Rebirth
Way-Finding; Imaginal
The following story emerged after this prompt from Perdita Finn: What kind of world do you want to be reborn into? If you like my work you should definitely check out Perdita Finn here on Substack and read Take Back the Magic. She offers classes. They are really yummy!
The setting for the opening (being approached, while meditating, by a familiar man who was upset and concerned about climate change) was lifted from a dream I’d recently had. The story takes off from there. I had no idea I could write fiction.
Rebirth
A friend from many lifetimes ago opened a gate and walked into my dream. He was middle-aged, slender, with tousled, thinning hair. His skin looked rough with silver stubble. Most strikingly, his green eyes were clearly troubled. He did not want a greeting. He did not want a hug. While his presence stirred recognition of my great affection for him, he was not from this life, that I knew. Gripped with grief, paralyzed with hopelessness, he staggered toward me, sweeping the air in a grand gesture indicating … everything. "We've killed it all!" he choked out, "And we just go right on killing it!"
Though his appearance was European and he wore the garb of the Oppressor, I remembered that he cherished his past-life Indigenous roots. He led me to a meadow, its slight bowl shape now capturing the persistent, flooding rain of this disaster of a summer season. In the time period he came from it should have been host to an indigenous encampment at this time of year. They had come every summer since time immemorial. This year, for the first time, they were nowhere to be found. It was this event--or lack of it--that had brought him to his knees.
As I gazed at the sodden meadow I inwardly contemplated my friend's state of mind. “Follow me!” I said at last. I brought him back through the gate and past my dwelling, where a mountain creek, normally dry this time of year, poured over the lip at the forest’s edge, gushing into an overfull pond. While it was warm, lightly cloudy, and not raining at the moment, the foliage was still damp and occasionally dripping. An aroma of wet, warm soil hung in the humid air. Spreading a woven blanket on the primitive decking beside the pond, I invited him to lie down on it. “You are visiting me in a dream. Let us dream together." He acquiesced, closing his eyes and settling in. His breathing relaxed until I felt his open readiness. I continued.
"Many lifetimes you have walked this earth. In earlier ages, times long ago, your land and people knew themselves to be an inextricably interwoven web--a tug anywhere affected them all. Human beings, in that time, didn’t see themselves as separate entities but as belonging to something bigger and much more complex." Pausing, I closed my eyes myself, to better feel and speak the truth within. "More recently," I went on, "human beings have begun a futile effort to pit themselves against the land, forcibly taking its gifts, energy, and life force in order to fill an insatiable hunger to dominate not only nature but other humans as well, They no longer consider themselves to be one small but complementary element of nature, but to be its conqueror instead. But Nature cannot be dominated–no matter how it may appear. Nature is the Source, the Font. They who foolishly think they have subjugated the Source will not long survive to enjoy their ‘victory.’
Whether you knew it or not, you dreamed yourself into MY dream, right here beside me. Will you allow me to escort you to the next dream, to the world after Nature has reset the balance, has shaken parasitic humans off its back like a wild horse bucking its rider?"
He remained silent and immobile following my query. Yet, again, I sensed rather than heard his willingness to proceed. "In our dream bodies, then, we must stand up …" I rose, gazing at the pool. " … and dive down, deep into the pool." I turned to look at him, and saw him turn his head to look quizzically at me. I smiled encouragingly. "Are you ready?!" Without waiting for an answer I dove off the decking, into water which always surprised me with its welcome. Instead of being met with the sharp, shock of coldness, this body, this water enfolded me, held me in its embrace. Well under the surface now, I relaxed my own body and consented to allow the water to move me at will. The experience was healingly delightful—playful as well.
It wasn't long before I heard a plunge behind me and twisted around to view the sleek, wet body of my friend, an otter in human form, swimming downwards toward me. Without parting his lips, his eyes did the smiling while he gave me two thumbs-up. He’d felt the Mother's embrace as I had. I beckoned him to follow and frog-stroked quickly in the direction of the falling water. Under the water the sun, filtering through the ripples on the surface, created moving light and shadows everywhere. Each hair on my body seemed to swirl deliciously in various directions, creating cowlicks like spirals of energy. Never had I felt so happy to be alive.
Swimming deeper, the water stilled and became darker until, just ahead, a black hole could barely be discovered, plunging into one end of a jutting rock buttress and just large enough for a human body. Pointing and turning towards it, I demonstrated the best position for entry–after one broad breast stroke, the arms must be clasped to the sides and the passageway approached head first.
