Chapter 3:
Judy Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I wandered about in a glittery paradise. The very air had spark and dazzle. It shimmered as I walked. Instinctively, I found my way back to my apartment on Mt. Washington. Nothing looked the same. The streets and buildings were brighter. People's faces seemed softer, younger looking, refreshed. I knocked on the door of my first-floor neighbor, who was busy ironing. I kept Dana company while she starched and pressed a white blouse. I shared a few things about the past 24 hours. She gave me a questioning look.

"What planet are you from?" she chided. "Forget all that. Come with me into town. I'm meeting some friends."

I put a lid on my outlandish recounting of events and hopped in the car with Dana. Ironically, we ended up in Market Square, the same part of the city where I'd strolled with Mr. Higgins' friend. As we arrived at a familiar club, I was amazed that the stairs I'd climbed dozens of times now seemed different somehow. As we reached the third floor outdoor patio, I noticed a handful of acquaintances who had also taken on an odd appearance. Surrounding many of them were colored arcs of light - some clear, some bright, some with a murky, foreboding hue. That's wild, I thought. Then I heard a strange clatter in my mind - my voice but not my words - representing the thoughts of those around me. I also sensed things about these individuals from the colors that surrounded them. I could tell one woman was sickly, one guy felt troubled, and another gal was saying and doing two different things. I wanted to share this with someone but who would understand? Hell, even I couldn't completely fathom what was going on. How could I explain it to someone else?

After a while, as I left the club and walked the streets alone, I noticed "beings" that no one else seemed to see. These "people" were benevolent and helpful. I could talk to them. As thoughts formed in my mind, they would reveal themselves to me through a headline at a magazine stand, an overheard word from a passerby or a seeming response from a flower or tree. I observed myself being in this kaleidoscopic world of unexplainable events and rationalized that I must have died and gone to heaven. Honestly, I considered the possibility that some part of myself - my spirit or soul - had left my body and that I was experiencing this "human" world somewhere else. I was happily entranced in this new reality yet had no one to share it with. Forget about corroboration - I just wanted someone to pal around with in my new wonder zone.

It felt as though I had this little secret that I couldn't explain to anyone. I couldn't find words for it. I got the sense that the people around me, going about their business in the city, had no idea about this larger picture of things; of the true meaning behind our lives and what we do. They seemed like mice in a maze and I felt so grateful for the experience of knowing there was some larger purpose behind it all. It was as if I was above myself and the experience, looking down on it, appreciating this experience called life for the "play" that it was; aware that everyone had their part in this performance. I loved this new fantasy-type experience, the tingly, otherworldy feeling and the empowered sense of being. It felt oddly invigorating and even liberating, like I was exploring some strange new land. I felt like a visitor to a far-away planet, attempting to adjust to breathing new air and walking amidst laws of gravity that were completely foreign to me. I was seeing and sensing things that only a day before had been nonexistent in my life. Was I experiencing some great energy shift? Or had I somehow slipped into another dimension? I just didn't know. All I knew was that I liked this other reality; it spoke to something deep within me. I had no frame of reference for it, yet I knew it was something very special.

I'm not sure whether it was the intensity of the situation, my inability to integrate within my own system the heightened energies of my new reality, or my circuits slowly becoming fried, but as time passed I started to lose grip on what was real and what was part of my new-found fantasy world.

As I walked alone on a downtown street a few days later, a police car cruised to a halt beside me. Unable to provide any intelligible explanation, the policeman took me to the county jailhouse and locked me in a holding cell overnight. Still feeling as though I had fallen down a rabbit hole and unable to make anyone understand me, or the experience I was having, I decided that the best thing to do was to stop answering questions; it only seemed to be getting me deeper into trouble.

I lay on a dingy cot facing the cement wall, with nothing to do but wonder how all this had happened to me, and why. How had I managed to slip between the cracks into this new and curious reality? For some strange reason, I kept getting that it had something to do with my heart and how broken open it was. I started to piece together that it might also have had something to do with my noticing Mr. Higgins and the extra-sensory abilities that had suddenly started to surface. I wondered what it would be like to remain in this in-between netherworld, and never again find a foothold in either reality. Thinking that it would be so lonely to never again have someone to relate to, I began to cry.

