A lot has been said about Woodstock on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. It has become a moment in time when a large community of people packed into a small space had a shared experience of love, peace and unity. On a much smaller scale, I had a shared experience with strangers viewing the eclipse together at a park in the mountains of North Carolina.
Viewing the total eclipse was a surreal event with a quality of awe that didn’t require words or description. There was an easy silence amongst the people and no sense of time or urgency, only peace and wonder. There were no feelings of stress or fear. For the moment, there prevailed a lovingkindness and otherworldly serenity for a group of people that would not gather again.
The same kind of shared experience sometimes happens in a crowd at a sporting event. Time is suspended, all energy and focus is on the action and the experience elevates the individual to a unity of purpose outside himself.
This is a glimpse of heaven. There is no ego in heaven and the present moment is the only reality. To be in a shared experience with no thoughts about yourself and intensely in the moment is a yet another gift the universe gives us now and again to remind us of our true selves, our common divinity as God’s children.