Immediately upon entering, one could make out the shape of the tunnel's exit, about two body's lengths ahead. But for my fellow dreamer, it would be an act of faith to follow me in, not knowing in advance what he would find.
In the middle, the rock walls of the passage swelled inward, causing them to press unyieldingly against vulnerable flesh. Yet, as with the water before, contact with the rocky surface did not feel as expected. Instead of abrasion, one felt affectionately caressed. My soft body, after being lovingly stroked all over, was sorry to reach the end. I turned around just in time to see my friend emerge. Cleverer than I, he’d had the idea to spiral through the passage, allowing every part of his body to benefit from the Mother’s healing massage. Appearing relaxed and happy, he allowed the water to hold him in liquid balance for a few more moments, then looked toward me for direction
Once through the "rebirth canal," the only way to go was up and up and up some more, becoming ever lighter, brighter and warmer–until we burst like effervescence through the surface. "Don't look!" I ordered him. " Close your eyes and take my hand!" A few kicks later a gradual incline allowed us to wade out of the water to a sandy beach, my friend's eyes still closed as we stepped onto a smooth pathway through a young wood and into a small meadow. There, without allowing him to peek, I helped him lie down in a soft pillow of grass, then settled myself cross-legged nearby.
When he was rested and relaxed, I spoke to him again, "Here you are, thrown up on a far shore in a new world of your own dreaming. What does it feel like here?
He didn't answer for a long time. "Well, warm! …" he finally said. "The air is pure…"
"No, stop!" I interrupted, "Stay with your feelings. … We'll move to the other senses later. … So for now, what does it feel like?"
"Oh! ... Well … I feel perfectly comfortable, here on what seems to be a grassy tuft. … There's a slight breeze … against my cheek and hair. It's a caress, actually, like what … my mother …" (he slowed and then paused) "… would have done." Glancing at him I saw a tear pass through the stubble on his cheek and wondered for the first time if the word "tear" (for crying) and the word "tear" ( for renting apart) had once had the same meaning. "The feelings are so powerful!" he gulped. "I can't put them into words … but I could say I feel like I belong somehow and I feel … just … so grateful, so goddamned grateful!"
"Well that's a good start! I laughingly replied. "It usually takes people a lot longer to arrive at gratitude but it seems you're precocious." He could hear the smile in my voice. "Ok, so how does it smell?"
He shifted focus to his nose. "Ahhhh. … I smell warming earth … meadow grasses … fir trees … a hint of moisture … everything's so fresh and pure! I truly feel reborn--like my senses have never been so clear!"
"You're not wrong. You HAVE been reborn, and you’re sensing as if for the first time." I paused for awhile to allow him to revel in his newly appreciated sense of smell, then continued on with the catechism. "Now tell me what you hear!"
After a moment of consideration he responded, "So much! Every little rustle in the grass, the soughing of the trees in the distance … the cry of a hawk … and … and … something else … something new … what … wh … whispering voices of … of … wildflowers? I've never heard this before! It's so … Wow!" In radiant silence he turned his head slowly this way and that, softly repeating, "Wow! Oh, wow!"
"What are they telling you?"
"I can't say, I can't say!" he moaned, "It's in another language. I MUST learn it!"
After some time I felt it was time. Time for the full revelation: "Would you like to open your eyes? You needn't if you're not ready,” I hurriedly added. “You know what sight is like. It's blinding--to the other senses!"
Sitting up, he tilted his head as he reflected on his inner state. "May I taste first?" he requested, after some consideration.
"Perfect idea!" I responded, with excitement. "I'll go find you some goodies!" Leaving him to delight in heightened sound, smell, and feeling, I scoured the vicinity for taste sensations. At the edge of the forest there were berries--huckleberry, wild blueberry, even some accessible elderberry. Soon after, I located lemon balm a short distance away. One more thing, I thought to myself, what could it be? Just then I caught a whiff of it. Yes, mint would do perfectly!
Returning, I found him sitting up, sniffing the air, his ears appearing to move almost independently, as he strained to listen. He was fully enjoying his animal nature. As I fed him the berries, he smiled widely while basking in their flavors. I remembered my children tasting new food for the first time. Everything stopped while they turned their attention to their mouth. He was much the same.
"They are so much more potent than the ones at home! I wonder if they are as nutritious as they are delicious. Wouldn't that be wonderful?" I wasn't sure the berries tasted any differently than the ones at home. But HE was certainly different and that probably accounted for it.
