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Chapter Eighteen
The inner, secret Opus is complete. My Alchemy has transformed the despised substance into gold, the affliction into sacrament. "Our gold is not the common gold," the Wizard reminds.
The exalted Prima Materia is now removed from the hidden vessel in which I carried out the subjective portion. Now I can proclaim its glorified body into the outer, day-to-day world. There it is revealed as the Philosopher's Stone, the Pearl of Great Price, the Jewel of Paradox. It is now also real in the objective Realm. As both an inner and outer reality, it binds the two Realms, the seen and the unseen. It brings them into resonance.
Through the marriage of these estranged natures -the lower and the higher, the body and the soul, the self and the shadow- the sacred Self comes into being. The ordinary, half-known life becomes elevated into the treasured eternal Truth.
This is the consummation of my wizardly way with skills and happenstance. The Opus is complete. No longer needed as Guide, I am released for other Callings. As my last act and offering, I bring the Prima Materia to embody its sublime state in:
The CULMINATION of the Opus and The MANIFESTATION of the Jewel of Paradox
I awake alone. After the warm tenderness of being with Meriflur, I'm left with this cold, stone floor. Alone, with chill down to my bones, as I lie here near naked, a few skins over my legs. I moan and try to move my spasm bound body. Spikes of pain pierce through my shoulders and back. My neck is so cramped, it's agony to try to move it. Rising, aching and crumpled like a convalescent, I wrap my rags around me. I stumble and open the door-drape. Absolute night out there, thick with galaxies of stars. How long have I been here? I muse. Two, three days? I can't even imagine being here many more, let alone the rest of my life. But the Dreamer would probably dismiss it and say, "That kind of time doesn't apply here." I stand in the doorway for a long while, shivering. I listen to the coughs, grunts and heavy breathing of sleep around me and watch the stars fade in the dawn lightening sky. I know with certain dread I'm already changed more than I care to imagine. Each pore feels torn open, defenseless. Every nerve is bared, vulnerable. My body is shredded. "To reveal the inner man", he'd say to mock my torment. Soon there'll be nothing left of me from before. No power to grasp or deal with real things at all. When I saw that dance-drama in Balangpur about the four Imagos working away at the Pushu, reworking his being, I understood it in that idealized, mythic way. In that stylized presentation, it seemed enticing to me. Here, in this flea bitten reality, it's preposterous for me to tolerate. Could I live my life like this, so open, so confused, so defenseless. I'm continually a stranger to myself. And who I was there, in that other place, already seems like a dream. I'm not sure how much of that self that started this quest is really here to be touched by this at all. Of his reasons, his hopes, nothing of them will remain the same, if I do stay here. I did all this to find myself, to seek a rebirth. I laugh at myself bitterly. But meanwhile I'll end up forgetting who I really am as totally as they have. When I look into Turo's dull eyes, I feel pity for him. That bright, near incandescent mind he had in Balangpur is lifeless ash here. And with Jemin, its just the opposite. Bright genius here. Encased there. I think of my joy at looking into Meriflur's love-filled eyes, so relieved and grateful not to have to deal with Melissa's barbed jade gaze. Surrendering to the soul-alchemy here means that I'm not really sure how I'll turn out -lunatic or awoken. Swells of anxiety wash through me. Its not only fear of failing but also of what fulfillment here might mean. Heavy hearted, I turn back into my hut and crouch low into a corner. I rack my brain trying to decode all this into understandable bits. So I can make some decision. The filth. How could I ever get used to the incredible chaos and dirt? The Dreamer says I can make whatever changes I want. Maybe so. But this is all so real, so convincing. Aren't there some natural limitations. But it isn't the dirt that worries me most. It's me! How can I deal with something as elusive as that when even the dirt and filth have some inner significance here, a kind of sacrament. Just as the Dreamer wants to use my filth, the killer in me, as a sacrament too. I've been killing my whole life, in one way or another, and it never mattered. But now it does. I don't want to kill him. And how do I know that I'll be capable of what will be needed of me afterwards when I'm the Dreamer. I need him alive, as a teacher, as a guide into realms I never imagined. I'm not ready to handle all that would be required of me. My mind has a life of its own. Thoughts pass through thoughts. Small, cohesive ones dart and drift through the immense webbing of other intricate