first stranger connection - check!

the second day in salt lake, a few of us walked to this really cool coffeeshop called alchemy. there, we met the barista working, named paul. shelley and derek, the people we were staying with, knew him. when being introduced, our eyes connected for a moment and i saw a flicker of light. now that i think about it, i really did visually see it. at that moment, i knew our spirits were somehow connected on another plane. we didn't talk then at all though. when i walked out of the coffeeshop, however, i noticed that i felt like i was rolling. the energy from my heart chakra up to my crown chakra was absolutely radiant.. i felt like i was 7 feet tall. i knew that it was his own energy that i had picked up. 

as fate would have it, shelley and derek were having a little party that evening and had invited him. this was his first time coming over to their house ironically. when he showed up, i eventually got around to talking to him. since i partially already knew him (and since i had a little whiskey in my belly) it was easy to arrive at a spiritual point in the conversation. turns out he has traveled the world learning from various spiritual peoples, he is a reiki healer, he was given a spiritual name at a young age (this name being shiva), and practices native american spiritual disciplines as well. 

when he overheard me saying my back was hurting, he offered to do some healing therapy on it. i agreed wholeheartedly. during this process..

"you are very loved."

"by who? the universe?"

"yeah by the universe." 

"i hope so. i'm experiencing some fear in that department."

i later asked him how important he thought it was to have a spiritual mentor. (this has been a burning question for me in the past few months.) he told me that everyone i ever knew and will know are my spiritual mentors, and it's up to me to decide how much i want to take from each person. this both frustrated me and put me at ease. i feel like i should have a mentor to direct my spiritual development in the right way. but while looking up at the stars that night, i remember thinking, the only relationship that really matters is the one that the Divine and i share. no one could possibly truly understand the depth since it's such an intimate, unspoken thing. 

"what are you looking for in a spiritual mentor?"

hesitation.

"confirmation? recognition?"

i nod.

"you are doing great things in your life." 

as a sort of goodbye, we put our third eyes together and experienced an amazing magnetism and energy. we thanked eachother.