Dear God, please lead me down the path of your choosing. I simply don't know anything anymore. I prayed, as I drifted into sleep.

The following morning I awoke to see the words "Judy was here" scribbled on the wall just ten inches from my astonished eyes. Breathing a sigh of relief, I took it to be a sign from God that I would be freed soon and that a better path would be opening up before me. Sure enough, a few hours later I was informed that I could leave. My mind was still foggy, and I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I was elated to be out in the sunlight again. I was driven home to my mother's house in a police car. What timing... It was Mother's Day.

Essentially, I'd been missing for several days. My mother had become worried after not hearing from me, as we usually talked daily. I was a bit unclear in my speech - not how my family was used to hearing me talk and behave. I attempted to tell Mom and my younger brother what had happened. Having learned from the previous night's experience that I needed to be careful about how much I revealed of what had been happening to me, I at first tried to be a little more careful about how I couched things. But obviously I wasn't careful enough. For sure, there was some kind of split going on in my consciousness. I was now occupying two realities - one was firmly rooted in the third dimension, the other seemed to be more holographic and expansive. While I quite liked it, I was having a hard time reconciling these different realities. From my perspective, I just needed to learn how to dwell effectively in both at the same time. From my family's perspective, something very worrying was going on. Not surprisingly, their reaction was one of discomfort and grave concern.

I can understand now why everyone thought I had lost my marbles. Once the dam of my reticence broke, I started telling them I knew the answers to all the world's mysteries. I rhapsodized about the meaning of love and the importance of forgiveness. I demonstrated my ability to read people's minds and it freaked them out. Overnight, it seemed the Judy they knew and loved had mysteriously turned into some kind of evangelist. I couldn't stop gushing love and trying to convince everyone about the beauty of life. A portal had opened up between me and the Divine and, what's more, I had no desire to close it. Lovers embracing on the sidewalk became a glorious depiction of spiritual love. People partying became a celebration of life and our experience of humanness. Conversations with cosmic beings became commonplace for me alone. Homeless people became enlightened souls. During my "episode," as it was later labeled by my family and healthcare professionals, I remember passing a homeless man on the sidewalk. When our eyes met, I was awash with a warm rush of good feelings and reverence for him. It was as though I was able to witness him as he authentically played his part in the scheme of our life on earth. I saw myself in him, and he in me. We were one, acknowledging each other lovingly on our separate yet co-mingled paths. It was as if I had suddenly been given the keys to understanding life, love, the universe... everything! Of course, it was impossible to convey any of this and not sound loony.

"Judy, you're not speaking or behaving normally," my mom pleaded. "You cannot be out and about telling people these kinds of things. You need to be hospitalized."

Frustrated and at my wit's end, I eventually gave in; partly because I was so exhausted I no longer had the will or strength to fight them. I had so cherished those past few days and was deeply saddened that it may all be coming to an end, not the least because no one in my life at that time could comprehend anything of which I spoke, nor ever would. So - certain that they knew what was best for me and glad of the chance to rest I agreed to voluntary committal.

Within 48 hours, I was admitted to the psychiatric ward of Jefferson Hospital. For backup, my mother called an older cousin to join us on the car ride to the hospital. As I stared out the window, I saw people gathered for a celebration with balloons and presents. I remember thinking that their gala symbolized the ongoing celebration of my becoming more of who I was meant to be, albeit through a method that was well beyond my comprehension. Yet, somewhere deep inside me, I felt a sense of inner joy and peace that all was just as it should be.

From this enlightened perspective, being checked into a mental hospital was a startling contrast.

I really had none of the awkward feelings one might expect about committing oneself to a mental hospital. I guess by that point I had been through so much that one more rung on the ladder didn't really seem to matter. On the one hand, I somehow intuited that I would be better for this experience. On the other, my reality check had become so outmoded that I no longer had any real barometer of measurement. So I simply went with the flow.