thoughts. It gives rise to intricate thoughts, to simple thoughts, to repulsive ones, to compulsive, persistent ones. Intuitions arise, memories of things past and some yet to be. All these weave into incredible, untraceable complexities. My mind doubles back on itself, tormented in its need for self- comprehension. Like a serpent, it twists round to bite its own tail. It becomes the infinite Ouroborus, and I'm trapped in its eternal gyrations. Every facet of my conflict appears before my mind's eye. My revelation of the Cosmic Whirlpool. I hang poised over the maze of these patterns, seeking an instant of insight to fuse it all into a solid, meaningful whole -a miraculous crystal whose light will heal all my doubts. I need that Jewel of Paradox! But there is only the continual whirl of thought, the tumult of feelings, the pain of my flesh from being ripped by the knots in my bedding and the stone floor. Even so, there is a spark of hopefulness that this day now dawning might hold balm for my wounds, might herald the opening of my mind to what is really here. To have Meriflur, the Dark Woman of my soul as my lover and helpmate. To be the Dreamer with all his empowering gifts. All that has a magical, tantalizing allure for me. A loud, insistent part of me screams terror at the annihilation staying might hold. All that was inside and hidden here is evident. My fears and bewildering vulnerabilities are where everyone can see and touch them. The constant sense of intrusion, into my very way of being with myself, my revelations and innermost intimacies. I'm strongly drawn by this too and, at the same time, horribly repelled. I look around the hut. A few scruffy dried ubu skins and rags for my comfort. The crude stone wall blackened with ages of smoke and soot. The filthy, tattered thatching overhead and this ragged costume. "My God. To live in this the rest of my life..." is the uncertainty behind every observation. I don't know what crucifies me most -my mind's irreconcilable confusion or my body's torment and filth. But there's no point in pretending. I've got to be clean and rested before I can make this life altering decision. As I am, it's looking into a smoky mirror that reflects only the dark shadow.
I am lost. Everything is losing. I am a helpless ghost that haunts this life. I am alone and in terror of the need-beast that is me. In the swift dissolving of time, in the blurred gyrations of mind, I am nothing, no one is anything, ever.
Even before this brooking is finished, I'm at the pile of rags in the corner to find the clothes I came in. The khaki shirt and shorts, the left boot, the torn and very dusty backpack. The canteen and right boot might turn up in the prairie were I dozed or on the trail on my way back, I picture, grinning to myself. I remember the poem I'd heard on my way coming:
I float through doors, doors that fade before my eyes, revealing other doors that fade before my eyes. Effortlessly I pass through them, effortlessly and bewildered by my inward revelation that I am falling
I put on my jacket, shorts and the one boot. I shoulder the pack and cautiously creep out into the dawning light. Absolute stillness. No one to be seen as I leave the gathering of huts. I creep across the open space towards the ramp way, steeling myself against being seen, hoping no ubus raise their cry. I look around again. Still no one. All feels strangely suspended, breathless. At the ramp way's base, I begin clawing my way with hands and feet up the narrow ledge. A few near-vertical steps to the left, turn nearly round on myself, and struggle a few more paces upward to the right. Continuing my tortuous zigzag up the Valley's wall, the tight footholds keeps me focused. The red dust rises with each step I take, one in a boot, the other barefoot. And with each step I feel relieved, like a sea diver shedding the pressures of the deeps. Another sacrament? The ordeal of Ascension. At a slight broadening of the ledge, about midway up the climb, a little hollow has been scraped out. I stop to rest and sit with my back against it. Below me, the Valley is still silent, night-muffled. I'm midway, between its shadowy dark below and the light enticing me above. Half way up and half way down. Between two worlds. Not in one world or the other, but the in-between, where neither and both are. No certain past to return to out there. No future I feel certain or capable of down here. There's movement below, people coming from their huts to gather. The Dreamer comes to the bottom of the ramp way and looks up at me with sad resignation. The others standing round him clasp their folded hands over their Heart Centers as they chant the verses I first heard in the Temple of the Inch- Square Kingdom. I'm not surprised to recognize their joined voices as the ones I first heard there. The aura and power of that vision returns as they sing:
"Oh, Jewel of Paradox, praise be, praise be. In you is summoned and solved All that is or could be."
