The Dreams Keeper

by Paola Elena Ferri

  “What do you mean?”

  You come towards me.

  “I mean that, while the other creatures, both the Dreams’ ones and the human ones, saw you as you might seem to be, you revealed yourself to me as you actually were. And what surprises me, now, is that you have been prepared in exactly the same way as when I saw you for the first time, long ago.”

  You come forward again, and I step back.

  “It’s not possible. Since the beginning, I found the way to mingle myself with the Wanderers. Since the beginning, everyone who saw me thought he had to do with a little girl. It is not possible that you saw me!”

  “Instead, I did see you. And, not only did I see who you were, but even how you felt. I could feel it because it was so intense to arrive straight into my heart. And I heard it suffer, for you and with you.”

  “But you confined me to the Cave! You took me where no other human being would be able to find the strength to go on!”

  “But you found it. And that is why you have become who you are, now.”

  "So... why did you want me to be put to the test yet, even in this journey? Do you know what it meant, for me, losing all those Wanderers? Do you know how I felt, in not having any reference? Do you know how it feels when you are naked, and blood flows between your legs, while the sperm of a man squirts on you and merges with the blood? "

  “I know, because I was with you all the time.”

  “But how? I never saw you” You never answered me!”

  “You saw me right from the start and talked about me to the Wanderers. You warned them so that they might not make your own mistakes. But I was there for YOU. Did you ever wonder that perhaps some of them fled because they saw me?”

  “No… I just thought that they did not want to go on. I looked at the events and judged them…”

  “Right! You saw my shadow. You saw my Messenger. You saw the Unicorn. You slept with the White Wolf. And, still you had the insights that, in moments of disorientation, allowed your nine Wanderers to get to the end.”

  “But there were more of them! And I lost almost all of them!”

  “No… They gave up on their own.”

  “I could not have heard you….”

  “Yes, you heard me. And you can hear me even now, while, again, I challenge the Laws of Balance, and I am talking to you as I should not talk….But I can do nothing about it, because I am bound to you, and I would give up, right now, being what I am, in order to remove from your shoulders all the burdens you have carried up to here….”

  “But why? What is the point? I don’t understand….”

  “You understand it well, instead. You can deny and make me believe that what you say is true, but you cannot lie to yourself, because you know it, you can feel it. You are connected to me with such a close bond, that not even I can explain. Did you want the opposite? Yes, me too! I have my own life too, in my real world. I also have a person beside me, to whom I cannot explain what's going on here, because he would not understand. Only those who want to embark on the Journey will understand, once they have completed the journey."

  “I am confused. And I am tired. So tired. Do not manipulate me, right now, that I feel fragile and vulnerable…”

  “No. Right now, you are strong and impervious. How do I know that? You are not letting me in, you are not opening the door to your heart, your soul is sealed and you are cutting me out. You do so to protect yourself, but you cannot protect yourself forever!”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Have you still not understood? Your Eternal present is ME!”

  I feel exhausted. What does all of this mean? What is the point? Why this journey, if my Eternal Present was already there, at my fingertips? And you read my thoughts.

  “Why? To make you aware of it. Because nothing can be forced. And what I have told you, I have understood it myself only now. Even I was part of a plan and did not know it. Even I am asking myself why. I too observed all the rules that pertain to a Guardian of the Land of Dreams. However, Little Shining, all of this was not enough...”

  “Do not call me like that! How dare you!” My voice is full of anger. I am about to explode. But, suddenly, you put your hands around my face and kiss me. I try to resist, to wiggle away and flee… but… then something happens, and not even I know what it is. So, my hands slide down to your neck, and I return your kiss, as if it were all I had been fighting for, until now. Just as you said.

  After a while, a while as long as eternity, you gently walk away from me and look at me, smiling. And, right then, the white mask cracks and falls to the ground breaking into a thousand pieces.

  “Don’t worry about this, Little Shining.”, you say kindly to me. “It was inevitable for it to happen. I challenged the laws. I did not behave as a true Guardian of the Land of Dreams should. So, as you can see, I'm the one who failed ...”

  I look at your green eyes… and I recognize you. I do not recognize you because I know you in the real world. I recognize you because, as you said, we are bonded by ancient knowledge. And the fact that you reveal yourself to me exposes you more than what a human being can imagine.