As I settled into my temporary home on the seventh floor ward and wandered about, I felt an odd, familiar kinship with the other patients, regardless of their ages. If there was one thing I could rely on here, it was the unspoken bond that existed among us. No one judged anyone. There were no condescending looks, and no questioning either. We simply met each other at whatever level we cared to come together. Some were heavily medicated. Some were clear and thoughtful. Others were so emotionally anesthetized it was difficult to reach them. I just shined on, in my own way, blissfully aware that I was being taken care of on a higher level.

The get-to-know-you interview with my assigned doctor comprised the usual list of mundane questions.

"What are your hobbies?" He asked, looking over his reading glasses, as if expecting to hear something outlandish.

Thinking back to springtime on the jogging trail, I smiled reflectively and said, "I love to run."

Crossing his legs, he removed his spectacles and, tapping the arm piece against his teeth, said, "Have you ever thought about what you're running from, Judy?"

Silence filled the room.

"Uh, no, but I can put some time into thinking about it, if you feel it may be important." I offered respectfully.

He continued to look at me, expressionless, for a few more minutes. Thinking he may be looking for another response, I thought a little harder.

"No," I concluded after several more seconds. "I just like to run. It feels good and it's healthy for both my mind and my body."

I didn't know what he made of my answer, and I didn't really care. I knew I wasn't mentally ill. In fact, when I walked into that hospital, although physically and emotionally weary, I was more fully conscious than at any other time in my life. But then, without giving me any reason, they put me on an antipsychotic medication that clouded my mind, and caused me to slobber and walk on my toes. It was a horrible, experience; particularly coming so close on the heels of one that had left me feeling exquisitely clear, alive and more aware than I had ever been before. In spite of being drugged, however, and even though I went through periods of intense frustration and inner turmoil, both my sanity and innovative tendencies were still intact. After a few days, I started pretending to swallow the meds they kept giving me, and instead hid the pills under my tongue, a la Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Looking back on that experience of being drugged in a hospital, I now question how many other people out there in psychiatric wards across the country are really having spiritual awakenings, and how might we handle these crises differently based on our heightened understanding of human consciousness. I think about the millions of children and adults on Ritalin, Prozac and anti-depressants. What are we drugging them for - to suppress valid emotions or mini-spiritual awakenings? In some cases, the medication is necessary, especially if an individual might be of harm to themselves or others. In other cases, I often wonder whether we're medicating people simply because we don't know how otherwise to handle what's happening with them. Statistics show, for example, that spending time conversing with a mental patient does them as much if not more good than dosing them with meds. Perhaps we would all be better off if more of us were encouraged to "lose our minds". Maybe then we'd spend more time thinking from our hearts and acting from our souls.

I remember an especially poignant moment during my stay at Jefferson. Every month, the hospital social committee would coordinate a visit to a neighborhood theatre for movie time. We'd all pile into the big blue bus with "Jefferson Hospital" stenciled in oversized letters on the side. As the mind-numbing effects of my meds began to wear off, I started to act more like the old Judy, with a quicker wit and desire to get on with life "on the outside". So as the days wore on, I began to feel more and more misplaced, under constant watch and being labeled as sick when I knew I was anything but. So it was all the more wonderful when, on the day of our theatre trip the female bus driver, who was about the same age as me, suddenly looked me square in the eye at the end of a conversation we'd been having about movies, fashion and pop culture, and pronounced, "Girl, you don't belong here, do you?"

"No," I responded, "but it's okay. I'll be out soon and believe it or not, in many ways I've learned a lot from this experience."

She smiled and pulled the oversized lever to open the bus door. We emptied out onto Carson Street in front of the theatre. On the marquee was a teaser about our chosen movie, a story of "a misunderstood girl who comes of age and finds her true self." Even though I've long forgotten the film's title, its meaning remains with me. I felt as though that movie had been written, cast and directed solely for my benefit, and I left the theatre that day feeling divinely supported and loved. The truth of my situation was that I was incarcerated on a psychiatric ward, where many people feel belittled, worthless, hopeless, and suicidal. Yet at that moment, I felt blessed and thankful to be alive.

