A Cosmic Photograph

The day was March 19, 2024. It was the first day of Spring. Being the organizationally obsessed individual I am, I was excited because it could only mean one thing: Spring Cleaning! It was my favorite day of the year. It was time to get rid of the old to welcome in the new. I would go through all of my plastic tubs to get rid of clothes and all the junk I had been hoarding the past year. It was the last box I opened, the one I had no idea would provide me with the most significantly life-changing experience I would have gone through in my thirty-five years of human life.

I came across a stack of photographs that were from my childhood. It was sweet. The stack started with photographs of my mom at the hospital holding me in her arms for the first time, and then it progressed to me as a toddler playing with my toys. What I didn’t expect was the visceral bodily and metaphysical reaction that would ensue after looking at this one photograph. It was me around the age of five. I was playing with my toy kitchen. I looked happier then that I had ever looked in any other photograph in my life. Happier I was with my toy kitchen than I was on a yacht in St. Barths, or snowboarding in Big Bear. And in that instant realization, I felt this out of body, astral experience. I could feel my consciousness lifting from my human vessel and careening through the cosmos.

Like a vacuum of time and space, I was sucked into this otherworldly dimension. I began my soul’s journey on this physical plane with no human physical body. There wasn’t much on Earth that could help describe this experience other than comparing it to the most profound experiences that perhaps Near-Death Experiencers would have once they’ve “seen or gone into the light”. It was ethereal and awe-inspiring. The colors I saw through my non-human eyes, the smell I could smell through my non-human nose, and the overwhelming feeling of joy as the norm just encapsulating my essence or being.

In this plane or realm, the true experience of ecstasy was felt. And for what felt like ten months, turned out to be just 10 minutes on Earth. On this spiritual plane I was met with my spirit guide. At first I couldn’t recognize whether it was a he or she, it was more of an entity. And as I learned, spirit has no gender, only divine masculine and divine feminine qualities. So my spirit guide introduced itself to me as Jade. The essence of Jade was magnificent. A calm and serene presence that would imbue the feeling of Christmas morning or the first drops of snowflakes in Winter. Jade would catapult me into a self-awakening of sorts I never knew possible. Every question I thought, Jade answered as if telepathically. Information and knowledge was so instant that there wouldn’t even be megabits per second fast enough on Earth to explain it.

It was truly an exhilarating experience. And the thought that sat with me was this knowing that this spiritual experience of myself was in fact who I truly was. I was boundless, I was grander than any dreams or goals I had on Earth, and most importantly, I was eternal. And I knew this, it was as if my human body had kept this treasure locked away in the basement of my human ego mind. On this spiritual plane, I played. Whatever I thought, I would instantly manifest. Whether it was the most spectacular beach or the most elegant and elaborate frock, I could even manifest myself instantly in a body form that would wear that frock or walk on that pristine beach.

On Earth we called it one thing - magic. This spiritual plane was absolutely magical. I asked Jade, “why do we forget this? Why do we come to Earth to relearn all of this?” And instantly replied, “Earth is where you can truly harness your potential. That from a world of duality, you can choose to stay in your power or cower in it. Here, all is known and all is love. There, it is a place where all of that is still true, but ultimately is up to you to remember that.”

I would do the things I wanted on this plane, and I would remember my life on Earth, and it was all fresh, but fleeting. The feelings I attached with the trauma I experienced no longer weighed anything on my spiritual form. My consciousness could truly look at these Earthly experiences like luggage carried that can be put down at any time. It was poetic, yet powerful, to be truly free. Then suddenly I came spiraling back into that moment of time in my room, holding that photograph of me as a child playing in my kitchen set, with my consciousness trying to fit in a tiny little lamp like a genie. I felt uncomfortable and squeezed in. How could this tiny human body hold all of the abundance and love I truly was?

It was a feeling of claustrophobia mixed with ultimate bodily ache. Until it settled and dawned on me, I needed to be here. There was something I was to fulfill with my human life’s purpose. I sat in meditation, and it was as if I had forgotten so many of the answers and questions I had on the spiritual plane. Until one came screaming back, that I needed to live my life of joy. And I laughed to myself and said, “this can’t be it. Is it really just to follow one’s bliss? That is so cliche!” Yet, it began to pervade my thoughts from that day forth. And every day since were synchronicities that represented me living my life’s joy.

The first significant action I did was take up cooking classes to make amends and heal my inner child, more importantly that little girl in that photograph that sent me on a cosmic journey. Those classes were joyful and filled with so many laughs. I invited my friends to join me, and it sort of bridged years of just hanging out for birthdays and such, into a real fruitful culmination of sorts. Then I reconnected with my immediate family, and we reignited the famous game night we used to have when I was a teenager. And I couldn’t help but think, the signs were there all along as I was living my joy. It’s not what I did, it’s not who I thought I had become through all these goals I achieved, it was genuinely the people I was with and the joy we experienced together. And cosmic photograph, as simple as it was, was a testament to this most cliche of song lines, “all you need is love, love. Love is all you need.”