  Then you embrace me and I make no resistance. The weariness is such, to make me falter, but you hold me.

  I wish time could stop. I wish everything could remain like this, suspended, for a long time, without any thoughts, in the only knowledge that an Eternal Present can give: contentment.

  But… a strange earthquake shakes violently the Land of Dreams. In the room, objects and parts of the wall begin to fall.

  So you grasp my hand and pull me outside, thus saving me.

  Then… the earthquake stops and the ground opens up. With a prelude of high bright flames, an enormous bird, made of fire and fragrant incense, spreads his wings toward us.

  We step back, to avoid burning ourselves. We embrace each other, knowing that something unexpected is about to happen…

  THE PHOENIX

  Guardian of the Land of Dreams… Dream keeper… Dear friends and precious dreamers… thank you for having reawakened us. We were waiting for ever so long, to return to the Land of Dreams. You have called us, and we exist again, now.

  “You talk with two voices together: a male one and a female one…”

  Good observation, Dream keeper. This is the reason why we speak in plural. We are male and female, in this Land, since, what counts is not the distinction between sexes, but existence itself. And we no longer existed. Or, better, we existed, but no one remembered us, no one called us. You have called us and now we exist.

  “Have you come to punish us?”

  Oh, no, my dear‼ What are you saying? We have not come to punish, or to condemn. We are here only to exist! Perhaps you think you have broken the Laws? No, precious dreamers, no! You followed the laws as they were written and agreed upon, since ancient times. You, Guardian of the Land of Dreams, you did what your role dictated you.

  “No. You know. I followed man, not his duty.”

  Duty ceases to exist, when dreams and hope exist… and both of you had so many of them… Laws must be followed but, in order to reach the Balance, you sometimes need to lose it. Dream keeper, you lost it, but not due to a personal whim: you lost it to seek your Eternal Present. And you discovered the only way to get it: you went against the rules, because they contrasted with what you felt. Had you continued to follow them, you would not have wanted what was best for you, and that would have thwarted your task. But you followed your heart, and the heart, when it loves, is never wrong.

  Yes, Dream keeper. It loves you. But its love crosses the boundaries of what the human being is accustomed to imagine. There are so many kinds of love: love for one's parents, the love that binds two people, brotherly love, the love for one's neighbor...

  But there are other kinds of love, involving passions, hopes, and desires. The love for art, for reading, for cooking, for imagination... And then there's the love that unites the souls of people, a spiritual love, so to say,
to make you understand more. It is a love that goes beyond space and time, and seems to have no human explanation, because only here, in the Land of Dreams, can the answers be found. Your destinies are linked. You, the two Guardians, one of the Dreams and the other of the Land of Dreams ... it’s so beautiful, don’t you agree? Your burdens are shared, as well as the joys, and all the other emotions that a human being can feel here. This is your Equilibrium and these are your Laws that no one can condemn, nor mystify.

  “And, in all of this, what did we do, to make you appear?”

  You have broken the rules. Yes, this is true. But you have not broken your own. The Wanderers arrive here to get to know their Eternal Present, but even the chosen ones have their own mission, that involves a final revelation. We are your Eternal Present, the Phoenix that dies in its own ashes, and from its own ashes, lives again. The Land of Dreams lives moments of great blooming and others where there is not a single drop of water, where all is barren, like the desert, because the human beings stops fighting. Then, it all starts over again. And thus, in the same way, even we begin to exist again, when two chosen souls manage to complete a journey decided by themselves and for themselves.

  “But I lost so many Wanderers…They gave up. Some of them betrayed.”

  It is not up to you to think about those who got lost, but about those who remained. And they were not so few, as you believe. You, perhaps, are not aware that other Wanderers have commenced the same journey like the ones who followed you, Dream keeper. Other Wanderers who read the deeds of the brave and the defeat of the cowardly. Other Wanderers who would know what to do, who would want to learn how to enter the Land of Dreams, undergo the tests, fight, rejoice… You cannot imagine how many, my dear, and it makes no difference if they were two, ten, one hundred, one thousand… Even if it were only one Wanderer, to live with deep emotion what you and your group have lived here, well, this Wanderer would write his story in this Land and, sooner or later, will belong to it. He will bring, against his knowledge, other Wanderers, who will write other stories and carry on other assignments, were they to be chosen, just like you. Children, men, women… every human creature has its own destiny, in the Land of Dreams.