To keep myself occupied while in the hospital, I read whatever I could get my hands on and did my best to maintain some semblance of an exercise regime. One day during my stay, I saw a newspaper headline that stopped me in my tracks:

"Hemingway comes to Civic Arena"

The article reported on a convention taking place that weekend dedicated to the life and works of the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning author. Right away, logic kicked in and I reasoned away my experiences at Piccolo Piccolo and the Hilton as a Hemingway look-alike contest or some other coincidence related to the convention. If so, my Mr. Higgins would have won hands down. He was spot-on Papa. But that didn't explain the otherworldly quality of those two men - the glowing aura, the backlit fingernails and, most mysteriously, the feeling that came over me while in their presence. Maybe the deceased author was returning in spirit to check out his namesake expo, I considered, kind of like film directors do before they move into a city to begin production of a movie. In the end, I concluded that I was being given confirmation that what happened to me was real, as real as Hemingway's protagonist Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, who wrestles against something greater than himself. We all face situations that define our lives. For Santiago, it was his struggle to haul in a great marlin, the biggest fish he'd ever seen. For me, my mystical experience was equally huge and unprecedented. Why Ernest Hemingway? I really don't know, but the man's name, Mr. Higgins, took on new meaning for me years later. Mr. Higgins, hmmm, Henry Higgins was the man who transformed Audrey Hepburn's character into the ravishing, cultured female in My Fair Lady. She became her higher self, in some respects. I was more akin to Eliza Doolittle, a common girl selling flowers in Covent Garden, than the fierce old fisherman. And my encounter with Mr. Higgins, though brief, was also powerfully transformational. So much so, that nothing in my life was ever the same.

What stayed with me most deeply from my episode is that there truly is a larger, grander plan in force that is guided by the Divine, and that the only thing that is important is love. In fact, it was the power of love (and having my heart cracked open with the sheer force of it) that had catapulted me into another reality. My experience had strengthened within me the belief that if we lead with love, then all will work out precisely as it should for all concerned. By the time I was discharged from the hospital two weeks later, I had made a commitment to becoming the best me that I could be. I knew my heart was in the right place. I vowed to continue keeping kindness and love as my guideposts and see where this took me. If we could all live from this higher space, well, to quote Eliza Doolittle, "Wouldn't it be loverly?"

I moved back to my mom's house after my hospital discharge and was obligated to weekly visits with an assigned psychiatrist, who turned out to be the same doctor whose care I had been under at the hospital. The poor man just didn't know what to make of me. Since I was out of confinement and able to speak more freely about my episode, I felt a little safer to divulge a bit more of the events leading up to my hospitalization. As I did so, his eyes grew wide. He'd shake his head and write lengthy notes on a pad that he kept close to his chest. I tried to be as honest as I could without being pegged a total kook. I wasn't sure about his seniority with the hospital and if he had the authority to throw me back into the blue bus, drugged and labeled beyond hope. So again, for the sake of survival, I started editing myself by not revealing everything that had happened to me.

This only seemed to annoy the psychiatrist more. I often felt that I couldn't win with him. When I clammed up, he got irritated. Yet when I told him the truth, he seemed to get really angry with me.

I remember the day when, out the blue, he suddenly announced that he was stopping our treatment sessions. Mom was with me that day. I had just been telling him the story about meeting Ernest Hemingway. Somewhere in between my account of The Old Man and The Sea and being able to see auras and read minds, he threw his pencil down on the yellow pad of paper atop his crossed legs then turned to my mother and announced, "Your daughter is a schizophrenic, Mrs. Julin!"

On a deeper level, I think my mom must have understood that what was happening to me was a sort of spiritual door swinging open, because she immediately jumped to my defense.

"No she's not. She's fine!" She firmly declared.

"Well, if you don't accept my diagnosis there's nothing more I can do with her," the psychiatrist angrily pronounced. "Our sessions will have to end."

"There's nothing clinically wrong with my daughter," Mom insisted.

In a strange twist of fate, I ran (literally) into that same psychiatrist about a year later on the running trail at nearby Schenley Park. I jogged up right beside him, just to be friendly and acknowledge him, jogger to jogger. When he recognized me, he did a funny little double take and then took off like a speeding bullet. I couldn't believe it - a grown man, a professional mental healthcare worker, running away from someone who just wanted to reconnect and show him how normal she was after all. I shrugged my shoulders and took the higher trail that lay ahead. Then a thought struck me. It was too delicious to pass up. Turning around, I called after him: "So what are YOU running away from, Dr. Richards?"

