I’ve stood upon my mountaintop
and shouted at the sky
walked above the pavement
with my sense amplified
– I get this feeling

-Neil Peart (“Scars” from Presto)

What does it feel like to “walk above the pavement with one’s senses amplified”—i.e. to be keenly aware of the moment? Jin’s following passage goes a long way in describing this experience.

The frozen intensity. Nature’s inescapable beauty radiates a warmth to my face. A wave of wonder engulfs me and the moment.

 

The volume is sky high. Did I just melt into the surroundings? Losing sight of the horizontal surface below, like slotting effortlessly through a canyon.

 

The whites and yellows are too intense to view directly. The purples so deep; like a void, a passageway to another world. Does anyone see?

 

The glistening mosaics of a billion shades of green, gray, and mauve. Where do they start? Where do they end?

 

Is anybody watching? Am I too absorbed in these works of art and beauty? Some might think I’ve lost it?

 

I turn up the music. Passages open and the moment balloons out over the surrounding area, then the park, and then the whole city.

 

I stop to watch raindrops on the pond. In the light rain, drops transform into circles across the surface. They each look like little antennae; each a transmitter, forming and fading.

 

Under the tree, drops fall from the branches in irregular sizes. Like thoughts in my mind, many are small, some bigger, some combine; is my thought somewhere on the surface of the pond?

 

Walking back to the city, through a pink-purple-yellow tapestry; the rain off the car tires sounds like passing waves. Static, climatic buzzes. I suddenly lose my footing, am I still on the ground? In a trance, mesmerized, I pause then continue.

 

Back in the city, I feel like a stranger. Sounds, haze, reflective lights fascinate me like a child. I can’t help but see everything I can.

 

Every moment waxing; intense, new, the first; I go to the next moment. Time seems expansive. I feel expansive. Everything expands.