A Broken Neck, Six Beings of Light, and a Tapestry of Peace

Medical Details

In 2020, he went head first down a water slide into water only about two feet deep and broke his neck; bone fragments had migrated but had not cut his spinal cord. At a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, a spine surgeon told him he was centimeters from paralysis. After he accepted morphine, he says he heard his heart flatline before nurses rushed in. The next day he had surgery through the front and back of his neck with six screws and titanium scaffolding, and was in the hospital three days.

The Experience

In 2020, he was working as a zipline tour guide in North Carolina and grieving a broken engagement. At a lake gathering, he floated alone in the water and slipped into a deep, peaceful meditation, something he had practiced for about seven years. In that stillness he made a small wish: may I spread this peace with other people.

Moments later, he went head first down a water slide into water only two feet deep and broke his neck. Under the water, in intense pain, he felt for a moment like a seed being planted, and heard a voice within say, "Slow down." When he stood, glowing orbs the size of basketballs hung in the air around him, each seeming to have a personality and to turn toward him with care. Later the same inner voice said, "You have to go now," and friends drove him to the hospital.

There he declined morphine at first, wanting to stay aware in case he was dying, and simply observed the pain like a surfer riding a wave. When he finally accepted morphine, the lights seemed to dim slowly and he felt himself drawn into a tunnel. He heard his own heart flatline, then saw nurses rush in, and slipped back into his body.

Before surgery, warned he might not wake, he quietly asked exactly where his body would be taken, then settled into watching his breath until past and future fell away. His next memory is of the end of a long conversation. He stood before a tall arched doorway in which six luminous, hooded beings floated in space, their light radiating from white into blue and into the deepest darkness scattered with stars. The centers of their faces were dark, which he stresses was not frightening: they were the most peaceful beings he has ever been in front of. He came to understand that they came from before the separation of light and dark, from the stillness everything comes from.

They made an agreement with him in two parts: he would not remember everything he had seen, "because if you do, you'll never shut up about it," and he would have to do the work. Then he moved back toward the hospital room, feeling weightless and joyful, as if rainbows were spraying off him, and merged with his body.

About a month after coming home, he felt a sudden urge to sew a tiny rose. Threading the needle brought back the same peace he had felt before the beings. The same inner voice suggested a mantra, and he chose: "May this stitch bring peace to many people."

How It Changed Their Life

He says he has sewn for about four years, often ten hours a day, roughly 12,000 hours, in many countries, on a tapestry with a tree at its center, as a meditation on peace. He shares that each of us is exactly where we need to be, encourages people to sit quietly in silence each day, and says the experience gave him a greater sense of peace.