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Chapter Seventeen
Freed from the bonds of time and matter, the Prima Materia is now brought to rebirth. It is awakened beyond all form to shift its center of self-knowing from the transitory to its Truth, from its circumstantial self to its Essence, from the realms of many "me"s to the one Realm of "I Am". As Wizard, I have prepared for this with all my skills, but rebirth can come through Grace alone..
The Prima Materia is thus absorbed in its Essence. That becomes its source reality. Its every aspect and action become expression and outworking of its spirit. This is soul and body merging. The human achieves the wings of Awakening, thus able to fly between heaven and earth. The Prima Materia becomes an infinity multifaceted crystal, radiating rainbows of Light: The Gem of Transmutation.
This Procedure materializes spirit. It gives ethereal revelation the stability of outer form.
My role in this Procedure is to dwell in attentive prayer. In the Opus, it is called:
SUBLIMATION and GLORIFICATION
"Can I help you, Yason." Its Meriflur's sweet, caring voice. I open my eyes and take her offered hand. Her presence makes my joy even fuller, more savory. She has my headband, now finished and trim. An eye made of the blue beads I brought placed in the center of a pale red heart painted on the cloth. Now that emblem makes sense to me, incredible sense. The Eye in the Heart. Yes, that is my Calling. Wordlessly, her eyes sweetly resting on mine, she holds the headband out to me. I bow my head to her, and she ties the headband around my forehead like shes giving me a benediction. Our gazes merge, as do the eyes in our hearts. We walk across the Valley to the Dreamer's hut for the meal. For a while we stand holding hands before we enter, looking into one another's beings. She smiles at me with a special, touching understanding. The Dreamer's hut is packed. Half the people of the Valley are circled around the warm blaze in the fire pit, and a constant stream of children and ubus flows in and out. Greetings are called out to us as we join the others sitting or squatting on the floor near the pit. It's nice to be out of the chill. The liveliness of the fire is exhilarating after the open stillness of the night sky. I find I like sharing it with these folks. "Ah, so you remembered the Evening Feast after all. I thought you two might have found some other place to go," the Dreamer comments in a light, teasing voice. "Yason says he likes the headband I made for him," Meriflur tells him, leaning across me to hold it out towards him, her warm, full breast resting on my arm. "You see how relentless the heart can be," the old man chuckles to me, wagging his head, jowls flapping. "That you can learn from her!" "Oh, leave her alone, old-weak-between-the-thighs," Yssara cackles. This throws everyone, including the old man, into gales of laughter. "You see all the respect my wisdom gains," the Dreamer tells me, pulling a long face. "Ah, I have a thought," he says, bubbling with humor. "Why don't we light some more tapers so that we can see each other better, now that our honored guest is here." Several tapers are passed to Meriflur. She is about to light them at the fire when the Dreamer artfully produces my lighter, flicks it alight with apparent practice, and lights the tapers. "I thought you said that fire was forbidden," I demand, now just joking with him, with myself. "Oh, I got rid of the old fire that was in it," he assures me with equal humor. "Now this fire-stone is filled with the fire of the Valley. It would be good now for me to use it in all the Ceremonies," he declares with some vanity. It's a childishly innocent way to get what he wants, I reflect, but he's damn lucky he hasn't released one of the mechanisms and killed himself. "Let me think about that first," I tell him, holding out my hand to take the lighter. "There are some things about it that might be...uh, awkward. I'll fix it," I say, planning to disable the weapons in it. The Dreamer just stares at me, not moving "Yes, yes, that's the way," Turo eagerly affirms. "Since I learned how to carry my fire I don't let people make me do things I don't want to either. Ever..." He rubs his gaunt little paunch and offers a loony grin. I give in. "All right, certainly, Dreamer. Please accept the fire-stone as a gift. For the Ceremonies. But I'd like to use it this one night more, a special time to light the tapers in my house," I say, and glance at Meriflur. Then I join in laughter at the old man's smirk of satisfaction as he drops the lighter into my hand. "We can eat now?" Jemin pleads. "Hungry, hungry," Turo croons. Meriflur and Bizil rise and serve, bowing before each guest holding a bowl of food as they mutter the phrases of offering and acceptance. "The sacred fields and flocks bless us with this meal." "My deepest thanks for their gifts." Tonight's meal is the Dreamer's promised stew. Chunks of fresh meat float in a thin gruel with greens and some kind of roots. I picture the bright- eyed creature Turo held in his arms earlier. Then his draining its limp body in the Nature House. Oddly, I feel a little queasy. First time that I'm knowingly eating a creature I've seen slaughtered, and I'm curious at my reaction. The broth is fairly spicy, and the meat reminds me of wild cat that I'd eaten in North Africa . Tasty. Out of gruesome curiosity, I go over to the huge clay cook-pot and look in. The little ubu head, skinned but with the opaque eyes