wonder if my memories are not an illusion, whether what I saw was really a rainbow or if it was something beyond my earthly, routine understanding—A celestial eyelid? A cosmic smile? Rainbows usually last for about ten minutes, then liquefy and melt back into the sky. This rainbow remained for nearly four hours. It was bright and vivid, with a distinct, palpable presence. From time to time it would fall apart into two smaller arcs, then merge back again into a large semicircle of colors, yet however it morphed, it refused to disappear. I was completely stunned by this heavenly sorcery. Was it real? Was it merely in my mind or was it really up there in the sky? I remember thinking, I don’t know you, but I know that I very much want to know you. The next day I found out I was with child.
Realizing that new life is developing inside oneself often goes hand-in-hand with the promise of spiritual growth. For many women there is a notion that they will experience elevated consciousness and will float among ethereal mists of wisdom and bliss. For me it was nothing like that. Not only did my inner path not elevate me, it made a sharp curve and brought me downward, inward, and deep into the instinctual core of my being, among raw impulses and primitive sensations. I couldn’t float. When my child was ready to meet me, he would be a perfect, primordial being of nature. If I was “up there,” in this promised ethereal bliss, how could I find him? How could I understand his needs, how could I protect him? No, what I had to do was not to expand spiritually upward, be blissful, float. What I had to do was to fold my spirit inward, return to the archaic core of my mind, and become a primordial being myself. It was the only way I could connect with the being to whom I was going to give birth.
In the next stage of my internal descent the newly emerged duality pulled the universe into two contrary directions and divided life into opposites. There were black and white, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, as well as countless other categories, which expressed reality with deep precision, enabling phenomena to be clearly understood. Each phenomenon now had shape and color, which gave it a complicated and distinctive character. Each object had a three-dimensional appearance and a predetermined location in space. Each object had substance and weight and stability. It was singular and unique, which made it desirable. Attachment emerged. The simple oppositions of the universe contracted back and interacted, creating countless shades. From the shades emerged the shadows. As a silent agreement between the day and the night, the shadows began to divide phenomena against themselves. I, too, had a shadow, therefore I was also divided against myself. Constantly accompanied by the presence of my shadow, I was never alone anymore. It held the dark and the unknown, my worries and my doubts. Fear emerged. Attachment and fear inspired me to develop and learn. Duality came to the rescue by turning into white paper with black letters. Knowledge emerged.
“This is Saint John’s Wort. He is stern and bitter. He is invaluable in helping you find your center. Saint John’s Wort’s tea has a golden color. If you have Saint John’s Wort in your house, you are rich."
“Nice to meet you!”
"Next to him are Oman Root, or Elecampane, and Marigold. They are extremely
successful at eliminating pestilence and evil invasions of all kinds. If you get attacked,
these are your most powerful allies."
“Hello!” They were being so charming now.
"Over here—you will often find them close to each other—are Hawthorn and Rose
Hips. Sometimes Dogwood sows itself next to them, too. Red-colored herbs appreciate
one another’s company and grow in the same area. Their tea has the color of sunset.
It strengthens the heart, infuses the body with vigor for the winter, and helps the mind
to let go of the summer."
“Really nice to meet you!”
"Below are the aromatic Pine, Rosemary, and Lavender. Their powerful aroma cleanses
the body and purifies the mind."
I couldn’t stop smiling. What amazing creatures! Interesting, colorful, and healing.
"You probably already know Chamomile. She is still popular among people and is
often present in their homes, but she’s not very trendy—they drink her tea only when
they don’t know what else to drink. Little do they know about her hidden powers."
“I see . . .”
"Over there is the Donkey Thorn, an exceptional persona. He loves seclusion and the
wind and through this special trait he helps people regain their confidence and strengthen
their spirit. And over there are our poisonous beauties—Belladonna and Lily of the Valley.
Belladonna can soothe even the strongest tremor, and Lily of the Valley dissolves
overwhelming grief."
I noticed that the impulses passing through the threads followed a seemingly chaotic but ultimately well-thought-out logic. I watched one accelerate toward the root of an old pine tree, then change direction, rush toward the spruce in front of me and interlace with its roots, then accelerate toward the roots of the ash tree in the far distance. It reminded me of a chatty gabber who eagerly jumped from one plant to another as if to tell each one of them something new, important, and interesting. The whole forest below me trembled with these many pulses of information, which were jumping from root to root, informing them but at the same time connecting them into a social group or plant community. What were they talking about?
