Mystical Interludes II: A Collection of Ordinary People’s Mystical Experiences

1

Interlude with Eternity

Bonnie Bassan

Indian Paintbrush,

vermillion lined with yellow

Mexican Hat,

jaunty and jocular

A triple rainbow

majestic and elusive,

the hum and twitter

of the red chin hummingbird

A boulder cracks loudly

cleanly in two

crashes through the wilderness

rolls twenty feet

ripping the pine branch from its trunk

it splits into two again

Centered by the tactile

touching, smelling

drinking in beauty through the

chalice of my eyes

sipping through the pores of my skin

the world that I am a small but significant part of

a puddle of appreciation

transpires into

a monsoon of gratitude

blows through my entire body

emerges through my tears

joys of tears,

libation on the soil

gentleness hovers in the

spaces between the breath

The grandeur and awe

nature is poetry

I am the artifice and the artisan

I touch my father through the wet dirt,

feel his heart beating in the red clay in my hands

When mushrooms broke free from the earth,

he nourished me

My mother too lives in the fleeting orange day lily

beauty here but a day

Ballast, these moments of Beauty

seep into Joy,

cannot be contained,

in the vessel of my soul

In these increments of time

I arrive at eternity,

and break free of the prison of time, death and grief

Bonnie Bassan is a yoga instructor/bankruptcy lawyer who recently reconnected with her love for poetry and writing. Rediscovering poetry was like finding a long lost piece of herself. She lives in New Mexico and teaches yoga to at risk youth in the public schools. She plans to bring yoga and writing to the schools on a larger scale to help youths connect with emotional literacy. She is currently finishing a memoir about her own troubled childhood and finding love and joy through yoga.

2

The Right Choice

Ann Miller

My name is Ann. I live a rather ordinary life in a small town in Pennsylvania and have raised four children. Now I am blessed with lots of grandchildren…even several great-grandchildren.

Many years have passed since I experienced this mystical interlude. The memory is still very vivid for me. I like sharing my story because it has had a major impact on my life. Maybe it will help others to reflect on an incident they have had that changed—or could have changed their lives.

Back in the ‘50s when I was a sophomore at a University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, I was in love with Tom, a senior. Living nearby, I commuted to school from home each day. Tom shared an apartment on campus with his fraternity brothers, Gary and Stan. Tom and I had been a couple for quite some time. I wore his fraternity pin as a way of indicating that we were in a serious, dedicated relationship.

On this particular evening, my mother was preparing a special dinner for my brother, Chet, who had been home on a short leave from his naval base in Philadelphia. Chet was due to report back at base the following morning. We wanted Tom to join us for Chet’s last night of leave.

Following my afternoon class that day, I jumped into my car and stopped by Tom’s apartment to invite him to come home with me. I was disappointed to find nobody there. A little dejected, I left and headed out of town.

Approaching the stop sign at a main intersection, I signaled left toward home and suddenly heard a voice commanding me to go back! It came out of nowhere. Nobody was around. I paused and listened.

The voice distinctly commanded, Go back!

I sat for a moment, puzzled and confused. Then I was compelled to turn right and drive back to the apartment.

To my surprise, Tom answered the door. When I invited him to come home with me for dinner with my family, he frowned disappointedly because he had volunteered to pass out programs at the basketball game that night. Also, one of his roommates, Stan, would not be home for dinner, and Tom didn’t want to abandon his other roommate, Gary, to eating dinner alone.

Just as I was about to leave, disappointed for the second time, Tom’s friend Bill stopped by. Bill heard us lamenting about Tom’s having to miss dinner at my house, so he came to the rescue. He said he’d eat at the apartment with Gary and afterwards go with Gary to the basketball game.

Stan might get back in time to go with us, Bill added. We can pile into Gary’s convertible.

We decided that I’d return Tom to campus later so he could distribute programs at the game, and I would study at the library. With that settled, Tom and I left for dinner with my family.

