A subject that I find endlessly fascinating is the equally endless role cemeteries and graveyards play for us as the living. From the history of the Rural Cemetery Movement that made cemeteries places where people could connect with nature in parallel to increasing industrialization and urbanization, to the requisite ritual of every goth teenager to do a photoshoot in a graveyard (unless I’m old and my generation was the last of the gothlings to do this, but that’s a conversation for another time), I’m mesmerized by the interconnected aesthetic, historic, spiritual, and practical uses of cemeteries and graveyards.
Thus, I really should not have been surprised to find myself on a Christmas day, standing in the middle of a cemetery on a hill, surrounded by tall, wild prairie grass, having an otherworldly, out of body experience.
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Christmas day 2019 had been a gorgeous day, over 50 degrees and sunny. The absolute antithesis of a Currier and Ives winter print, my husband and I drove home from my in-laws house wearing sunglasses with the windows rolled down.
On the way up through Missouri there is a cemetery on a hill that had always seized my attention, and I would usually smash my nose against the window to admire it for every available second as we passed by. But we had made really good time on the trip, so on this occasion, I demanded requested that we finally make the stop and explore the cemetery. (FindAGrave is linked at the end!)
There is a small driveway that goes up a short distance on the hill, but after that, it is just hill. Hill and prairie grass. The cemetery now serves as a preservation area of native prairie grasses that will at times be burned and cleared. But at that point in the year the grasses were towering, some grown over the height of my head.
Granted, I am 5 foot 0 inches tall, so perhaps my perspective is a little skewed, but it was enough for me to get lost only a few steps into the wild, spindly wave of prairie grass. Especially because there were no cut or cleared passages. I would spot the top of a stone emerging from the grass, glistening in the sun, and I would just start wading my way through to meet it. Several times, my fingertips would glance upon a smaller headstone I hadn’t even seen along the way as I reached ahead and fumbled through on the journey.
Also, when I say this cemetery is on a hill, it is on a hill. At one point in the climb, I looked straight up and could not see the top. My husband made it far further up than I did, but even he never got all the way to the top. My husband trekked higher up than me partially because I found myself stopping and admiring every stone I discovered as I gently swiped through the prairie grass, taking my time to clear away the clinging straws to read everything. (Many of the stones had writing in German and had thick cracks through the middle of the writing where the stones had broken and been repaired.) Also, having nerve damage and mobility issues makes it particularly difficult to claw your way up any hill, let alone one covered in prairie grass and headstones.
Still as I climbed higher and higher, the rows of headstones just kept appearing, and I was drawn onward by new names, dates, and carved roses. I felt like I was hearing voices calling to me, like invisible hands were pulling me upward. After a time, I felt like I was literally ascending into Heaven.
From the vantage point on the hill, the view outward is astounding. Infinite sky with huge billowing clouds, rolling hills edged by snaking highways, patches of farm fields, and scatterings of houses. But looking back up the hill, the glimmer of headstones and the ground beneath my feet seemed much more urgent than the outward view. In fact, they were the only thing that mattered in the whole world.
At some point, I just lost myself. My whole body was thrumming. I felt like I had transcended my body while simultaneously feeling the most at home in my body than I ever had in my entire life. I felt euphoric. Life and death and the Universe just made sense. I stopped climbing and just stood there, allowing the prairie grass to protect me in that moment like it was protecting the hidden headstones for an eternity.
Eventually, though, the moment ended. We were running out of daylight and had to make it home. My husband, accustomed to me barreling ahead into situations where my stamina would run thin, carried me on his back down the hill. As I clung to his warmth, holding on through each steady breath and plodding step, I watched languidly as we passed each stone in our descent, saying farewell to the ghosts and angels I had just met.
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I think what happened to me in the cemetery on the hill was something that is a part of human history and human experience: a Peak Experience.
In the book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization by Scott Barry Kaufman, there is a chapter about Peak Experiences. Overall, the book is an overview of the work of Abraham Maslow and the process of Self-Actualization, but chapter seven is specifically about Peak Experiences.
Basically, Peak Experiences are moments of heightened wonder and connection. It used to be thought that only a few people could experience these mystical moments, but Maslow challenged that idea by exploring these experiences within or as a result of the process of self-actualization.
Maslow outlined seventeen characteristics of a Peak Experience that include the following:
- Complete absorption
- Richer perception
- Disorientation in physical time and space
- Intrinsic reward of the experience
- Ego transcendence
- Dichotomy transcendence
- Momentary loss of fears, anxieties, and inhibitions
- Greater acceptance and forgiveness of oneself and others
- Heightened aestheticism, wonder, awe, and surrender
- Fusion of the person and the world
(Pg. 195-196.)
The book goes on to say, “…the peak-experience could be likened to a visit to a personally defined Heaven from which the person then returns to earth.” (Pg. 197).
Which exactly describes the experience I had at the cemetery on the hill.
(By the way, this entire book is so very good, if you are into personal growth, please add it to your to-read list!)
I know I had a Peak Experience in that cemetery on the hill. And to be honest, I’ve been trying to process it ever since. It almost seems too big for me to hold onto in my mind. When I let everything go, I can touch parts of the experience. Sometimes when I think about it I will pop into that feeling again, but it is brief.
This cemetery-on-a-hill experience happened right before I ended up having some majorly transformative moments that impacted my whole life. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, or if such transformations would have not even been possible without first having this Peak Experience. (The book explores this chicken-or-egg conundrum a bit, so once again, if you are interested, please check out the book.)
Either way, I know I’m not the only person who connects with cemeteries in a deep and meaningful way. I’ve always felt that cemeteries and graveyards serve a much greater purpose than housing our dead and serving as places of grief and mourning. But to think that for some, if not many, they are places that can help us reach the full potential of our one wild and precious life… well that certainly is something, isn’t it?
Below are some photos from that Christmas day in 2019, and here is the link to the (Corning) Mount Hope Cemetery on FindAGrave.
