There is an essence that makes a person different than a screwdriver, which you can call whatever you like, whatever makes you comfortable. I will call it the essence, and you can substitute your word for that energy as you wish. We all mean the same thing when we talk about it.

I’ve been thinking about that essence a lot. I’ve been wondering if it’s different when it’s tethered to a body, like with every one of us, than when it isn’t, when it’s just energy flowing wherever the energy flows.

(Everybody got their diving weights and depth meters? Masks on? Here we go).

 I get the idea that not being tethered to a body gives that essence a perspective on the world that the rest of us, still earthly bound, do not have. I think it’s like the way that distance from an object gives you a greater ability to see far more of it than when you stand right in front of it, or on it.

That kind of makes sense to me.

I also think that we may have brief periods of stretching the tether we have to the physical, that there are times that the essence can roam, not freely of course, still connected, but with some slack, some ability to be elsewhere, maybe even some of those places where the energy flows. The circumstances of the physical body during those periods–sleeping for example, or illness, or sedation–may even affect the range the essence has to play with, the fencing, the limits.

If you’re still with me (I think we’re approaching 1000 feet. I can only assume that’s pretty far down, I’ve never actually tried it, so perhaps it wasn’t the best choice of metaphor, but here we are anyway), my questions have come from wondering whether those brief periods of roaming, when there is a physical body to hold you here, to draw you back, to keep you close, can offer that broader perspective I believe exists when the physical is gone, when only the essence remains.

Can we return to our physical, to our bodies, with a greater understanding of our actions and their consequences and the broader humanity that surrounds us? Or are those trips like the kiddie coasters at amusement parks, exciting when you’re three years old and new, laughable when you’re a tween, and nostalgic when you’re all grown up?

Does the knowledge surround you while you’re out and about, only to dissolve away, a dream that flickers and then fades as you open your eyes?

I guess the only ones who know can’t tell us or aren’t talking.

Please return to the surface slowly, I’d hate for you to get the bends.