You know those big binoculars you look through when you're on the top of the Empire State Building.  You put a quarter in and you become part of the image--part of the scenery--part of nothingness.  Air.  Everything and Nothing at the same time.  Pure consciousness--almost.  It's the 'almost' part that's the rub.  Total flight is impossible, which is the relief and the curse. 

 

I look down at my hands but I can't understand what they're doing there.  I don't want to see my hands; I don't want to be reminded of the body that I can't comfortably occupy.

 

And the soul is fighting to escape the body--but the body won't let go.  It fights the most desperate fight of its life every time, and I wonder: Am I the soul or the body right now?  Both are losing the battle in that moment. 

 

One day a thought: cosmic meets cosmic.  Eternal meets eternal. No more calculations, but a handing over to only that which is as consuming and impossibly large as the thought itself, and finally, GRACE.

 

-- Karen, surviving thirty years with dd.