Finding My Path: An Awakening Experience
A tree with dancing and shimmering leaves.
Image by Ben Neale, courtesy of Unsplash
It was late morning on a sunny but mild summer day.
I was sitting at work writing database scripts to increase the efficiency of our production department. I don’t remember turning my head to look outside my cubicle window. Yet there I was, gazing at a tree, entranced by its dancing and shimmering leaves. I was captivated, pulled outside myself for a brief moment. Then I jolted back to reality and turned to face my computer screen.
My work was engaging and rewarding, the pay was good, and my colleagues were, for the most part, fun and interesting people. My schedule was flexible enough that I was able to get my kids to daycare and preschool and sometimes even take the 45-minute bike ride to work instead of driving.
At home, my husband and I were remodeling our house. We had a dog, cat, chickens, and raised beds for gardening. We recycled and composted and spent time with our extended families. Other people were having midlife crises. But I felt okay about my life.
There were the odd things here and there that bothered me. My relationship with my husband was in a bit of a rut. I didn’t spend enough time with my kids. And one day I found out that our customer base at work included Monsanto – definitely not a company I wanted to be supporting!
Sometimes it seemed like I might be missing something, like something was passing me by and I didn’t even know what it was.
On a whim, I signed up for a Permaculture course. Immersed in regenerative earth-based activities with completely different values and people than I was accustomed to, I felt the pull and possibility of a whole new world..
The Plant World Calls To Me
Over the next few weeks at work, my attention continued to be diverted from my computer screen out my window to the shimmering dancing leaves of that tree. It was beautiful to look at and nice to relax my eyes from the bright computer light, but there was something else. I couldn’t put it into words, but something was being shaken up inside of me.
One day, I couldn’t sit still any longer. I simply had to go out to that tree. Outside, there was nothing I could discern about the tree that warranted my being there. So I decided to walk around the business park.
I often spent my lunch break on a brisk walk at the nearby marsh, but this was different. I found myself floating along the sidewalk in a trance-like state. My gaze was pulled first to one plant, then another. My whole body felt tingly and alive. Then I was back at my building. I shook off the strange experience and went back to work at my computer.
The next day I was drawn back outside by the tree. Soon I was spending most of my breaks sauntering through the business park, strangely captivated by the ordinary-seeming plants. My mind switched “off” during these walks and didn’t register any specific details, yet I felt deeply connected with the plants. I was right there with them, hyper-aware. My heart began to glow. Something not entirely my own was pulling me in.
The infinite beauty of nature was beckoning me into love.
Every time I rounded the final corner of my walk and crossed over the threshold into work, my mind immediately switched back to its usual highly analytical mode, focused on work details. Every time I started off on my walk, I was pulled right back into the same glowing expansive state of connection with the plants.
The Awakening Experience
And then – as things do – the experience shifted. The trance-like state deepened. I was no longer captivated by the individual plants, but I was pulled into an entire landscape of sorts. It was an inner, invisible landscape. I wasn’t seeing it with my physical eyes, yet somehow I was “seeing” it, clearly and without doubt.
A gently swirling mist encompasses everything. I notice dim explosions and powerful lights shooting about. Behind this stormy façade, I can sense the presence of something vaster and quieter, stiller and brighter – a glint behind the dark cloud veil.
I was accustomed to seeing images in my mind’s eye, like a movie playing out on a screen in my head. This was different. I wasn’t an observer, but I was participating in an experience. The experience paused when I went back to work, and resumed right where it had left off when I ventured out on my next walk.
Eventually the dark cloud veil parts, and I see a window in the distance, blue skies and puffy clouds beyond. It is too windy to approach the window, but I savor the breeze across my face and in my hair. As the days pass, the wind slows, and a curtain with shimmering colors appears in place of the window. I savor the beauty of the intense reds, pinks, oranges, purples.
I spent many days waiting for the wind to quiet down, and many more days enjoying the beautiful colors on the curtain. I knew that I would eventually go through the window, but there was no rush. I had to wait for the right moment.
One day I notice geometric patterns on the curtain: vivid triangles beckon me to enter. I don’t have any expectations for what lies beyond, yet I am mildly surprised when I finally peer through into infinite darkness and wild storms. Somewhere beyond the storms, I sense a deep calm.
While the rest of my life went on as usual, I continued having these trance-like experiences for many weeks. I didn’t try to analyze them, didn’t even think about them. They just happened, and instead of trying to shut them down, I participated.
As the trance-walks progressed, I entered through the window, found a torch, and had all sorts of further experiences navigating the dark stormy landscape. Till one day, heading towards the deep calm I had sensed earlier, I reached a climax, a realization, a decision. I emerged from the trance with an unexpected and not entirely welcome knowing: I needed to leave my career and dive deep - Ph.D. deep - into the intersection of physics and philosophy.
Finding My Path
Back in college, I had my palm read by a grad student from China. He told me that my “life line” was broken in half: at age 36, I would either die or end up with a chronic illness. I didn’t take this completely to heart, yet it always stayed with me. I felt quite certain that a time would come when I would be faced with a life-changing decision: if I said no, I would die or be chronically ill. If I said yes, some old part of me would die and things would shift dramatically.
Here I was, exactly 36 years old, already dealing with adrenal fatigue. I had no aspiration to go back to school, no desire to navigate a new lifestyle and deal with a smaller income. Finding my path was not on my agenda.
But turning my back on this awakening experience would have meant continuing to live a half-life, wondering what could have been while being too afraid to find out.
There was no doubt in my mind that it was time to make a change, and that this change involved a Ph.D.
I told my mom the plan. “But how can you do this?” she worried, “what about the kids?” Everyone seemed to know what I was doing and have something to say about it. Surprisingly, many responses were positive; people seemed inspired! My dental hygienist whispered to me when no one else was in the examining room: “I wish I could do what you’re doing!”
I’m grateful that I had the resources – both materially and psychologically – to leave a successful career and venture out into uncertainty. Once I got used to the idea, it felt strangely good to be finding my path. I continued my slow reflective walks, but I was no longer pulled into the trance-like state. I knew what my next move needed to be.
Listen to the Plant World!
It started with the tree outside my cubicle window. At the time, I didn’t give much thought to the plant world. It didn’t seem relevant or meaningful that I had been spurred into a trance-like state by gazing at plants. And I certainly didn’t think I’d write a Ph.D. dissertation on “The Frontiers of Plant-Human Collaboration”.
It wasn’t until recently, when a friend asked how I ended up finding my path, that I recognized the importance and relevance of this awakening experience.
Plant scientists and philosophers have been giving more attention to the topic of plant sentience, discovering valid reasons to start thinking about plants in a new way. With this information, it seems arrogant to continue backgrounding the role of the plant world while focusing only on our human component.
In my narrow human-focused world, I remember distinctly how my gaze was pulled towards the plants and held there while everything else seemed to drop away. When I broaden my focus to include plants as fellow sentient beings, I can feel the plants calling to me, trying to get my attention, helping to wake me up.
I still enjoy taking slow reflective walks immersed in the plant world. Every once in a while, I’ll be pulled into a trance-like state and have a series of experiences that lead me to new realizations. As my relationship with the plant world continues to deepen, I listen more closely and remember to say thank you.
