To my fellow acquaintances—thе living

Contents:

Part One: The Vertical

The Folding of Spirit

Part Two: The Horizontal

The Call of the Herbs

The Physiology of the Matrix

The Healer

The Time Knitters

The Half-Human

The Human

The World of the Gods

The Teacher

The Eye of the Storm: An Experience of a Student

The Living

The Awakening

This story begins with a rainbow. However, this was no ordinary rainbow. Today I even

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.

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.

“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."