10 Liberation by Skyler Cowan
Author’s note: It’s one of the first pieces of my own creation that I have felt compelled to repeatedly revise for my own gratification. It was fulfilling to try to find the right words to convey my inner experience, and while I feel that the words only offer a cheap substitute for the actual experience described, language is one of our best methods for conveying complex concepts. I feel I’ve come about as close as I can to recreating the experience through this medium. I am truly glad to have had this opportunity to share the end product with you. Below is the final draft (for now), and it’s the first piece of personal writing that I have wanted to share in any kind of public way. Thank you.
When I was arrested, I sat in county jail for ten months. All I could see was grey–just concrete, steel and cinderblocks. From the rec yard I was fortunate enough to see the sky for up to an hour a day, but the horizon was withheld. In any cardinal direction, there were only 20-foot-high cinderblock walls topped with long and plentiful coils of razor wire.
There was a strong feeling of spiritual oppression.
When I was finally sentenced, I was freighted from Ada County to Caribou County (an IDOC holding facility). The trip spanned from western Idaho to the southeast corner of Idaho.
For most of the bus ride I watched the Idaho desert roll along, reveling in some of the most mundane natural landscapes. It seemed an apex experience just to watch sagebrush and sand drift endlessly by my window.
At some point, we crossed a great arching bridge; I couldn’t say where. As I looked out the window, the canyon we were crossing came into view–a gash in the Earth’s crust so deep and wide that it seemed to contain an ecosystem completely independent of the world above. It was a stunning microcosm of the Idaho wilderness that had helped to raise me.
It held freedom in its depths.
As I gazed in mute reverence at the placid green river below, bathed in the long light of autumn, my heart cracked open in imitation of the world before me. The vacuum that had been cultivated within it over the last ten months immediately gave way to the pure love of creation that cascaded in. As it filled beyond capacity, the excess found its way to my tear ducts and rolled down my cheeks.
I found myself immersed in the Clear White Light of existence, and I remember thinking that I was looking into the face of God.
That bridge took maybe ten seconds to cross, but the view and the feelings it elicited have stuck vividly in my mind over the years as one of the most beautiful and transcendent experiences I have been afforded ever since I was caged.
Aum Mani Padme Hum*
*Aum Mani Padme Hum is a powerful mantra in Tibetan Buddhism, often called the “Six-Syllable Mantra”. It is believed to invoke compassion and benevolent attention and can be used for meditation, spiritual development, and healing.
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