Mother-Father — © aRA Miles

www.aramiles.com

Mother/Father

— © aRA Miles 2005

Last night I dreamt of Mother/Father.

I was in a huge, cavernous place. It was strange but very beautiful. Come to think of it, now that I am conscious and have access to the library of my book infested mind, I see this mansion was a magnificent combination of images I've treasured from Bilbo's home in "The Lord of the Rings," and from Lothlorien, the home of the woodland elves.

I found my way into these halls of wonder from within the hollowed base of a huge old cedar rotting into the curve of a mountainside cliff by the sea. Blackberries in profusion covered the entrance. The cedar grew upwards like a woman arched back in love. The cliff was barren rock; not even moss grew. At the foot of the cedar, centuries of needle mulch and acidic loam buried roots, yet still blackberries climbed the barren rock and craggy bark, pregnant with ripeness. I was following vines around the tree, plucking and eating, and saw something, felt something pull me from deep inside the tree’s empty darkness. Wondering, I parted berry ridden curtains with berry stained hands, and clawed my way inside. Blackberry's revenge has fanged teeth. I was already bleeding. I was driven.

Dark root tendrils dripping dirt and cloying spiders almost stopped me. But then there was a door.

I can’t describe the way the rooms went on and on, or how they how they linked and flowed into each other; I wandering like a child within a maze. All of them had windows and the windows were circular prisms of living light. Stained glass? No. I don't know where the light was coming from because those windows were clustered prisms, each filled with glowing light. Maybe the light came down long, open shafts of stone behind the windows, or maybe some of the windows opened onto the open sea. It was a huge place, and wound ‘round and ‘round, deep into the mountain. And everywhere prismatic windows cast all colors of the rainbow, playing in kaleidoscopic dance, emulsifying everything in soft and vibrant light and singing space into the breathing air.

Everything was made of wood or stone and metal. Sturdy wooden chairs and tables created a variety of spaces to sit and talk or meditate, or share in circle, to eat and read, dance and play, or simply, quietly be. Curving wooden benches leaned gracefully upwards from roughly cut stone floors, merging into curving, carved stone walls. And every piece of wood reflected light; highly polished cedar carved from trunk and limb and twisted driftwood roots. Rugs of skin; sheep and goat and tiger, lion and panther and antelope, graced floors and walls and cozy, bench filled corners. The skulls of many creatures were embedded into stone work corridors, and set into the walls of every room. Their eyes were filled with crystals singing songs I almost heard. Candles burned everywhere, some on stands of molten wax ten feet high. Mushrooms of every variety bloomed in carven driftwood boxes nestled in shady nooks.

Certain rooms contained ceiling racks festooned with drying herbs and flowers, wooden tables and benches for eating, cupboards filled with pottery, pots and pans and spoons hanging on hooks; knives arrayed on pegs near chopping blocks, and mortars and pestles left neatly on huge, stone slab counters. Wooden shelves held glass jars of dried beans, grains, and canned meat. Deep wooden bins stored root crops and dried nuts, and carved deep into the stone walls, ventilated cupboards kept greens and fruit fresh. Fireplaces in these rooms were fitted with iron racks and grills, and kettles and stew pots simmered gently on the hearths. Big wooden bowls arranged with buns and bread and apples, and vases full of living flowers graced tables and counter tops. The combined aromas brought me to my knees. Trust and welcome rushed me back onto my feet again; singing, dancing, arms outstretched and body flowing on into the next, and then the next room, and the next horizon after that. Little corners caught me sometimes and I collapsed awhile in quietude, serenely home. And all alone.

Not a soul was home in any room or hallway. And yet I was so much at home, so welcomed.

I came into a town sized square, and this was very rare for this place was made of hemi-spheres and circles.

The floor was stone, but not carved stone; huge stone tiles set in deep black mortar. And every tile appeared to be a smooth cut slab culled from a different kind of rock; the variety of color was subtle and astounding, and arranged somehow to always draw the eye inwards, to the center of the room. The entire floor was gleaming, as if fresh wet by water or polished with wax. In the centre of the square stood a huge clear quartz crystal, its sheer, high sides emblazoned with carven words. The ceiling was timbered with massive, burnished log beams and rose high and dim, far above the rudely cut stone walls. Shoulder high, all around the walls rose cedar wooden panels, finely cut, highly polished, full of sunset subdued hues.

