I had just finished my second year of university in a small town in Northern California. I was in a very depressed state. I felt very sad and alone all the time. And I'd have these waves of sadness, of depression that would move through me. I would wake up every morning experiencing this. And it was visceral, meaning that the depression came out of nowhere. and it was also physiological in that my whole body was experiencing this deep, deep depression. Now, I never thought about seeking help. I turned to God, to the divine, basically saying and stating, asking that I could be taken. The pain was too much. The sadness was too much. And I would ask fairly regularly if I could just go. I never thought about hurting myself. I just didn't think it would be something that would feel comfortable. I wanted to go an easy way, a way that was painless, and I didn't know how to do that. So I would say prior to my accident, about four days before my accident, I stated to God, I looked up at the sky and said, I don't want to be here anymore. I can't stand this sadness and this depression and this pain. Please take me. Just take me. And it was about four days later, I was in the Redwood Forest, which was right behind the school where I was attending, and I was mountain biking. I had gone into that forest. I knew the trails. I was there several times a week, and it was my sanctuary. It was the place where I felt most comfortable being with the trees. They were my family. They were my home. So on the day of the accident, it was no different, really. I never wore a helmet. I didn't think it was cool. I didn't think I was doing anything extreme in the sense that I would need a helmet. And I was probably in the woods. It was morning time, and the sun was just coming out. I was there maybe about two hours before heading home. It was when I headed back to town. there's a trail that actually it goes down a hill and it heads back towards the university and back into town and it was also a trail that I was very familiar with a bike path and it had jumps on it and I would take these jumps regularly so I knew I knew the patterns I knew how fast I needed to go I knew where they were located. So I was coming down the hill and I took a few jumps and it was the last jump that I took. I had noticed exactly when I had taken the jump somebody had built it up It was much higher than it was before and it must have been within a few days that somebody had built this jump up It was practically a vertical jump and as soon as I hit it I just had a sense a knowing that I was dead, that I was going to die at that moment. I came down on my front tire. It was my handlebars, then my head and neck. Just basically, I hit the ground and rolled, and then it was my back, and it was a big thump and I was out. The next thing I remember, I was floating above the redwood trees. Now the redwood trees, they have a long trunk and they have this crown of needles at the top of it. And I would say that I was just above them, but also kind of within them as well. The sense of who I was at that time wasn't anything like my body was there, like an astral type projection. It was more of just this awareness, and I could see and I could feel. I noticed that there was a really, if silence is even a word, it was just like this deep peace and calm that I felt. I could see details. I could see the little dew on the redwood needles. I could see the colors of the trees, the clouds, the fog, the sky. I could also sense some of the different elements. Like I felt like the wind was moving through this part of me. I could hear the ocean that was five or ten miles away. I could hear birds calling out way in the distance. So my sensation in this place was extremely heightened. I remember after some time looking down at my body and seeing that part of me, my body dead, laying on the ground, maybe 15 feet or so away from the jump. And I remember just looking down and just contemplating for a minute, knowing that was me, but it wasn't really me. It It was my body dead on the ground. And I felt in this space so much better than I had previously in my body experiencing all this depression. I felt a familiarity with myself as consciousness or whatever you would call it. I felt this incredible peace, this knowing. And at that moment, as I was experiencing this peace and this experience of everything and the elements around me, this question came up. And it didn't come from any particular being or God or angel or anything. It was like a knowing within me that came up. Do you want to go further or do you want to go back? And I already knew the answer. The instant answer was, I don't want to die. And as soon as I said, I don't want to die, I was back in my body. In fact saying I don want to die is what woke me up into my body that was down on the ground I had trouble breathing I was trying to bring myself back my awareness back into my body And I felt incredible pain moving through my whole body. I couldn't move. I felt this electrical pain moving through me, the stabbing pain. And I just remember that at that moment, I began to open my eyes. It was like the only part of me that could move. They were a little bit fuzzy, but at the same time, I began to have this experience where I noticed fairies coming down from the trees, little fairies with wings, and they were circling me. They were giggling. They were dive bombing me. They were flying around me in different patterns. I believe that they were trying to bring lightness to my situation of coming back into my body. and then I also heard this ringing sound and my attention went to the trees and I felt this I heard and I also felt moving throughout my body this ringing tone almost like a Tibetan singing bowl and I knew that it was the trees communicating with each other and with me and healing me so I was experiencing this incredible experience as I'm laying in my body, really unable to move. And then I took a few breaths. And I remember as I was taking a few breaths, I was brought back into that awareness of the pain, really unbearable pain. And then I was out once again. The next thing I remember, doctor was standing over me. I was in the hospital, the local community hospital there in town. First of all, I heard him saying, you're very lucky. You're very lucky. You didn't die. You're very lucky. And you didn't break anything. So he was repeating this to kind of wake me up. And I remember looking up at him and him asking me a bunch of questions like, what's your name? I didn't know that. Where do you live? What's your phone number? Are you a man or a woman? I didn't know any of these things. And he finally said something that was a little odd. He says, do you know any phone numbers in town of people that we can call? And I instantly blurted out a phone number from a family friend who had lived in town. And it ended up being that evening where they came and got me and brought me into their home. So I waited there for, I believe, a few days or almost a week before my mom came down to pick me up. I had this experience when I was laying on the family friend's couch where I could instantly sense and feel on a really deep level the worry and the sadness from my family, my sister and my mom and my dad, who were worried about me at that time. I've always been very empathic and sensitive to other people's emotions, but since the accident that has increased And when I say that it was actually it didn happen instantly My first and only goal at the time was to feel better in my body for a long time I didn know why I came back because I was still experiencing this depression in fact the the emotions that I was pushing away the depression and the sadness it came up I would say maybe even it felt like a thousand fold it was presented to me as if it was something within me that I really needed to heal. You know, people ask like, well, why would you come back? You didn't even want to be here. But I know that it was my, that part of me that was above the trees that knew what was best for me and it wasn't my time. So that's my explanation why I decided to come back. And when I did come back, I sense for a while that there was a new part of me that came back or the real part of me that had come back more in my body. And I know this because when I was floating above the trees and feeling all these sensations, that became more apparent as I was healing my body. What I would call deep empathy. Be able to sense and feel on a very deep level, not just what's going on with other people, but what's going on with animals and plants and trees and the earth. To be able to feel that on a very deep level. And that is part of what I have discovered over the years as I've done my own inner work. I guess, you know, looking back at this, it's taken me a while to actually tell this story because I hear I've compared myself to other people and thought, oh, that person had an amazing experience with God and with angels. And for me, I was just floating above the trees. But it was an incredible transformational experience. my gifts maybe didn't come back right away but it was something that I have discovered over the years this healing that I've gone through in this deep empathy what I call like molecular empathy because it's it's so real that was really a part of my transformation or being on this planet and learning how to be on this planet and learning how to bring more light into my body and to be able to actually help others as well. Life is so precious and so valuable and all of the flaws that we have, all the things that we're going through, being able to come to terms with that and to just keep going and to see that there is amazing light and there is amazingness happening on the planet all the time. All right. Staring lost up at the sky.
