When I was 18, I figured out how to see something that permanently altered my sense of reality.

I was an undergraduate at Mt. Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, a biology major.

After months of chewing over various questions like the purpose of thinking, what music is, why the planet is so beautiful, I finally decided that to really understand what was going on, I had to see where I was.

How do you see where you are?

It’s not obvious.

In fact, if you take into account all the other places you are in at the same time that you are, say, sitting on a park bench in Fredericton, it’s hard to see how you could cram that much geography into your brain, not to speak of larger dimensions like the universe that don’t take kindly to being condensed.

And yet, I think I found a way to do it. I found a way to include the universe in my perception of the world around me. I had to stretch my imagination dramatically and focus on a single object (a rock) for a fairly long time. But I figured out how to bring the bigger realities I knew about from my reading and talking into the situation I was actually living in. And while you might think this was a ridiculous, fun-destroying  thing for young woman doing, and why wasn’t I hanging out with other undergraduates in the Student Lounge, the experience was utterly transforming and showed me something so amazing I have spent the rest of my life trying to figure it out.

I am now 67, and not for want of trying, I still haven’t told anyone how I did it. Or maybe I should say, I haven’t told anyone who got as excited about it as I am. Maybe I didn’t present it very well? Maybe they didn’t understand what I was talking about? Or maybe they weren’t interested enough in it to nail me down on what I meant?

Who knows? But I created this website to give myself another crack at sharing the little glimpse of heaven I first had in 1963. I figure there have got to be at least two other people in the world interested in seeing where they are, and if I can just find them, I’ll close the circle.

If there is no one at all, it’s too late to have my head examined. But I think there will be someone. We live in dramatic times and it has suddenly become excruciatingly important to see beyond your own small circle of needs into the needs of future generations and the planet as a whole. The fate of Earth now hangs on how many of us (read North Americans) act to reduce our GHG emissions. If we don’t stop burning fossil fuels now, hundreds of thousands of people will die and Earth will become uninhabitable for millions of species. There is no guarantee that if I share my vision of Earth as a weirdly concocted, deliberate viewing arrangement for another intelligence, North Americans will give up driving their cars, and fossil fuel companies will switch to renewables. But if I don’t share it, enviros won’t have what I think is an important asset. A resource. And it won’t be on record that someone long ago thought we are in a set-up that looks as if it is being watched.

By “share my vision” I do not intend to gobble up your scant free time with page after page of writing. I want to show you something, not tell you about it, which means perception, not language.

I may post stuff to prep you for the switch from language to perception, because your perception is probably buried, and you may not realize that we have to unbury it in order to see clearly. Language is an extremely powerful module. It is the representational system we use to think with, and we use it to talk too. Its machinery dominates everything we do. In fact, in many ways, language is the problem. It is out of touch with physical reality, and has created a secondary reality that has taken us over a cliff.

But my intention is not to tell you this. There are already plenty of people who suspect it and you can read their books online or in the library. I may create another blog entitled “Language is a Virus.”

But right now, I want to get you out of language and into the stunning, unbounded, nonhuman dimension that is waiting. I may have to use words to show you how to find it. But after that there will be nothing to say because the universe on earth cannot be talked about. It can only be perceived.

Is there enough time to take this detour into perception? Shouldn’t we be out blockading pipelines and sitting in at government office buildings?

Yes. But we also have to sustain ourselves. We have to nourish ourselves so that resistance continues for as long as it takes. We are stewards now, stewards of the workplace and stewards of the planet. And to muster the energy we’ll need to keep on fighting back against ignorance, stupidity and greed, we cannot depend on quinoa and organic smoothies, or at least only some of the time. We need something stronger than that. We need an energy so dependable and beautiful it gives us joy to receive it. We need an energy that constantly reminds us of the huge drama we are in. Are humans going to survive or not? For that we need the energy that powers the universe. And by tapping into its presence here on earth, we draw on a never-ending, renewable source that will support us as long as there is a universe to be in, which is to say, long enough.