The light didn’t register at first. I must have written it off as an all-too-familiar symptom of my alcohol-induced hysteria. Slowly, however, it dawned on me that the room was pervaded by an incredible brilliance pouring through the open window.
I moved toward the source of the light but was literally driven back by the searing intensity of it. I could not keep my eyes open.
I sat down heavily, shielding my eyes with my forearm, trying to discern the source of this violent illumination. This was no gentle light. This was dominant, almost brutal. It demanded my attention.
Ever so slowly I felt myself give in to the light, in an act of involuntary surrender. All power was being drained from me. I was dying. This was the light of death.
Gradually there was a diminution of its intensity, and along with it a baffling calm welled within me, as if the very light was flowing in by particle and wave, filling the void it had hollowed out. I felt incredibly, indescribably at peace.
And with that I fell into a deep, restful sleep.
Construction activity and a cold breeze woke me. I rose and went to the window, leaning out, my gaze met by a handful of workmen just a few yards away. Attached to their scaffold were several huge work lights, which were on and extremely bright.
I slammed the window shut. And started laughing. Was it those work lights that had created the illumination I’d experienced, the hallucinatory perception of some divine cosmic light? Had that—a work light—been the true source of my epiphany?
But did it matter? Because that serenity that had overcome me just before I fell asleep lingered. I could still sense it within me, not fully expressed but there, hovering and humming. It was the manifested internalization of that epiphanic experience, real or otherwise, that mattered—and who cared if a work light was the culprit? It was my feeling of serenity, however tenuous, that was the real blessing and would be the seed of whatever change and growth might come next.
