Dear Common Awakening Community, 

Have you ever stood in awe of the redwoods in California? Or touched a red rock in Utah? Or rested by a stream on a hike in the Shenandoah? The preservation of these magnificent wonders emerged from depression and confusion.

In 1905, Gifford Pinchot, Chief Forester in the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, was depressed and perplexed. He despondently rode his horse, ''Jim,'' through Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., worrying and spinning about what to do. Teddy Roosevelt had commissioned him to develop a single unitive policy to guide resource management, including fisheries, wildlife, forestry, public grazing lands, mining and mineral leasing, oil drilling, parklands, and more. As he rode, his mind descended into a long, dark tunnel. He began to descend and follow the tunnel until he saw a vision of a wild landscape in India.

He recalled from his travels and studies that areas of India had introduced “conservancies” to maintain land and resources. As he dropped into this dark tunnel, he heard the phrase, ''the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time.” It rang in his ear as he returned to his desk and drafted a comprehensive resource policy for the Roosevelt Administration under the guiding premise of ''The wise use of natural resources for the greatest number of people for the longest time.”

Pinchot’s experience is an expanded event (EE), often called a peak or extraordinary experience. More specifically, EEs that emerge from depression or confusion are called adamic ecstasy, which simply means an experience of illumination that emerges from a ‘fall’ or time of difficulty.

For too long, spirituality has associated EEs with ecstatic bliss and ethereal transcendence. You may associate EEs with meditating on a mountaintop at sunrise in complete transcendence. Yes, this can happen! However, more often, EEs happen to us in everyday, common, ordinary moments that aren’t what we expect, like experiencing an EE in a time of depression. When we look for an experience to happen in a particular way, we miss the many ways it is being delivered to us already.

Over the coming weeks, we aim to support you in perceiving the EEs happening in your life, understanding what they are, and how they make a difference. Why? Expanded events are the catalyst for rapid and enduring change. Like in our story today, they shift us quickly and get our attention in a way the mind can’t do. They transform us, and our lives are never the same again.

Join us each week to uncover the EEs in your life and take the steps with us to harness their power to deliver what you most need and what your heart longs for.

With love,

Annie