Beanstalk Moments That Seed Numinous Life Experiences

Life is such a mysterious and incredible journey.

Did you ever read Choose Your Own Adventure books as a child? I did — and I loved them so much. In many ways, life has always felt like that to me: a living story shaped by moments of choice, subtle turns, and unexpected openings. A series of decisions and encounters that send us this way or that, often without us realizing their significance until much later.

Our lives are not linear. They are ever-evolving, alive with ups and downs, plot twists, serpentine in nature, filled with strange and wonderful characters, and places that change us. Life was never meant to be a one-size-fits-all experience.

In hindsight, I can see how many of the most auspicious, life-altering moments in my own story arrived quietly. They felt no different, in the moment, than any other ordinary day. They came without fanfare, too personal to explain, too subtle to announce. It was only later — after their full unfolding — that I could see the incredible serendipity and interconnected magic that had been set in motion.

The moment itself wasn’t strange enough to share over dinner.
But what it catalyzed — what it became — was worthy of retelling.

So often, we take these moments for granted. Nothing to see here. We tuck them away. We call it a coincidence. We chalk them up to stress or an overactive imagination and keep moving. And yet — that seemingly ordinary moment may have been pivotal. A quiet turning point. A choice that shaped the next chapter of our life’s adventure.

I believe these moments linger in our memory because they want to be acknowledged.

When we reflect on them and recognize the beanstalk moments they truly were — small seeds that grew into entire worlds — we begin to attune ourselves differently. We start to notice when the next one arrives. We become more conscious participants in the choosing, more awake to the unfolding story we are living.

A long time ago, I shared one of my very personal life stories with someone, and they responded sarcastically,
“Well, aren’t you special — just like everyone else.”

At the time, I was taken aback. Maybe even a little put off by the sarcasm.
But now, years later, the sentiment of that comment rings true — sarcasm aside.

We are all special. We are all unique. We all carry gifts. We all have the capacity to tune in — if we choose to. Because where our attention goes, energy grows. And when we give our attention to these quiet, ordinary moments, they shape us. They deepen our inner knowing. They invite the extraordinary into the fabric of our everyday lives.

I believe every one of us experiences these moments — constantly. The difference is not capacity. The difference is permission. And a willingness to shift our view of the world from a one-dimensional perspective to a more holistic three-dimensional view. We notice what shows up, what nudges us, what feels like a subtle guidepost along the way. We hear our intuition clearly.

Imagine them as forks in the road.
If this way, then that unfolds.
If that way, then something else entirely.

Is it about choosing wisely?
Or is it simply about remembering that you always have a choice?

With all of that shared, I’d like to tell you some stories.

I invite you to find somewhere cozy to nest. Make a cup of tea. Let’s have a little storytime together. I’m sharing to gently widen the lens — to suggest that the numinous, those quiet moments when something larger seems to breathe through ordinary life, is not rare, fringe, or “woo.”

It is part of being human. 

We have been taught, over time, to stop noticing. How would your life change if you began honing this superpower?

Jason

Reflecting on our childhoods — truly remembering our younger selves — can be complicated. Childhood is rarely one thing. It may have held wonder, imagination, curiosity, and dreams, while also containing sadness, confusion, hardship, and moments that didn’t feel safe or fully held.

How we understand those years through adult eyes is very different from what it felt like to live inside them. Perhaps you were one of the lucky ones, surrounded by safe adults who listened, played, and protected you as you slowly emerged from the cocoon of spirit into human form — from baby, to toddler, to child — each stage carrying its own magic and its own challenges.

I was a precocious three-year-old the first time I saw something others could not. I didn’t know what I was experiencing was different or unusual. It simply was.

At the time, my mother, father, baby sister, and I lived in a small trailer on the outskirts of Durham, California. It was there that my already imaginative inner world expanded to include a new friend. At first, my mother didn’t think much of it. I was talkative, expressive, and deeply imaginative when left to my own devices.

Over time, though, it became clear that I wasn’t simply talking to myself.

I was responding to someone.

I referred to him by name — Jason. “Jason says this.” “Jason said that,” I spoke to him constantly, played with him daily. To me, Jason was as real as anyone else in the room. Nothing was frightening or strange about it. He felt familiar and safe. He existed in the same way trees existed, or wind, or the creek we played near. He was simply there.

Eventually, something about my relationship with Jason unsettled my mother, not in a fearful way, but in a way that stirred deep curiosity. She began asking me questions — gentle ones. How old was he? What did he like? What did he talk about? I told her he was almost seven.

After many answers she couldn’t have anticipated, she decided to test whether this was imagination or something else.

