One day of my life would lay down the foundation of the rest of it to come. Through the learning and understanding from one amazing night, the life that I knew would be proven skewed and the life to come would be the greatest of adventures. These interesting and amazing events were meant to bring the insights it took to look inside myself and realize what is meant to say that I am alive.
It was a somewhat normal day at Fergus Falls High, with kids running through the halls, classes ending and beginning, and of course lunch time. This is where this spiritual adventure begins. My best friend and I, as always, were on our way out the doors trying to get as far away from school as possible when we ran into something kind of strange. Before Joe and I got into his car, we stopped, looked over at each other and said, “odd”, simultaneously to one another. I do not know where the hesitation came from, but just then I look up to hear the words, “Hey, my name is Nick”. Now, when you live in Fergus, it means that you know everybody around you, as well as their grandparents probably. Nick was new at school, and I couldn’t put my finger on it but something just seemed different about him. It was as if I was in a stage of tranquility and felt a certain amount of confidence with his presence. I also was picking up that my friend Joe had been experiencing the same feelings of empowerment that I had. I then invited Nick to lunch being that he was the new student and Joe and I were pretty personable and welcoming to most people. As we drove, we were all talking basically just small talk and to my surprise, Nick was very much like Joe and I. We all had shared similar taste in music, our desire of adventure, our love of skateboarding and snowboarding, and of course our openness to the world around us. Or so I thought.
After school that day Joe and I packed up again heading for a buddy’s house to kick back and watch some skate videos or do whatever came to mind. We sat and reminisced of the very strange day that we had both had. I spoke of strange coincidences that I had noticed as well as how crazy it was that this Nick character came basically out of left field. As we were speaking about this, you could guess who we see sitting gracefully under a tree as if that were the most comfortable place in the world to be. Joe pulls over and I roll down my window only to hear,” Hey, how’s it going, Dylan. How’s it going, Joe? I figured I would run into you guys. We should meet up tonight and talk for a while”. I said, “Sure,”, so we got directions to where he was living at that time, what time to swing by, and said our goodbyes. I did not know what to think. It was almost overwhelming how well this person could read and judge us. I still could not put my finger on it but something was going to happen that night. I felt as though I would become something different after this cool spring day.
Joe picks me up around 7:00 p.m from my house and we drive towards Nick’s house. I knock on the door; Nick answers and shows us to his room. His room is almost as interesting as he was. It was full of incense, oils, rocks, ancient Indian carvings, exotic plants, and books stacked everywhere. I was looking through a stack that was close and I noticed the Tau Te Ching, Siddhartha, a book on Ayuverda, and other spiritual books of that genre. At the time, none of these books meant very much to me, being that I hadn’t picked a book up in probably a couple years. After a few minutes of being there, Nick asked us if we wanted to do something that he has been practicing. He then pulls out a silk bag within a bag and within that is a set of what appeared to be some sort of Tarot cards. He gave them to me, and told me to shuffle them twice, cut three times, and lay them in front of him. I did this; laid them out and Nick drew two cards from the top of each sub pile and flipped them over. He then appeared to be falling into a trance like state for a couple minutes. After Nick had come back from wherever he had gone, he proceeded to have my friend Joe do the same thing. Joe did it, and Nick went about it in the same order, trance and everything. Once he came back for the second time, he arose and asked us if we would like a cup of tea. He tells us that he picked the leaves and made it himself. I told him “I’d love one” and he left to go brew it. I looked at Joe and he was as mesmerized as I was. Neither he nor I had any idea what was going on. Nick then entered with our tea and took a seat. It was very good tea. He knew what he was doing. We sat in silence for a second when I asked Nick why he did the card reading. He only replied with, “just needed to see something”. He then asked us, “What do you think of life? How do you see it play out? What do you think is the link between humans?” Then for the next two hours Joe and I sat back, amazed and holding on to every word Nick uttered. For the next two hours Nick had explained more insightful information to me than I had heard in my whole life. It felt like he had found a switch in my body that needed to be turned on in order to start on my journey. I have always been a man of questioning and the desire for something more. Nick with no pre-knowledge of myself told me everything I wanted to hear, and after he was done I looked at Joe and Nick and I sat and just laughed about how amazing this feeling was. Nick told us that he knew that we were looking for information. He said he knew that he needed to open us up. He then told us he could show us how to feel energy within each other and ourselves. He explained it to us and we started to begin when Nick realized that it was getting pretty late. The people that Nick was living with at that time had a very strict curfew. I told Nick “Thank you for everything” and that “I appreciated him having us”, and also “that we should get together again some night.”
On the way to my house I told Joe we should pull over and try to meditate and feel that energy that Nick was speaking about. Joe thought that was a good idea too. We pulled into a parking lot by this hockey rink and shut the car off. We then started reflecting all that we had just absorbed. It was unbelievable what we had just encountered and neither of us knew what to make of it. It just all made too much sense. How could someone that I had never met know so much more about me then I even did. We started the rhythmic breathing that Nick had showed us and sat cross legged in Joe’s front seats facing one another. After about half an hour of breathing we put our hands palms down with finger tips almost, but not quite touching and began to recite the word that Nick had told us. It was a prayer of some sort that translated meant, “In truth of lotus”. After 15 minutes or so I was starting to feel something in between Joe and I. A pressure that was running through his left arm into mine, through my body, and then out my right arm back into Joe’s. It became more intense with every round it made, and with every passing, a more heightened awareness, and a stronger feeling of lightness. I had felt in a way that I could not ever explain in words. It felt like I was floating and that I had full control over every single aspect of my body. I knew what every organ was doing and I could fell every limb in my body perfectly. I also felt as if I knew everything that was going on around me without a single thought running through my head. Then after three hours passing, that neither of us ever could have noticed, our hands dropped at the same time and we both opened our eyes and began to weep. We weren’t really crying, but just felt so powerful and aware. It was like we had entered a new reality that we decided. Joe’s car was in darkness with no lights on but, I could see Joes face so clear that it seemed like there was a flashlight on him. The whole inside of the car was full of a light that we could not explain, and did not know if it had even existed to this day. We slowly faced forward; Joe started his car and began to drive me to my house. We didn’t have to speak, because we both knew that we had already said everything. We stopped in front of my house and looked at one another in disbelief that this really all just happened, almost like we just awoke from a five hour dream. It was no dream though, and we both knew it. I smiled at him, opened the door, went inside and instantly feel asleep.