What kind of information were they passing on to one another? What was so new to impart in this centuries-old pine forest that smelled of mushrooms and serenity?
With an extraterrestrial appearance as if it had fallen from the sky instead of belonging to the
mountain rocks, the creature looked at me with intelligence and understanding. Without
ceasing to chew, it turned around and disappeared back into the dust. The meeting was
strange and pleasant, and just when I thought that it was over, not one but two shapes
emerged from the dust. It was my former companion along with an escort; it had the same
charming alien look but was twice the size. The escort was also chewing. Both beings—the
big and the small—were looking at me with scientific curiosity.
"This is my mother," said the little one.
"Yes, she looks unwell," said the mother with competence, though it was not clear to
whom she was speaking. "What happened to you?"
“Nothing,” I said. “Maybe that is the problem—I didn’t do anything specific and
meaningful, and with this doing of nothing I completely forgot to eat. I realized this
only after I felt very hungry, empty, and exhausted.”
"Aimless wandering in the outer world, as well as in the inner, leads to oblivion. You
forget to eat, you forget to think, finally you forget where you were going. You lose
your purpose. And when you lose your purpose, you lose time."
“I think I lost time a while ago when I was falling down a vertical.”
"You need to go back in time, because time will restore your purpose. Purpose and time
go hand in hand."
“Why do I need a purpose?”
"You need purpose to return to the path. Each path starts with a purpose. The path and
the purpose go hand in hand.
“Why do I need a path?”
"To find out who you are."
“Why do I need to know who I am?”
"So that you’ll never be hungry again."
He stopped, then turned abruptly. Others like him were beginning to appear from out of
nowhere. Each one of them—beautiful, dignified, and stern—looked at me disapprovingly
with one eye. I felt I had to keep talking.
“Look, I fell down a vertical. It happened very quickly, it was very confusing. I think something happened then, because when I stopped descending, time was gone. I wandered aimlessly and timelessly through forests and meadows. But, you see, when there is no time, there is oblivion, and in short, I forgot that I am. I was continuously looking outside of myself with interest and curiosity, but on the inside I was becoming increasingly empty. Hunger was eating away at my body and my soul. It was a good thing that I met the Healer. She diagnosed me and gave me medicine. Then she gave me instructions on how to heal—by finding you and getting back into time.”
"She looks serious. And normal." The voice was haughty, with a hint of aristocracy.
"I’m not sure. Maybe she’s a little demented," said a similar-sounding voice.
"She may be a little demented, but on the whole she seems normal," said the first again.
"Do you know what will happen when we activate time?" the first one with the jeering tail asked me.
"Do you know what?" repeated the second.
"Do you know what?" repeated the third.
“Yes, I know! I will find purpose, which will put me on a path. This path will take me to myself. If I know who I am, I will always be safe!”
"It’s not certain that it will happen like that. How it will happen depends on you alone, said the first. But do you know what else will happen when we activate time?"
"Do you know . . . ?" repeated the second.
"Do you know?!" repeated the third.
“That’s basically all I know,” I said anxiously. Things had only just turned in my favor and now they seemed to be slipping away from me again.
"When you enter time, you will get a purpose and get on a path, and together they will help you attain awareness," said the first. "You will start feeling meaningful and important. This will give you a feeling of heaviness. However, this feeling of heaviness is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it will make you feel meaningful, but on the other, it will deceive you."
"It will deceive you into believing that the world revolves around only you, that the world owes you favors, that it is responsible for your ignorance," said the second. "You will become proud and begin to take everything personally. You will believe that you are exceptional and unique, and that everything happens to you only."
“What is this ‘heaviness’? The Healer said nothing about it!” I asked, a little disappointed.
"The path and the purpose bring about awareness, but awareness creates the feeling of heaviness."
"This is an integral part of time. Those who live outside of time do not have awareness and the illusion of heaviness, but those who live inside time do."
“How can I overcome this heaviness?”
"It exists by means of the past and the future. It cannot live beyond time. In timelessness, nothing can have roots, thus there it will fade away and disappear. The past and the future, however, are very intoxicating. They will always draw your thoughts to themselves. On the outside you will appear solid, heavy, and static, but on the inside, you will constantly be wandering. This is the problem with time—it turns you into an endless inner wanderer. Even if you manage to stop for a while and stay in your inner timelessness, it will only be fleeting. The past or the future will quickly pull you back to themselves."
