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I had no idea that you could walk to the end of the world.
Finally, after hours and hours of walking, Goodness came to me unreservedly.
The ground had turned soft and sandy. I felt how the earth was sinking into me. My eyes had had time to adjust to the brightness of her beauty. Now that I was in front of her, I realized that she had been visible throughout my journey. Too close to see at first.
The more I walked the brighter and more visible she became. She looks amazing, dressed stylishly in black, not a colour I had expected. A furrowed face reveals infinite layers of life that you can see in a single moment.
“Welcome home; the place you have never left.” Her voice is tender. Every word placed carefully into silence.
“You are so alive.” I didn’t mean to speak, but it’s what happens.
“Life’s aliveness shines through us vividly when we remain alive and die in the same moment.”
Her feet start moving. Just a little. The rest of her doesn’t move at all.
A beautiful maroon flower in her hair.
Two feathers.
Somewhere.
“Don’t you miss the other world?” Her brightness catches fire deep inside me. I know there is no way back. It’s nostalgia speaking: I fear losing what I thought I had.
“From this perspective there is no other world. All worlds are included. And yet this place is beyond every world. Your question comes from memory. You are now no longer bound by memory. But you may use your memory freely.”
She pulls a torch from her pocket, creates a circle of light around her and starts dancing. Funny faces. Funny movements.
“Join me.”
We dance.
“From now on you are no longer in experiences; you are in relationship.” This woman could be my grandmother. She could be my daughter. She could be my sister. Or brother. It starts heating up. She becomes my lover.
I cannot help saying it: “I think I’m beginning to love you.”
“I know,” she says. “When you become intimate with what is, Love’s face appears naturally. Irresistibly. From now on, everything with which you are in a relationship will be recognized as love.”
tagged: love connectedness movement dancing sun connectedness life beyond opposites
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 Photo: André Platteel
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I wake up in a mind that never sleeps. Colours. Forms. Me. It’s all still there; fresh but barely noticeable, even if you do your best to see the differences.
I make a cup of tea, enjoy the tree I can see through the windows, shower, dress and head to the bakery. Small streets with small shops. Not yet defeated by bigness. So quiet here, this morning. I look up and there she is, as always. She waves. I’ve never seen her up close, only there, up high.
The wind whips her grey hair into a late winter day. She’s wearing a nightie; a flowery pattern, I think. She throws something, it begins to snow and pigeons eat from the air. I wave back and duck: a reflex to avoid being hit by a bird blinded by hunger. She laughs, her right hand covering her mouth. From down here she looks like a lovely teenage girl. And I am sure she still is.
I buy some bread and choose another route back. It’s then I see that the neighbourhood bar has re-opened. Serious renovation work – nothing had been changed for four decades. I head in, order a freshly squeezed orange juice and pick up one of the newspapers they have. The bar feels even more authentic than before; not because it has changed a lot, but because the changes are barely noticeable. A big, long, wooden table. Five small tables down the right-hand side and, at the end, a wooden, oval one with a nice semi-circular wooden couch. Simple lamps. Posters announce festivals and plays. A long bar; metal and wood in one. It’s all still there. The owner is bald and warm and tired. Congratulations. Thanks. Orange juice.
A man at the other end of the long table is looking at me – has been for a while now. Tall man in a suit. Skinny. Braces. Not a businessman – suit’s too old, made at least thirty years ago, now unexpectedly back in fashion. He wears big glasses. Long, thin hair touches his shoulders at the back. I wait for the moment he’ll start to talk to me; meantime, my mind reads about everything and nothing.
“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” I hope the age-old cliché isn’t a chat-up line. He releases some cigarette smoke and my lungs fill with his exhalation. Through his mouth, into his lungs, back out again. A part of him is inside me now. I don’t know if I like that. I look at him. Nothing comes to mind. “You helped me some time ago. The supermarket bag. I live next door, high up.” He tells me his name and apologizes. He has had many names, he says, and he changes them quite often. When we met, probably a half year ago, he must have been called Marc, he says. The name doesn’t ring a bell, but carrying a supermarket bag up 12 small, steep flights of stairs certainly does.
It’s coming back to me: “Can you help me?” he had asked. “My hip’s just been operated on.” A man with long, dark hair. Army boots. Metal noises. Big belly. Long coat that looked heavy, its pockets filled with something substantial. The coat stretched out like a yoga student. Cigarette between lips; bag in hand. Yellow fingers and big glasses.