still in, looks back out at me. The meal is leisurely, filled with chatter, jokes, and broad gestures. We're so packed together, I'm constantly prodded by someone's knee or elbow. But I enjoy the closeness and ongoing banter: How hard it is to find good ubu droppings. Joking about the noise Fars makes in the "Nature House'' mornings. Some grouching about why the Dreamer snores when he says he is listening to their dreams. Good natured. Banal but genuinely caring. Taken with my ruminating, I lose the drift of conversation, but my attention is yanked back when Meriflur exclaims, "The way is through love, I am certain." "Laugh. Laugh and pretend it's all pretending," coaxes Turo. "That is the happy way." "It is a sacred mystery. You must die to what was before you can know what is," exclaims the Dreamer. "Rhythm," Fars mumbles. Jemin croons, "Melody!" "Well, you see," the Dreamer grins and nods at me, "you see how many doors we can help guide you through?" Meriflur and Bizil go around the hut picking up empty bowls. "Is the time for music?" Fars asks with hesitant eagerness. Jemin goes to the corner of the hut that is closed off with a course drape. The Dreamer makes happy chortles as Jemin takes out a large packet wrapped in ubu skins. He undoes it and lovingly reveals a stringed instrument with a turtle-shell sounding box and long, thin bamboo neck stained red and green. It's strung with three waxy, fibrous cords. Following to the corner behind him, Fars takes out an arm-length drum carved from a tree-trunk. "Oh. Oh. Oh," Turo squeals out in bubbly pleasure as they all move back and make a semicircle surrounding the two musicians. As they settle themselves, Meriflur puts her kitchen work aside and sits down next to me. She soon nods her head side to side as if she's already hearing their music. A hummed tone escapes her while a look of sweet pleasure suffuses her face. Cradling the instrument on his shoulder, Jemin twists the crude pegs to bring the gut strings into tune. He slides a finger along the strings on the instrument's smooth neck, plucking at them with the long, overgrown thumbnail on his right hand. The first notes are random, unmusical, as if he's just experimenting with the instrument. The others sit patiently while he explores, fumbles, sometimes missing the strings altogether with his thumb jabs. As he randomly plucks, Jemin holds his ear over the instrument at his chest, vacant faced and waiting. I don't know whether to feel embarrassed for him or to let myself lapse into numbed boredom. Gradually, the plucking gathers form. Two notes repeat in varying accents. Now three. Gradually, the melody reveals itself and Jemin nimbly plucks out a running phrase. It turns intricate as his left hand's fingers pulsate along the instrument's neck. The melody gathers into a simple tune, poignant and unexpectedly refined. As Jemin's music comes more alive, so does he. Now Fars takes the large drum across his lap. He explores awhile too, fingers taping, scraping, thumping on the fur covered skin till he's finds a rhythmic framework for Jemin's melody to frolic in. Fars' body quakes, eyebrows leap and fall to his drum's beat. Their duet becomes a conversation, repeating and elaborating on each other's phrases. Others around them accompanying humming, clapping and grunts. Everyone is swept along in delight, some look carried along to other realms. The Dreamer leans back against the hut's wall, body rocking softly, arms raised in delight. The fire squeezes beads of sap from the few branches mixed in with the droppings that turn to flame as they fall. Our flickering shadows dance up along the walls and on the thatched roof where our wavering heads form a circle around the fire's flower of light. It, too, frolics to the music that fills the hut. The tune evolves into song, melody and rhythm in repeating patterns. A simple, poignant song woven out over a long breath of unresolved longing. The music stirs my heart. It captures what I am going through here, a sublime elixir of the annihilation and the wonder. It voices ate poignant paradox. I look at Jemin, amazed and grateful for what he shares, pleased and grateful for his cherished creativity. And, somehow in some odd corner of my mind, I grieve for Bapu the Coffee-Maker, that other self of his there in Balangpur, bereft of any of this aliveness at all. A near-robot in his simple- minded persona there. Here, a channel for rich soul expression. Turo begins to clap in half-time with loose open hands, keeping his wrists pressed together. How extraordinary his hands are, long and thin fingered with exaggerated knuckles and veins. He moves them at grotesque angles, giving them odd lengthening and foreshortening, as if the movement of his hands bend space itself. The interplay of firelight and shadow on them spreads like a bird's flight through the flower of fire light on the thatched roof above us. The tones of his clapping vary as he cups and flattens his hands. It syncopates with Fars' drum rhythms into an intricate, evocative weaving of sound. Jemin hums along for a bit, then chants out a set of couplets, head back, throat taut and throbbing: "How gentle is the touch of our Maker, that He works at us throughout our lives and we think that we are the doers.
"How deep is the will of our Master, that he leads us carefully to our destiny and we suppose we wander without Way."
"How constant is the love of our Bearer, that he brings us to constant births, though we imagine ourselves but once born."