"So think about whether you really want to reenter time."
"Think . . ."
"Think!"
"Lady, you look like you’re searching for something and I know exactly what that is!" he said in a deep, resonant voice. His nose was big and round, his forehead sweaty, and his belly so large that he seemed to have to gasp for air each time he spoke.
“You do?” I asked, surprised.
"Yes, I do! I have exactly what you are looking for!"
“What is it?”
"Poison!" he said with a wide, smug smile as he proudly pointed to the goods in his stall. "We have all kinds of poison here. There are the weaker ones—the red and the white. And here are the more concentrated ones, which are clearer in color—they burn wonderfully as they pass down the throat and make their way down into the stomach. I highly recommend them!"
“You drink poison?!”
He was stunned by my question. Even offended.
"Yes of course! It is part of what makes human nature so sophisticated. For example, the red and white, lighter poisons are an object of supreme spiritual and palatal pleasure, something for which many people will pay thousands of dollars. They are kept in special barrels, and the barrels in special cellars—everything is very special. The more expensive poisons are often treated to a sensory examination and evaluation in which the poison is shaken, sniffed, sipped, and then spit out—a very sophisticated event."
“And where do you get this poison from?”
"Oh, we’ make it ourselves!"
“How?”
"In the most special way! We take old fruits and leave them to out to rot. Once they are nice and rotten—they start smelling foul—that’s when we know that the poison is ready. The people whose fruits stink the most, their poison comes out the best, and we all envy them."
“But when you drink poison, don’t you poison yourself?”
"Yes of course!” he said cheerfully. “We very often vomit or pass out. The next day our body feels heavy, our head hurts so much that we get nauseous, and our eyes and minds are cloudy.
“How, then, do you treat that?”
"With more poison!" he said even more cheerfully.
“I think this major here is a major with purpose,” I said while reading through the description of the major. She looked at the explanatory text I pointed out to her.
"This is a wonderful major! With purpose! With this you will quickly rise to the heights of society!"
“What do you mean by that?”
"You will quickly climb the corporate ladder!"
I felt like I understood absolutely nothing.
“How do we know that we are rising in society?”
She continued the conversation patiently, but ambitiously.
"From the chairs."
“From what?” I asked, incredulous.
"From the chairs! First you start off sitting on rusty, edgy, and uncomfortable chairs that leave imprints on your behind. Then you move to more rounded chairs covering your entire lower area, from which nothing hangs or sticks out anymore. The next step are chairs that simultaneously cover the whole lower area and at the same time have a backrest, and when you lean back in just a certain way, you look like a real boss! From there, it becomes really exciting: You start sitting on chairs that vibrate to keep you fresh, then on chairs that are filled with goose feathers for extra softness—in those you sink down easily and mainly sleep—then on chairs that sing so that you don’t feel lonely, then on chairs that speak—mainly in compliments—and finally there are the chairs that clean your ears and brush your teeth! If you have such a chair, you have really succeeded. Then you have truly found your purpose!"
“This sounds great!” I said with a pounding heart.
"We have to leave now because there is no time!"
There is no time . . .
There is no time . . .
There is no time . . .
The same words again. Ever since I entered time, I’d’ been hearing the phrase “There
is no time” and trying to figure out what it meant. Whatever I did, those words kept coming
back to me in one way or another, unresolved and unintelligible. What did they want to tell
me? Why didn’t they leave me alone? Why did they follow me everywhere? Why did they
always appear in my life just when I was gaining rhythm and stability?
And then I realized. . . . I stood in disbelief as I processed this new comprehension
through every cell of my body. “There is no time” does not mean that we should constantly
be in a hurry, checking off our obligations and urgently pursuing our goals. No. “There is no
time” literally means that there is no time! Time is a necessary part of our growth, but
eventually we go back to the great timelessness from which we came. The difference is that if
we have managed to use that experience correctly, and accomplish its true purpose, we will
return to the timelessness with a sense of realization and meaningfulness. Time does indeed
give us purpose, but that purpose is not to pursue social heights and to change chairs, but to
know ourselves. This is the role of time and the role of the purpose: to help us become aware
of who we are.