I was pulled towards the crystal; I flowed around its sides. The square was dark, lit only by crystalline soft glow. The words inscribed on every crystal side blazed with gentle golden light.

“All creatures come to life

awaiting,

destined to give essence into life

and enter timelessness.

So be it.

We give reverence to all form.

For we are fed and always re-created

by everlasting, ever changing life!

May spirit essence always be here with us.

May we become what we are given.

When Self walks into arrow, knife and fork,

or offers utterance to hoe and spoon;

when fire emblazons core code into living light

and so delivers nutrition to the soul,

we give gratitude.

For we are made of

and become

All Our Relations.”

I read these words. I bowed with head against the floor. There were offerings on an altar of ragged smoky quartz around the crystal pillar. I ate and drank. I felt deer and elk and carrot, bean and rye, black rice, kale and calendula enter my very cells and give me life.

At the center of one wall the panels opened, and I followed, and I trembled.

A massive wooden door swung silently aside and I stood in the presence of huge vaulted windows. An immense cathedral in hand crafted stone and wood spread before me, filled with light and people, filled with power. No stained glass here. No symbols. Just shear crystal slabs embedded in deep framed vaults twenty-five feet wide, filled with light, and wedged like the pieces of a pie into a ceiling of a massive proportions, in a circular, dome shaped arena.

I crept out into the streaming light, out amongst the teaming tiers of people. Huge oaken beams supported the arched, crystal laden ceiling glowing high, high above me. Stone steps led up from the doorway and onto a vast, open, gleaming wooden floor. The walls were polished wood and up against them rose layer upon layer of circular benches and high balconies. Four high stone alters held objects so filled with multi-spectrummed light I couldn’t resolve their shapes. The high windows leaned towards the altars and re-fractured light played rainbows in the effervescent air.

Silently I found a seat amongst the people, and watched while they watched, waiting, silent.

He stood in the center, white haired and bearded; old. He merely stood.

Tier upon tier the audience waited. No one made a sound. Wood laden stone expounded profound silence.

He was amazing, awesome, a mighty wizard, a glorious cosmic technician. He stood alone in the midst of that solid, solitary floor, a quiet old man filled with power.

Slowly, gracefully, he moved in ceremonial dance. He bowed in this direction and then another; he touched places we couldn't see, but when he touched them, light happened. We could see the light. Wondrous, refracted, prism ignited living light. When he touched it, on altars made of shining wood and cresting, ragged stone, light sang. Multifaceted song in all octaves! We shouted. We roared We leapt up from our seats, hands raised towards the rafters.

We laughed and we hollered; we followed his every whim. He’s a white haired old jackdaw, human or half human papa acting out rituals that gave us space to sing! And we sang like a choir of angels, and we sang with our hearts almost bursting with joy. In circle after circle of seats climbing up from his enclave, hanging from the banisters of the uppermost galleries, we sang and shouted and became wild with glory. And he lowered his arms and silenced his fingers, an old man alone, waiting. Our applause rose and crested, blundering against walls and rafters like a torrent; and still we applauded, wanting more, pulsating the demand for more like a tsunami hitting land fall.

Eventually he lifted his eyes again towards us, and turning, turning, looked deeply into each of our eyes until we silenced and sat down.

Raising his hands, palms up, he stood as if waiting to receive us, and lifting his voice, spoke.

“For long and long and long have I ushered you into the arms of Selfdom, bringing you home in DreamTime. In dreams you come a seeking and the gates await you, beckoning welcome. The Mother waits with open arms and her larders are full and her caldrons and kettles simmer, ready. The creatures of this land walk willingly into our gardens and give of themselves for your nourishment; the vegetables and plants here celebrate their singularity of intent, for they are destined to ignite your hearts. And you come and you feast and you dance in the light I offer. I give you light threaded with life, woven with the very stuff of Source itSelf. Womb of the Mother, the Black Velvet Void fills these halls and creates spaces for living light to ignite out of nothing. When you are here, you are empty of your human schemes, freed from everyday restraints that bind your souls when you awaken. The Mother regenerates you, cleanses you, nourishes you, and I, I AM Ignition!”

“Father,” we cried, rising in swells to our feet again, howling our adoration.

And again he stilled us.

