Our Wedding Celebration

Despite my daily protests, Terry was adamant that we follow through on our planned wedding celebration. The day dawned with me ambivalently poised between excitement about our wedding and trepidation about Terry’s ability to navigate the schedule of events and remain upright.   A few previous days of experiment with Aleve had provided him relief from the debilitating pain that had been his constant reality for the past three weeks. This offered some confidence that the same regimen the day of our wedding would provide a similar effect. With that bit of ‘ammo’, we both fully entered into the spirit of the day.

Preparations:

Preparations for the afternoon ceremony began with picking up flower arrangements, decorating the chapel, keeping a make-up application appointment,  and, finally, donning our official ‘wedding clothes’. With each step,  we drew closer to the joy that sat patiently waiting to be released….a joy that had been the foundation of our love and connection from the first day we met. It was the innocent mirth that children possess – happiness that just bubbles up from nowhere and delights in all that life has to offer.

The Ceremony and Celebration – Alternate Universe Experience

As we looked at each other in our transformed selves….it was as if we were transported into an alternate  universe….carried  in a flow of  powerful energy  and  a most unshakeable gift of pure peace.  The  message of universal intention and certainty that we were meant to be together was clear.   As the wedding ceremony  began…the friends who gathered with us readily participated  in the indescribable magic of presence, joy, gratitude and the excitement of bearing witness to a long journey having reached a glorious conclusion. As I stood there engaged in the ceremony, I was conscious that I was standing between layers of reality – aware of the journey to this moment, reliving past events in minute snippets, aware of the destiny and complex soul guidance that lead us to each other and this moment, aware of us all as a wavy presence of energy flashing every color of the spectrum, aware of the actual physical celebration masterfully guided by our friend and mentor, J. Tamar Stone -the words, the symbolism, the meaning in the actions. There was not a sense of time passing. There was a pervasive, palpable knowing of an unconditionally loving presence. It was as if a door opened and we were flooded with love that we could neither describe or quantify but we all felt  and simply immersed ourselves in its delicious enfoldment.  We were heart centered and held in that space, suspended in time and fully awake to the world we had entered…we were fully in the moment and magically embedded in the timeless truth of who we truly are… children of God at play as creators of love and perfection and superlative joy.

Our photographer and friend, Piper Ferguson , masterfully captured the essence of the blessed event with a collection of memorable photos that we visit often which reignites the palpable  joy into which we were immersed. In those photos, the moments of peak joy are evident.

As time has not shifted the emotional awareness  of our wedding, it suggests that the experience of that day was more than just ‘the experience of that day’ Clearly, we were part of a much deeper event of non-local origin.

It seems that our experience is not unique to this one happening. Research  offers insight into the event I have just described and it centers around the phenomenon of Peak Experience.

Abraham Maslow (2006), psychologist and famous for Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,   defines a ‘peak experience’ as part of the journey to self actualization. He expands the characteristics of this as:  ‘Feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences’.

he continues…….’When we have a peak experience we have a sense of overcoming the usual fragmentation of the mind and body and feel that we have reached a state of unity and wholeness. We also transcend the ordinary distinction between subject and object and experience an ecstatic union with humanity, nature, the cosmos and God.  This is associated with intense feelings of joy, bliss, serenity and inner peace. (…) The numinous quality of this state (…) reflects a direct apprehension of the divine nature of reality. (…) we can even reach a state in which we see that the world exists and does not exist at the same time (…) can convey what seems to be ultimate wisdom and knowledge in matter of cosmic relevance.’

Carl Jung (1961),in  Memories, Dreams and Reflections, describes the experience of his connection to non-local dimensions as:  like a temple in which anyone who entered was transformed and suddenly overpowered by a vision of the whole cosmos, so that he could only marvel and admire, forgetful of himself.  Here lived the Other who knew God as a hidden, personal and at the same time, suprapersonal secret. Here nothing separated man from God; indeed, it was a though the human mind looked down upon Creation simultaneously with God.”

Our wedding was without question, an experience of grace, awe and Divine love – for a short time, we were all immersed in an experience of the perfection of who we truly are – children of God at play crafting physical world experience from the vastness of conscious perfection. Carry it with us every day of our lives? without a doubt, it was a soul lead, God inspired never-to-be-forgotten event that showed us the Truth -there were no problems, pain, issues, concerns – there was just each moment, filled with perfection, all possibility and a deep connection with everyone present and with the Divine nature of our beings.

From the peak experience of our most sacred happening, we are reminded as Eckhart Tolle, spiritual philosopher,  so elegantly puts it:  “The collective disease of humanity is that people are so (…) hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms (…) that they have forgotten eternity which is their original home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who we are.” When we remember that Truth, we stretch beyond our ‘ego-boundedness’ and resonate at the frequency of God – that is our outrageous joy, our greatest being-ness.  Living from the afterglow of our wedding day, we can reach to these exquisite moments as touchstone reminders that through open-hearted love, we access a wholeness and joy beyond anything we can possibly imagine with our limited thoughts and earth-bound issues of life.  It is with the deepest gratitude and humility that we accept the grace we were gifted on that day….it sourced from everyone present as we collectively allowed the flow of love to be present and work its magic with us all.

Our Invitation to You

From that experience, we are compelled to ask each reader to explore their own life events and find moments of the presence of universal love and joy such as we have just shared. As you visit these peak times, notice how access to them changes your view and actions in your present circumstances – what if you were to use such events as if they were touchstone memories in your pocket? – everytime you access them, you are transported back to the feel, sense and energetic of the experience – and everytime you access them, you bring them alive to the presence of your current life and are nourished by them….everytime you access them, you connect with the vastness of your true being….everytime you experience your own limitlessness, you heal the amnesia of all and add God knowing into the planetary essence.  It is a compelling incentive to heal whatever needs attention in you as well as what needs support collectively.

Your way begins on the other side
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now….Rumi

Filed under: Multidimensional Reality, quantum field, Spiritual Growth | Tagged: Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, Eckhart Tolle, God, gratitude, J. Tamar Stone, joy, love, non local experiences, peak experience, Piper Ferguson, present moment, quantum reality, unconditional love, Universe, wedding ceremonies |