A Small Shallow River
When I was 15 years old I was going through a sort of depression. I wrote almost daily in my diary that I "wanted to go home". I lived with my father and step-mother, but it didn't feel like home to me. I guess I was craving unconditional love.
One day at school I started to feel ill, and thought I would go to the nurse to try to get out of school.
When the nurse took my temperature she nearly fell back. "You have a fever of 104"!
I was rushed home, and went directly to bed.
What happened next is very, very hard to explain. I was in some sort of delirium, and all around I heard roaring loud sounds, like a hundred helicopters hovering over my roof. After a time, the roaring stopped, or faded away, and I was in a dark tunnel gently drifting in a current that seemed to go down, and then up. As I was coming up the tunnel, I could see that I was in water floating to the top where there was beautiful light. As I rose out of the water I found myself standing in a small shallow river, and all around was a gorgeous, serene and very much alive green place. It was something like a forest, but still with open space.
As I stood there, in the water, I felt the most incredible sense of love and peace. I felt like I understood everyone in my life, and I was filled with a sort of limitless wisdom. . .and I felt like I was more "home" than I have ever been on earth. To top it off, for the first time in many years, I felt real love and understanding for myself, which is what I most needed.
Next thing I recall, I felt an ache to walk on the grass, and so I started to step out of the water. But just before my foot could touch the grass, I heard a gentle "No" and suddenly I was back in the tunnel, going backwards, up to my bed where I woke up.
That experience changed my life.
AB