Jemin's voice is thick with yearning devotion. He plucks the strings in much the same succession of notes, but their spirit changes. The melody's sad longing evolves into soarings of exaltation that weave, spiral-like, up into the heavens. Every nuance of the music moves me, touching my spirit with fervor close to bliss. It moves me to recall the revelations I've had in this time in the Valley: Explorations into my deep Heart. The domains of light and consciousness I reached on the limbs of the Cosmic Tree. Now, moved by this gathering, the music alive through us all, being so fully resonant with them all, it effortlessly merges, opens me into even fuller dimensions of being. From this wholeness of Heart and the Tree's many limbed consciousness, I watch the WEB of love that flows amongst us. From this newly found center of my Heart, I feel their loving concern for each other, for me. Beyond all appearance and conversation, they partake of a depth of life that I relish. I want to apologize for judging them so unkindly before, to explain my confusion, my defensiveness. Could they understand my convoluted mind? No. It would be best just to remember what I now realize are their true natures. I remember the dance-drama of the Calling at the Palace in Balangpur with a pleasurable realization. The costumed figures of the Imagos and their magic-working dance around the Pushu, so these people labor at transforming me. In the light of the interconnecting Wholelife Energy Bond, I perceive each is luminous in their presences as Imagos -the Dreamer's transforming Fire, Meriflur's soul moistening Water, Fars' plodding Earthiness, and Turo's lightwitted Airiness, all conspired to bring me to this moment. I look from one to another, knowing them with this new awareness. This is a community of kindred souls, I know with certainty beyond words. They are aglow with the same quality of feelings, the same sense of fulfillment as I am. These Others are as real as I am. No, its not them that are changed, it's me. They're revealed through these new eyes. I laugh aloud. At how foolish I was. And at how happy I am now. The longing is quenched. I have found the place beyond leaving. "...he brings us to constant births, though we imagine ourselves but once born."
Jemin sings again as my happy laughter fills the hut and weaves with the ., Others join with me, happy for me, happy with themselves. Turo nods to me, a wild-eyed grin on his face that seems like a grimace, till laughter gurgles up out of him too. Now Meriflur's humming turns to song, her voice delicately resonant and rich beyond my imagining. She's radiant. Her voice opens my heart like a bird birthing from its shell. While the three of them merge in a torrent of music, Meriflur's eyes stay fixed on mine to carry me along as she sings.
"We dreamed that we've wandered without purpose or aim. We dreamed that we blundered, abandoned and shamed. We dreamed and we dreamed, but now we're awake
We are awake and we know that our Call has guided each step of the way, that our yearning renewed our hearts from dismay. that the Hand of our Maker has held us each day. And now we come home to claim glory.
The music stops in a sigh. Soft sobs and moans ruffle the silence. The dear winged creature that was imprisoned in my heart all these tormented years has burst free, has left the tomb of its defenses. My tears of gladness and relief keep flowing and flowing. The Dreamer suddenly moans, and his face drops all expression to leave nothing left but weary folds. He groans and grunts himself to his feet, hand on the shoulders of those next to him. "I am Called," he announces flatly, and leaves the hut. A hush falls as everyone watches after him with expectation. "I didn't hear anyone calling," I question. "The Call was for him, not you," Turo explains, looking at me thoughtfully. Suddenly, there is a high keening sound outside, the lament of an eagle for a stricken mate, the screech of metal on metal. "He is ready to ascend. The Dreamer is to climb up into the other Realms." Yssara announces excitedly, leaping from the hut. In an instant the hut is near-empty and Meriflur tugs me out after her. Everyone is swarming to surround the Cosmic Tree. Nearly everyone is already sitting or standing around the Cosmic Tree as we arrive. Fars is sitting on the ground with a small frame drum on his lap, one end covered with a furry skin. The Dreamer beckons Meriflur and me to come sit between him and Fars . "These are the day's last Rites," the Dreamer explains to me. "With this, the day is complete and comes to an end." He looks up towards the top of the Tree and ceremoniously announces, "Now I ascend from the Valley to the very center of the Cosmos. There I will make the offering of all the day held for us. I will offer all that has happened. All that we saw, thought, and did as holy sacrament. And of course," he adds, taking joy in what he says, "today Yason's coming will be offered too." He nods with approval and offers me a look of esteem. "The day's circle is complete. The tail is in its mouth." He nods towards the rippled dark Serpentine band inscribed on the wall encircling us. "Afterwards, we will darken the day's last fire." Fars and a few others turn to look at the large one blazing beyond the Tree. "I will have my Visions of meaning and guidance for us about tomorrow. Thus you may share my Cosmic journeys with me. Then we give ourselves back to the All in sleep." A note of drama touches his voice. "Now, it is time for me to ascend," he tells me with very little enthusiasm. He presses on my shoulder for support and grunts himself upright. He holds a crudely feathered cape from his lap and fumbles with it till Meriflur stands to help him with it. She ties it around his shoulders over his raggedy woven cape and tenderly pats him on his shoulder. He looks determined, preparing himself for some ordeal as waddles towards the Tree. What a dear old parody he is, I chuckle at the memory of his suaveness in Balangpur. Even if it is play-acting time, I wonder where he gets the nerve to wear such an outfit. He look like a ball of rags with chicken feathers stuck all around it. Yes, he's going to fly right up that Tree. The wizened old man stands before the Tree and stares up, his