Remember your first crush?

Mine was in grade school. His name was Jeff and of course all the girls were in love with him. He was the coolest, cutest boy in the whole grade, and charming enough that no one blamed him for it. This guy had it going on.

Recently, I was lying I bed feeling sleepy enough to be cozy and awake enough to notice it, when a moment I shared with my first crush came to mind, and as the memory played itself out on the screen of my mind, I saw something that I had never noticed before.

I had a startling revelation that has changed everything I know about who we are and what we are capable of.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the holiday that celebrates the capacity of our hearts: which is the source of all abundance, I thought I’d share with you my first crush and what I learned then and now. Enjoy!

The sun had lowered itself just enough to peek its head into the window of the fifth grade classroom, where a teacher was herding his children into their neat rows of desks.

The children were happy and rowdy from a good day’s play, and the teacher was using words like overexcited and unruly, which were sure signs that they would soon be subject to yet another discipline exercise.
He had them line up in front of they desks and ordered them to get their things in order quickly. There sentenced to utter silence for the last 10 minutes of class. No note passing, no joking around, and most importantly no girls vying for the boys' attention while pretending to be disinterested.

The kids sat anxiously fidgeting on the tops of their desks, legs swinging, feet clapping together. Others sat furtively on their hands, hoping to clamp down the restlessness that threatened to overtake them.

Only one girl at the front the room seemed perfectly content. In fact, if one were to pay close attention they would notice that beneath her contemplative stare she was downright happy.

For earlier that week an unexpected and special gift had been bestowed upon her. She had been assigned to sit next to the most beautiful boy she had ever met for an entire week. And now at the end of day, at the end of the week, she would spend her last 5 minutes, having him completely to herself.

No boys to egg him into a spitball match, no girls to flirt with him, no pranks to concoct to impress the ranks of his mates; just him and her and the 2 inches of desk between them.

So there she sat trying to talk her thundering heart into a respectable quietness, while staring purposefully at the floor in front of her in the hopes that no one would notice her utter joy at their punishment. The silence of the room began to descend, and her mind, distracted by the nearness of him began to let loose its questions.

What was it that made him special, and why did she like him this year when last year she wanted nothing to do with him? What had changed? Was it her? Was it him? Had some invisible switch been turned on inside her? What was it that made things go all crazy and swirling inside her?

A million and one questions threatened to tip over her already brimming mind, when one thought arose that stilled all the others.

The eyes are the window of the soul. She had heard someone say that somewhere. And at the time she had become instantly besotted with the idea that if she looked into someone’s eyes long enough she would see their soul, and know who they truly were. Ever since then, she had developed the habit of looking into people’s eyes when she thought they weren’t looking.

She had looked into the eyes of her Mom’s and her Pops, and Gramma’s. She had looked into the eyes of Mary the neighbor who sometimes looked after them, in the afternoon. She had looked into the eyes of strangers that she met at the Laundromat, on in line at the supermarket. But so far she had not come any closer to finding out what the soul was, or what it looked like, or who people really were.

She had long ago discovered that people spent a great deal of their time hiding who they really were. She wasn’t sure why they did this, but she suspected that people were afraid, since she always wanted to hide when she was afraid.

She wanted just one glimpse of the soul, so she could put a face to the feeling that she got when she looked at people. That deep inside them was something so bright, and magical, and special that they couldn’t understand it, and therefore couldn’t see it.

Maybe if she saw it, she could understand people, and understand all these feelings that bumbled around inside her.

And so she had begun her quest to see down into the bottom of people’s souls. So far the closest she had made it was halfway. Problem was people always turned away the second she had begun to make any kind of progress. And so she had begun to abandon the idea.

All these thoughts came to her mind as she sat there next to him, and before she knew it she found herself staring at the boy next to her. She might never have noticed what she was doing, if it weren’t for the misfortune of him catching her doing it. Her eyes widened with surprise, cheeks pinked with shame, and she waited for him to turn away. Only he didn’t.

