What the eff are goosebumps?
Chronicle #1 of Walking the Road Less Travelled.
Who am I? And why am I even asking this silly question about goosebumps?
And what does this have to do with post post modernism?!
Well, I am someone with a story. A very human story.
And I’ve been on a quest to ask such questions for almost as long as I can remember…
When I was a child, I enjoyed reading the advice column in our small local Ancaster newspaper written by an old and wise lady named Ann Landers.
Once in a while, in addition to doling out seemingly good advice, she would include a quotation that would give me shivers when I read it. Because I loved this feeling (which was more like a thrilling experience) so much, I started to collect my favourite quotes in a little blue book with flowers on the cover. I would carry it to school with me inside my kettlecreek pencilcase.
I’ve long since lost that little book but there is one quote in particular that I have never forgotten because it gave me goosebumps every time I read it aloud:
“I may not agree with what you say but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
I mean come ON!! How does that not hit you deep inside the gut? Does it not make your eyes tear up at the very idea of such a principle rooted in respect and dripping with grace? And fall in love with the man or woman who utters this statement and deeply, truly means it as they do?
I have to ask what is THAT about?!
What is it that instigates the visceral reaction one can get from experiencing important concepts, from the inside out?
It wasn’t until I read the Celestine Prophecy a few years later in my early teens that I began to consciously understand that there was something magical and intriguing about the world beneath the material world, beyond what I could perceive with my senses.
If I felt a tingle while reading my little book of quotes I now felt a symphony in my tummy when reading this book. It wasn’t because the book was an amazing masterpiece of literature~ it wasn’t. It was because it quietly but most certainly dispelled the myth of “meaningless coincidences” as it detailed fated heroic paths and touched upon the deep & mysterious intertwining of spirit with matter.
It made all the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Without needing empirical evidence to support it or science to explain this phenomenon, I began to believe that this emotional state of bliss, however momentary, meant that whatever I was observing or perceiving that was inducing this goosebump response must hold some truth in it, as it beckoned me to look deeper.
Goosebumps became something to not only follow but to actively pursue. But I still wasn’t clear on where I should look to find them.
My mom and dad split when I was 16. I had always been very close with my dad so when he was the one to move out of the family home it made an already difficult time even harder.
I remember going to visit my dad once he got settled in his new place and noticing a tall stack of books piled up beside his lounge chair.
Rather than drowning his sorrows in bottles of booze he had hit up the self-help section of the nearest bookstore~ HARD!!
One day my curiosity got the better of me. I reached over and grabbed a book and opened it up to read the first sentence:
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
The book was the Road Less Travelled by Scott Peck and these words he wrote immediately gave me goosebumps.
And I was changed.
I didn’t know what change had occurred exactly~ I just knew that one had. And I liked it. My path as a seeker was cemented. I now knew where to look for that feeling.
Despite all the pain and discomfort of being a teenager, perpetually overcome by hormonal and emotional chaos whilst being subjected to the divorce of my parents and having my home life disrupted, this feeling provided me with a deep comfort.
It reflected to me that there is more to life than what I was physically experiencing.
This “feeling” was a KNOWING. Delivered to me through the mysterious passage-ways that ancient winds of wisdom travel upon, whose sole purpose was to soothe me and guide me away from blinding pain and towards a lighted pathway of possibilities.
A pool of conscious awareness as warm as a womb appeared before me and I dove straight in.
I began this piece with two questions:
What are goosebumps? What do they have to do with post post modernism?
Well, I can tell you what they are not.
In my experience, and I’m willing to bet in yours, they have never been induced by a social construct. (Take that, you post-modernists!)
To me, this must mean they are indicators of a SOUL construct. Twinkles of a divine spark.
There is something innate, inherent, inside each of us that acts as a tether forever connecting us to the source from which we came…a realm of pure love, pure consciousness…PURITY of Being.
Goosebumps are the little gifts of breadcrumbs we find along our path, lighting our way so we can follow it back Home.
This is an excellent piece, Jacqueline. I'm definitely on a wave near your wave. Wish more folks could take off the CULTural blinders. Thanks for starting this blog!
Seekers make the world a better place!