Contact The Wistful Scribe

Email me with a draft or manuscript at:

nathan.shepherd7@yahoo.com OR nathan.shepherd8@gmail.com

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Part Two - The Enemy


Part Two

The Enemy


“Welcome back, friend. What shall we discover this occasion?”
I could not see my Guide, I could not see anything, but knew he was close.
“What could I possibly discover when so much must still be realized?”
“This is your world. Identify it and interpret it and you will discover many novel things.”
“…”
“It is not that you don’t know where to begin, it is that you cannot decide.”
“How do I decide? How do I make the right decision?”
“You must follow your heart, it has brought you this far.”
“My heart?”
“It is your navigator, your guide – you trust your guide don’t you?”
“I trust you.”
“Then you trust your heart, friend. You must only learn to listen to it when it speaks.”
“I do not know its language.”
“Of course you do!” he chuckled, “Albeit, it is not the language we use to communicate – it is a Universal one anyone can understand, if we only listen. Now listen, friend, tell me what you hear.”
So I listened.
But I heard only the rambling between my own two ears. “I hear nothing,” I said disappointed.
“What do you expect to hear?”
“I don’t know… what I’m used to hearing.” Then I realized my error, and at that moment an unlikely solution suggested itself to remedy the situation.
“Trust your heart, friend. You know how to.”
“Yes, okay.”

I tried again. This time I expected nothing – this is what I received. The Rambler had been defeated and all was reticent. It was pacifying, I felt myself getting lighter, as if weightless upon a moon. A smooth static began to fill my ears; softly, slowly, slickly becoming louder. Not in an uncomfortable manner but a smooth one. I tuned into one ear like the dial on a radio cassette, then into the other; peculiarly they both had their own unique sounds that seemed to compose one.
Is this what it means to “listen”?

Then a curious thing occurred: the pitch raised and progressively around me the void was filled with sound. A variety of sounds; at first everyday sounds I’ve grown accustomed too: the sound of cars passing by, hooters, sirens, the busy chatter of a crowded place, glasses knocking together, hurried footsteps rushing past, the neighbour mowing his lawn with a weed cutter that buzzes like a thousand hornets descending. Then the clamour of electromagnetic bombardment that polluted the airways; the stuff I heard on radio and television. Then fragments of my favourite songs; strung together like candy on a string. Then obscure sounds, some I recognized, and others I did not.
Its source was everywhere and everything. They all seemed to amalgamate into a symphonic vibration that resounded through what felt like my body.

I listened to the wind, the birds, the ocean, the mountains, the stars, the Universe in motion; everything had its own singular sound, like a divine algorithm that resonated through the ether. It compiled itself before my eyes into an eternal score that spiraled around me in parallel strings of soft light with intricate sheet notation displayed. I could see, hear and feel every note. The Universe had become music, the sweetest symphony my ears have ever caught. An all encompassing love prevailed over me at that moment like a boy happy to be content with a patch of grass to lie on under a shady tree on a warm summer’s day. So simple, yet strongly gratifying.

My Guide’s voice added another bar to the score, “Now open your eyes,” and my eyes opened.
“I didn’t even know they were shut.”
“Strange how we stumbled through the corridor of our lives blinded because we don’t open our eyes.”
“I’ve been deaf and blind.”
“Not anymore, the Phase is yours again.”
I glanced around, just white – the purest white, not a blemish, nothing else. In front of me my Guide, with his warm smile.
“What is this place?”
“It is one of the highest levels on your Tower.”
“My Tower?”
“It has a wonderful view.”

I suddenly noticed a rectangular frame behind my Guide, elongated with rounded corners. It portrayed an image I found myself keen to investigate. “Pop”! I now stood in front of this picture; a panoramic, three dimensional landscape view. I realized then I was looking out of a window upon an expansive field of iridescent white that glowed curiously in the mysterious night. A large moon hung so low on the horizon it seemed to levitate; it bathed the atmosphere in radiance and riddles. The ground was flat with smooth hills in the far distance; everything was a mantle of white.

“What do they call this place?”
“I do not know what ‘they’ call it, but you know what you call it.”
I thought this strange but then it suddenly occurred to me, as if I had just remembered. “The Nacreous Fields.”
“A beautiful place, you cannot truly experience it through a post card.”

