The Making of a Mystic by Paddy Fievet, PhD
In an excerpt from her fascinating new book, The Making of a Mystic, author Paddy Fievet writes: Just as I walked beyond the base of the Mary Magdalene Tower, I noticed the plethora of blooming wildflowers in front of me. Most of them were of a light shade of purple splattered with touches of the color of an early morning sunrise. Each stalk had many flowers upon it, bending and swaying slightly in the easy spring breeze flowing up and down the mountainside. Meandering slightly off my path, I eased down among those wildflowers. For a while, I just sat there, noticing intricate details about each leaf, each stone in the walls, and each flower stalk. I noticed how content they seemed to be just blooming their hearts out as if in applause of nature’s love. Reaching out my hand, I moved it under the flowers, hoping some of the color would splash upon me in the warm spring sunshine. I looked across the valley to what I assumed was a rock outcropping upon the hill on the other side of the valley, wondering if one of the caves in the area nestled itself among those rocks. Behind me, the rock wall holding back the earth upon which the tower was perched felt solid, warm, and comfortable. Each stone was of a different size, yet they all blended together into one accord and purpose. The exquisiteness of the area easily pulled me into a deep meditation. I closed my eyes in order to tune out my vision, allowing the feeling of Spirit to grace me with whatever I needed at the time, very similar to my spiritual writing sessions. This time, of course, I did not have paper and pen in hand. I also had no specific question I felt needed asking. Instead, I just wanted to feel whatever words might come.
Actually, no words came at all. What I felt existed beyond ordinary words composed into meaningful sentences, a connective grace of God’s Love.
After an undetermined time of sitting in crossed-leg fashion with my hands resting on my knees, I felt the urge to open my eyes. Incredulous, I blinked, thinking what I saw could not possibly be. I opened my eyes yet again, making sure I did not move one bit. All around me were butterflies. They were on my sleeves, they were on my knees, they were on the flowers to my right and my left, and they were in the air around me. There were not 10, or even 20, but what I guessed to be 50 to 100 or more butterflies nearby.
After an Internet search later that week, I learned these butterflies looked like the Vanessa atalanta butterfly. Their wings were black on the tips, moving to a dark shade of brown on the inner part of the wings. Several white dots decorated the wingtips, while orange-red stripes crossed the forewings and hind wings. What I knew then while sitting there among them had more to do with mysticism than science. It was not what I saw that allowed me to surge into the realms of magnificence, but what I felt. Yet, at first, I had no idea what this new feeling was all about. I decided to not worry about it, but just to experience it–to accept it, tune into it, and receive it. With Grace, I would eventually figure it out.
It did not take me long.
© Paddy Fievet, Ph.D. Excerpt is printed with permission of the publisher Cloverhurst Publications. ISBN: 978-0-9906706-1-2 List Price: US $14.95. Paperback, 184 pages.