"I have shown you," he said, "I have shown you time and time again. The force comes from within, the Source is only found within. Self is vast and endless. Self is Source. Source moves from within me; Source moves in you. Go now and remember. Awaken and remember. Look within and find yourSelf. These gates will close now and they will only open when you return as walking allSelf. You can remember. I have shown you. I have plucked the very fibers of your souls. I have played new chords within your beings until you opened and flowed as one with Source. And now you want more. And all the more there is to find, can only be found within you. Go. Go. And REMEMBER!

We hollered our rejection. We screamed in rage and fear. "No, no, we will not go!" The stomping thunder of our feet made it sound as if the walls were tumbling down.

And light faded from the windows, from the walls, from the sculpted wood and stone cragged altars, and on the altars there was nothing. Nothing at all. And we cried and wailed. "Bring back the light, bring back the light!" A dim tide of swirling nothing obscured him from our eyes. Rising from our seats we flooded towards the floor, vengeance and raw need snaking out like claws from within our grasping fingers.

I rushed towards him with the others, and I cried and pleaded with his eyes.

And suddenly I was him. And I knew to push them back, to push them out; out and away with tides of power.

He raised his hands and lightning leapt across that cavernous cathedral. He turned and turned and lightning rang around the room, full spectrum, vibrant, living color, sheathed by pulsating darkness.

And still they swarmed, rushing at him as if to crush his power.

And I was he, and knew with vast and endless inner knowing exactly where the answer lies. Self is found in formless, formic darkness. I towered in mySelf and began to hurl the darkness as ribbons of whirling, vibrant nothing. Ricocheting multi-spectrummed light hummed in layered, lashing longing to escape the darkness, and simultaneously be consumed.

And I was she, his wife, his darling, his beloved. I could not bear to feel the people suffer so. I raised my hands, and falling to my knees cried out with clarion call, "Let them be, let them be; they know not what they do!" And I sank against the floor, a withered thing, a wasted hope, a whispered cry, and they trampled over me to crush him.

And I was he, and I washed them back against themSelves with whirling chaos, till they fled in terror, rushing for the arches, howling down the halls beneath the mountain, streaming out into the forest and drifting far away.

And I was she, and I was crying. "How can you do this? They cannot live without you!" Sinking back upon the floor, a wounded, half dead thing.

And he came and bent above me, stroked my hair. "I have transmitted potent, endless longing for SourceSelf oneness. Now I AM Self remains within, core linked to end, beginning and All that IS. Bodied self can and will remember how to look for Source within the inner core." He stood again, tall like a warrior before the jaws of a primeval forest, and his body sang with light. I was dead leaves lost on forest floor, and wind howled, wailing. And I and I wept in oneness, and our tears fragmented self lamenting, like icy rain on barren glacier.

I couldn’t bear the pain.

Suddenly, I was no longer he nor she. I was daughter. And he appeared to be so softly loving, sheathed by and glowing from within as gentle penetrating grace full of power. And she, she was nothing but the whimpering, whispered, wailing of self denied of Self, lost and losing even the will to live. I knew she could not die, he would not let her, and yet she would not let him touch the jewel, the inner flower of her most sacred longings to simply and only be herSelf.

So I strode across the floor and through the arches, wind in my hair and my limbs long, and I marched with head held high and eyes alight till I had reached and closed and barred all doors and windows, and the house with its endless halls became sweet home; quiet, simple haven of soft twilight.

In a quiet kitchen, by the hearth we met, the three of us; I and I and I, and listened. I could hear the masses howling in some far distance, feel surging need and longing flail within their breasts. They would return. They would run and run and beat and bat at him, and at I and I; looking, searching, grasping for light outside of Self.

He bowed his head. He said, "They do not want to listen."

She stood, and reached her hands up, up, and up. Like a child she whimpered, plaintive longing. "How can I find the way when no one else will show me?" And I was she, and no… I do not know… Lost child.

Wandering in the forest, alone; picking berries as I followed sunset trails. And I remembered coming here, and I remembered where I AM.

I stood, knees flexed, thighs open, feet firmly planted, and regarded her with wonderment. "How can it be you do not know?" I cried. She leaned helplessly against me and he held us both within his arms.

"I will shield us all," I said, my long beard swinging, and I turned and touched the matrixed nodes of power within the darkness. Something coming out of nothing, undulating darkness, ignition spark creation MOVED… and shimmered in echo-chambered waves receding far beyond the confines of the room.

