Emerald Isle 2019
Easter Sunday; I’m up early and meditating on this special morning. Writing Tuesday’s journal led me back into a memory and reflection of that very precious baptism experience of decades ago. When I had asked Aaron long ago about the relationship of crucifixion, baptism and resurrection he declined to answer; just asked me to meditate. Now he seemed willing to speak a bit further about it and so we did, for almost two hours! But trying to capture our conversation didn’t flow easily. I kept being sidelined by questions, to which Aaron would reply with his usual (loving) ”please meditate now.” There is still much that remains not fully understood. Please consider this “work in progress.” Below, just a small portion of our conversation. I promise more as I understand it to more depth. Fair warning, that may take months…
Aaron: In what way was the journal that you posted Tuesday about a crucifixion, baptism or resurrection experience? What do you understand as the difference?
Barbara: While within the crucifixion experience, I don’t yet have any understanding. I may have faith that it will eventually lead me through but in the midst of it, there is just darkness. The resurrection experience comes at the other end. I’ve passed through the darkness; I’ve burst into the light. I often don’t understand how I got there. The baptism experience seems like a cleansing from the crucifixion, or a path of release from it that avoids the crucifixion completely. That’s the only way I can phrase it. I don’t know if baptism always must accompany or follow the crucifixion experience, but for me it is a pathway into healing. Healing is not the best word. Healing indicates a linear process. It leads into awakening out of the darkness of the crucifixion experience and involves remembering that the light was always there; is always there . So, the baptism offers a kind of release of the terrors of the crucifixion experience, leading me back into the light that was always there. It’s a non-dual, healing moment.
Aaron: Your words here have some truth but you are thinking too linearly, enhancing separation. In truth, all of these initiations must come together. If you lean too heavily on any one of them, you lose the fullness of the experience. “Crucifixion ”- as long as you are not fully awake you will keep experiencing it. There can only be crucifixion when there is the idea of separate self, so you pass beyond this initiation when you awaken to the deepest truth of no-separate-self, the truth of interbeing. Then there may seem to be an immediate resurrection or rebirth, awareness returning to being the one who is awake, who has never been crucified. But without true realization, one could bounce back and forth repeatedly without truly releasing the illusion that binds you into the possibility of crucifixion in the first place.
Baptism involves the washing away, cleansing, or release of the whole illusion of separated self. Baptism asks some level of free will choice, to enter into that baptism or back away from it as you did repeatedly years ago in your “sea” experience. Lacking that baptism step, you just go through crucifixion and resurrection and crucifixion and resurrection, ongoing.
Baptism comes in many ways: perhaps in everyday life occurrence, or in meditation or dream states. What sets it aside is free will choice. One invites Baptism; it never just happens to you against your free will choice.
This passage can be likened to the hero’s journey, with its call, tests, ordeal, transformation, resurrection and finally, the return, except that hero’s journey is linear or really circular and what I speak of here is non-linear but simultaneous, not circular. .
And Baptism is always Grace.
Barbara: I’m thinking of the Baptism, a literal one, at the beach on Emerald Isle (the beach almost exactly where the photograph below was taken 12 years earlier, but a day with immense waves. The near-death experience there, that time unconscious, not breathing, seemingly helpless in the sea, did change everything for me. There was wonder even as it happened, and terror too. But more wonder and freedom.
Aaron: Please spend some time with this, and those who will read this too. For the reader, please reflect on some crucifixion experiences (You are human so I’m certain you will find some). How did it resolve? Was it followed by some kind of resurrection experience, and if so, where did it lead you? Have you ever had what we may call a baptism experience that deeply renewed you to your true self? I look forward to our further exploration.
Barbara: readers, feel free to reply to deepspringbarbara@gmail.com
Please don’t expect a personal reply but Aaron may reply in a future letter
Turbulence and play, Emerald Isle, 2016