The Home and The Heart, part IX

Chapter IX

Post Tenebras, Lux

I am reborn.  I have come through. 

When I was born the first time, the first child, the daughter, I was named after the full moon.  And today, as then, I am bathed in light.

From the bottomless labyrinth of the deepest despair, I have risen.  I have crept and I have crawled and I have climbed, and climbed till I could breathe no more, and I see the sun now.

There was that time, and a dreadful time it was, when I did not even dream.  I was in the darkest valley one could scarce imagine, and I was all alone.  I did not know how I had fallen, and how I would rise again.  They had broken my back and my ribs, and they had put daggers into me.  I had bled in cascades to within a whisper of death.

I was parched and not a drop of water did I find.  My tongue and my lips had become heavy with salt.  I could hear nothing but strange sounds of creatures I had never seen or known of.  In that dreamless dark night, I floated endlessly.  I tried to hold on to something, anything, that could bear my mass, but there was nothing.  I felt weightless, emotionless, thoughtless.  That world was empty, and endless, and without relief.

But the faint embers of my life had not totally extinguished.  They pulsed with the little drops of blood that were left in my broken frame.  My heart was beating, ever so feebly, with little to flow in my veins.  With only one hand, my left, I tried to pour the elixir of hope on those embers.  But there was no hope left in me.

As night flowed into endless night, I saw, or did I dream? a distant light.  A faint light it was, but it was there.  That soothing light made the infinite darkness seem less frightful.

That light was not unfamiliar, but I did not recognize it fully then.

Was this the light that I had seen eons ago?  Its memory seemed buried in a far corner of my being.  Was this the light around which I had circled one day? It was that, wasn’t it?

I was tired beyond my limits.  I wanted to just sleep forever, but that light!  That light danced and that light came closer and caressed my shattered limbs.  As I slipped into slumber, toward eternal sleep, that light gently shook me again into wakefulness.

That light became my hope.  If there was this light, this darkness surely was not endless, it had its end.  It was not infinite, as it had seemed.

As I, with effortless effort, rose from my tired slumber, the light entered me and lit me from within.  I held it, or did it hold me I wonder.  I would not let it go now.  I treasured it, nourished it, and made it my most precious friend.

My fears and pains were there still, but that radiance made them bearable.  I breathed in the air around me.  With that light in me, the air was no longer a stranger.  I could not speak, nor was there another soul to hear my silence.  But that light within my being told me that I was not alone.

It told me that I had many dreams to dream, that I had many mountains yet to see, that many swans and seagulls were waiting for me in their oceans.  That I was again going to kiss that red sparrow in my orchid that used to prance near my feet. That what was broken could be made whole again.  

But I had to follow the light and not get lost again.

As I let that light be my guide, it gave me strength and hope.  I thought my journey toward the sun was going to be eternal, but the light whispered to me that it wasn’t.  That only if I did not give up, only if I kept walking through my despair, I would find that my despair was not my master.  That I would overcome it.

And through many strange mazes and tunnels and doorways did I pass.  And I kept on.  Resolute, hopeful, fearful, I kept on.

As I emerged into the light of the sun and fulfilled my destiny, I realized, with bliss, what that inner light was.  The light of the sun was much grander, and astonishing to behold, but my own light inside of me was its part.

The light of the sun and the light within me had become one.  They merged, and showed me that I was that light.

That light was love. 

Because I had found and cherished love in my heart, I was able to see love beyond me.  And that love, within and without, was me.  

I had become love.  I was love.  I am love.  

My glow, which isn't only mine anymore, is the absolute utter and pure benediction of life.

My journey from darkness to light doesn't end here, as my journey in light has just begun.  The mountains and the oceans await me.  As it once was, so it shall be again, that I shall be true to my name, and I shall take my ancient place with the stars.

I stretch my arms and my love expands to all that is visible and invisible.  I was adrift, and now I am home.  And my home and my heart are one.

I bless all those who are lost, and those who are on their journey.  May all those who drift into darkness find their light again.  May their hearts be home.

ॐ असतोमा सद्गमय । Lead us from the unreal to the real
तमसोमा ज्योतिर्गमय । Lead us from darkness to light
मृत्योर्मामृतं गमय ।। Lead us from death to deathlessness
ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः ।।  May there be peace in all

The End