I fell upon my trembling knees, my long hair falling. "Must we start all over again?" And he said, "Beloved, mother, sister, the other half of me. We have erred. We sought to show them, and in return they thought to see a source outside of Self." And I gazed into his eyes and I remembered, and I remembered, and I looked up and saw my daughter dancing; sweeping herSelf up from the very roots of mountain into peaks amongst the clouds. And I fell upon my knees in sorrow and sadness while my daughter danced the song of Mama Sun Within. "I've been trying to draw down the light," I cried. My bosom heaved, feeling the full futility of all my actions.

I stood still, my hands quiet, my old white eye-brows silent, and I waited, watching my beloved mother crumple, collapse upon the floor in deep surrender, and bleed. And I stood watching daughterSelf dancing and finding knowing within herSelf. Beneath our feet the magma rumbled and broke free. My head fell back in orgasm.

Mother roiled on the floor and clutched her gut.

And I danced, thighs open, hands dripping with the sap of light from dipping deep into black stone and darkness, the fire from within me opening, opening in mySelf as rivers; pelvis open, womb ready, WombSong/WomanSelf and EarthSelf beneath my feet. Oneness with galactic tide. Up, up through the core of me, from the core of AllSelf, from EarthCore, came the rushing flood, and I, as Self, ignited my own body.

Let there be Light.

"Blessed be She Who Remembers," said Mother.

"Blessed be She Who Is Self," said Father.

And so the Words were spoken, and I took his hand and he took mine, and I and I, we turned to I, and I stood.

"Mother," he said, hushed and awing.

"Mother, " I whispered, humbled, blest.

Earth flamed.

She lay down like a child, and slept.

We fumigated about her, not knowing. Silly woman. To sleep now!

Fire from within roared in all directions, but here where we stood flame was light. We looked upon her and the darkness whispered, and we felt and saw and knew: Ah, while she sleeps the womb is open. Creation’s waiting; Self’s at home. We smiled. And in her sleep she smiled with us. And father said, "They are out there waiting, wanting, coming. And I said, "I will go and see."

Out into the darkness, I, as daughter, ISelf wandered, singing.

"Three spells have I," I sang, skipping like a child in spring. I ran with wind in hair and light in eyes, running down the mountain and out into the forest; I ran in a great circle all around the mountain and down into the sea.

And so was the first circle drawn, and closed. My father so willed it. She was sleeping. His hand was on her womb. I was alone in swirling darkness, mist like ribbons of memory hinting presence in black nothingness. I ran from gate to gate, path to path; the forest was my friend and so allowed me. I ran between the waves and through the waves and the sea was with me. And as I ran, the circle built itSelf in power and cloaked the mountain.

Out of nowhere they came, surging at the gates, smashing through the brambles and the forest, and every time they touched the shield wall, father willed, "No more." His hand was on her breast now while his fingers played the nodes. Darkness sang. I was free to watch and know in total safety. They came and came and supplicated, crying from outside dark shimmering walls of energy. His will was strong. She slept, and in her lips he placed his finger tips. They cursed, they screamed. She brought his fingers down into her womb. Grief’s wailing reached crescendo.

“Motherwell,” I cried, “we die out here!”

He thrust himself inside her.

And I became the inner eye inside her womb. I was nothing, nowhere; emptiness becoming.

Awash in rivers of nothingness, stars sliding by, galaxies dancing, and I becoming something, someone. I was ushered through the velvet and the void moved me with intent. Gates of flesh opened and I became I and I again. Flesh has its boundaries and form has shape. The arms of Self form living crucibles for smelting nothing.

He held her and she held him. And I was both of them and neither, for they are not the same. They strive against each other, they strive within each other, and within me Mother/Father strive unceasingly.

And I saw his will move in intention to build three shields walls against the surging need of lost humanity.

So I ran for him and was exhilarated; ecstasy sang in my blood. I ran a second circle around the mountain's rising slopes. The circle closed, and I could no longer hear them crying.

My body became the mist, my feet became my wings. I was a ribbon of darkness and I swirled and swept around the mountain's breasts. Silence followed me, and darkness. Nothing moved. The third circle closed. Beyond its confines the forest no longer existed; the sea was gone into nothingness. Within this inner circle, stars sang, and moss and bud and leaf streamed living, gentle light.

