Eternity in a Moment

I once had a Peak Experience.

Abraham Maslow describes Peak Experiences as especially joyous and exciting moments in life, involving sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, wonder and awe, and possibly also involving an awareness of transcendental unity or knowledge of higher truth (as though perceiving the world from an altered, and often vastly profound and awe-inspiring perspective). They usually come on suddenly and are often inspired by deep meditation, intense feelings of love, exposure to great art or music, or the overwhelming beauty of nature. Yeah, that. I had one of those.

I mark my life as two separate stages: Pre-Badlands and Post-Badlands. The Badlands in South Dakota is where I came face to face with eternity and for an instant I was one with the Universe. (does that read as cheesy as it felt typing it?)

My incredible wife(who I don't spend nearly enough time talking about) and I decided we were going to take a big trip. The plan was to fly into Rapid City, SD stay in Historic Deadwood for a few days and then roadtrip it over to Yellowstone and stay in Jackson, WY for a week. Leading up to this trip I did quite a bit of research, mapping out routes, scheduling our hotels, planning stops, etc... I was REALLY excited.

When I was a boy my Grandparents took me on two roadtrips across the country. I had seen more of America as an elementary school age boy than most people twice my current age. I was excited to rejoin that path I had been taken on as a child.

We got in, got settled, and hit the road. the hour and half drive to Badlands from Deadwood was pretty nice. Big wide open prairies and grasslands for as far as the eye could see. Off in the distance were the Black Hills. A very special and sacred mountain range that is the home of Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monuments. Grey craggy mountains with tall majestic pines dotting the bald rocks. Breath takingly gorgeous. The Black Hills were very special and sacred to the Lakota tribe of which Crazy Horse is one of their most famous members. The Black Hills are also one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world.

We pull into Badlands National Park and follow the road to the first look out point. This is where everything changed.

First, your standing on top of a bluff that is several thousand feet high that looks out over the big, wide, sweeping prairie down below and all around you are the eroded half-mountains of soft rock and multi-colored soil. It probably looks almost exactly the same as it did several million years ago.

There are no guard rails so you could take a fast ride down to the bottom real quick if you weren't paying attention. No guard rails also meant you could get all the way out onto the edge, which is exactly what I did.

As I sat on the tall precipice and surveyed all that was before me I could feel a calm come over me. I felt like I was watching a movie that was moving in slow motion and reverse at the same time. I felt like time stood still and in those few moments I could sense eternity.Spread out before me was the entire timeline of the Universe. I could see history and the future unfolding. I felt like nothing else mattered except the ebb and flow of time. Time was flowing backwards and forwards but nothing was changing. I felt very small but yet extremely interconnected. Buddhists say that our conscientiousnesses are the Universes way of experiencing itself. That we exist solely so that Universe can see itself through our perceptions. At that moment I was an instrument of the Universe. I was the eyes and mirror of the Universe looking at itself. Time stopped.I sat there for many minutes soaking it all in. It was a powerful experience that literally changed my life. What I saw before me was so large and vast, not only the landscape but also time itself yet I felt as if I was an irreplaceable piece of the puzzle. I was supposed to be there. Everything I had done in life had lead me exactly to that moment, on that clifftop. I was sitting where countless Lakota Chiefs had stood. Looking out onto the prairie that gave them life. I was sitting where explorers and pioneers had stood in total and complete awe of the surroundings. I was sitting where Homesteaders had tried to carve out a home and living for their families and because of the rugged nature of the land had failed. I sat there with the spirits of all those men, women, and children that came before me and all the ones that would come in the future and sit there like me knowing my presence was there with them. All of Eternity felt in just a moments time.

I had that experience before I knew who Abraham Maslow was. He is the father of modern psychology and the creator of the Hierarchy of Needs. He says that once a person has a Peak Experience they will begin to chase that feeling. He wasn't kidding. I'd give up all my worldly possessions to feel that way again. I've tried meditation but it lacks the visual. My Peak Experience was a total sensory experience. Total immersion. I could see the very distant Black Hills about 60 miles away as well as the White River that carved the scenery in front of me. The sweet smell of the grass. It was like incense but you had to work to get the smell right and once you did it left a sweet taste in the mouth. My ears were full of the sounds of being on top of a bluff, that whistle when the wind has free range to go where ever it pleases. The sound of a wide open space, vast and wholly unknowable. The sweet grass rustled with the breeze. The murmur of people walking around talking about how beautiful it was.

It's been nearly five years since that moment on top of the bluff. Several times since then I have tried to reclaim that feeling. Its a bit like crack. I was lost. And not the kind of lost where I don't have a map. I mean "I" was lost, "me"=gone. "I" was no longer relevant. I was there but "I" wasn't. My ego was gone. My painful memories of childhood evaporated. The failed experiment of High School vanished without of a trace. Gone with the bad was all the good stuff too. It was NOTHING. The most beautiful, mind-shaking nothing I've ever experienced. I WANT IT BACK. I've stood on top of mountains and the edges of cliffs. I've been to a place so quiet and serene that a whisper could be heard from 100 yards away. None of those places produced that same feeling. That feeling of being A PART. A part of something so big and vast that you can never quite wrap your head all the way around it. I have reflected on that moment everyday since. EVERYDAY.

I would imagine that holy men/women of the world's religions go through a similar search. For lack of a better way to describe it, I'd say it was a MAJOR spiritual experience. I was looking into the face of God. God had annointed me and said "My child, this moment belongs to you and nobody else." I WANT IT BACK! I want to sit there with God, Gaia, Mother Nature, with the Lakota's Old Man and just sit. Sit and watch eternity unfold and take me along for the ride.

I long for the day that I can slough off responsibilities, pack the car with the necessities, grab my partner, my lover, my best friend, my wife, and get back to that place. That place of quiet, of beauty, of here-and-now-edness. I came away from that moment and that trip a different person. There was no second guessing what my joys in life were. There were no doubts on what I held sacred. I wish to be like Thoreau and "Live my life deliberately". There have been too many days from that moment to this that I feel weren't mine. How many more days to I have left? How many more do I have to spend doing something that isn't what I'd choose to do? Granted, I did make the choice. I can't and won't blame anybody other than me for where I am. But how much longer do I continue down this road? I want to put down the crown and scepter of responsibility. Hand them to someone else that deserves them, wants them. How much longer until I can sit on the edge of a cliff and feel the weightlessness of Nothing again?