Safed

“…in the midst of death, life persists, in the midst of untruth, truth persists, in the midst of darkness, light persists.” Mahatma Gandhi

Eighteen years ago I graduated from university and headed for Israel. I was twenty-one years old and after four years of college, thoroughly confused as to what was truly important anymore. Several hours into life beyond the shelter of my parent’s roof I entered higher education with the intention that it would give me the tools and the degree necessary to set out in the capitalist way and make lots of money.

Like many recent college graduates, I returned to my parent’s home after graduation with the tassle, the degree, skills I never imagined receiving from a place of higher learning and some well soiled laundry. I remember the feeling of walking into the house I had left four years earlier and sitting down at the kitchen table. I stared at the overstocked napkin holder at the center of the table and instantly felt empty. The desperation of having accomplished something yet not knowing what it had really been for left me feeling anxious and alone. I had been home a couple of hours before I realized that no matter what I did, I had to do something and do it quick. It was no longer my home but I didn’t know where or what my home was, either.

A few hours later I was packing for Israel. I knew deep within that I was ready to discover what it was I had caught glimpses of in the past that felt akin to “numinous” experiences. Twentieth century German philosopher, Rudolph Otto, popularized this term, numinous, as describing the power or presence of some higher being, perhaps God. I was startled to find that as I walked off the plane, there was no flaming chariot, no cherubim, no pillar of clouds to direct me toward my spiritual experience. Very disappointing.

In fact, my time in Israel was very challenging for several months. I was surrounded by people wherever I went; buying, selling, pushing, pulling. Everyone smoked cigarettes, drank sludgy coffee and seemed really wired and intense. I sat on the beach in Tel Aviv, knife in hand before a huge watermelon wondering if there was anything “numinous” left in the Middle East. It seemed like the power and presence was only to be found in the throngs of young Israelis in uniform with machine guns slung over their backs, or in the cliques of super religious Jews, Christians and Moslems whose connection to their respective faiths all felt very distant and inaccessible from where I sat.

Yet, something did happen. I was quite literally pulled to a small northern town called Tsfat. I won’t get into the details here, but suffice it to say that I had never heard of the place before so as the bus wound up the mountain that hosted the ancient city, I was a bit startled to feel something, almost, well numinous, growing within and without me. My time in Tsfat changed my life in countless ways and opened up doors that continue to require explanation and interpretation.

One of the earliest and most profound experiences was at the Ari Mikva. This is an ancient cave named after The Ari, an esteemed Kabbalist, or magical mystic. The enormous cave carved into the side of the mountain beneath the city contained a deep, cold pool of mountain water. Mikva’s are ritual immersion pools and can be found all over the world, sacred to many faiths and traditions. I had been in Tsfat no more than a few hours when some new friends insisted that I join them in this amazing pool. Before I knew it, I was stripped down and nervously following my guides into the cave. As we moved deeper into the rock, the giggles and chatter of the young men seemed to fade and like the last moments before sleep, I felt as if I were in a dream. If it hadn’t been for the ice cold water at my ankles, I’d have fallen over in some sort of trance.

The water rose higher with each step and the light slowly disappeared. I felt the gentle hand of my new friend on my shoulder and heard his whisper “Get to the center of the pool and dunk yourself in all the directions while you listen.” In an instant, I was chest deep in the icy water, surrounded by the darkest darkness I have ever witnessed. There was silence except for the occasional gasp of air and the coarse, gutteral rumbles of unknown men. I considered that just a few months earlier I was in a college classroom in upstate New York but this was something more than a world away. In that moment I knew this was why I had come to the Middle East. I was strangely calm and slowed my breathing in order to relax my shivering body.

I closed my eyes even though there was nothing to see, and plunged myself down into the blackness. As my head broke the surface of the water on my way back up, I was startled at the strange sensation. I could have been under there for hours or seconds, but it felt like an eternity. I was conscious of a deep feeling of quiet within myself, a sensation of knowing, of connection. I shifted my body to the next direction and dipped down again. Same thing, just more intense. I felt every drop of water trickle down my face as my state of awareness seemed miles deeper than it had minutes earlier. I plunged myself into the dark and wet space three more times, each time allowing myself to push myself deeper into the space.

If ever I had been “in the moment,” this was it. If ever I had understood the kinds of quotes that people like Gandhi or Jung are best known for, this was it. If ever I felt the deep, penetrating connection to something numinous, this was it. Carl Jung spoke passionately about the Conjunctio, a marriage of sorts, between the numinous and humans, between two lovers, between the sacred feminine and sacred masculine, etc. Yet, in order to experience this meeting between my Self and something bigger, deeper, wiser, etc., it required a certain sense of consciousness.

Consciousness allows me to experience the difference between myself and that “something else” as well as gives me the opportunity to have a unique, personal interpretation of that experience. Someone else would have offered a very different account of submerging in the Ari Mikva, not because it wasn’t true for me but perhaps because they are telling the experience from a different consciousness.

I am committed to understanding, or even just getting to know aspects of my own sense of consciousness, i.e. the voice in my head, the unique way I feel about things in my life, the way I personally experience my heart loving someone. This allows myself the opportunity to know the difference between what I know to be true in the world and what you know. We may have similar ways of relating to the world, but your unique version or texture of understanding will never be the same as mine. Isn’t that delightful?

Conjunctio is a love story. It is the meeting of two parts at some intersecting point where everything that is, was and will be, come together and come apart. It is the place where I experience you experiencing me and it is my consciousness that allows me to register the moment, hopefully using it to grow and connect with myself. There is something about plunging into a dark pool of water that is mysterious and interesting. However, there was something about my experience plunging into that water that changed my life because I was, at that second, able to be present for it.

There have been thousands of moments in my life when I was not fully present, but that one, I was really there. And it has helped me be more present in moments that followed because my consciousness deepened as a result. So, I want to challenge you today when it comes to being fully present, in the moment. What would it be like to encounter someone special in your life and bring your consciousness to it, your full presence, as you plunge deeper into that conjunctio, that intersection of worlds?