Pat, I am just going to let this rip. I read your narrative with awe, and want to communicate back. It feels a little awkward to talk of such personal things in a public forum, but you are the trailblazer and I am just walking in the path you cut.
I think the two qualities I read you experiencing are faith and surrender. I think it takes this kind of big experience to contemplate something as wild-assed as our own death. I have periods where I experience faith as the complete solution to the deepest questions I have asked. It's not just faith in a noun, or even in a concept. It's more visceral than that. If I had to put it into words, it would be that "God Is," that there is a source of my own consciousness beyond my ego and will, and it feels like Love, itself. Closely aligned with it is gratitude, and the desire to serve. I do nothing to earn this wonderous perception - I can't manufacture it via my effort- but it exists because what I'll call God exists. The natural emotion is one of worship and celebration. At last, eureka, I am not just an ego efforting my way uphill. And so surrender is part and parcel of it - maybe also said, alignment of my will with that which I worship. Of course, I fail at this more often than not, but that's not the point. Forgiveness and redemption are abundant, and a part of the process. Touching into this is precious.
The reason I am writing about it is simply to celebrate with you this discovery, for you in your terms & for me in mine, that we both, and countless others, of all faiths, in all times, have stumbled upon. It takes the sting away; it leaves one able to love, at last. I hope as you read it, some of what I feel now is shared, a celebration of that which is holy. Chuck