Quieter now, I came at last to great oaken doors set into the summit of the mountain. One here, one there; one for each direction. And how long have they been here, hidden? From each one there streamed the golden glow of firelight. I remembered all the gates all around the mountain’s feet, gates the people knew well, gates made of icons, offerings, symbols, and Belief. And he had closed these gates and now they led to nowhere. I remembered the hidden door I'd found beneath the cedar tree, and with certitude, knew it to be but only one of many secret, unmarked entrances.

It seemed I'd always been at oneness with this mountain. I'd sang and danced within its living inner light forever. And yet I remembered coming from the outside, wandering, looking, finding; alone and open, following I knew not what.

Sadness like a cloak of silver satin settled on my shoulders. I stood at the western door and was bathed in its light, warmed in the glow it cast on mossy slopes and quiet bushes. I shuddered. Somehow I knew, and yet knowing, I could do nothing. Who's out there? Who's calling? There was no sound. Simply, I must be mistaken. Slowly, with caution like a mother's hands on my own heart, I walked through the door. Within, all was gentle light and the light was all colors, and everywhere light danced its rainbow song of being, and yet darkness also sang and had its presence, so that light and dark mingled like sunlight on raven black blue hair.

Somehow time passed and rooms passed and all was safe and all was well, for I was home at last.

And I looked out from within the doorway, and no light fell now upon the mosses, and the blackberries were hidden in absolute darkness, though the door was still open wide. My heart stopped a moment. I was lost, and yet I was home. How does the light end? What stops it? Does it stop? Tentatively I pushed one foot through the doorway, one hand. My extremities turned into nothing. Me, here inside. Nothing outside at all. Then I knew fear. For the first time since coming home again, having been here forever, I remembered fear. I remembered again the others. I knew again their anger, their need; knew their grasping, their clutching, shoving and smashing to be manifestations of raw fear. I stood inside the light. Yet part of me was lost in darkness. Can I go out into that darkness, I wondered. Can I go from here and remember? From there, remember here? So I shoved myself, like a force between my own shoulder blades, and I was outside the door. There was no door. Only darkness. Darkness so thick I could not see. No… wait! I began to see. Soft glimmers. Possibilities. Of what? Something… maybe. Or maybe there was only nothing. I turned and turned. And I was lost.

Moss and leaves wound ‘round the sound of nothing. Panic almost burst my breast but then subsided into the gentle quietude of this good night. I sat and hummed, and though there were no words, no thoughts, awareness moved in me like blood in veins. I buried my face in the mosses and loved Earth, safe in the refuge of my own beingness. My hands caressed the Earth, my heart caressed her creatures She nurtured me. My heart became an open bud and glowed with soft, clear light. Moonlit I was from the inside out. My mind remembered the moon as reflection of sunshine. Sun is golden. Oh yes, I remember. Doesn't matter. Sun will come again.

I lay tranquil, like wind in grasses, undulating with nothing and everything. My hands moved and danced of their own accord, and struck light!

Ah. The open doorway. I entered, crawling. And warmth encompassed me. Light spread like a sea on the incoming tide and I stood and came home again. Breathing. Surrounded by the effervescent air of the great cathedral.

Then I heard her calling me, and ran like wind, like eagle on wind, running till I found her in a tender little room, a children’s nursery and bedroom. She lay curled on the floor surrounded by pretty little beds, all empty. She held out her hands with trusting eyes and I helped her stand. "The gates are all closed," she said. "Those who cry in need and fling themselves outside themselves, searching, may no longer enter here." And she put her head down on my bosom. Together we wept.

He strode in like a swift breeze at dawn. "Be of good cheer," he said, and his eyes were like a million diamonds. I looked at him and my heart leapt. But she merely gazed into his eyes and said softly, "What have you done?"

They contended. Eye to eye, face to face, they stood in utter silence while volcanoes, black holes, and nova stars flared all around them. My heart beat like an imprisoned bird, my eyes would not stop crying. Tension built into solid darkness and I was suffocating. Then the bottom dropped out of everything. Wild terror instantly surfaced and instantly washed away. We fell a million miles and a million more. We fell through nothing into nothing and as we fell, something we could not see surrounded us, a presence in no place, no time, no space.

“I AM the Mother,” she said. “I am nothing.” Her words broke the spell.

I fell upon a little bed, released from unutterable endlessness, tremulous and exhausted.

