we are all connected
By Jordan MacLire
This hangover had an energetic buzz to it. For some reason I can still not explain I felt on top of the world. No matter the amount of poison I had consumed the night before everything felt 'floaty', sublime and melancholy at the same time, it felt beautiful and somewhat intensely so.
I was in London on a tube (subway) on a Sunday morning heading towards Paddington Station. Everyone was doing the usual heads down, eyes focussed on their laps or a book, headphones firmly on or just minding their own business as is the 'correct' etiquette on the Underground. Everyone apart from us.
She was sat opposite me but maybe a few seats to my right side. I watched her as she observed her surroundings with a calmness and grace that had me mesmerised. She was too beautiful. Mousey coloured thick hair with the hint of a curl, dark brown eyes with a hint of gold. I felt like I knew her, like we had caught the same carriage together but couldn't get seats next to eachother and were just taking in our surroundings.
I was looking straight into her eyes transfixed on this angelic being, every inch of my body was vibrating. I felt something, not love, not lust, not anything I can describe in words other than a connection. She felt safe and warm and honest and natural, she felt like home. We felt connected. More than that, we felt bonded, more than lovers or family, almost as if we were fragments of the same soul that had been re-united after a thousand lives apart.
Time had quite literally stopped, we were not on the tube, we were flying through space, we were the stars the planets, the galaxies and all the space in between. A jolt in the carriage brought us both back to Earth as we were reaquanted with our egos and suddenly realised we were both engaged in a mutual stare. I instantly looked away, embarrassed for some reason about my slightly disheveled appearance to this complete stranger. But she was no stranger. I could feel her gaze float back onto me from time to time as I pretended to read the tube map above the windows of the carriage, anything to keep my eyes from being pulled back into hers.
Who is she? Why do I feel like this? Why did I suddenly feel so exposed and vulnerable, so alone? I wanted so badly to look at her or to say 'Hi'. I wanted so badly to reclaim my confidence that she had taken from me. A minute before we were floating through the cosmos together in divine connection, I had felt her love and compassion, her knowing, I had quite literally felt like I was her and she was me. I had now devolved back into a seventeen year old boy.
The truth is that she had given me much much more than I could understand at that time. My teenage mind had taken the reins. Does she fancy me? She is sooooo fit? I've got to get her number, how do I ask for it? What just happened? God I smell like booze? How's my hair looking? How long until Paddington Station, I've got to do something quick?!
Time had been reawakened again and as it is always does it ran it's course… The doors of the carriage opened and I clumsily left the train, head down with my eyes to the floor.
With my two feet firmly on the platform I turned around as the doors to her carriage closed. Our eyes met through the glass and she gave me one more gift, she smiled.
I felt a knowing feeling, a remembering. We 'had' known eachother and this was a reunion. In some way in some capacity we would meet again. But not as people, this was a deeper connection. We had both recognised eachother whilst being in a higher state of conciousness observing the 3D world around us. The connection was tangible, I felt it in every inch of my body and deeper still.
The only other time I have felt this connectionto another human on this level in this life is with my wife. I am incredibly fortunate to be blessed with such a gift and believe me it was a long and learning journey, I met her in my mid-thirties and this time I did not let the doors close on our carriage.
I sometimes think back to my 'angel in the tube'. I thank her for teaching me what a real connection is. I thank her for helping me to remember so that when it happened again (and it did) I would recognise it and never let it go. No words were ever passed between us, only a handful of minutes, a short and innocent stare and what could have been percieved as a romantic smile between two teenagers. She may have left me in body but I will never forget her spirit, we were forged from the same iron, from the same star dust. She is in me and my wife, my chidren and their lives.
She is a connection to all that may feel impossible to find until you stop and observe. She is the connection that we try to ignore but someday come to realise may have shaped this life.
