A WRINKLE IN TIME

My first lesson in metaphysics came from an unlikely source—a Kiddie Lit class required for Elementary Education Majors at the University of Texas. Before Harry Potter, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET there was A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L’Engle. Swept along in the fantasy, my young adult view of 3D reality turned a corner and cracked wide open: In the story, "an unearthly stranger appears.... She claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell.... There is such a thing as a tesseract, which, if you didn’t know, is a wrinkle in time."

As I read, I remembered that as a child I believed many magical things: The world is huge and I can touch the sky!  Animals talk. The wind knows my name. I saw not only with my eyes, but also with my heart. With childlike wonder I fell in love with The Mystery. Then like most of us, I grew up, and forgot; encouraged to forget by a linear, height/width/depth society. When the teacher said, "Quit daydreaming!" I tried to be good, to conform, to forget the magic. 

But in spite of honest effort to put away childish wonder, cramming for my college Kiddie Lit exam, squinting to read beneath a pale yellow beam, I woke up and remembered who I am. Since then I’ve never been able to get back to sleep. So I gave up. (You can probably relate.) Now I watch and wait for “the stranger at the door,” a flash of intuition, a moment of clear knowing which separates what was, from what is becoming.

Myths which resonate deep within our imagination become rooted in our psyche as potent guiding truths:  

~If we “choose to accept it,” imagination carries us on bounless voyages into the unknown.

~Tinker Bell tells us how:  “Believe, only believe.”

~The wardrobe really does open into Narnia.

~"Red pill” or “blue pill”? By individual acts of choice, we decide to live inside The Matrix or out. 

King Arthur, Guenivere, Launcelot and the search for the Holy Grail?  Wow! Haven't we all been hooked by that one?  More than myth, only in adult life have I recognized the grail quest as a metaphysical principle which represents longing for the True Self.  Intuition and instinct, coupled with deep longing for home, guide us towards reunion with the spiritual essence of our being. Like a pebble tossed into the center of consciousness, intuitive awareness radiates into ever-widening ripples of soul restoration. If we fish, we will catch all we need to wisely nourish this one and only life.

This December, I was caught in an intuitive homing implulse, when I would normally be at home baking pumpkin bread, Instead of checking the pantry for cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, I thought about traveling to Europe.  It made no sense.  The timing was wrong, but the idea grabbed hold and would not let me up. 

Scrolling through the interet I located a likely tour,which would sort of fit into my Christmas plans of traveling to Upstate NY and Christmas with my family.  At least the Trans Atlantic flight would depart from New York. Although the prescribed travel through Europe would take me through glorious locations in France, England and Scotland where Dan Brown’s, The DaVinci Code, takes place, I wasn't altogether sure this exact tour was the one.  Like most everybody in the world I had read Brown's book, and especially resonated with the heretical ideas (according to sacrosant scriptures canonized at the Council of Nicea in 325CE) that Brown ingeniously presents as fiction.

But I really wanted more substance.  Surely I needed a mystical experience. since I was obsessed with the idea of European travel at a most inconvenient time. Maybe I could have an edgy pilgrimage like Shirley McClaine is so fond of enduring. Through email I sensibly shared with the tour director that this wasn’t really the sort of trip I wanted, and maybe I should rethink the timing. But she said, “You can have whatever experiences you need to have. No one is going to stop you.” I wasn't hard to convince.  Besides, I liked her, and suddendly, I knew this was the right time, right place.

Like it or not, I was onto something big. From past inner-world experiences I expected that surely to goodnesss, something would come of this European adventure.  That I was now going on--no matter what.  I did have a clue what the longing might be about.

Years ago I experienced a magical meditative experience , so strong I always remembered, and felt warm inside every time I thought of it: A glowing sun streaming brilliant beams of light completely fills my inner eye. A silvery moon, smaller than the sun yet no less brilliant, gently eclipses the sun. Radiant beams entwine. A strong inner voice says: When the sun and the moon become one, there will be roses without thorns. At that moment, the luminous sun and moon transform into a circular stained glass window, as a delicate pink rose slips into the center.

Now here I was, two weeks before Christmas, all the way across the Atlantic, stunned motionless before the round Rose Window at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was exactly like the one I had seen in my inner world  years ago. Voices echoed through the cavernous chamber. I couldn’t move. My heart thumped. I didn’t completely grasp the meaning, but I was here...now...feeling it. I cried and no one saw. I felt invisible. There was only me and this exquisite understanding: The longing which brought me here had begun years ago with the magical image of the sun, moon and rose.

Dr. Carl Jung, whose work is most likely known to you, would identify this potent inner world image as a Mandala, a circle drawing, a picture of wholeness, a soul picture. And still, even though we name the experience as transcendent, we seldom immediately integrate the layered wisdom which these big images convey, or understand how they inform our everyday life. Rather our rational mind completely grasps the meaning or not, we can’t help but acknowledge the strength of emotional response which tells us that our heart is involved. We feel a sense of wonder and know that we’ve dropped through a wrinkle in time.  And more will be revealed....