Return to Summerland

Several readers have noticed that in The Risen, it sounds as if I've said that I actually have experienced consciously being in Risen geographies. This is to confirm that I have. While it is a very rare thing, it appears that it might be happening more and more. Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander, MD, is one recent example. Dr. Alexander struggles to explain what his experience was like while his body was in a coma, but his frustration in trying to use words to explain a non-word state is clear, although he does an admirable job all the same.

I actually had such an experience a few days ago — fortunately not while in a coma, but just while my body slept — and feel that I've sufficiently "returned" so that I can attempt to share what it was like, as best as I can. Even though a part of me realizes the futility of coming in any way close to truly describing it.

In The Risen, I share a story about a daylight physical materialization that took place when I was in my late teens. I had been trying to nap in the farmhouse, which nested far back in the deep Appalachians, the nearest neighbor many miles away. It was where I had been staying after going underground for a few years (another long story.) I lived there with two dear friends, Carolyn and Richard, and various dogs and cats. Now many years later, Richard is Risen, having made his transition almost two years ago, and although Carolyn is still on Earth, we've been out of complete touch for a long time. I've missed her terribly, but the distance remains in place for complex and personal reasons, while we are better able to meet in the astral dimensions. The experience I had a few days ago involves them.

After falling asleep at night, I found myself standing on the top of the mountain behind the farmhouse, and could see the land stretching out far beyond and beneath me. The beauty of the green hills, flowers, the clouds simply cannot be described; "beauty" even sounds like an ugly word to use. I've always loved the term "Summerland" that one finds in the older spiritualist books, and while it barely does justice either, would like to use it here.

I was completely conscious and aware of where I was. Rather than try to describe the physical environment any further, it seems more appropriate to speak about the emotional environment — for that is really what it all is, manifesting in outer forms, an outward effect caused by my "is-ness" of inner reality. I almost fainted from the up-rushing of the fountain of feelings that lit up each and every cell of my astral-etheric body, and I could see my hands glowing, as well as light emerging from my eyes. The feeling was one of ultra-intense longing mixed with relief, tinged with the grief one feels of having left a beloved Home, but now finally returned, where any other idea than feeling safe and sound could not possibly exist. My whole being "wept"; there are no physical tears in the Summerland, for water plays a very different role there, but if I had been on Earth, I would have been sobbing and laughing at the same time. This sensation of "weeping" was almost frightening in its intensity and there was an awareness that it would have literally melted my terrestrial body away in an instant.

I could see that here, in this Summerland, the farmhouse was no longer isolated, but part of a larger community of other residences, with many people moving happily and peacefully about, including children, animals and birds. Although our farmhouse was the same in many of its earthly aspects, it had been greatly redesigned, retaining its original primitive and homey feel, but expanded to include more space and curious alcoves, crammed with many odd and precious objects. My friends did not seem surprised to see me at all, but I was when I saw their two kids both running about the house, playing. Their son and daughter are actually adults now, but here in the Summerland, they were able to present in those astral forms that felt best for them. They waved to me but didn't seem to want to hang out, and resumed running around with one of the dogs I had known many years ago.

It was amazing to see how the house had been changed -- several walls were removed to open up the space, and Richard had made the previously tiny attic into a very large workroom, where he was happily engaged putting something together ... or maybe taking it apart. He had been a car mechanic when on Earth, so it seems he was still playing with machines of some kind. He hardly gave me a glance and just waved a brief "hi" and I realized that I probably appeared to him like a barely tangible "ghost", transparent and maybe difficult to hear.

I found Carolyn in a room downstairs, setting the table in a beautiful, candle-lit dining room that had not been there before. Like me, she was visiting as well, and so was emitting the same brilliant but gentle light as I. This is how visitors would see each other, even though the Risen would most likely see us as thin veils of energy, perhaps in the form of a person, but not always. I've been made to understand that the Risen would see each other as glowing beings of light as well from their own dimensional aspect.

Carolyn and I just sat in silence at the table from across one another, smiling and glowing, nothing to say, just basking in the tangible lovingness of it all.

Eventually, slowly I awakened back in my body in my earthly bed, the cats resting on my chest and peering intently into my face. When I realized that I was back in the terrestrial dimension, I began to experience probably the opposite of what I had felt when I had first entered Summerland ... my whole being wept, but for a different reason. I was lost, abandoned, and shattered. My first thought, was, "Oh god, no ... how can I endure another second of this? There is no way I can ever get out of this bed and resume walking in this place of dismal gravity and shadows." I began to feel overwhelmingly depressed, and if not for my guides who began chanting prayers in my ears, I don't know how I would have made it. It took almost 2 hours to get out of the bed, and then almost the entire day of unceasing prayer to feel reconnected with Creator Source within, and resume an earthly existence. Now, several days later, I finally feel fully grounded, but still cannot stop thinking about Summerland.