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Last night it was a lepidolite massage-tool shaped crystal that sat on a nightstand for weeks. Before that, it sat for months with a host of others that I choose from each morning, deciding which one or two to place in a pocket.
It was gonna be tonight's selection to hold as I went off to sleep. My mind started drifting to my favorite scene, an oceanfront location. I can't remember if I was just walking along a shore cliff or had placed myself on the outskirts of a town, or which specific surroundings, but in an instant, I saw this beautiful electric blue. It had properties that don't exist in colors we see with the eyes. It was practically alive. It's the color of the perfect sea and sky. It isn't turquoise or baby blue, but some lively mixing of them with electricity, life itself, and the peace of heaven all mixed in together.
I spent several moments straining my mind to recapture that particular color, that new and strange quality of life that came with it, was inherent in it.
Oddly though, it wasn't entirely pleasant as an experience. It kind of hurt when I tried to hold on to it. Go figure. Imagine a thumb being pressed just between your eyebrows a little too strongly and a little too long. I guess I was really straining my third eye chakra to hold it in my mind.
I knew immediately that it wasn't on the usually visible spectrum of light for the physical human eye. If you're not sure what I mean, think dog hearing. There are sounds that while perfectly natural and normal, lie outside the range of most human beings ability to process within our physical framework. Likewise, there are light frequencies, colors, that are outside the developed capacity of either our eyes to perceive or our waking mind to process, or both. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_light)
The blue I saw was one of these colors. Years ago I had a dream of visiting pyramids...well, not so much "visiting" as being part of a long procession required to pass by them in some parallel "dream" world. The colors of the pyramids, of the stone were incredible. The only word that comes close to capturing what these shades of gold, brown, violet, and rust were like is VIVID. Vivid implies life, doesn't it. The colors were alive.
Color is light. Light is alive. It could be. We're alive. We are just an accumulation of particles. Light is particles.
You're thinking, "Wait a second, no, light is a wave." Fine. But did you know that modern physicists are proving what metaphysicists have known, that there exists a duality at the tiniest levels of existence. Electrons, quarks and light itelf are composed of smaller material that can transform instantaneously from wave to particle. Waves and particles, they are the same thing material being expressed differently depending on the circumstances or context. Amazing stuff.
Color is explained to be light vibrating at different frequencies. Not that this is to be a scientific treatise or anything...but red's wavelength is longer and frequency shorter than, say blue, with a shorter wavelength (arc) and therefore a faster frequency (http://www.usbyte.com/common/approximate_wavelength.htm).
The links are in case you wanna know more.
Which brings of to the new perspectives.
A few weeks ago I experienced words as alive. I was reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot and saw them literally dance themselves off the page from the way he wrote. From there I decided to return to the classroom as a student to learn more about the stories, novels and writing so that I can be fully participatory and cognitive in the process when my muses inspire me with the story/biography/novel I intend to complete sometime in the next several years. (Not being funny when I say "years", just being honest about how long it might take to do all the steps involved in preparing myself, the subject, and the final form.)
Back to last night. Before going to bed and picking up the lepidolite, I was reading Alice Dunbar-Nelson's diary. (She's the subject of the book for blog-readers who don't already know.) In the parts I read she is going into detail about her fascination with the ideal, with God's beauty in nature. In particular:
"My head was stuffy after staying in the office until eight o'clock, so I went for a walk after coming home. Out 11th street, quiet and broody under the trees, with pleasant homes; across the 10th Street Park and up the stairs to the reservoir. It was heavenly up there--lovely water, soft grass, the clover leaves shut tight and shedding the dew; the moon big and red gold, hanging over the trees and matching the electric lights around the banks. Boys and girls enjoying themselves after the fashion of kids. I hungered, dreaming over the loveliness of it all. And I tried to think through this conception of INfinite, Omnipotent Good, within me, around me, ME. I went downstairs and sat on a bench in the park near a weeping willow tree, bending over the skating pond. It was as still as if it had been painted. And I tried to understand inspiration by the law of attraction."
She goes on to say more about a particular book and concept on God she was reading. Oh my GOD!!! I just went to quote the day and year, to provide to the reader for effect. And I was the one affected. It was August 21, 1921. 21, 21. My birthday. There are no coincidences, only fascinating clues by the universe to help us guide our way.
And that confirms what inspired me this morning. I woke up clearer about what I want the angle to be in her story.
She was a historical figure. She was Paul Laurence Dunbar's wife, he America's first noted and celebrated Negro poet. She was a suffragist, working tirelessly to get the 19th Amendment passed to ensure voting rights for women--black men had it after slavery, but women of any color had to wait till 1920 here in the land of opportunity. She was an author, poet, educator. She was a survivor of physical abuse. While participating at a rally/protest, she was beaten with a club by DC police. After a drunken binge, Paul came home one night and nearly beat her to death. (That was the last time she saw him.)
She was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a guide and way-paver for the younger artists. The love of her life was her 3rd husband with whom she ran and operated a black newspaper for her home state. She was a columnist of note and an early member of the NAACP. She was light enough to pass for white and often did. She struggled to be less bigoted against her own kind than those who were bigoted against her.
And my story about her, my interest in her, the focus of my book will be primarily about her struggle to understand her place in the universe. That is what ultimately consumed her. That is what consumes me.
That is why her spirit chose to partner with me.
Now, I can see what she is hoping will be conveyed in a book about her. She longed in life to be more than black, more than a woman, more than a shell. She wanted to be an expression of spirit, to connect with it, merge with it, experience her full right of existence as often as possible. She worked so devoutly in causes battling sexism, racism, any limits-ism, I suspect, believing it might one day lead to her freeing her own soul.
And one day, three years and two months ago, I met her spirit during a history grant. I was, at the time, likewise trying to embrace and engage and experience the fullness of my soul and my spirit. I had just months before begun A Course In Miracles. I had been on the journey before the book. I stayed on the journey after the book.
I wondered, seriously wondered, why Alice would call upon me to venture into writing about her life. I'm no serious historian. I'm no great writer...yet...either. And this morning it makes sense. Like her, I hunger for spirit. I want to explore it and write about it.
Oh yes...I will write our story.
Pictures of Alice Dunbar Nelson:
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