One day, while my grandmother was visiting and keeping me occupied, my mother hid a pair of her high heels at the very top of a closet — a place I couldn’t easily reach or see. They weren’t just any shoes; they were my favorite ones to stomp around in and use for pretend play. She knew I would notice if they were gone.

Later, she approached me and said she couldn’t find her shoes. Did I know where they were?

I didn’t.

Then she asked if I could ask Jason.

I went into the other room and closed the door behind me. My mother and grandmother could hear me speaking aloud to someone. When I came back, I said simply, “Jason says you hid them at the top of the closet.”

That was enough.

My mother and grandmother went to the county offices to ask about the land and the trailer space we were living on. They learned that before our trailer had been placed there, the previous one had burned to the ground — and that a six-year-old boy named Jason had died in the fire just weeks before his seventh birthday.

What matters most to me now is not the experience itself, but what happened because of it.

My experience was met with curiosity rather than dismissal. I was not told to stop talking to Jason. I was not shamed or silenced. Instead, my mother decided we should move back in with my grandparents — perhaps, underneath it all, my mother was a bit frightened that I had befriended a ghost child, and our move was born out of a desire to protect me.

What still astonishes me is this: although my mother believed I had a friend she could not see, she never asked me to stop being who I was. I remember her asking if Jason had moved with us. I told her no, he couldn’t come. I remember feeling a little sad that my playmate was gone.

But I was not shut down.

I remained a wildly imaginative, talkative child — earning the nickname “motor mouth” — and life moved on. That moment became pivotal not because of what was seen, but because of how it was held.

My ability to see did not close.

It stayed intact.

The Beanstalk Moment

What I understand now is how formative that beanstalk moment truly was — not because I saw something others could not, but because my experience was met. I was believed enough to be listened to. Gentle, curious questions were asked. Space was made for what I was perceiving, even when it unsettled the adults around me.

That permission mattered.

It taught my nervous system that the world could hold my inner knowing — that seeing did not automatically mean danger, dismissal, or rejection. And because of that, my sight did not close. It adapted. It grew alongside me. In many ways, it became the quiet foundation that allowed me to receive the many numinous experiences of this lifetime with trust rather than fear.

Now, let me share a story of contrast—one that shows how what we are told —or not told —can shape us gently… or deeply alter how we learn to see.

The Oak Men of Bidwell Park 

Once upon a time, when I was five years old — golden blonde pigtails, big blue eyes — my family would spend entire days at Bidwell Park. We’d picnic and BBQ, splash around in the creek, and play at Caper Acres Park. 

I loved those days.

My sister and I would catch pollywogs and gather rocks from the creek to build little pools for them. Our imaginations ran wild as we gave them names, decided which ones were related, and spun whole family lineages out of mud, water, and wonder. Caper Acres felt like a kingdom made just for children, and Bidwell Park itself held a kind of magic that seeped into your bones.

But there was one thing I struggled with every time we went.

I was afraid of the oak trees.

Now, if you have ever seen the 1938 Robin Hood Movie starring the late Errol Flynn — filmed right there in Bidwell Park — our massive old growth Oak Tree Forest naturally became Sherwood Forest. When I was a child, you could still find the ropes they'd swung from during filming, hanging from the branches of majestic oak trees if you looked closely enough. Bidwell Park is truly magical, ancient, and alive.

And there was more in that forest than most people could see.

I was afraid of the oak trees because I could see creatures moving among their branches.

They were long, stick-like beings with gnarled forms and piercing red eyes. They moved in a way that was unmistakably alive — not swaying like branches, not shifting like shadows. Their movement felt intentional. Aware. It felt like they were not just watching me, but seeing me.

And it frightened me.

Every time we went to Bidwell Park, I could see them — always in the oldest, biggest oak trees. When I finally worked up the courage to speak about it, I was told to stop making things up.

And shortly after that, I stopped being able to see them.

I often wonder what might have happened if my mother had been curious instead. If she had asked questions rather than dismissed what I was experiencing.
What do they look like?
Why do they frighten you?
Can you show me where you see them in the trees?

That moment had the potential to be what I now think of as a beanstalk moment — a moment where something small, tender, and full of possibility is either nurtured… or cut back before it has the chance to grow.

On some subconscious level, my five-year-old self shut something down. Not out of choice, but out of self-protection. Perhaps to avoid the pain of being disbelieved.

My adult self is so fascinated that my mother could accept and approach Jason with curiosity — a human child who was a ghost — yet meet my ability to see the Oak Men with complete disbelief and dismissal. Perhaps it was because Jason was human, something familiar, while the Oak Men existed beyond the veil of what she could comprehend.