arms embracing it, peering up through its branches. Now he bows his forehead to rest on the Tree, in obvious greeting and homage. Fars starts a ripple across the drum head with his finger tips, a light pattering roll. As he plays, his face twists from awe to joy. I sense the Dreamer is inwardly connecting with the Tree, just as it had melded with me earlier. Fars ' rhythm shifts to a syncopated, compulsive one, accentuated with a hand-slap at the center of the drumhead. The old man starts to sway back and forth, rising up from the soles of his feet. He sways around in a circle, loose and relaxed , his energy expanding beyond his aged body. He holds his head back and prances around the Tree, a dance pantomime, trotting like a light-footed bird. His gentle dance expands, flapping his arms in rhythms that seem to rise spontaneously between him and Fars ' drumming. As he moves in larger and larger circles, people back out of his way. Others join in the rhythm. They clap or smack their bent arms against the sides of their chests and make hooting calls like owls. The Dreamer slides from one foot to another, flexing his knees to give impression of a bird in flight, of soaring and driving. I'm quite impressed at his sudden agility. Apparently, so moved by the spirit, his body is empowered and his joints opened so that his motions are freed and sure. The drum's rhythm and the Dreamer's dance build to a pitch as more people join in with calls and clapping. All, suddenly, stop as one. I'm impressed. A strong charge of energy was created. My Cynic sneers and challenges. "Wonder if we're going to see more vaudeville. Or another revelation?" And I want to see if the old man really can climb up out of this mundane domain and up into those ranges of consciousness where the Tree took me earlier? The Dreamer stops his dance, not particularly winded I note with admiration, while Fars continues drumming. The old man walks round the huge base of the Tree, bowing and offering muttered prayers and gestures at each of the four directions. I smile at the pleasure he takes in this, whether its ceremony or charades. The Dreamer faces into a large crevice in the trunk rising from between two huge, gnarled roots. He seems to fit himself in well enough to somehow find hand and footholds. He climbs, almost scuttles up the Tree's perpendicular surface. Though I see what's happening right before me, I don't believe it. The Dreamer's movements display the state he's in, a powerful trance to access that much aliveness. My otherworldly experience with the Tree earlier comes back again, full-force. I suspect now that it was but preparation for what I'm seeing the Dreamer do, in his body. Maybe its his high trance emanating out, but, suddenly, the cape he's wearing looks really magnificent, like a king's. Divers feathers are blended in a subtle arrangement, so that as he shifts, light from the bonfire iridescently refracts from it out over us. Instant to instant, it's a different glorious cape. Its shimmering spectrum comes from other dimensions. Well, maybe he can fly in that thing. There is stillness. Not a pause, but a frozen moment. Every breath is caught. Silence fills the star covered cup of the Valley. The drum starts again, with soft, water-like rippling. Jemin joins in a pure and moving tone. "Now he climbs to the uttermost. Now he returns to the heavenlies, to where the spirits dwell. Now he climbs above time and sees both tomorrow and yesterday."
As background sounds, a few of the ubus join in with their meowing cries. The old man, arms and legs grasping around the Tree, continues to shimmy up it with remarkable dexterity. He arrives at the first of the seven large branches, some fifteen feet off the ground and calls out, his voice high pitched and with the effect of being at a much greater distance.
"I am no more on those material plains. I have left them and am back in the heavenlies. I have crossed the threshold between then and forever. I did battle with the Guardian there who plays my foe. Now that I am past, he is again my beloved friend. "Here I can watch life's shapes and movements unfold through time. I see the true Serpent, alive, twisting about in a spiraling circle from First Times to the world's death and back to First Times again. I have memories of what is yet to happen, learn answers for questions not yet posed."
The Dreamer's words echo in the utter silence of those watching, reverberate throughout the Valley, a weaving of sounds and bewitching imagery. Turo sobs with excitement and transport, his face contorting between amazed joy and awe. His cries add splashes of passion to Jemin's wordless, soaring chant, his head pitched back and his long hair hanging. Meriflur and some other women take up a counterpoint to his chant -half whispered, long held poignant tones. Some of the people now start to drift off. Its like, for them, the interesting part of the show is over. The Dreamer arrives at the Tree's second limb and calls out, his voice sounding even more distant, with longer pauses between words.
"I am come to the second heaven. I am all of light now. I no longer climb the Tree, but fly along next to it. The spirits whisper things to me that I had forgotten. I remember them again and my heart returns to its real form."
As the Dreamer continues to ascend, sharing his visions and ecstasies, his words grow sparser, and their resonance within me grow more profound, more moving. Recall of my visions at each limb resonate with his. I'm taken into higher and higher realms of spiritual fullness. In the dancing firelight, all this plays out like my own world of myth and imagery. Fars ' drumming is only a whisper, a murmuring voice-like intonation, unimaginable from a drum. I'm not surprised to see tears trickling from his closed eyes, his expression of rapture. I curiously glance round at Jemin, who continues to hum the tune he'd chanted. Though he's seated in much the same way as he was before, I'm certain he's not in his body any more. Only Turo, I, Melissa -held in beatific, transported smile- and a few drowsy children and older people are left to hear the sound of his transporting call. Still echoing... I can't tell any longer from his voice how high he's climbed, but he seems incredibly distant.
