Once upon a time, I was grocery shopping at Central Market and encountered a former colleague who had married and had a child since I’d last seen her years previously. When I’d worked with her, she presented as a working woman with no interest in being a mother, so this was a sea change in her life and I was interested.

Her baby girl was in the child seat of the cart — a beautiful blonde chunky monkey six to eight months old. I remember her name was Eliza, named after one of Barton’s springs, because mom was a regular swimmer there.

As mom and I were catching up on our respective lives and I was intuiting the power of love that had changed her life, transformed her from serious career woman to wife and mother, this baby girl was having the time of her life in the cart. Wriggling, writhing, leaning, arching, twisting, waving all her limbs at once in various directions, cooing, babbling, in constant motion, with a look of uncensored delight on her face.

And so there I am, having an adult conversation with the mom while witnessing this child having the time of her life. The time of her life times many more, I hope! She was feeling the rapture of being alive, and it was a joy to behold.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell

Honeys, she was channeling pure, strong life force, spirit, bliss. I don’t know what to call it. It’s beyond verbal, a marvel, a strong reminder of the Beloved amongst us.

It’s been years since that day. I don’t recall what the mom and I talked about, but seeing/feeling that baby experiencing that state imprinted on me.

I’m reminded of this because I recently witnessed the rapture of an adult human with whom I was conversing. I was taking in his words, which were like a waterfall as he got on a roll, and I was keeping up, focusing on the content of what he was saying, and his words were coming quickly, touching on this and that like a dragonfly flitting about, in a torrent, and at some point I just couldn’t keep up with the content. I just watched his face and received the energy that he was transmitting, and saw that he was beautifully mad and wise and blissful and free, living the rapture that was shining from his happy face, like Eliza.

Later, I felt disappointed in myself that I couldn’t keep up with the content, and I misinterpreted some words he had glanced on. He felt defensive and misunderstood. Haven’t we all had enough of that? He called me on it, thank goodness.

I was wrong. My fears got the better of me, I got to look at that, and I decided to give him my trust. May we find better ways to verbally communicate that celebrates the flow of rapture and fosters deeper understanding.

Learning right relationship is like being a cocoon. The caterpillar doesn’t know what it’s going to become after it munched on those plants and became suspended in stillness wearing a gorgeous green suit with elegant gold trim.

Inside my suit, I turn, face a new direction, rest, turn some more, holding space for what emerges.