I will always wonder what might have grown with me into adulthood if curiosity had met my fear rather than dismissing it. If my ability to see other worlds within this one had been allowed to unfold naturally, alongside me.

That isn’t how the story went.

And yet — I am grateful for the early sight.

Because even though I stopped seeing in the literal sense, something else developed in its place. A deep intuitive knowing. A felt sense of presence. An understanding that we are not alone in the forest — that trees, plants, and the land itself are alive, aware, and responsive.

I don’t need to see the nature devas to know they are there.
I feel them.
I listen differently now.

Years later, in my early twenties, I was gifted Brian Froud’s Good Faeries / Bad Faeries. As I flipped through the pages, my breath caught in my throat.

There they were.

The Oak Men — drawn exactly as I had seen them as a child. Red eyes and all. The only thing the illustrations don’t capture is how distinctly they move. Next time you see me in person, ask me — I’ll show you.

What disappeared back then wasn’t my imagination. I stopped seeing the Oak Men because permission was taken from me. And even though I have since permitted myself to see again — and can sometimes catch subtle movement in the tops of trees — my relationship with the forest has changed. I no longer rely on sight alone. I feel how alive everything is. I sense presence. I know when I am being witnessed.

The trees still speak to me.

They simply do it in a language I learned to hear intuitively.

NDE & Choosing to Live

The third experience I'd like to share came much later, when I was twenty-four.

The night before, I dreamt I had been in a horrible car accident. The dream felt so real, I could recall the sensation of the car falling without end. I awoke shaken and made coffee to be sure I was fully awake before I drove an hour to work — a drive that included a winding mountain road.

That morning, I was angry, upset, and deeply triggered. I detested the job I was driving to. I was exhausted from nightmare-riddled sleep. As I drove the mountain road, I was literally yelling at the universe, demanding a sign, demanding direction in my life.

As I rounded a curve, the back tires of my car began to hydroplane. Not knowing any better, I steered away from the cliff and lost control.

The car crashed through the guardrail and flew twenty-six feet down the mountain ravine. The duff of the redwoods miraculously stopped me from falling another thirty feet, which surely would have been my death.

I found myself floating above the car, looking down at it. I saw myself dead in the car.

Then I flashed to a scene of myself with a young child, about five years old, with long curly brown hair and blue eyes. We were laughing and playing. I felt such a profound distillation of love for this child, and it was that moment that I chose to live.

I was not ready to die!

I was very confused and disoriented as I came back into my body. I woke up in the car with a severe concussion, cuts, and scrapes on my legs, which should have been crushed. Somehow, I had instinctively curled into the fetal position, which saved them.

I carefully crawled out of the car. As I climbed up the mountainside, ravens surrounded me. I made my way to the road, where someone picked me up and took me to the hospital.

A week later, I found out I was pregnant with my first child.

I learned a very hard lesson that day: be careful what you ask for, don’t make demands of the universe — and if you do ask, be specific.

Another profound lesson of that experience was my own agency when faced with death. The reframing that life is not always something that happens to us, but asks us to show up and choose. My soul chose to live.

I believe many people have poignant moments like this. Moments they’ve dismissed, minimized, laughed off, or been told to forget. Moments that didn’t fit the narrow story of what we’ve been taught is “real.”

We are conditioned to expect the numinous to arrive as spectacle — dramatic visions, thunderclaps, glowing lights. But in truth, it is often quiet, embodied. and relational. It shows up as a feeling you can’t shake, a knowing that arrives before logic, a moment of contact that doesn’t ask to be announced.

When these moments are repeatedly dismissed, especially in childhood, we don’t just lose belief, we lose a form of grounding, a way of relating to the world that is connective, life-affirming, and deeply human.

I share my stories as an invitation to begin remembering your own. 

I write this especially for my own children and for anyone who grew up disconnected from their innate sense of wonder or knowing through trauma, cultural conditioning, or being told that sensitivity is weakness and imagination is foolish.

If we are souls inhabiting bodies, if we come from source, spirit, or whatever name you give that greater field, then this capacity is not fringe! It is foundational. Reconnecting to it does not make us ungrounded. It roots us more fully in ourselves and in how life truly is.

If something in my sharing here has stirred memories in you, I invite you to pause.

What beanstalk moments in your own life did you brush past too quickly?
Where in your childhood did you receive permission or dismissal?
What did you once see, hear, feel, or know — before you were told to stop?
What might shift if you met those memories with curiosity?

You don’t need to label anything.
You don’t need to believe something new.

Just notice.

The numinous does not ask to be proven; it asks to be noticed. And the more we notice, the more we remember.