"The Third Heaven," the Dreamer hums in a light, angelic voice that wafts down like leaves. "In my soul, I live by this pure breath of being. Here is the Light one never leaves. A stream of star-sounds wash through endless space. This all is me. I am all this."
Fresh depths of silence open as the Dreamer's silhouette appears, soaring effortlessly, floating out beyond the firelight's reach, his black form eerie against the cold, clear starlight. Wafting down through the sky, just the thinnest thread of his voice reaches us now. That could be just star-sounds too.
"The Fourth Heaven. Few words to give. None from here on. Mind is left behind. Dissolves away. Leaves emptiness... Infinite fullness... Here is where the Serpent swims to make those endless waves of Time. Each of you is with me too. Part of you shares this Presence. Shares this Silence..."
A plaintive howl wrenches the air. Turo responds to my startled searching about. "It's the ubus!" he confirms, his voice and eyes charged with bliss. I listen to them and hear an inner echoing to their wail, as though it's a holy call to prayer. A wave of vertigo sweeps through me at being immersed in something far, far beyond my ken. Abrupt silence. The animals stop baying as suddenly as they started. I'm left feeling dizzy. My head craned back, I watch the Dreamer's silhouette waft up from branch to branch, from the fifth to the sixth heavenly. Though I had those visions of the Tree's inner journey, would I ever be able to physically make that climb? Ever be willing to abandon myself with such faith to those forces revealed to me? At the sixth branch now the Dreamer pauses to share with us.
"Here all beings drift in and out of existence," he intones. "And so do I."
He floats on up with no movement of his limbs. For some long while he's immobile in the "Seventh Heaven", the Tree's highest branch. Then, in a breath, his form fades and disappears. I think my eyes are lying, but all the sounds, the chants and animals, stop too. I look to the others for confirmation as to what's happened. Both Turo and Fars sit eyes closed, stone still. Not asleep. A sleeping person is still with you. They're not there. Meriflur is wrapped in skins near the fire, curled up in a ball. Just the four of us here. All the others must have gone to their huts. Truly absolute stillness. I look up at the Valley's surrounding wall, at that sinuous track worn by the Snake of Time. I'm cold and alone. Everyone else has gone to some bewildering place, even those near me. The half-moon's light low in the cobalt sky seems to beam down on a dead, deserted planet. I shudder. The Dreamer is gone. Not even his shadow is left behind against the star jeweled sky . Ugh! Some moist, cold thing touches my arm. I turn, unconsciously half- swinging. Too high, fortunately. It's a puppy ubu nuzzling at me. I helplessly burst into laughter. A cute runt ubu, still round with baby-fat and fluffy fur. Looks as well cared for as any one else around here, except for a chewed off part of one floppy ear. The creature's snuggling against me and its lively eyes reveal its alert, affectionate nature. I'm glad it escaped the pen. I sigh with relief. Though everyone else seems to have disappeared for the moment, I'm not alone. Still some fellow life on the planet left for me. "You'll be my Man Friday," I whisper to the him, after checking its gender. As I scratch behind his torn ear, he appears to agree with the arrangement. After playful bounding around under my strokes, he's quickly reassured. He sniffs along my legs, turns himself round thrice in a circle and curls up next to me, also waiting. We wait and wait. The moon gently slides across the sky. I feel a wonder as well as fondness for the Dreamer, a sympathy for the old rogue's being taken for granted here. And not fully appreciated by me either. I'm ashamed to recognize that if I'd read about such a happening as this, or saw it in a film, I'd find the fullest confidence in it. But here, at firsthand, I'm still guarded. My seeking, hungry heart is left still longing. At last, a shape smokily reappears, like a balloon tied to the topmost limb of the Tree. It gradually thickens as it gradually descends and the form grows defined with arms and legs. I watch the Dreamer begin to stir, to shake. A kind of glittering sprinkles down from his body, like a celestial dog shaking star- dust from itself. He descends in a smooth motion, without pause. First slowly, now faster, he reaches almost a fireman's speed down a firehouse pole. I wonder at his mood, the ache of hia leave-taking from the Splendor. If I was the Dreamer, able to ascend as he's done in the body, would I be willing and humble enough to return back down here? But I know I'd treasure the options. Yes, maybe it is time to let him stay there, if he wants to. Time to make place for a new Dreamer. "Is it a star descending from above?" a child hollers. "No, it is one of the Shining Ones come to bless the Valley? See how it shimmers and sparkles," Turo joyfully calls out. People begin to reappear. "No" a tottering old woman weakly responds coming out from between the huts. "No, not one of the Shining Ones. It is the Dreamer glowing with the light he carries from beyond." Soon everyone is again gathered round the Tree. "It is the Dreamer burning with the fire of vision," Yssara affirms. "He comes back to share what he saw in those Realms." All eyes follow his descent with expectation. Suddenly the Dreamer is completely here, sitting at the base of the Tree before us -eyes closed, legs folded, hands resting limply in his lap. His face and body glow with inner radiance. He sways back and forth, an owl's howling call pours from his barely open mouth. Finally, he stops, the call running down as if from a bird in distancing flight. Then silence. Only the sound of the breeze whipping the grain stalks in the fields. My Man Friday yips as it scratches away at fleas. Falteringly, the Dreamer murmurs, "The Voice came to me during our Feast and told me, 'Go to where all worlds join. Go climb the Cosmic Tree. Go to the Land without evening or dawn. Go, and I will clothe you with eyes.'" He falls silent, breathing lightly. The pyramid of his body seems squatter with fatigue, more convoluted under its own weight. His flesh hangs slack with exhaustion, collapsed with weariness. But when he speaks again, his voice is firm. It is the radiance within him that speaks. His eyes, as he opens them, are bright, vibrant. "The Voice came, and I did what it bid me. Now I try to find words, words that may open a little of the unknowable, words that we might share something of that Immensity." As he speaks, I'm aware of the presence of the Wholelife Energy Bond, the strands of its Light flowing through him, linking everyone here together. I feel it empowering us as it had in the Cosmic Whirlpool. But, though his voice and energy are strong, the old man's breath and posture show how drained he is. Can he really survive doing this often? He looks worn, but is by no means exhausted, as he starts to reveal, bubbling with emotions of celebration from his odyssey. He calls out with a tone of self-satisfaction.
