Seven or eight years before, she had been awakened in the middle of the night by two lines of silvery energy undulating up either side of her spine like snakes. She found herself observing the strange sensation, detached but curious. When the energy reached the top of her head, it turned into a nuclear explosion, blasting her out into a dimension of pure bliss. There was nothing there—or nothing but light—if you could call it light. Later, her husband told her that her body, whether in joy or relief, had spent those hours continuously sobbing. Keeping watch, he had felt like one of the guardian demons before the gates of a Japanese temple.
It was not that she was ungrateful for the energy. True, she had rebelled against it for months, feeling that it was a rude, uninvited guest, or an accidental fetus that she would gladly have aborted if she could. But little by little she came to trust it, then to love it, and to be in awe of its fierce intelligence, which kept compelling her to let go of her fears and smallnesses, obstacles in the path of its current. Yes, she realized it was a long process; she knew that when she could finally accept the gift with all her heart, she herself would become gift, to everyone who could receive her. But in the often agonizing stages of letting go, she would long to be in another body, unvisited by spiritual grace, unspecial, ordinary. She imagined herself as a simple housewife, cooking, cleaning, enjoying a barbecue now and then with a small circle of friends, gliding upon the smooth surface of things like a skater. Sometimes she would stare for a long time at some object in the kitchen—a coffee mug, a straw place mat, an apple—and weep with envy. Apple. Mug. How simple it was for them, blessed with a name and form, complete, never having to learn to surrender.