Instead for reasons she’ll never know he stared back. And like Peter Pan whose Neverland was just beyond two stars, she stared into his eyes, looking for the constellation of his being that was sure to rest beyond them.

Down and down into the tunnel of his being she found herself sinking. The loveliness of him floated all around her, even his awareness of his affect on her felt soft and warm, and natural without the sting of shame or judgment to taint it.

Just as she thought she would never reach the bottom, he spoke. He spoke with such finality and simplicity that she scarcely had time to judge or dismiss his words.
“You’re going to beautiful one day.” He said. They were the most unexpected words a she had ever heard. But what was stranger was the way he spoke them. She had never heard him speak in quite that way before or since.

“You’re pretty now, but when you grow up, when you get older you’re going to be really beautiful.” There was a feeling around them that was a kind of peaceful quiet she had only felt on lazy days at the beach staring at the ocean. Not even her insecurity would dare interrupt it by objecting. For one moment, her mind was empty, her heart was full and all her questions melted away.

Brrrinng. The bell rang, and the boy next to the girl hopped off the desk in a race to be first out the door, a normal overexcited, unruly boy once more. But the girl was forever changed.

I was forever changed. And now after decades of silence, I can't help but wonder wonder why the memory comes to mind now. As I sifted through the memory, something caught my attention.

Growing up I had always wondered whether what he said would turn out to be true, I was of course interested in the outcome, in the promise that had been created.

In all that time, I never wondered what he saw when he looked into my eyes that compelled him to say what he said with a conviction that went far behind his years.

When I remembered it this time, I saw that he wasn’t just seeing something, he was “knowing” something; hearing something. As I looked closer into the memory” I saw myself at my current age speaking with the boy, and heard myself telling him the following.

“Help those see who they are. They will need that; you can give them that. Help her to see herself as she is, as she will be. She needs a future to believe in. She won’t believe me, but she will believe you.”

When I came out of my reverie, I realized that I had just made a leap in time. All those many years ago, when my first crush looked into my eyes, he had seen me as I am now decades later. I had drawn his consciousness into a place where he could see who I would be in the future, and gently “suggested” that he share what he saw with my younger self. And what’s more, the little girl, who had felt herself being drawn in “by a deep peace”, was being drawn into stillness by the person I am today.

Just an insecure, little girl, I was not ready to see what my futureself wanted to show me, so she had my crush tell me in such a simple way, that on some level I would believe it.

It would be another 3 years before I would be able to hear the guidance of my futureself, several more, before I would see what she looked like, and many, many more before I recognized that the person who had guided me as a child, was actually myself bending back through time.

I share this with you because, in moments when we are still, time stands still with us.

The little boy and girl had essentially “stopped time”, and therefore opened themselves up to all of time, and all of their future and past selves. Unburdened by expectation or a limited view of reality, they heard and listened and received. Future and past met in that moment to give a little girl hope: one with a grander context to live into. One that held a promise that she couldn’t quite create for herself, but whose future self could.

And here I am again, ready to expand into a broader view of what I am, one that expands beyond time and yet includes all of it.

2012 has been called the year that brings the end of time as we ascend into a higher dimension. It appears to me that the reverse is true. It is timelessness that allows us to ascend to a higher dimension. We are currently in a 3rd dimensional reality where time is a part of the 4th dimension. When we expand beyond time (the 4th dimension), we extend into unconditional love (which is the 5th dimension). In short, it is the cessation of time that allows us to be the love that we are.

When there is no past or future, there is only the present moment and when we are fully present, we are unconditional love.

Look for those moments in your past, when time stood still, when you felt a guiding hand, suddenly calm you guide you. Wisdom that was whispered in your ear, when you most needed it. Perhaps it was an older wise version of your self, bending time to come to your aide.

Time traveler or not, the significance of the memory is that we alter time every day, and if extend beyond it, we can tap into the love we have always wanted for ourselves. That unconditional love that wants a brighter future for us to live into.

Time heals all things, but its disappearance brings love.
Step out of time, step into love and truly know you are the love you seek.
Wishing you a Happy Valentine full of timeless moments