Death, a helper of Purpose and Time, also works tirelessly to guide us. Her role has
never been to terrify or harass us, but to shake us from the endless trance we get into
whenever we get lost in time. Patient and tireless Death is there to remind us that as by
continuing to wander in past and future, in memories, theatric roles, and hope, we get farther
and farther away from the precious opportunity to reach the highest realization, namely to
realize who we are within. Patiently and compassionately Death points to the core of our
being, reminding us that we have gotten lost, that we have wandered for too long, and that it
is time to stop, quiet down, and change direction. Together, Death, Purpose, and Time
stubbornly and insistently invited us to enter into ourselves and understand who we are on the
inside. The inside, without the outer…
A Dragon’s Life
***
“Good evening! Or rather… good night! What are you doing under our tree?”
“I’m not feeling well!” whined the dragon. He sounded like a wounded puppy.
“See?! He’s not well, Vihren! I was right! You need to listen to me more! I know stuff!”
“But what’s wrong with you?” Vihren asked the dragon, ignoring his brother.
“I’m wounded. One of my wings hurts a lot and I can’t even move it,” cried the dragon.
“What happened?”
“I was attacked by Ignorance.… Now I am wounded and confused. I keep limping back and forth like an elephant in a china shop, breaking everything around me.”
“What is this Ignorance? Another dragon?”
“It’s not a dragon, but I don’t know what it is.… It can’t be seen, because it stays hidden in whomever it attacks.”
“And what does this Ignorance want?”
“Like any villain, it wants to rule. Very often it sends some of its children first to take
away your strength so that when it attacks you, you won’t be able to fight back.”
“Who are these children of Ignorance?”
Untamed Fire
***
“Who are you?”
“I′m a nymph. I live in the school for nymphs in the hornbeam forest. It is very close. You
follow this path, which will take you up to a meadow with a forest stream.”
“I know this meadow, there is an abandoned hut!”
“That is our school! Every night we nymphs gather on the meadow near the hut and
dance. We learn all kinds of dances—whirlwind, stormy, thundery, windy—with over forty
different beats! The best students dance in front, the others stand behind and watch, and
then it’s their turn. I always stand at the back. Our teachers fly back and forth constantly
between the ranks, correcting our steps. They are very strict.”
The girl cleared the snow from her face and continued:
“And you? Are you nymphs? Can you dance? Or fly?”
“Not exactly,” said Yane, “but it certainly sounds like a great adventure to go to nymph
school.”
The girl stared pensively at the snow.
“Yes… sure… it′s really wonderful… The dance steps are very special, the discipline is really
strict, you have to listen and repeat a lot, memorize quickly…”
Then her face lit up again.
“But I′m almost done! When winter starts packing up to leave, and the first spring winds
start blowing, I′ll be done! And then they will send me to some prestigious forest, where I
will start living a lofty nymph life! I just have to pass the last exams… One of them is a fairy
dance. It is very difficult, and I can′t remember the steps at all… On top of everything, the
instructors are very angry with me! The other day I was racing with a group of wild piglets
and while running I fell and tore my skirt. They were scolding me a lot… Do you want some
rose hips?”
Storm and Adventure
***
“Oh no! Oh no!” shouted the nettle in panic, “It's starting to soak into my roots!”
“Stop complaining! Look, I'm all soaked in this filth!” hiccupped the St. John's Wort.
“No, friends, we shouldn't fight,” reassured them the rosehip, “We are united meadow!
Look, the two legged are back!”
“We brought the spores!” Yane and Vihren appeared panting from the forest. They went to
the herald bee, who was standing in the shade under a daisy, and happily shook the bucket
in front of it.
“That's gooooooood. But! Weeeeeee have a problem.”
“There can’t be a problem! We have the spores!”
“There stiiiiiiiiil is a problem. The spores will take a long time to seed, and once seeded, they
must be thoroughly watered. This will take soooooo much longer. And there is no such time.”
“No such time! No, there is no time!” shouted the nettle.
“No time, no time,” grumbled the St. John's Wort with a frown.
“How are we going to solve this problem?” asked Yane.
“We neeeeeeeeeeeeed you to fly.”
“To what?!”
“To flyyyyyyyy. I've already spoken to the spider-tour operator at the aspens. He'll arrange
it.”