"I have been given sight into all things. From where time starts and returns, I watched all things born of time. I saw from First Times to End Times then back to the beginning. All of it, everything, in a bunch no bigger than a clod of earth. Every detail of every life ubu, man, and star- clear to read as sunlight. All in all, eternity in that wondrous clod."
"Why is he shouting like that?" I ask Turo. "His inners are still too big for this little place," he whispers. "He is still like a Shining One," The Dreamer continues after a long breath, "Now I must share these things with you." Everyone gathers close around him. This part apparently holds their interest. Fars is still rigidly immobile. Beyond contact. My pet Friday moves to take a position of alert attention. Even the ubus know something special is happening . "The rising of the New Day's sun is promised," the Dreamer continues. "The moon tomorrow is to be the Full One and we are to have fresh meat killed and cooked for its Feast." I hold Friday to me with concern. Is it his time next? From the "oos" and "ahs" at the announcement, I understand why everyone, young and old, are gathered round now. News of a fresh meal. The Dreamer turns towards me and announces, "Twice over to celebrate. Once, the Full Moon. Once more, Yason's arriving. As it was shown!" he says with pride. Another murmur of appreciation through the surrounding crowd. Double rations is good news around here. And fresh cooked. The old man beckons me, takes my offered arm with both hands and pulls me down to sit on the ground beside him. He takes my head between his hands and kisses my forehead. "My gift to you," he says weakly. "That is where we bear our mark." He looks into my eyes a moment more, then, with effort, announces, "Tomorrow... Time for Yason... Rites of Transmission. He is being prepared for his role as the new Dreamer." I'm jolted. I'm just getting used to even being here. And I need time to prepare myself. Meanwhile, an electric charge moves up through my spine at the thought of it after just witnessing what had always been a deep, unspeakable longing. I'm convinced the old man just transcended many realms. He's been to cosmic peaks and brought back an aura of wondrousness that radiates from every cell of his being. How clear and open his messages left me, certain that it is all worked out. As simple as a clod of earth. Yes, there's that world he can teach me about. It may be a madness, but there's also a gold mine of wisdom there too. "New Day's continued life promised for all in the Valley," he concludes, "except for the meat provender for the Feast." I hold Friday protectively to my leg and won't allow my mind to go back to that earlier meal when I saw that little head floating in the stew. Or forward to when I might see one with a chewed off ear. "Life is continually poured down from above," the Dreamer makes a wide-armed gesture of acceptance and offering to the regions above the Tree. "Another day's life. "The empty field is to be plowed and planted, so best not to make stool there. But the field of yucca-root is going dry, so all are to make their water there. Lovers, be advised." Turo's eyes are wide open, his face still suffused with ecstasy. "Do you hear?" he asks, taking my arm. "He really knows! Up there, he sees all these things to share with us." The old man's message is finished. The remaining quiet is deeply peaceful. The air is charged with freshness, an ozone smell as if from lightening. He looks calm, fulfilled, as a sage should be after sharing the fruit of his quest. He gathers himself. Standing with his back to the Tree, he raises his arms in that familiar gesture of leave-taking. All the others do so in response. I hesitate a moment, then raise and cross my arms over my heart too. "So my beloved selves", the Dreamer concludes in mellow tones, "we have tasted and fulfilled another day given to us. We honored what we could, and forgave what we could not. Even this Rite is only of worth because it is one the Shining Ones showed us. "Now let us end our day by returning the borrowed flame." He walks to the edge of the pile where only a few glowing embers are left and sprinkles a few handfuls of dirt on them with some muttering. When he's finished he plops heavily against the Tree. Turo claps and happily calls out, "Good. Very good, Dreamer. Very good climb this evening." He pushes his way through the crowd to pat the old man's shoulder. Meriflur takes my arm. "Help me take him back to his house." Her face is soft with concern for him. I feel closer to her in this moment than I ever felt with any woman. They make a way for us to go to the Dreamer and we kneel at his side. "Please help me," Meriflur asks me. "He will push himself till he's babbling. Let us take you home, granddaddy," Meriflur tells him gently. "Come on, old man. Grab an arm and we'll float you right home," I banter, leaning towards him. She and I each take an arm, and suddenly the rest of him floats right off the ground, supported by a drove of others who help carry him to his hut. Meriflur makes a couch of furs for him against a wall where we gently let him down. He lies, grinning weakly as each person passes to touch his face before leaving. After they're gone, he motions me to come to him. "Yason, I want you to understand. When you are the Dreamer, many joys, many dangers. Belly to the fire, back to the cold," He cackles feebly. "When you are Dreamer, learn to listen to yourself, as if it is another who speaks..." He pauses to catch his breath. "You will know when you are wise and when you are foolish." His eyelids droop, and he drops off into a