway here I am and Hurrah for technology!

Mairead McGrath 11/10/01

-- Anonymous, October 11, 2001