by Ronny Knape
CHAPTER FOUR
“THE DREAM, A VISION”
Music streamed into the room where he stood. The music was coming from an adjoining room where a party reveled. Couples danced or lounged about on cushions and chaise lounges. Loud, boisterous, masculine voices and the irritation of female titters assaulted his sensibilities. He stood apart and alone. He wondered where in the world she could be?
He had not seen her in such a long time. He had not seen her since that day of their forced separation. That day, holding her closely to kiss her goodbye, tears flowed down their cheeks. The pain of forced separation seared their hearts. Now, after so much time had lapsed, he and she were to be reunited. He could feel her closeness but he did not know how or where to begin looking for her.
He went into the room whence the music came. His eyes probed every corner and scanned the open spaces of the rooms. He looked into the faces of the people in the rooms. All the expressions were blank and indifferent.
He should have known everyone. Every guest at the party would have been friend or acquaintance to everyone else. It was planned as an intimate occasion. But, to his reckoning, everything and everyone seemed strangely unfamiliar. Mystery pervaded the air. His effort to understand did not help him get a grasp on the situation. He milled about in confusion.
He moved into a corner giving him a vantage. Music droned on. He studied the couples dancing. He observed those who lounged. Conversations droned on and on.
His strange behavior went unnoticed. No one showed interest in him. He could have been invisible. No one came up to him. No one even looked in his direction. He could have been a ghost.
He walked out of the room of the music and dancing and went into the room he had been before. His melancholy mood directed his movements toward the solitude of the fireplace. There he stood just staring at the blaze until a voice startled him.
His musings were interrupted when his name was spoken out and the speaker strode up to him as he was standing and looking into the firelight. Instinctively, he turned and positioned himself in front of the one who had spoken his name and had come toward him. The outline of the person, though illumined by the firelight, was vague and he could not make out who the person was; if he even knew this person! After moments in trying to remember, he determined that the one before him was someone he had met but he could not remember where or when. Nor, could he come up with a name for this person. Features were unrecognizable in the dimness of the light. Shadow danced on the walls. Shadow danced on the floor and on the ceiling.
In shadow, the vague inchoate form, someone he should have known but whose identity escaped him, began to speak. He spoke of generalities; current events, the weather, sports, people they knew in common. After some moments of talking in this way, he mentioned her by her name.
He blanched at the mention of her name. He wondered that the strangely obscure person in his presence should know about his beloved, she for whom he longed.
So longingly had he longed for her!
The two of them remained standing by the fireplace. Though close and facing one another, their features were obscured.
He glared intently into a face that remained veiled, concealed in shadow. He anticipated the other telling him where to find her. Shadow danced. Shadow danced on the walls. Shadow danced on the floor and ceiling. Shadow obscured the other. The other dissolved into the shadows.
He was alone again! Nothing had been revealed. In his mood, he could only stand staring into the firelight. His musings induced a state of abstraction. His state of mind portended a heightened awareness, intuitive knowing, prevision, a glimpse into the future. His trance-like state of mind overshadowed his
objective senses. He had come from his place by the firelight in the house.
He was outdoors. The transit from within to without had been accomplished by a somnambulant. He was looking up, staring into the heavens. His eyes were unfocused. His consciousness was all absorbing. The myriad points of light, starlight radiating from billions upon billions of separate universes, this light from heaven penetrated to the very core.
He wondered at the breadth of the universe. Wonderment and awe filled the chalice of his heart to overflowing. He had an immediate reaction to these spontaneous outpourings of bliss. He was beset by an existential crisis. He could not sustain his bliss because he knew deep down that an emotion other than the bliss of union and the sense of belonging had taken over and had become the dominant construct of his mind. He could imagine himself to be happy for a moment. All the while, he had this greater emotion of doom as an all-pervading, inescapable uneasiness gripped the seat of his soul.
Emptiness, the gut-wrenching, terror inducing feeling of emptiness, had destroyed his bliss. He felt alone and apart from the source of all things good.
Then, in an instant, it came to him! As his mood oscillated once again, he inferred that meaning and sustenance in life can be attained, but, only through the union of male and female. So he reasoned. Bliss depended on her! Surely, she felt this way too. He hoped and prayed she still loved him.