Much later that night when I returned home from the library, the telephone was ringing as I entered the house. I knew my parents had taken my brother to meet his ride for the Naval base, so I ran to answer before the caller hung up.

One of Tom’s fraternity brothers was on the line. Is Tom with you? he asked.

No. I answered. Why?

When did you last see him?

Why? What’s up? I asked.

There’s been a terrible accident on the way to the game… Gary’s car was hit by a fast-moving train.

What? I was stunned by this shocking news, Where …

It happened at an unmarked crossing in town, he said, Gary and Bill were both killed. Stan was thrown clear. He’s still alive with bad injuries.

Oh no! I gasped.

The guys here at the frat house know that Tom usually goes to the games with Gary and Stan. We’re worried that he might have been in Gary’s car. Do you know where he is?

I told him of our evening together at my house, and that I had left Tom at the gym to pass out programs. I was sure he had not been with his roommates and Bill at that time. Shocked and concerned myself, I knew Tom would be devastated when he got the news.

These many years later, I remain saddened by the tragic deaths of Gary and Bill. At the same time, I’m thankful that I heeded that mysterious voice.

Go back! it commanded. Had I had not listened and acted on what I heard, Tom would most likely be dead.

Tom has been my husband for sixty-one years.

I am most grateful for my life-saving mystical interlude!

Editor’s Note: This story came through MysticalInterludes.com. Ann Miller and I have never met, but from her writing and through our email communications, I know her as an intelligent, grateful, and compassionate person. Ann clearly cares enough to share her experience with hope that it might benefit others.

3

A Special Delivery

Jan Lawrence

This story starts before I was born. My mother Jeanette had two very difficult pregnancies with my older brothers, Brad and John. Later, she had a miscarriage. Her doctors cautioned her about getting pregnant again, but her desire to have a daughter overtook their advice. During her pregnancy with me, Mom lived with my paternal grandmother, Lessie, whose claim to fame was that she was the second successful brain-hemorrhage surgery in the United States, the first being actress Patricia Neal. Looking back, I believe God had plans for her.

Granny Lessie cared for my pregnant mother, who was confined to bed rest for most of nine months because of persistent toxemia. I was born at last via C-section in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 30, 1964. Tragically, my mother died eight days later from a surgical complication during my birth.

My brothers and I were left without a mother. My father, now a widower, had no idea how to raise three children on his own. We lived with Granny for the first several years of my life. She became the pivotal person in my existence. By the time I reached age seven, my family consisted of my dad, a stepmother, two brothers and three step-brothers. We left Ohio and moved to Avella, Pennsylvania, a rural coal-mining town.

I survived the school years by returning to Cleveland every summer to be with my beloved grandmother, who taught me about God, music, and love. She was God’s blessing to me in our loss. When I was in my twenties, my aging granny moved close to her daughter in Florida. I was devastated.

Fast forward to January 2000. I was in my ninth month of pregnancy when I learned that Granny was moving from Florida back to our original home of Ohio. I was ecstatic with excitement, not only for the birth of my baby, but also because Granny would be living nearby again!

But death darkened my life once more. The day before she was to move, my beloved granny died unexpectedly of a heart attack! That was on January 25, 2000.

On January 29, I went into labor, terrified and grieving. Having recently lost my grandmother and also having lost my mother during my own birth time, I was afraid of the birth process. At the same time, I knew it was inevitable. At hour twenty-six, with no progression of labor, I was given Pitocin. Rather than increase contractions, it worked opposite, causing the contractions to stop. I fell into a deep, deep sleep.

While there, this is what I remember. I entered a bright white room where my mother and grandmother were seated in chairs on one side of a long table. I don’t recall what they were wearing, but their faces were as clear as if they were alive and well in human flesh right there in front of me. And I can’t forget that brilliant white room! Granny had her familiar southern drawl as she told me they were right there with me. I never had the gift of hearing my mother’s voice (except perhaps from the womb), but it was calm and soft just as I had imagined it. They were ageless. Mom was just 26 when she died, and she was as beautiful as my picture of her.