My urge was palpable. Suddenly and swiftly the elongated rectangle shrank into a circle, its diameter large enough to be considered an exit.
I looked out at the smooth opalescent walls of the tower and the sheer drop that seemed endless. Then looked back ponderously at my Guide, he gestured for me to proceed. His smile gave me confidence and I stepped out. My foot met a white platform that seemed to shoot from the Tower, and as I descended; each step met another platform that materialized just at the moment it seemed I would plunge. Slowly I descended, too slow. I looked behind me; the Tower stretched on upwards through the faint clouds high in the sky, its top obscured from view. It appeared like a pillar holding up the sky, keeping the stars from crashing to tera-firma. Ahead of me; the broad radiant orb that dominated the sky. From my Guide’s perspective behind me it must’ve appeared as though I walked into the moon.
I took my next step inattentively – my foot did not meet a platform. Suddenly I felt the tow of gravity and I fell. The ground seemed to rush up to meet me. I panicked, wailing my arms in futility.
Amidst this chaos I noticed a presence and beside me I stared through wide eyes at my Guide. I tried to scream but I choked. He was calm, free falling alongside me. Then he chuckled, the notion was so outrageously absurd to me that for an instant I traded my fear for my voice, “Why do you laugh!?”
His voice rang out to me, “You have forgotten, friend.”

That’s all he needed to say for the memories to resurface and exile the fear. I suddenly realized that I should’ve hit solid surface already. I peered down and noticed that I floated, only meters from the ground. I looked at my guide again and he stood upon the luminous surface looking back. I found my feet again and my feet found themselves amongst the fragile stalks and petals of white flowers that glowed with the impression of morning dew. My weight crushed the delicate flora beneath my feet. My Guide’s feet seemed to settle upon them like droplets of water and the flowers held him aloft as though they possessed a strength that challenged their appearance.

“I yielded to fear again, it was so complete that it drowned out what was in plain sight.”
“Fear is like the blindfold around your eyes.” My disappointment in myself was apparent, “Be more compassionate with yourself, you are now aware of the enemy’s weapons and soon it can no longer be a weapon against you because you will endure and can overcome. You are stronger than your enemy’s weapons so he must use trickery to weaken you first, blind you so he can strike. When you are aware of your enemy’s tactics and weapons he can no longer harm you.”
“Who is the enemy?”
“You already know. He is your wrath, your envy, your sloth, your gluttony, your pride, your lust, your avarice – all inequities of the False Ego, your foe. And opposing the virtues of your Divine State: your humility, your generosity, your kindness, your self control, your zeal, your faith and temperance, your love.”
“I must defeat the enemy by nourishing my Divine State while starving my False Ego?”
“Yes, they are both ravenous wolves and only the one that is fed will grow strong while the other deteriorates.” 
“The foe has become strong because I have allowed him to rob the virtuous wolf of his sustenance.”
“He must, because he knows he must be strong to enfeeble you. And he knows that you do not battle him alone.”
“I have allies?”
“Every human being can be an ally, we all fight the same demon. Your Enemy turns your allies against you when he can because he knows collectively you are invincible. He will surely perish before such righteousness. He delays his demise that way. When you meet him you must face him with courage, for he is truly a coward.”

This filled me with a subliminal hope. I felt lighter again and realized I now stood upon the flowers too, the ones I had crushed were rejuvenated. I drew in the arresting beauty that surrounded me like conductive iron shavings to a magnetic field. I breathed in deeply; the air was pure and sweet with the fragrance of the flowers that carpeted the land, each flower’s distinctive aroma was discernable, like a fingerprint it made each flower stand out individually. I could feel the luminosity of the moon upon me like a cool breeze, I could see it shimmer through the faint mist of pollen that hung in the air like pixie dust. I heard the faint murmur of the breeze through the slender stalks of the flowers. Every sense was amplified acutely like I have never known in the outside world.

“Feel free to explore, your fear will not assail you so belligerently now that you have already foiled him once.”

I felt that notion of emancipation that I knew then I would come to relish.
Like an arrow that’s finally been let loose after a fletching too long my legs carried me swiftly over these fields. The environment itself seemed to pass through me as I moved. Every atom and particle sparked as they passed through each other like time through space. I felt a part of the environment rather then apart. I desired to feel more, this intention was augmented with the power of suggestion. “The Nacreous Fields” stretched by in a blur of indigo-blue. As if a luminous thread was my direct link to the planet’s own consciousness; I knew where my destination would be and suddenly I found myself on the edge of a hill that rolled down steadily like the sap of a tree down a branch.

My Guide was already there as if pending my arrival. He was smiling warmly, he looked out ahead; upon the field that lay spread out from both hemispheres below us. An ocean of silver silk; the placid waters reflected the moon, exaggerating its girth further and warping its edges. The moon itself resided over this sea like a brooding sentinel, guarding this precious planet. I felt humbled by the spectacle.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them again I’m sitting on the surface of the moon, the glowing planet in front of me - and I knew peace.


-From the journal of a Phase Drifter

No comments:

Post a Comment