Ripped out of my gourd on marijuana, I prayed to the moon. I begged Diana, Selene, Hecate, the triple goddesses of old to save me. I begged to know what it was that I could not remember, what it was that had brought me to the point of suicide. I wanted to know this, whatever it was, whatever the consequences, whatever the cost...and in a whimsical note...added "excepting tax, license or immortal soul, void where prohibited". I was high, after all.

Instantly, I was falling down a shaft. Imagine falling down the central atrium of an infinitely tall department store, the floors rushing past on all sides, each floor a separate department.

Falling down this incredibly real shaft, I saw that the 'floors' or 'levels' passing me were moments in my life. Each was a living photograph, a snapshot of the view from my eyes at various times in my life, all sequentially ordered. As I fell, I was going back in time through my own history. By simply looking, I could see and remember the events, and they became added to my conscious awareness.

I saw all of the times that I had dressed up, all of the moments that my gender became an issue, all of the repressed memories and events lost to my day-to-day awareness. The full record of my life was there, and it was now no longer blocked from me by my mind. The psychological split was gone.

At this point, as I looked about, drifting down really, it was not a plummet, I noticed my own arm and hand flailing. I brought my hands to my face. My arms and hands were translucent sky blue, the color of an electric spark, and there was a kind of glow or luminescent fog about them. I could see my left hand through my right, through the glowing translucency of it.

It was beautiful and amazing. My attention was turned from the passing floors, yet the information was still somehow entering me. I studied my body. My legs were the same way, and as I curled in mid air to follow them up, I saw that my body was female. I had translucent breasts, and female sex organs. I could see blue glass labia through my hollow, transparent abdomen.

I was a glowing, blue glass woman.

This suddenly shocked me into total awareness. I knew, as I continued to fall, what I was, what I had always been, from the day of my birth on. I began crying in my drifting fall, but I had no tears, and my hands passed through my face when I brought them to my head. I cried out in happiness and in grief together, at the knowledge of what I was.

I knew I was a woman, I knew that I was in the wrong body, and I knew that this had been so my entire life.

Suddenly the shaft was gone. It was as though I was on a high place, like an impossible mountain peak, in blackness. The only light was a bright spotlight that was beyond the sun, yet did not hurt my eyes. I somehow knew the light was utterly, perfectly feminine, the very essence of womanhood, and She loved me, She was my mother, She was my best friend. She loved me absolutely, without judgment, without reservation. And She wanted to help me.

I thanked Her, crying with the intensity of the experience. I begged Her to make me a woman. I heard no sound, no voice, no words. But I knew somehow that my wish would be granted, and that I would receive help whatever happened to me, until my goal was reached.

Then I was back in my apartment, stone cold sober, all the effects of the marijuana gone as though I had never done any at all. The moon shone down on me. It was exactly 12:00, midnight.

I had spent an hour or longer in that place, yet to all appearance no time had passed in the 'real' world. The experience of this event was as real as the experience of typing these words...actually, perhaps more real, for I felt no tiredness, no aches, and my vision and senses were perfect. It felt more real than life, clearer and sharper than daily experience.

This hyper reality has been the hallmark of the 15 definable lucid dreams I have had over the years. But there is a great difference between my lucid dreams and this experience, in terms of feeling and content. I have never experienced anything like this since. It was one of a kind, and beyond powerful.

Do I believe it? Am I a fully converted Neo-Pagan? No. I had a religious experience, but so have many people. Only the shallow soul would take one ecstatic experience as a total revelation of the mysteries of the universe.

Oh, I still pray to the moon and thank Her who helped me. Why not? I could even define as a Solitary Dianic Wiccan, and sometimes do. But I am pragmatic, and I am skeptical of everything. I use what works, while it works, then put it down when I am done.

Religion, magick, is just another tool, just another software for the computer of the mind. Running the same software all the time limits the computer.

Although I have had a profound mystic experience, it is just one. One peek is a foolish basis for any religion, and I know that faith is just a crutch for a lazy mind.

I do not have a lazy mind.