I sat in an empty chair across from them. My mother spoke, telling me it was time for me to get the baby out. I cried, telling them I could not do it without them. I might die just like Mom did. I didn’t know how to be a parent.

Granny said, We’re right here with you.

Mom commanded, Get up and get the baby out!

My anxiety dissolved into determination.

The next thing I remember is being out of my hospital bed and pacing the room. My husband, asleep in the chair next to my bed, startled awake when he heard me jump out of bed. I walked back and forth frantically, repeating that Mom and Granny told me to get up and get the baby out!

My frenetic walking brought the needed contractions back. Within a few hours, I was holding my precious son, Robert.

I remember this experience vividly in its detail, grateful that it moved me to take immediate action. This encounter shattered my life-long fear that giving birth would lead to my death. I never wanted my child to grow up without a mother because it was so very difficult for my brothers and me.

My experience with Mom and Granny also instilled the courage in me to try pregnancy again. Now I also have a daughter who is as beautiful, loving and kind as my mom was.

I made a promise to God, Mom and Granny, that if I were able to stay with my kids for a while, I would teach them about God, music, and mostly about love. I work towards that every day that God’s grace keeps my heart beating and my blood flowing. I only wish I could see or talk to Mom and Granny again; for I miss them every single day.

I’d love to hear them say, I told you so.

Jan Lawrence is the loving wife of twenty-one years to Bob, mother of Robert, about to graduate from high school, and Erin, age thirteen. They live in the south hills of Pittsburgh with their little Malt-Zhu, Cookie. Jan works as both a church secretary and a library assistant. In her spare time, she sings, entertaining in senior facilities, skilled nursing centers, and occasional private functions. Jan believes that there is no such thing as coincidence. She takes time every day to thank God for her blessings.

4

Death is Not the Final Chorus

Chloe Rachel Gallaway

My life has been like no other, and yet, I remain connected to all of you in every way. I spent the first twelve years of my life in the wilderness.

It did not happen by chance, but rather by choice—although not my choice. I was born there. My father was a creative genius with big ideas and ideals of how we should live out our human existence. He was a man of the world, a known musician and songwriter who played alongside Janis Joplin and the greats, then left it all behind to create his own path, to leave his mark upon his children and upon the sacred land where he devoted his days to living.

As a child, I knew very little of the world, this strange place far removed from my everyday play among the red hills of clay. I knew only that I wasn’t an Indian and I wasn’t living in the seventeen or eighteen hundreds, but I was living just as those in the past had lived. Society was far in the distance: cars, buses, school, cities—they were not a part of my vocabulary, nor a part of my vision. And so you see, my connection was to the earth, to the trees, to the birds taking flight, to the wind blowing through my body—the song of nature sang to me daily. When you are born in the woods along with your five siblings, you and your siblings sing this song, a little different sound heard through each voice, but it’s the shared song that becomes a rhythm of life. I lived in this rhythm with my siblings.

Nature is a devout teacher in her beauty, her twists and turns, her loss, her love and her ever-changing rhythm. One cannot be in bliss at all times walking the green path in the forest. I can’t tell you all the stories here—there are so many, I’ve written a book about them, The Soulful Child: Twelve Years in The Wilderness. However, there is one story not told there in vivid detail. It is one that has molded my life, broken me open, and awakened me to matters of life and death. It is this story I’d like to share with you here.

I call my five siblings and me The Pack. Like a pack of wolves, we ate together, worked, together, played together, and rode the winds of change together: John, Carey, Nye, Rose, Jacinth, and me—four boys and two girls. We had names but rarely used them, our energy bodies and non-verbal cues tagging us through the day. John was the eldest, strong and fierce, but kind and gentle. A protector of my mother, he had a deep soul with blue eyes lighting his strong cheek bones, and dark brown hair outlining his forehead. The world would call him