He stood so tall and calm in that small room. His face was beatific, his eyes were filled with stars and they penetrated darkness like chrome steel. I thought, “He feels nothing.”

For if I could I would have blown the galaxies apart. But I was silent, quaking deep within and holding all my feelings down with all my will. Except my womb leaked. My thighs melted. My heart raced like clouds across horizons before the dawn.

And she enfolded him like darkness inking sky to bring the night. She coiled herself around him and wrapped him in her cloak. She moaned and howled and gasped and the room grew dimmer, dimmer. His light was gone; he was diminished into nothing in her arms.

Within me, valves broke loose and floodgates opened. I rose and streamed above them and became a raging wind, tumultuous storm. Every voice that ever lived cried, wailing through me, lamentations shrieked and murmured, rose and died, and chaos ripped the room to shreds within our senses. Fear gripped my every cell and strung my nerves like frayed lines cast across deep caverns. And She coalesced around me and became EarthSelf. Mama Magma moving, stirring, pulsing, flowing, and the hidden depths released the Self. I saw EarthSelf shrug her shoulders, heave her breasts, and her tears fell in vast cleansing torrents, and wind whipped beaches clean.

He burrowed into her. He lost himself in her. She expanded ‘round him like night sky. I was drawn into her like leaves are drawn into the wind. She opened for me like a womb opening to the world and I drew breath and found my being in her endless arms. Galactic furies held so long inside me spent themselves and whispered into nothingness, for she encompassed me in a permission without bounds.

In nothingness, nothing moved. Nothing happened. Undulation stirred again, and something moved. Vibration gathered little waves and little waves echoed wider, and something, something, here and there was moved. She stirred and flowed and breathed and something gathered, and gathering, collided. Ignition spark creation!

She is the Mother from whom all being comes.

I am more like She than he is. And he is less what I am than She was when she was being broken as repository of all the broken souls who live outside of Self. And in so knowing, I drew back and looked at them. He was no longer folded in her arms.

He was waiting. He was not lost. He could rise again and they would come again with hearts still grasping for absolute and perfect glory, and dance and cheer and laugh and sing, and he could be their beacon and their light. He did not choose to do so. His eyes sought hers and looked at her as if he was a babe at breast. Pure adoration.

She didn’t look at him, she didn’t look at me. I needed her to look at me. I looked at her, I longed, I begged in utter silence. Please! I felt, and feeling moved me mightily within, without even stirring flesh or limbs. I cried without words, without sound, "Oh Mother, please, please show me your face."

For she has worn the face of every being, held all the feelings, all the longings everyone denied. And every time I’d looked her I’d seen their faces, their eyes, their pain and sorrow. Looking again, I became her, and the weight, the doom of endless souls pressed me down into density and despair.

She rose within herSelf and her eyes came up and she hovered, vast above us, though still she sat, simply, quietly, in meditation.

"I AM Source of all life and longing," she whispered, but she didn't move or speak.

He laid his head upon her lap. Simple child.

I clawed the floor then with my fingers and my toes and tendrils. I curled my body into fetal supplication; down upon my knees from the sheer, utter need to simply continue just to be.

She laughed; a rolling thunder, rumbling laughter, Mama Magma letting go.

"I know the others are out there," I cried, a champion at the bull fights. "If they hear your laughter, O Mother they will die." And all she did was nothing. I wanted to see her face, but her eyes were again averted from me. I needed to see her face. But I was inside her. No faces here. "Please mother, please sweetheart, please show me your face. I'm only a little thing and I need to know."

I could almost stand, except where I was, there was no standing. There was only infinity and endlessness and stars flung in laughter like sea flings sand.

She roiled. Her laughter was infectious. Her laugher was creation before creation had a name. She kicked, and I moved within her. She welcomed and her arms were universes enfolding all I am.

Great Arms of Everything. I was humbled. She's the octopus of infinity, I thought, the fallopian tubes of Source.

She was a riotous endless glory, pure beauty as ribbons of nothingness spiraling everywhere. The vibrant chords of her being thrummed with power, and She undulated like a lover, and in orgasm became a geyser flinging seedling self.

I was nothing, far flicked into nowhere by the tips of the Mother, an egg flung from ovary.

