It is important to remember that what is being talked about here are the images and symbols of consciousness, and not necessarily the experience itself. The experience is felt before the mind attaches form, images, symbols, and structure in its functional attempt to communicate meaning. It is therefore my belief that some levels of consciousness precede some functional levels of mind and are simply beyond words. With this in mind, I would like to share that part of the group experience that I can talk about.

There were a number of very beautiful images of the journey. The first was shortly after the Adam blew through. The room was flushed with the richly warm gold light of the fire, and as my eyes flowed from person to person, the feeling came over me that I had been there before. I was in the nursery of a hospital and the room was filled with my fellow new-arrivals. It was as though we had all just been bom and we were looking around to get a sense of each other and of the wonder of it all. The feeling of connectedness and love for everyone in the room was a very deep knowing. For the first time in my life I really felt like I belonged to the family of man.

Another image I had was that we were the survivors of a calamity at sea, clinging to a raft of timbers, being guided through the blackness of a raging storm by a captain who had gone mad with the loss of his vessel. This was the predominant theme of the journey that carried my fantasy images through the night. We were adrift on a sea of emotion, both collective and personal, and the raft was being tossed about more or less in accordance with the emotions being felt by the voyagers. There were couples clinging to each other out of fear, there was crying, some were moaning, others were consoling, as we collectively struggled with our souls on a cosmic voyage to Self.

The captain grappled with the staff (the talking staff being passed around) of our intergalactic raft, while spouting poems by Rumi like a mariner drunk with the Divine. He would inspire us not to despair in the midst of our personal and collective storms, and he brought light into the darkness. There were also periods of calm when the captain would sooth us with celestial music and send us off into the galaxies searching for Self: intergalactic cartographers exploring inner space. But the storm raged on into the darkness. The captain grasped the tiller with both hands, his hair swept back like a mad man, and he would sway around in a circular motion trying to steady the raft. His eyes would roll back into his head so that all was left were white orbs. Then he'd snap his head erect and fix his eyes on someone close by and say, "Get it?" The only thing missing was the salt spray, everything else was in there. It was an evening with Captain Ahab.