Gummy Grove

20x24 oil

I view “Gummy Grove” as the painting that marks my having started down a road less traveled in my life, a road lined with more peace, more love, and more courage. In my studio, I’m feeling lighter, and snappier, as if I am breaking in a pair of brand new, wildly colorful shoes. And for whatever reason, I’m finally feeling good about sharing the story of the most significant moment of my life, bar none.

This is the story I call “The Meadow,” as mentioned in a previous narrative (“On the Way to the Meadow”).

I remember being at the dinner table with my family about ten years ago. Apple Computer founder, Steve Jobs, had just passed away, and I’d read a story about the last moments of his life. According to his sister, his last words were, “Wow, oh wow, oh wow,” as if in passing over he was seeing or feeling something extraordinarily magnificent. I will never forget the depth of peace I found in those last words. They felt so … hopeful.

That night at the dinner table I told my kids and then-wife about what I’d read, and about the peace that had for some reason welled up inside me, as if I’d been there to hear his last words. I repeated them. “Wow, oh wow, oh wow.”

My wife laughed. My kids scoffed and mimicked them. And I was left speechless. And bewildered. I will never forget that. I wasn’t angry. Nor was I miffed. I just felt … sad.

Ever since then I have held my intimate moments close and have only shared them with the few people I knew would understand. Such has been the case with The Meadow.

But that’s my old belief (people will laugh and scoff when I share my deeply personal moments). My new belief is that it doesn’t matter how anyone reacts or responds to my deeply personal experiences. Some will care, some won’t. And that’s okay. We are all traveling down our own life roads. But if I don’t share my beautiful or amazing or seemingly miraculous experiences, then I will never find kindred spirits. I will withhold my joy. I will live a marginal, dull and selfish life.

Who the heck wants that?

The Meadow unfolded in 2015. My wife and I had just dissolved an increasingly untenable marriage, something which in so many ways saved my life. I’d gone to Hawai’i to stay at my sister’s B&B on the Big Island. I needed some alone-time to think and recharge my life, which at that point barely had a heartbeat. The location was perfect — remote, jungle-like high country. No visible neighbors. Quiet in the extreme.

The morning after my first night there, I decided to take a drive along the old road from her place in Ahualoa, high above the old sugar town of Honoka’a, to the ranch country of Kamuela, where I’d gone to high school. It was a crisp morning. Mauna Kea, usually shrouded with clouds, sat clear as a bell in the morning sun. I felt a kind of sweet peace, something that I hadn’t felt in years.

I drove no faster than 20 miles an hour along the narrow winding road, all four windows down to let the perfect day in. Trees and vines, long green grasses and sweet-smelling ginger patches crushed in on either side. When the rare car or pick-up came up behind me, I pulled over and let it pass. I could not bring myself to drive any faster. It was all so rich, so rejuvenating.

About ten minutes into my slow drive, I came around a bend and looked to my left at a rising green pasture. I pulled over and stopped. Three grazing cows raised their heads to look my way,

and in that moment everything changed. It was almost tangible, as if within a gentle pulse.

Foomp.

I felt, both mentally and physically, as if I’d entered into another world. My vision was crisp. The colors were extraordinarily vivid. I could smell the sweet aroma of cattle and dirt and ginger and clean, clean air. I felt weightless, floating in something like … pure being.

It lasted less than a minute, but for that time, time had stopped. The world itself had stopped. Every fear, every concern, every worry, every dreadful thing this world could conjure up … everything, all of it … was gone … and replaced by the most all-encompassing sense of love imaginable. I was engulfed within it. Love for everything. For everyone. I feared absolutely nothing. Fear wasn’t a part of that world. There was only joy and peace and kindness and love and gratitude.

And then it was gone.

I sat stunned in my car, not wanting to move. What was that! I kept looking at the pasture, the cows, the trees, trying to hang onto what I’d seen, or more accurately, what I’d felt. But it was gone.

There was no question, though, that I had experienced something just this side of miraculous, and I would never, ever forget it. I couldn’t forget it. It was a gift, a glimpse into something so much greater than I had ever thought possible. It wasn’t grandiose or sensational. I didn’t see God. I didn’t see Jesus. I didn’t see Krishna or the Buddha. What I saw and what I felt was light … pure light … the source of all that is.

I drove on to Kamuela as if in a trance, easing through the Big Island’s most beautiful country, still never exceeding 20 miles per hour.

When I got back to my sister’s remote oasis, I broke out my journal and tried to put my experience into words. But my vocabulary felt inadequate. I couldn’t do any better than what I’ve done here. It was beyond words.

More than anything I can think of, I’d love to have that experience surprise me again. But something like that is not mine to command.

All I can say is, thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I do. Every night.