The Green Flash of Spirit

by Gail Dimitroff

 When I was a child I was taught that God was all present, all knowing and everywhere. This concept was far too great for my seven year old brain and so I welcomed the beautiful holy cards that showed a Great Father Figure floating on a Billowing Cloud. This helped me to get a sense of what this Great Spirit might be. Today I see how useful the personal image of God was. Religious thinking, by making God man-like provides a tiny glimpse into the Unknowable. Religion gives us a way to begin to appreciate the vastness and the power. Indeed, the very concept of Deity is so vast, so glorious that it defies human understanding.

 Later in life I found myself preparing to teach Emerson’s Oversoul at Humboldt State University in No. California. One afternoon near sunset, I was sitting in my office over looking the campus with the ocean in the distance. I went over my notes. The ideas were beautiful, expansive—an Oversoul. A slight mist had been falling and it quite suddenly stopped. Pink, rose, azaleas and blue, purple, red rhododendrons colored the lush campus. Sidewalks shimmered like silver ribbons as students hustled to class or home. The glowing sun went down and just at that moment a green flash occurred, an explosion of green gold rays of light on the horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

 At that moment Emerson’s thoughts, the beauty of the campus, and the green flash overcame me with a deep experience of what Spirit means. A sense of overshadowing love, protection, and joy was so intense that I suddenly knew what lay behind the Holy cards of my youth. Spirit pervades all things. Spirit is an expression of deep love, unity and joy. I was inspired.

 Next day, my lecture went well. Students agreed as to the grandeur of nature—something that defied language, something that could not be measured. But it most certainly could be felt, experienced, known. This sense of oneness, beauty and purpose, we agreed, was spirit.

 But then I asked, “What does this mean to us as humans? Does it change anything?”

 Carrie, a student from Eureka said, “After I have been at the seaside or in a redwood grove, I feel kinder. I want to do better.” Jerry agreed, “I’m an actor. Nature moves me to express more deeply, more honestly.” Jen said, “I sense a oneness, I sense Spirit.” Similar comments followed.

 “Can we not say then, that when Spirit expresses we are moved to further develop our potential,” I said.

  “We try to do better, try to raise ourselves up” another student added.

  I think my students were on to the right track. We don’t need dogma. We don’t necessarily need religion to conclude that self reliance can take us far. By experiencing Spirit we can move toward greater understanding, acceptance and love. We concluded that the really wise person will learn to tune into his or her own gyroscope which, when attuned to Sprit, will always lead to the right place.

 Today, I still am moved by great pictures of God and Godly men. Who would not be moved by Michelangelo or the Sistine Chapel? After all, the same Spirit that so moved me that day at Humboldt is the same Spirit that moves the artist’s hand. It is natural to want to penetrate the mystery of the Eternal, to learn the difference between the Real and the unreal, to understand the Eternal. In this way does Spirit entice, inspire and uplift.