I’d agreed to help. As we walked up, the air became dryer the higher we went, the smell more intense. He had opened the door. A cat jumped and I could barely hold the bag, barely regain my balance. He had turned on the light, revealing a carpet covered in torn-out magazine pages. Lots of text and some images. I counted three other cats in two seconds. Heard my feet on the paper.
tagged: sun evolution consciousness falling mind form spirit
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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She was having difficulty breathing – the crises always came at night. She awoke and suddenly she knew what was going on: her dreams had shrunk. For days she had measured them while dreaming and she was sure of it. What, for weeks now, she had expected to happen, had happened: her dreams had become smaller.
In that particular dream, that particular night, she had heard a noise in her mind: the disturbing beginning of dreamtime. And despite being asleep, she was aware that the sound hadn’t come from outside; it had come from within the dream.
She followed the sound. She left the space she was in and stepped into a forest. The sound was doing strange things to her. Movements in her body like waves. Salt water. Foam. The sky hanging above the trees was heavy. Graphical. A dark Mondriaan. The trees tall, standing tight. No horizon, just tree upon tree with leaves like needles, trying to hurt.
As she walked, she felt her feet becoming light and the sensation of her body becoming white from the inside. Spacious, not weightless. And not empty either. The space within her grew. She felt the needle-like leaves gathering around her heart. “There is no longer any difference between outside and inside,” she thought. And knew that there had never been a difference between the two. And that knowing was not part of the dream.
She followed the sound; felt increasingly disorientated as she did so. She was getting lost, for sure. But the sound was too seductive to stop and turn back. She thought she was ready to lose everything. “Am I?” a voice asked.
The forest became darker, her insides whiter – and still she felt not the slightest difference between inside and out. Deeper in the forest she lost track of herself, just as the noise became louder. She had listened, carefully: the noise was close. She took silent steps so the sound would not move. Closer. About to catch it now. Hands in the form of a cup. Then the realisation that she has invaded her own heart. No entrance. Guided by leaves.
Awake. A dark room. Where’s the light switch?
The space is hot. Moist. Damp bodies. A woman scrubbing our flesh. Clay. I watch my small, dreaming girl. She stands in the middle. On one foot; swopping to the other every few seconds. The floor is too hot. The woman pours water over her head. Two feet now, to deal with the weight of the water. To soak her feet in. Her long blond hair hangs straight down, covering her face and breasts. Drops trace her body, all the way to her feet. Long feet. But small. Long body. Swan.
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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He knew he had to go. His feet felt light. He was losing ground.
That night he had prayed for a young man to come. In his prayer he had asked for someone he could teach his understanding to. He had not seen anyone for years. Most people don’t want to be in this hot, deserted land. He could see as far as his eyes could see without seeing anything but sand. And two mountains. But in the bright sunlight they seemed to be no more than a trick of perception. Away on the left and away on the right the mountains looked like two vague shadows staring out into the endless nothingness, the same nothingness that made him feel so full.
The two mountains were part of a legend. He had heard the legend many times, when people interested in knowing life still visited him. Although he had never seen the mountains up close, one mountain was said to have a big hole slightly above the middle and to the left. The other mountain was said to have vertical stripes as if it was divided into different parts.
The legend tells of a woman who had fallen in love with two men, brothers. The moment the brothers knew they loved the same woman, their love turned into hate. In the battle that followed, one of the brothers was wounded, slashed by a knife. Just before life left his body he managed to plunge his knife into the heart of the one whose blood he knew so well. Both brothers died and the woman cried so much that a river was created, connecting the two mountains. The river dried up long before he came to live there, more than fifty years ago.
He was making tea when someone knocked at the door. A young man. He asked him in and they walked to a small table with two chairs. The fire was on. At this time of year the desert was cold.
“It is said you can turn the two mountains into one,” the young man said by way of introduction, pointing through the window to the two vague mountains that seemed to be at the far end of an endless nothingness. The old man didn’t respond, not yet.
“I want you to show me how you do it. Here...” He opened his hand and showed the old man his money, all the money he had saved, probably taking years.
“Who are you to come into my house and to ask to trade my knowledge for money?”
“It is said that in making two mountains one, the mystery of life becomes known”, the young man continued.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I want to know life!”
tagged: wholeness understanding life desert sun
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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