Wandering in nowhere, I came again to many halls and walls filled with light and darkness, and found caldrons full of food and vessels holding wine and water. Something always coming; nothing becoming more. I ate and drank and sang and danced, all alone and yet not ever, never all alone. Everywhere I went I found everything I needed. I found no one and everyone, for Self was home in oneness both within and beyond the walls.

I went back time and again into that awesome, huge cathedral. It was always empty. Sometimes I heard them laughing somewhere, or singing in pure ecstasy. He is greedy and He wants her. She gives herSelf and oh, and oh, how good it is. Mother of my darkness.

All life sings when Mother flows within herSelf. For She is always calling, and like a vacuum pulls us and our longing moves. She is everything and nothing and when we move within from deep core longing, we fill the Self with All that Is in passage through her birthways; magnetized to merge again with Source and so become.

Everywhere I wandered in that sweet, safe place, the feel and sound, the light and darkness of Mother/Father walked within me. Our communion knew no limits and was not bound by time and space. Everything and everyone can be found within the Self. We rode the cosmic tides and greeted, at core essence, every portal into every form. We sang the songs of each soul, each self, each leaf, each rock, each being, and we sang truly, in all octaves of the spectrum; we sang the deep and bitter truth, the glorious and lofty truth, giving utterance to every aspect, every feeling, rendering the whole in full completeness, without censor.

And thus Mother showed her faceSelf to little me. We were everywhere and nowhere; we were linked in far flung universes across vast space. And I came around a corner of becoming and found at last her eyes and face.

It was my face. And I became her. From deep within her I saw mySelf fling beings into the endless void. As a matter of becoming, as an act of birth. And I saw mySelf in perpetual oneness, ready, waiting for each essence to remember and recognize the self as Self.

Self.

Her voice spoke gently deep within me. “Lost child. You are never lost. Only when you think you know what self is, is Self lost from conscious mind. Mind is but a function of the head. Head is but a part of body. Body is the vessel of living and endless Self. Win the mountain, dig the depths, wander where you will; for all Self always comes from and returns to home.”

And… out of nowhere, suddenly, there was a child.

Lost child? She didn't seem to even know what lost is. Yet here she was, simply playing where others have not entered for oh so long. She looked at me and smiled. And the singing walls echoed back her sweet song; though she was silent, eyes innocent, heart quiescent.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, astonished.

Through these halls of light I'd wandered on and on for eons and how could I, without pre-knowing, find She Who Is Not Here to Be Expected?

She gazed at me and said, “You do remember when you are outside. You do go forth and come again, and always you find home. You find your way, time after time. And you have been here always, for you are always just returning. You are made of darkness, and from your darkness comes your light.”

I knew very well about the darkness. I remembered. He'd set the gates, the shields, the doors, so no one but allSelf could ever enter. I had not forgotten. I knew about the others who clawed and wailed and fled away from gates that would not give them entrance. I knew they could not come here by trying to gain admittance; no amount of trying could ever bring them home. I looked around for Mother/Father and they were always present, yet never only here, for oneness is, and always will be, in all places everywhere. I needed them. I couldn’t find them.

The child was eating, drinking, playing. Light seemed to open from within her very flesh.

The need to know and understand gripped my bosom. "Who are you?" I said. “How did you come?”

When she turned, the whole story started all over again.

"Mother," He said.

"Father," She said.

And the child said only, "Lost self always comes back home. Where else would I go?”

But that wasn't enough for me. I grabbed her by the shoulders. "How did you get in here?" I cried.

She smiled into my eyes and she was Mother/Father. She blest me and she led me, and when we arrived at the little door I remembered beneath the cedar tree; I opened it and went back again to berry picking.

I came out of sleep this morning with a song in my heart. I scribbled it down in my bedside journal and then realized it is Joe Cocker’s song, a song I’ve loved for many years.

"Lord lift me up where we belong.

Ain't no mountain high

Nor no wings that fly

As high, and high, and high as we belong."

Singing I rose from my bed, ready to go about the day’s chores. My feet moved of their own accord and walked me out into the meadow. And I sang and danced in ribald song, bare feet spread in waving grasses, arms flung towards the sky.

Lord come on down where you belong

Ain't no valley deep

Nor no woman who weeps

As deep and down and dark as you belong.

Mother come on here where we belong

In every universe so wide

In every tiny place we hide

You are the womb where we belong.

Self come on home where I belong

Inside of every living cell

In every heaven and every hell

I am, I Am, I AM the place where I belong.