Innocence Lost

     It happened when I was 20 years old. I spent many a late night listening to music and surfing the web, taking frequent breaks to my parents garage to smoke the peace pipe and converse with my dog. Upon returning from one of these breaks I sat back down to my desk to a high resolution image of a massive and detailed hypnotizing nebula. I had found it on a forum, and the person who posted it urges the audience to enlarge the picture and study it corner to corner to truly appreciate its beauty. Sounded like a good idea to me so I proceeded. It was spectacular in all of its otherworldly magic, and I soaked it all in. A tingle creeps up my spine and I can feel my heart smiling. I notice swirling phosphenes appearing in the image and disregard them as sides effects of THC. With a quickness I realize I'm wrong. The twinkling changes to the clouds of the nebulae actually, physically, beginning to transform.  And, I remember it as if it just happened, a clear image of a panda bear is formed in the center of the image.  Crazy. And just as soon as the bear materialized it changed into the torso of a deer, great spiraling antlers, and now more animals are surrounding. Within minutes I had the feeling I've seen hundreds of animals, if not all in existence. The visuals begin to fade and now more clearly than anything taking up about a third of the entire image, a human skull I look away, afraid of what might come next (foolishly.) I peer back and in my trance of amazement am gifted with a beautiful token of information I have never forgotten. Information given to me without words or sound, immediate understanding I can try to portray to you now. The swirling material coloring the nebula, that is the life force we are all made off.  Star stuffs, celestial stew, the makings of life. It is all the same spool of thread we are all woven from. There is something to be learned from every person, every plant, every animal, every sacred place, and every formation in the universe.  The order of the chaotic universe teaches us with collective intelligence reflected back to us through the things we view as separate from our personal being. And what a wonderful system karma has provided.  Sometimes I revisit the nebula, and although the animals have faded (but not the memory) the human skull remains.