‘Mystical Interludes II’, collected and edited by Emily Rodavich, takes us into the world of ordinary people’s mystical experiences. Read on!
A mystical interlude, which resonates in the heart, can remind us of our spirituality and our connectedness to each other. This is why it is meaningful to take heed.
from Mystical Interludes II by Emily Rodavich
You might sense a theme emerging in Quiet Writing lately.
Independently, books have come to me that focus on mystical experiences. These books arrived in various ways and means, all dealing with people having extraordinary experiences. It was quite surprising. Coincidence? I think not.
These mystical experiences are called different things: mystical interludes or NOTEs, Non-ordinary Transcendent Experiences. Some involve a specific life-changing moment like a Near Death Experience. Others are a kind of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence, involving signs or symbols. Sometimes they are everyday occurrences with enormous significance beyond the moment. They could be events that connect over the decades. Or an experience that manifests through increased sensitivity of some kind.
It was clearly time for me to look closely into this realm of reality and reflect on my personal experience of the mystical. For it is something that just about everyone experiences and encounters if we pay attention. Often, it’s an occurrence that yields rich rewards of transformation and growth. This is especially the case if we honour the experience, feel able to talk about it and share it more publicly with others.
Reading Mystical Interludes II
I was delighted to have the opportunity to read Mystical Interludes II by Emily Rodavich to enrich my sense of ordinary people’s stories of the mystical. The backstory of this book is fascinating. Emily Rodavich wrote her first Mystical Interludes: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Experiences as a memoir. Covering a series of lifetime mystical interludes, Emily seeks to make sense of encounter after encounter. These experiences include a near-death experience at 18. With the door opening to this aspect of experience, it seemed to usher in other spiritual experiences.
Emily reflects on her mystical interludes with this life wisdom:
I’ve come to realize that those powerful experiences have been extraordinary gifts that should be shared rather than closeted. It’s my hunch that the world is full of ordinary people like myself who have been surprised by similar incidents. It’s time we come forward and share them with each other and the world around us.
Mystical Interludes
So to put her weight behind this, Emily issued an invitation at the end of her memoir. She invited people who experienced a mystical interlude to submit a description of it for a new book. Mystical Interludes II is a collection of stories that came forward from ordinary people from that invitation and in other ways.
Emily speaking at a book talk
Ordinary people’s extraordinary stories
The quality that I love most about Emily’s Mystical Interludes II is that it is very much ordinary people telling extraordinary stories. You sense as you read that each author is continuing to make sense of what happened as they write. The overwhelming feeling is of everyone being right back in that moment even if it was many years ago. The details are sharp. It’s as if time stands still in the moment and everything is super-charged. The senses are activated in the story and in the telling.
Nancy Aloi in ‘Love from Beyond the Veil‘ describes a series of encounters defined by intense smells including tobacco and freshly baked bread. Smells that she connects with her late father, his spirit seemingly shepherds her through a difficult time.
Canela Michelle Meyers describes the expansive, light feeling of a Near Death Experience in her story, ‘Into the Blue’. The moments when Canela is ice-skating before she has a catastrophic fall are told in crystal clear detail. It’s as if the whole day and series of events are frozen in time.
Time after time, I marvelled at being in this house, in this hospital, in this room, on this street – in ordinary places with ordinary people having extraordinary things happen to them.
Overwhelming openness to experience
Each author reflects on these extraordinary experiences as a gift. They provide insights and learning that open the heart. Even when the experience was difficult or hard to understand, it resulted in a spirit of being more open.
Beverley Golden shares an “almost unexplainable experience with a past-life regression” in her story, ‘Answers from Another Place and Time.’ She concludes:
One thing I do know is that the experience has kept me open and willing to receive answers to questions, wherever they come from.
These ordinary people share conclusions from all kinds of extraordinary experiences. Conclusions about loved ones always being with us, living past lives, life beyond death and the power of mystical signposts to bring people together over time and circumstance. Each story has the effect of opening up your own experience and insight in the telling.
As Emily says in the introduction:
Just as each of us is an original one-of-a-kind being, each story is a unique, authentic revelation. The common thread throughout these narratives is that they are real. That reality is evidenced by their influences on their writers’ lives.
Extraordinary encounters of ordinary people
The authors are a rich mix of people. They include retirees, authors, physicians, integrative health practitioners, neighbours, teachers, artists, intuitives, psychologists, musicians. Authors of Quiet Writing Wholehearted Stories are contributors to this volume including Penelope Love and Maura McCarley Torkildson. Most of the authors I don’t know and some authors choose to remain anonymous.
This broad range of contributing authors reinforces the message that many people experience mystical interludes. I reflected on my own mystical interludes whilst reading this book. When reading Nicole Gruel’s book, I had an encounter experience around rainbows, a recurring symbol in my life. It’s as if in the reading of such books, our awareness is raised. We review the mystical experiences in our lives. Or they start to occur!