On the surface, life once again returned to normal. But as I attempted to go on as usual, it was challenging for me to integrate what I was now seeing, feeling and witnessing with my daily reality. As the months went by and this heightened state gradually wore off, I mourned the loss of that feeling and yearned to get back to that higher realm. I began to read avidly on topics related to cybernetics, altered realities, expanded states of consciousness, spiritual practices, alien and other-planetary life, psychic experiences and the power of the mind in an effort to answer the two questions that now dangled over my days and nights: What exactly happened to me? And why? As I began to search internally for answers, I explored what had occurred immediately beforehand. I'd had a sublime whirlwind romance with David which had propelled me to new heights of love. His sudden decision to end our relationship had hurled me to the depths. My tender heart - fully exposed and then so abruptly shattered into pieces - seemed to invite this profound spiritual experience, which had lifted me from the depths and sent me to unimaginable heights far beyond love with another human being. This was communion with the Source, a state of being in love not with a person but with God, life, everything and everyone. And the absolute knowingness that we truly are all One.

As I've grown older, for some reason, I seem to have managed to retain the wonder and innocence of my childhood years - perhaps it is why I connect so well with children and, moreover, the reason for my chosen career path. There is something very special about the characteristics of children that call us to examine and dwell more deeply within our rich inner lives. We cannot squelch that magical realm, those wild and fantastic imaginings of our youth, for in them lie divine truths and a connection to the vast unknown that surrounds us. Children see and feel this naturally. I suspected from a very early age that this connection, forged from pure love, is available to all of us directly. It's one of those simple truths that Saint-Exupéry's little prince noticed that we humans seem to forget as we grow up.

Maybe because of the way I was raised, or perhaps because it's just part of my make-up, I've always felt drawn to goodness in others and I strived to be good, as well. When I was very young, this came naturally; I simply loved everybody. And I certainly didn't see anything wrong in wanting everyone else to love me. But as a teenager, I was sometimes ridiculed for these same qualities. Even my brother Bill once said to my mom, "Judy's just too nice. Get real. NOBODY is that nice."

I now believe the experience of expanded consciousness that I had in 1981 was a reward for keeping my heart and mind open to the power of kindness. It showed me another way to live that was more in accordance with my true nature, one guided by optimism and an internal calm. To this day - although life lessons have shown me that the world isn't always compassionate - I strive to lead with love in everything: my thoughts, words, actions and interactions. I don't always get it right, and yes, sometimes I even fail miserably, but what I have learned is that the pendulum swings, and I do my best to accept all of my states of being with as much grace as I am capable of. To me, that's holding to a higher truth - my own truth. I believe it works for me.

After taking several months of R & R to reacquaint myself with life after psychotropic drugs, I returned to my normal routine of working in my brother's office from nine to five. Being there seemed oppressive because there was little room for free thinkers who were loving, creative and open to new ideas. I couldn't blame the people who entered into this work environment. It appeared that they were okay with their lot in life, although complaints, gossip and short tempers were evident. They seemed to be asleep to anything that lay outside of their comfort zone. Upset by the caustic remarks and continual undercurrent of cynicism I witnessed in the business world, I grew restless.

At the same time, I now had to deal with the stigma of having been in a mental hospital. I suppose my coworkers weren't sure what I'd do next. I'm sure stories had been circulated. God only knows what they'd heard or surmised. Was I going to be a marked individual forever? This began to weigh heavily on me and I worried that no one was going to want to be around me. To make matters worse, my heart was still broken from my split with David. Still, the cosmic door had cracked open and light continued to shine in, when I most needed it, in small yet miraculous ways.