  “Is our task here, thus, over?”

  No, Dream keeper, your task begins now. Now you have to teach the Wanderers how to benefit from their gifts, the ones they received here, and spread hope in your world. You have gone through so many sorrows and disappointments, that you have forgotten the carelessness of playing. Playing is the key to everything. Turn children again in your heart, not to escape from responsibility, but to discover something new every day, because even in darkest and most tormented situations in the end, the Spark will arrive to illuminate the Way. Even if it rains, just Listen to Heaven, to gain the profits of the Rainbow. Even when the obstacles seem insurmountable, Fighting in order to not be overwhelmed by anxiety will be the key to fly again. Conserving the Innocence of a child allows you to see things in another perspective. You cannot you see the double purposes, the masks, the facades, the impossible ... when you have a pure heart, the truth is always confirmed, no one thinks of the manipulations, you do not pretend to be what you are not, you do not think that nothing will come, but that life is like the surf of the sea: when the tide recedes, you can find unexpected objects, fit for the present moment in which you are living, the Eternal present.

  “So… who are we, no?”

  Now you ARE. And this is the only important thing. Then you will become. And this is just as important. You, Dream keeper, will bring other Wanderers to this Land, to make it thrive and be full of life. Thus, you will become the Guide of Souls, the torch of who is lost and can no longer find the way. A task of great responsibility, which will require all the hope you have in every fiber of your being. So, enjoy the present moment, keep what is given to you, and treasure it, as you will need it in your next mission. And you, Guardian of the Land of Dreams, you will be bound to her, since your stories have always belonged to one another. You shall follow every step of hers, as you did on this journey, and when she becomes the Guide of Souls, you too will have a different task, and you will become the Heart of Dreams, and will have access to the innermost secrets of the human soul. A very delicate task and far more important than the one you hold now. You will have to balance and discern any emotion, without ever rationalizing it. Just like you are doing now, while, with one arm, you embrace the shoulders of Little Shining.

  “And what will be of the Wanderers who are waiting?”

  Their story will be told by who followed them up to here. Their names will be chosen, their tasks assigned, their achievements narrated…

  Yes, you will do that. You, who, from the beginning, have kept your promise: to go all the way, to reach the Eternal Present. You, who asked yourself what it was, perhaps, now you understand it. And, if you haven’t understood it completely, read the story again that is fixed in your heart and in your mind and ponder every test.

  Yes, we refer to you, who, perhaps, cannot hear our words through your human ear, but can hear them vibrate in your soul, while you ask yourself: “Are you talking to me?”

  Yes, we are talking to you, child, boy, man or woman….whoever you are. You will write the pages of your journey to the Land of Dreams, and will become the author of your life, both in this reality and in yours.

  Now another story shall begin.

  And you will be the one to write it.

  Welcome, Wanderer, to the Land of Dreams.

  EPILOGUE

  And thus, my journey starts over. And so, I choose you to help me find my way home.

  I am the Dream keeper. I protect and treasure dearly every hope of yours, without ever owning it, judging it, manipulating it or making it my own. I am not allowed to. It is the Rule. If I were to challenge it, I would get lost in the Mists.

  Now begins my journey back to the real world again, with the lessons that I have learned and the hopes I have strengthened.

  Then, the time will come to set off again.

  Prepare yourself for the next journey, but remember that you may undertake it only once you have found your Eternal Present. Only then, will I call you, to lead you towards the Freedom of Souls, if you want. Wait for the moment without fear and haste. Take all the time you need.

  You will learn, through discernment, to understand the signs, and in the end, you will comprehend that ALL the signs lead to fulfillment.

  The Phoenix talked to you and it recognized your heart. So, now, it burns in its vital flame, ready to infuse the courage that is already in you, and that is just waiting to take flight with wings of fire.

  The Guardian of the Land of Dreams is waiting for you.

  Get ready, Wanderer. Soon, it will be your turn.

  THE DREAMS KEEPER

  By Paola Elena Ferri

  Translation by Teresa Gnasso

  Year 2015

  All rights reserved –This publication may not be copied or reproduced