I keep having this dream where I’m tied down by lengths of black rope. Not one, or a few, but countless numbers. In this dream, there is almost nothing but blackness all around, save for a light far above me. It shines down on my head and shoulders, but it’s all I can see at first.
As someone drawn to light, my first instinct is to reach “upward” towards it, to touch it, to become one with it. I try to reach outward with my arms, but they’re both bound by these ropes, and they can’t move at all. I begin to struggle, because no person wishes to be bound against their will.
I strain my muscles as hard as I can. Every fiber of my being is willing itself “upward,” trying to both break free of the bonds, and to reach up to touch the light. I MUST touch the light. I must touch it.
I strain, my nerves burning from the sheer stress of my forcing every erg of energy into them in order to push against my bondage. I began “pushing” so hard that it feels like my feet begin to catch fire. Then I look down and suddenly realize that my lower body is on fire.
Through the light of that fire, I can see more ropes, so bound, and so numerous that it almost looks like an obsidian blanket composed of nothing but ropes, crisscrossed, leading down and outward into the darkness, beyond what I can see even with the light from the flames.
More importantly, however, is that I am now aware of a weight upon me. It’s not just the weight of ropes, but something attached to those ropes. I am not the only one in the darkness. I am not alone.
I can still see the light above me, and I know that I must touch it.
I begin straining once more, pouring all of my will and heart into the attempt. I MUST touch the light. It is the calling of my soul. I know that to touch the light is to reunite with myself, because I am clearly outside of myself, at least the clarification makes itself known right then.
The strain is enormous, the pain intense. My lower half is now blazing, and I begin to scream with a righteous anger that tears my lungs apart. I feel them shred into a thousand pieces and force my entire mind to shift upwards. Harder, harder, harder I pull against myself, against the weight of the ropes, against the blackness below, and I focus my vision on the light. I MUST touch the light. I must touch the light. The ropes begin to dig into my flesh. I can feel them scrape and tear against my skin, there are deep grooves in my shoulders, in my chest, in my arms, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop, I have to touch the light. It is the entire purpose of my being, I must touch the light.
I look down, and my body has erupted into flame. All of it. I can see them licking my face now, and I can feel the heat burning away the skin, and the ropes digging deep into the muscle underneath. I start to cry out in pain, but there are no lungs to force the air into my throat and out. I am a beacon of fire. The apotheosis of love.
Something gives. The light is a centimeter closer. Did the light come “down” to me, or did I travel “upward” to it? “K’ala nostru kuvum,” I speak without a voice, as in a panic as I begin to feel the fire eat into my veins, edging ever closer to my vital organs. From that desperation I pull with everything that is, was, and ever will be inside of me. The light moves another centimeter closer. In my mind’s eye, I look at every heart I’ve ever loved, every mind I’ve ever heard, every voice I have witnessed speak, and in that moment I feel my body give out completely, but it does not matter.
For now I am fire.
I sense all of existence in that moment. I feel every weight from every rope that is bound to me, and so I rise, my body of fire casting infinite luminosity in all directions as I pull upward, and below I see tied to every rope is a human being, desperately holding on. It is then that I realize: these ropes are not bound as to hold me down, but to allow me to lift everyone below me upward.
I rise as fire, bringing with me all of humanity. All of humanity, so that we all may touch the light together.
We must touch the light.
—–
There is an image in my mind from that dream. I do not have the capability of drawing it, but it is well beyond that ability. I see it all of the time now. As I said before, I do not know where I am going, what path I am now on, but regardless of where it leads me; whether to ruin or to reconciliation with all things, I welcome it.