The Influence

Recently, I was looking up music on YouTube, and came across a little video that someone had made for a particular song. I don't remember which song, exactly; I do remember it was well-done and somewhat "psychedelic" in nature...lots of shifting colors and morphing shapes, in and out of changing scenery. It was quite beautiful. At one point, a little beating squiggle--the pulse of the tune--began flying through mountains and valleys. Fantastic...and as it represented the ebb and flow, it subtly affected the scenery it floated through, maintaining a kind of individuality while quite obviously being enmeshed in the landscape. Ahhhh.

It's difficult to describe the feeling, the understanding I became while watching this swatch of art. I recognized it instantly, and like other brief scenes in the story of my life, it wordlessly spun me into bliss. Yes--bliss, as in an upwelling, encompassing recognition of Home, complete with a full-body chill and an inner sweeping wave of happiness, partially borne of the fact that I was suddenly a silent verb in a universal language. I loved, loved, loved the fact that I was here, in the moment!

This kind of ecstasy is a powerful energy, with so many emotions involved that it's pointless to attempt to analyze it (thank god!). It rolls through like a big wave, simultaneously peace-giving and dance-seeking. There's only one thing to do: Give in. I might laugh, smile, cry, all of the above. I might go big-eyed, awestruck and childlike. I might be alone or in company, and the trigger may be light, sound, taste, touch or scent...eventually, there is an utter synthesis of these things, lasting seconds or hours.

What it leaves behind is a feeling of gratitude, and the deeper I get into a laundry-list kind of day, the more I realize that it's an indicator of human potential--like a high-water mark for the tides. Anyone choosing to stay "in the world" has to negotiate and navigate, and must create a slew of opposing forces to "get things done". The memory of such peak experience is not, however, just in the brain, but in the entire being, beyond skin and calendars and artificial boundaries. The memory is always gigantic, and "recorded" in a many-layered fashion. Somehow, it echoes through all the refuse I haul around in my head, and keeps it in its proper perspective...which is why I wish I could bottle this bliss and add it to the general water supply. :)