This is their parting gift to me. A treasured confirmation and remembrance. I stand and return their gesture of leave-taking. Energized and enthusiastic, I laugh to myself with a special pleasure that I am going and continue my climb. At last, I did make a decision. The sky looms huge. The enclosing circle of the Valley's stone lip expands, filled rim to rim with peach and golden sunrise. The splendor hypnotizes me. My eyes, freed captives now can open to the infinite. Less and less invaded by that delusion below, its feels like leaving the grips of a dizzying fever. The ledges slanting back and forth above me grows few. I see the edge of the expanse of prairie grass, bright in the sunlight. As I climb, I picture the black ribbon of road that will take me back through the jungle. The rich, exotic colors, the rich sounds and smells that await me. The birds calling. "Cho-ko-ni. E-ti-ma". " The bands of leaping monkeys. Yes, this feels deeply right. Even though these steps seem like walking away, I still go toward my destiny. Even now, Dreamer, Meriflur, I go towards you with love. Joyfully, I reach the last ledge. The enclosing oval of the Valley below still clutches at me, as if to grasp and pull me back down, into that delusion. The two perspectives twist me back and forth, but I cling to my resolve. I rise and steady myself and step free of the Valley and climb up onto the grassy plain, grateful at being released. As I peer down into the crevice -the shabby huts, the parched, raggedy fields, the others in their rags, their scrubby faces turned towards me, even the majestic Tree, Center of the Cosmos -all seem but a dream I was drugged into, the fuzzy memory of a memory. Looking up at me, distance dwarfed, Meriflur's longing eyes hold mine. Then I'm taken by the Dreamers' looking up at me in silence, with peaceful, sad resignation. "There was so much more I could have asked the Dreamer, so much more he had to tell me," I reflect with regret. " Well, it's done", I resolve and again offer them the gesture of leave-taking. I pause with my eyes closed, poised and savoring the moment. Then I sigh and turn to go, to retrace my way across this prairie, back to that jungle path, back to Balangpur. The Dreamer is suddenly before me. He shrugs and gives me his knowing smirk. I'm too astonished to know what to make of this. "So, Jason, this is the moment and the way that you have chosen," he says in his chanting intonation. He looks the same as he did a moment ago down below, but... "I only wanted to be certain..." I begin to self-justify, but grow uncertain as his stance shifts and the Dreamer's habitual half-grimace clears from his face. "Still looking for the guidebook to your life, eh, Jason? And surprised that it's always a mystery." He nods with sympathy and chuckles. I'm shaken up by the changes in his voice and manner. The disguise is gone. It's the other part of him again -the Court Wizard. But no. Not just him either. The Dreamer is still here, too. They're both here! I'm so startled, spun around inside myself, I almost topple backwards into the Valley. He grins and nods, caring and consoling. He knows my bewilderment. "So this is how we come to it. You have chosen the place of the Rites of Transmission, but I still am the one to choose its contents." He teases me a little. "This is the moment of Yu Yi. Extreme Unction, you would say. Both. It is the Anointing. And the Transmission of the Wizard soul." His voice is calm and reassuring, but his words fill me with terror. He is beyond dualities, beyond opposites. I realize this, but it is bewilderingly beyond my grasp. "Dreamer... Wizard... You don't understand. When I met you there, in Balangpur, I knew that I had to renounce my vicious path, my destructive self. I swore then, under your influence, that I would never kill again. And especially you. Now," I plead. "I couldn't. I can't." "Because I am the one to awaken you to the secret, hidden self you've always sought. Your gratitude for that makes this even more difficult, I know." I hold what he says in my heart. It aches so with truth, I cry. "Yes. You're right," I answer, gasping. Has my heart ever been so knowing, so anguished? "I am readied," the aged man kindly takes my hand and explains. "And this response of yours shows your readiness too." "No, you misunderstand. I'm running away. I need clarity. And cleanliness." My voice chokes. The desperate force of longing I've dammed up breaks loose inside me. "That was the only way to bring you to this," he explains. " By activating your deepest conflict and giving you absolute freedom, you would have no choice but to come to this point." He confides with an innocent smile, kindly and tenderly. "This way it engages all of you. And you have to be completely present to receive the Transmission. You must be both as Jason and as Yason. As I am present. All together, at once. "Both the Wizard and the Dreamer are here." His voice changes again. Another self echoes from his words, from his thoughts. "But I am neither and both. This I Am is from before they were. And I do not end when they do. I am the shimmering light-being they both emanate from. This Self is their true I." Yes, this confirms that he -the Wizard, the Dreamer- he is the teacher and guide I've always sought, the one to awaken my soul. His teachings. The soul journeys. His guiding teasing. All those were flashings from this true Self. He offered all I could imagine asking for. He knows the way because, clearly, he walked it. Yet here I am leaving. Again. Why couldn't I trust him? Why couldn't I let it all unfold according to his guidance? I grieve at the lost opportunity. His very still, deep eyes take hold of my gaze and my body unclenches. My breathing slows, turns into a life-stream flowing in and out through my whole being, linking my mind and