deep, still sleep. "He's resting. Let's walk. People will come to see that he is well," Meriflur assures me, beckoning me out of the hut. Even as we are leaving, Yssara comes. "I'll watch with him," she whispers, nodding to us with concern, and goes into the hut. We walk towards the field. Now it seems that the wall of the Valley is a huge funnel opening out into the sky. Meriflur points up. There are two rings of haze around the half-moon; the inner ring a dusty rose, the outer one a pearly gray. "Good omens," she smiles. "All good omens!" Drifting out from somewhere behind us, Jemin begins plucking out another melody on his three strings. Turo cheers and starts to clap along with him. "His music makes flowers in my soul," I tell her with joy, pleased at feeling it so deeply. "I'm glad to see you happy with us here." Her eyes pour out her fondness for me. "Jemin knows so well how to put things into music. Just right for me. So personal." His music this evening gave it a special richness for me. "He told the Dreamer once that all he knows is his own heart and its wilderness of dreams," she shared. "That music of his finds pathways through it." As we draw near the field, we hear some couples grunting with each other, energetic movements and plants rustling. Meriflur smiles demurely. "They are night-plowing. Where would you like to rest?" she ask. "Why don't we go sit on the bench by the field's wall. "Has he been like this before?" I am concerned. "The climb seems to have really emptied him." "Yes," she answers with sad resignation. "He has been called so many, many times. And more and more it tires him. Now he is old, it has become too much for him. His capable days have passed." "You're all really expecting me to... to go through with this Rite of Transmission tomorrow. I still don't know if I can bring myself to do it?" He just mentioned the possibility of taking his role earlier today, and now its in my face everywhere. "It is difficult for you, we know. But when the time comes, you will do what is needed," she assures me gently. We sit quietly, enjoying the balminess. We watch the others stroll, visiting, lying on the ground, star gazing up between the branches of the Tree. Meriflur fidgets. "I don't know if you were told, but after the Rites, you will be able to take a Beloved." I look at her, puzzled but pleased. "I still need time to think about that Rites first of all. And even more time before taking a Beloved." I try to make it a caring smile. "If you wait, you will start seeing the other women and you won't want me any more." I can't tell if its innocence or enticement, but she's left me more interested. I'm honest when I tell her, "I don't think there's much chance of that. But I can't be forced into things." "Asking isn't forcing." "Why do you answer so timidly?" "Because your words hurt me." "I am sorry, Meriflur. I'm not used to you this way. So sensitive." Though now she is the way I'd always hoped she'd be -tender in her being and loving in her nature. "It is the way you want me to be?" She searches my eyes with an enticing look of encouragement. It is marvelous what happens between us now, I'm grateful. And the old man's assurance that when I'm Dreamer, I can dream all this as I want lets me feel hopeful. But I still can't really get a sense about myself as the Dreamer. There's still a kind of inside-outness about it that turns me all around. Solid thoughts turn to mist, and certainty is one more delusion. "Everything seems to happen all at once here. With his guidance about having the Rites of Transmission tomorrow night, it's too overwhelming to decide on this Beloved thing too." I try to explain to her. "There's so many fundamental things I still don't understand. Look, for example, there's the half- moon." I raise my eyes to it. Her's follow. "And his guidance is that the Rites be performed tomorrow...With the full-moon." I wait, sure the incongruity will get to her. She draws back to stare at me, half-smiling as if I'd said something clever. "Decide?" she asks with gentle persistence, ignoring all I'd just implied about the moon's phases. "What is there to decide about what happens? It is only because you are New Born that these things seem strange. But all of this is just what is right for you. And you are just what we seek, what I seek. Otherwise you wouldn't be here." "Wouldn't it make sense for us all to know each other longer?" "I know you now," she answers wistfully. "Tomorrow I will know you again. It will take a lifetime of knowings to fully know who you are. Something about you touches me, fits deeply inside me. I feel that we're not unknown to each other. That we are really very close." We look at each other for some moments. "Come. Let's go to my house," I whisper to her. We walk silently, hand in hand, the radiant moon's light above us swallows most of the stars. We arrive at my house, a childlike timidness between us. I pull my door-drape back. We bow low and enter. I light two tapers with my lighter and set them in crevices in the corners of the hut. They flicker and soften the air with the scent of coconut. It's dank and chilly, but I'd remembered to gather ubu droppings for a fire. We sit on my makeshift bedding. The gaze from her downward sloped, burnished green eyes touches, moves me to rediscover myself in their light. "Beloved," she whispers to me, through me. "Beloved," I repeat, awed with my yearning for her. "Here, we are all beloveds to each other. But you, Yason, you are especially Beloved to me. Even at our first meeting, I knew that you were sent at my calling as well as the Dreamer's. You are my long awaited, Yason, my