Suzanne Giesemann echoes this in her Foreword:
I know from my own research that simply by reading other people’s other-worldly experiences, we are more likely to experience such events ourselves.
The gathering of books and connections coming together on this topic in my life might be my own Mystical Interludes story! A whole series of personal connections has intersected during this past month or so of reading about mystical interludes. Chance and random encounters between people connected around mystical experiences. New connections made like it’s a web that extends between us. It has been an extraordinary light-filled time.
Connecting with Mystical Interludes
This is the real power and spirit of Mystical Interludes II and Emily’s collection of stories. The groundswell of interest in transcendent experiences is made richer by these detailed accounts of ordinary lives suddenly taking on another form.
We know from Emily’s gathering of these 39 stories, as well as Nicole Gruel’s research, that many people have such experiences but they may not talk about them. The stigma and the feeling of not being believed means many people have stayed quiet. Clearly, as these stories show, the immediacy and impact of these experiences does not fade with time. The retelling of them gives life and energy to the spirit of the experience.
I encourage you to read Mystical Interludes II to embolden yourself to think about such experiences in your life. And to share them with others. You might find yourself reflecting on your mystical experiences – past or present – as I have. If you have had a mystical interlude of your own, you might consider contributing your story to the forthcoming Mystical Interludes III.
Emily sharing her experiences via a book talk
Leadership in telling stories
The leadership of Emily Rodavich in telling her story as a role model and inviting and supporting others to tell their stories is powerful. It would be easy for these ordinary people to shy away from telling their stories. But in Emily’s very wise and inspired hands, these stories are dusted off, shaped and gathered together into a volume that speaks volumes about the nature of mystical experiences.
Emily’s book opens with a wonderful quote from Anthony de Mello:
Story-telling to shed light and share truth is what this book is all about. These are quiet stories, gently told, as they narrate momentous happenings. It is wonderful that more authors are choosing to write and share their mystical interludes story. It’s exciting too that Emily has stepped up to provide leadership to gather, honour and help voice the experiences of others.
I feel indebted to Emily and to all the authors for taking the time to share their stories in such detail, often from hidden or long ago places. I’m sure many readers will feel this same sense of respect and honour in witnessing these long-held stories of the heart and spirit. I encourage you to also witness these stories, their brave telling and what they might teach us about ourselves and our place in the world of spirit and the mystical.
Book Giveaway
I’m hosting a giveaway of Mystical Interludes II on Instagram and Facebook! Let’s celebrate ordinary people’s mystical interludes in the light of the Virgo Full Moon!
Working together with Emily Rodavich and Citrine Publishing, we have one printed copy of Mystical Interludes II to give away, sent to you anywhere in the world.
So make sure you are following me on Instagram and/or Facebook and follow the instructions to win this book in my posts on Tuesday 19 February AEDT. Good luck!
Thought pieces + footnotes
About Emily Rodavich
Emily Rodavich, retired English teacher, mother of three and grandmother of four, had a near death experience at age eighteen. That extraordinary event opened the door to a lifetime of spiritual happenings. Unable to share those mystical experiences with most friends or family for fear they’d think her “strange,” she kept them to herself. In recent years, realizing the ways those various mystical happenings had shaped her concept of reality and her character, she wrote her memoir, Mystical Interludes: An Ordinary Person’s Extraordinary Experiences, which chronicles ten of her stunning interludes. Believing that everybody experiences mystical interludes to some degree, she invited readers to submit their stories for publication in this, her second book, Mystical Interludes II: A Collection of Extraordinary People’s Extraordinary Experiences.
At the end of her speaking engagements Emily found that people wanted to hang out and talk about their experiences. The result was the formation of the Mystical Interludes Discussion Group (MIDG) starting with eight members who met in her home for the first time in March 2017. Today the group of fifty members rents space for their monthly meetings. Emily’s mission is to do her part to support our collective spiritual evolution by bringing personal mystical events out of shadow into the light. In so doing, she foresees a day when mystical interludes will be accepted as normal human events, rather than strange or weird occurrences.
Connect with Emily by visiting the Mystical Interludes website. To express your intention to write for the next edition, click on “Share Your Experience”.
Reading Mystical Interludes II
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Image 2, 5 & 7 provided by Emily Rodavich and used with permission and thanks.
Image 3 via Pexels.com and used with permission and thanks.
You might also enjoy:
Non-ordinary transcendent experiences: a review of ‘The Power of Notes’ by Nicole Gruel PhD
The journey to write here: my wholehearted story
When the inner voice calls, and calls again – my journey to wholehearted living
Tackling trauma and “not enough” with empathy and vision – a wholehearted story
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