One day at work, feeling despondent about David, I opened the morning mail to find a Land's End catalogue. On the cover were two stadium blankets. One was monogrammed with the name David. The other had the word "sunshine" embroidered on it. David had always called me Sunshine, the only person who ever did. When I saw those two personalized blankets, a sense of peace and love instantly permeated my entire being. It felt as if the universe had delivered a special message just for me. Another day at work, still trying to get my head back after all the meds I had been given during that first week in the hospital, I went into the ladies room to have some private time away from the office chatter. I felt so melancholy; so unlike the happy, positive self I had always been. For the very first time, I stood head to head with a part of me that was new and unknown. An indescribably sadness welled up inside of me. What was it all about? I wondered, as I thought of all the nights that I had cried myself to sleep. I'd never felt emotions as deep as those I was experiencing of late. Could it be that Dr. Richards was right after all? Maybe I really was bi-polar or schizophrenic.

I decided to see if I could really connect with this intense feeling of malaise and delve deeper into it to see what might happen. After all, what did I have to lose? I'd already experienced what could happen if I lost my mind. I must have been a sorry sight, sitting on that little stool in the ladies room, my head in my hands, as I gave into the pain and allowed it to sear right through me.

Dear God, I whispered, Please help me. I feel so bad and my heart is so broken. Please let me know that this is not all there is to life - this terrible heartache and a 9 to 5 job that's boring as hell.

And then something totally unexpected happened. Within seconds, I felt a divine radiance light up my entire body, as my awareness expanded. Instantly, my sadness was swept away as this astonishing feeling flooded through me, leaving me whole and complete again. I know it sounds impossible; if it hadn't happened to me I might not believe it either. But in no more time than it takes a light bulb to flash, it felt as if an unseen hand had fused the broken pieces of my heart back together. It was as if I had been touched by the hand of God and instantly returned to a state of physical, mental and emotional wholeness, right there in the corporate washroom.

Increasingly over the years, such glimpses and even sustained periods of heightened awareness have occurred both spontaneously and at will. What I realize now is that it's all around us; we just have to integrate and balance it. I believe that we are currently living in this heightened reality. The new energies that are becoming a part of our planetary existence are more refined, more elevated in their consciousness. To successfully navigate the uncertain aspects of our daily lives, I've found it essential to learn how to integrate one's intuitive abilities and spiritual understandings with everyday activities, like to going to work, paying bills, socializing with friends and even going to the gym or yoga class. But within me was a growing urge to question, explore and develop an inner life, a life of connection to something larger. I had always believed in God but was beginning to question who or what that God meant to me. There were subtle signs, almost mysterious occurrences that led me to believe in something beyond my five senses. Daily miracles - ones that you might easily miss if you were in too much of a hurry or dismiss as coincidence - would occur during the course of my day: a line in a book I happened upon that answered an internal query, an old friend calling to offer support out of the blue, an inner knowing that some choice I was making was right. I began to have internal hunches that proved to be correct, and feelings about people's intentions that later were spot-on to the realities that presented themselves. So, the greatest gift from this time in my life - with Hemingway and Mr. Higgins as my spiritual tour guides - was not simply a belief in God, which I'd always had, but an experienced reality of what God really is. From then on, I had an unwavering connection to the God inside me, and to something much greater than myself: the world around me, all of life, and the cosmos.

© 2008, Judy Julin, All Rights Reserved

Excerpted from the book, Romancing the Future © 2008 by Judy Julin. Printed with permission from Findhorn Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prepare for the ride of your life. Romancing the Future introduces a profoundly powerful creator in the form of the adorable Judy Julin, who will teach you how to dare your destiny into being. Julin's quest to live authentically and successfully in all areas of life provides a remarkable tool for anyone wishing to create their dreams in harmony with spirit.

You cannot help but fall in love with Judy Julin as she bares all the details of her genuinely touching, and often laugh-out-loud-funny adventures from the "madness" of a spontaneous spiritual awakening to Hollywood via a psychiatric ward, marriage, bankruptcy, and divorce to her subsequent emergence as a fearless 'out of the box' entrepreneur, who dares to dream of creating a new paradigm business model founded on spiritual principles.

Wise and insightful, Julin tells her story as a student of life with breathtaking honesty to demonstrate how anyone can become a master of creation - no matter what the odds - and reveals the secrets of what she has learned with a real desire to help others achieve their dreams.