completeness." I stroke her face and body till we lay side by side. My passion flares with her want of me. In our reaching for each other, so much is awakened, so much I'd forgotten or never knew we had. We look at each other long sweet moments, our eyes lovingly reaching through each others. In one breath, together, we enfold and kiss with our whole beings, a kiss I've yearned for my whole life. Another awareness breaks in, from some detached distance, of us sitting here in filthy rags at the bottom of this crevice in God knows where, embracing as if this were all normal. But I don't flinch at this scene. And my heart doesn't close either. This is still the woman I've yearned for, and the love. My mind, with all its differing views, knows that my heart is right. Heart and mind merge as we kiss again. I give myself to her even more fully, with the devotion of my whole being. I drink in her essence, an intoxicating incantation. I flush with drunken joy as our tongues curl round and dance with each other. We moan and shudder with ecstasy. She disengages, pulls back to hold my face before her's, searchingly looking from eye to eye. "You are my Beloved," she whispers close to tears. "I sent for you to be my Beloved." "And you, Meriflur, you have been my Beloved since before time began. Even in the other place, I recognized you." As I say this, I know that she is my Eve, that our souls are made from the same Breath. I know her and myself as Adam and Eve, with the innocence of animals and hearts filled with joy and beauty. Though that was shattered when we left the Garden and time began, bearing our new gift-burdens of toil and suffering. "To seek out our own paths as God's grown children," Phineus used to phrase it. But here we are again, Meriflur and I, in this timeless innocence and joy. Together again. I loosen her shawl and skirt to look openly at what I'd glanced at all day. This is the same body, the same curves and crevices of her dear flesh I'd enjoyed many times before. But there had never been this deep beckoning, this sharing of a ceremony of sorts. The Valley's harboring shelter about us, the glow from the mounds of coals gleaming on her limbs -everything is wondrous. "What a beautiful hollow place," she whispers, playing a cool finger at my temple. I yearn for her, this dark women of my soul. We have a great game to share, a shadow-dance, born of intimate love's pleasures. We kiss and stroke with sweet, caring passion. "Meriflur," I sigh. "Yason," she breathes and raises her knees. "Your place awaits you." We merge, eyes, groins and innards flowing together. She's lusciously moist. Before, as Melissa, she'd always been fridgidly dry. Her mouth works with mine. Our passion for each other becomes a roaring conflux. Orgasm throbs down from the root of my brain. The spasms of my release urge her with me. Our bliss meets in celebration of tasting what we'd each yearned for. Our twoness erotically rejoins into one. We hold each other close for a long while. One taper splutters and dies. Later the other. All sounds around us languidly given way to silence. No, I'd been wrong, thinking we were intimate before. That hungry driving need we had for each other before, out there, that never really brought us to touch. This, now being together with her, this is truly being touched. "When you first came here, Yason, I was frightened for you. You spoke of such strange things. Your eyes were so full of hurt and unrest." "I'm sorry. It must have been hard for you." "I never dreamed there was such a beautiful man," she smiles shyly. "But you were so closed. Like a fist, your face was." That was the same image Melissa used when she was scolding me while I tied her up. "I was frightened, uncertain. I couldn't help being closed up." "But you liked us right away, didn't you?" Again I'm touched with the tenderness in her tones. "Yes, yes, right away. And that frightened me even more." After some moments of silence, I continue, "You know, Meriflur, there's so much being asked of me, all at once. The more I understand things here, the more I see how deeply it goes. And... and I can only come to things as I'm ready. It wouldn't be fair otherwise, would it?" She frowns a little in dismay. "Are you talking about the Rites?" "Meriflur if... if I have to go above for a little while, just in order to let my mind clear, so I can do better here. Well, could you... I'd like you to come with me." Pressed against my neck, I feel her face pucker as if in pain or near to tears, but her voice is calm. "Here, I am right for you. There, I would be strange. You might be ashamed of me, of our feelings together. No, Yason, I am sorry. I want to be with you, always. But I am of the Valley. If you feel it is your way to go, then you must do it. My place is here." She reflects for a bit, then tells me, "Once you are here, how can you leave? Some small part of you may go, like we go for water and wood. But a big part of you must stay to follow your Dreamer's destiny. And to be my mate!" I want to tell her that I need her, that I will try to do all I can for us to stay together. But I realize she already knows. There is nothing else to say. After long silence, she sighs, then uncurls from me to stand. "Goodnight, Yason. May your sleep be peaceful and renewing." She gives me a last sweet look and leaves. The chatter from the other huts and the squeals of the ubus eventually subside. Long afterwards I bring myself to whisper back, "And I love you."
Click on the chapters from the list on top left. Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2010 |
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