my heart and my body in peace-filled awareness. His look of absolute caring softens me right through. "I am ready to go now," he tells me somberly. "You must have your own way as Dreamer. My being around would interfere. All my life's purposes and gifts are complete. Now, all that remains, I pass on to you, Oh, New Dreamer, Yason," he says and bows as he reaches into his Omen bag hanging at his waist. He holds the Jewel of Paradox before me. I'm astonished. Just as I'd seen it in the Temple of the Inch-Square Kingdom. It real! Not just my own fantasy, a private delusion. Here it is, resplendent with its mystic powers. Its real! Its shimmering aura and internal radiant flow quenches the unleashed torrent of my longing. There, in the Temple, its presence drew me beyond my narrow sense of self into a terror zone. But now it is bliss incarnate. All that's happened here in the Valley must have prepared me. Seeing it in his outstretched palm now, I'm open and receptive. Yearning, convinced that it is the source of the wisdom teachings. This Jewel is the portal to my quest's goal. Reading my conviction, he smiles. "I bequeath this to you," he says, as if to answer my unspoken longing. Eyes on mine with the tenderness of a lover's, he crouches low, gives a guttural sigh and lunges toward me, to hug or assault me, I'm not sure. Simultaneously, he flings the Jewel of Paradox at me. My combat trained body dodges to one side in reflex to avoid it. He lurches over my outstretched leg, clearly on purpose, and tumbles out over the Valley's edge. As he hurtles past, the old man beams at me with raised eyebrows and waves like a little child. "See you for after," he calls consolingly. Somehow, as if the Dreamer had foretold my reflexive move, or that the Jewel itself tracks my maneuver, rather than avoiding it, my lunge takes me right into its path. It finds and strikes the center of my chest. Womp! The sphere of radiance strikes, pierces and painlessly melds into my Heart Center. With that, my whole being and reality transforms. The Jewel's radiance permeates all, includes all, transcends all. My soul's partitions and separations dissolve. With the numinous mediation of the Jewel of Paradox, here, in the Center of my Heart, ghouls of longings and fears, of terrors and impossible dreams that have haunted and bound my life now are known in this same Light. Deepest constraint is released and my consciousness is unbound. Through devotion to the Jewel's splendor at my Heart's core, my multitude of selves are drawn into patterns of alignment. All my selves, each and all, with caring regard for each other, take their rightful places in the completeness of my being. They come into resonant accord with each other. Stranger selves, lover selves, antagonists, unknown ones, all are drawn into positions to affirm each other as a facet "me" in my unity. I watch each one come into recognition that its offering to my wholeness is its own fulfillment. I embrace all these separate and disparate selves as refractions of my Essence. The Shimmering they each reflect is my eternal Self. I am Yason and Jason. Wizard and Dreamer. Jesus and Judas. I am countless other selves I've been over many lifetimes. All now awoken. All together. All at once. Everything comes into its rightful place in my universe. My "Other" and I are joined as not-two. All that was fragmented now is merged. What was lost is regained. My mind and my heart, the shadow and the light, the questing knight and dragon, all are fused into this Actuality that encompasses all. Yes, the sought for inner "Switch" has been found and closed at last. The wholeness, the awoken at-onement with myself I've yearned for my whole life is found. I am my own "I Am", the center and circumference of my universe. I have reclaimed the kingdom of my birthright. I have become my Pearl of Great Price. "In this Eternal Paradox is the Splendor." I hear the words spoken again from deep, deep within my being. In this moment of blissfully knowing who I truly am, my celebrating heart sings out:
I am all that I seek, All that I seek, I am. The form in the mirror Now merges with mine, My shadow and flesh now join, And I become not-two.
Now is the Now I've awaited. Now is Now crawls up my spine. Now is Now opens my heart, And my mind and my groin. Now is Now!
In me two rivers meet, Time and Eternity. What had always been separate, Dismembering me, Now join in common flow. And all that I seek, I am. I am all that I seek.
I flinch at the thud as the Dreamer's body strikes the Valley's stone floor, far below me. I watch the others gather round his still, crumpled form. Meriflur crouches over him, her lamenting cries and shrieks pierce my heart. Others kneel at his side, keening and moaning, twisting their voices and bodies with sobs, grieving as I do. Even the ubus soon hoot and whine. Then, as one, everyone hushes and looks up at me, the brightening morning sun glittering from their eyes. Are they angry with me? Do they blame me for his death? The women break into trilling calls of dreadful awe and the men resonate back with deep groaning tones. Their combined, reverberating cries rise up to me. After some moments, they stop and calls up to me. "Yason, the Spirit of the Dreamer is with you." The Jewel confirms this with strong pulsations inside my chest. Below, everyone in the Valley join their hands to touch their hearts and raises their offering palms up to me. "New Dreamer, Yason, we await you."
"Oh Jewel of Paradox Praise be, praise me. In you is sourced and solved All that is or could be,"
they chant in rich chorus. "New Dreamer, Yason, we await you. We await you," they sweetly call up to me in song.
Click on the chapters from the list on top left. Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2010 |
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