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| from Merriam-Webster |
Historically, I've always focused on the sudden-ness and insightful-ness aspects of 'having an epiphany'. I mean I knew there was a seizure-like intensity about it when you have that profound 'aha' moment, but I think that I have been discounting the emotional aspect of it. A near religious experience, if you will, that brings us closer to the origin of the word.
Here are two recent experiences I have had that I am now going to recategorize as epiphanies. Both of these moments contained no new insight and hence no revelation, but, instead, were profoundly affecting and moving to me personally. I experienced the insight in an emotive and profound way that was not accessible to me prior despite knowing all the facts. I am now thinking these emotional moment of intense feeling are more true to the word epiphany than previous times where I have felt my understanding settle in like puzzle pieces finally meshing together (that was more like aesthetic satisfaction I think).
(1)
A couple of years ago, I was looking at the sunrise and thinking about how I was actually on a rotating rock. The Sun is just sitting there in space and I am being brought into view of the Sun by virtue of my riding along on the rotation of this rock which gives me a speed of several hundreds of miles per hour. I've known this for most of my life, but in this moment, I felt it. I got dizzy. I got scared. I had a glimpse of the scale of it all: How big a rock the Earth is, how fast it is rotating and how far away the Sun is and yet it seemed to be speeding into view. It was great.
(2)
A couple of day ago, on my way to work, I was appreciating the late spring that is unique in my experience to New England. Spring doesn't just pop into existence here. Winter lingers and there is a short war between spring and winter which spring eventually wins. But the plants and animals each return to spring in their own time and in their own way here - it is a series of transitions spread out over many weeks. As I was appreciating this, I realized that the giant oak trees on my walk are the the most conservative in embracing the spring. "Go ahead all you little plants and animals, I am biding my time and will send out some tender buds when I am good and confident it really is spring" I imagine them saying (Ent-like, of course). When I glanced up to see their still naked branches silhouetted against the sky, I felt that I was at the bottom of an ocean of air. A tiny-self aware being crawling on the floor of this immense ocean of nitrogen gas accompanied by all these other bottom dwellers. The oaks alone were reaching upwards, striving to get away from the messiness and glory of life lining the bottom. The ecosphere felt like a fragile thing to me then. I felt part of it and it made me nervous that it could all be wiped away as easily as I took a dishrag to wipe the grim off the bottom of my coffee mug.
I've known about the Gaia concept, the ecosystem, and the model of the atmosphere as being an ocean of gas for most of my life as well, but I really felt part of it - humbled, scared, and proud all at the same time - in a way I had never experience before.
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To bring this post full circle, I think it not unreasonable to describe these moments of intense feelings, scale-defying and interconnected insights, as spiritual. If so, isn't it interesting that my appreciation of science gives me spiritual insight? I think Joseph Campbell would approve.