"Two more tastes for you," I warned him, "These are of a different nature." Ripping apart the lemon balm leaf I placed a dime-sized leaf tip on his tongue. He turned it over in his mouth. "Go ahead and chew it," I told him.
"Oh my! That is good! What in the world is it?"
"Haven't you tasted lemon balm before?"
"I'm sure I have, in previous lifetimes. It has a sort of familiarity. But nowadays--I just don't go around eating leaves!"
"Well, here's another one," I offered, and he received it in the same manner.
"Oh mint! That's so yummy!"
Taking his hand, I placed the remainder of the two leaves in it, delighted to observe him first compare them by the way they felt, then roll them between his fingers to better smell them, and finally to taste them each with slow, focused attention.
When the leaves were gone and the berries too, he sat silently awhile, his lined face tilted toward the earth. "I think I'm ready," he said quietly.
"All right. … Take it slowly. Cover your eyes with your fingers before you open them. Then let a little light in between your fingers as you peer out through the cracks. You can spread your fingers wider and wider as you adjust. Take as long as you need to."
Following my instructions to the letter, he was fascinating to watch. Peering through his fingers he seemed to startle at the sight of things, sometimes grinning foolishly and other times wincing at what seemed to be too much input. Eventually, both hands still offering some screening, he turned his gaze on me.
"You're glowing!" he announced happily.
"I think everything is. You are too!" I rejoined.
"I'm going to drop my hands now and look at you full on. You seem safest."
"All right. I’d have thought a stone would be better. There's a lot going on in a human. Do you want me to look at you or not?"
"I think not, just yet."
"That sounds sensible."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him lower his arms. Feeling self-conscious, I waited, at last realizing he had moved his gaze away from me and onto the far horizon.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"Light!" he answered, "All different colors of light. It's all a creation of light and shadows, isn’t it!? It's kaleidoscopic–ever changing. It’s alive!!"
"Can you make anything out?"
"It's coming into focus … slowly." Then turning back to me, he added, "Thank you! For showing me this! … It … makes me so happy. We're All-One! I can see it so clearly. No boundaries!" His words caused me to suddenly remember the world I would return to when I awoke. The young people I worked with--so broken, so wounded--seeing only drudgery in their future. The darkness. The fear. The hopelessness. Their ambiguity about the desire to exist at all.
How differently would they feel if their world offered them THIS--this enchantment of the senses? The basic building blocks of sensation as portals to Awareness, to Wisdom. To know our very bodies as the interface to all that is. No special knowledge, certificates of achievement, trappings of power needed. Our access to apprehension is our birthright. It is baked into the human condition–into our very bodies!
What if the new world could be built around sensational awareness? Heart and gut consciousness? Less thinking, more feeling? To vibrate sympathetically with an animal, a plant, a stone. To feel inside ourselves what it is to be a tree … a spider … a mountain! The interplay of multiple species including our own. Everything altogether all-at-once, interacting, coexisting, playing, teaching, and learning. Gaia!
But I didn’t say any of that.
What I said was this: “The Earth will be fine for billions more years. There is always dying, always rebirth. Green life dies each winter and is reborn in the spring. We ourselves die, and are reborn. Corals die. Rivers die. At some point, even civilizations reach their end, fall into ruin, and sink into the ground. Most often, this happens when they are conquered by a more powerful (and usually less earth-based) civilization, leaving them no opportunity to create the building blocks for something better.
But in our case, we are lucky. Ultimately, no one is going to invade us. No one is going to rescue us. We will fade into the past and become faint whispers–like the almost forgotten memories of Atlantis. And in our place? A tabula rasa! Pure potential, within which life emerges again.
When we return–and we will!–let us remember what is truly sacred, and build a new culture with that. If we must strive to be successful, let it be for successful sharing, successful serving, successful learning, successful realization of our small place in the whole. Successful remembrance of our humble stature. Indeed, the Earth is better off without us–at least the “us” that brought devastation upon it. We are not needed. We are not essential. We have no primal purpose.
Yet, knowing this, we need not fall into the yawning, joyless pit so present in today’s culture, May we, instead, find joy. Joy in exercising the powers that are uniquely ours: the power of Feeling in all its manifestations, the power of Beauty, in both our creation and our appreciation, the power of Not Knowing, of waiting to see, of being humble and knowing our place.
And may it come to pass that in exercising these powers, we stumble upon the Truth. True power, true joy, lies in one thing only–cultivation of the will, the knowledge, the ability to be a servant to The Whole.”