He knew he was incomplete. He was separated by an unfathomable chasm from his complement. She was the only one who could heal him and make him whole. He speculated on the duel nature of everything including his own soul. He reasoned that lasting fulfillment would come to him only by coupling with another, a kindred soul, the Beloved!
Theirs was not an ill-conceived affair. The bond that held them had been tempered by trial by fire and was strong beyond measure. No earthly power could rupture; nothing in nature could dissolve this coupling of love. But, at that moment, once again a hollow fear assailed him. Staring into the recesses of space, looking back to the beginning of time, infinity defined for him a world of uncertain result. Might he be delusional? Might his concept of an ’eternal beloved’ be conditional and the product of wishful thinking? Might his beloved disappoint him?
These thoughts, earth-bound realism, caused him to lower his probing eyes. His vision now surveyed earthly conditions and his surroundings.
Acceptance of the probable course of events left him shaken, unsure, and lacking confidence. Darkness closed in on him. He had no cause to rejoice. All his life he had been subject to the whim and capriciousness of the world!
His self-pity was momentary. The stars beckoned to him. Again, his sight took flight. This moment of flight was ecstasy, the stuff dreams are made of . . . He rejoiced in his aloneness. He savored the delectable sweetness of his secret thoughts. These thoughts were as reliable as his depression and showed him the way to see through his problems.
He became aware of the briskness of the night when a chill coursed up his spine. The cold stiffened him and he resolved to see the thing through to its determination. He strode resolutely. He had been fortified by his reverie and he felt good. He was happy. He was secure in the knowledge of his inner strength and in the goodness and truthfulness of his yearnings.
Going again inside the house, he was in a large room with vaulted ceilings. A skylight gave a view of the night sky and he was able, once again, to contemplate the recesses of heaven. Fixing his gaze on a single glimmering point of light, he had a vague and uneasy feeling of puzzlement verging on despair. His puzzlement caused him to voice a question. From the deep well of his innermost being erupted these words: “Tell me the meaning! Tell me, why!”
To these long undetermined questions from the heart, answers immediately came as a stillness settled over him. Agony yielded to an inner peace. He was sure of his purpose. He knew beyond mere intellectual reasoning the nature of things. Concepts and guiding principles, perhaps inexpressible in language, these abstract expressions of truth were incontrovertible.
Attendant to his intuitive comprehension into the mysteries, he felt himself to be receptive and responsive to his higher self. As one who is receptive to divine influx to be guided and directed by preternatural force, he knew the way he should go. He left the large room with the vaulted ceilings and went to an adjoining antec
hamber. Into the antechamber, then, as he stood motionless, his vision was into a chamber of mystery. This chamber had heavy tapestries on the walls. The sight was obscured by tapestry and shadow. Vaguely, he could see ghostly faces with lucid eyes, otherworldly beings engaging in ritualistic ceremony. He came into the space. All turned to him, as if he were anticipated.
A sympathetic murmur enveloped him as he pressed onward to the center of the space. He was in the center, in the midst of a crowd, within a circle of beings, standing before a bier. The bier was adorned with flower offerings and lighted by candles. The candles cast a supernatural radiance throughout. From above descended a ray shining directly on the bier giving a body lying on the bier a heavenly beauty and grace.
The body upon the bier was his dearly beloved. Emotion gripped his soul. A low wail in his throat strangled him. His body shook with emotion. Could it be? Had he come to this unholy place to witness the funeral?
Climbing up to her, he knelt by her side. He bowed his head reverently and worshiped her as a goddess. He praised her glory. He gave homage to her as more worthy, more noble than he. His only motive and purpose in life was in service to her divine being.
Unconsciously, he rose to his feet. All his awareness was focused on her deathly pale face as she was lying upon the funeral bier. A slight movement played upon her lips, a smile. Her hands unfolded from her breasts and she beckoned that he comes to her. He lay down by her. Her slowly welling, rhythmic breathing proclaimed that she yet lived.
She, his goddess who he worshiped, cradled him in her arms. Lying with her with his head upon her life sustaining breast, a flood of blissful emotion rushed into him and filled him to overflowing. In a state of overwhelming happiness, he gave forth a sigh and these words, “Oh, Heavenly Mother! Divine Lover! How I have longed for thee!”
These words faded away as he sank into oblivion and nothingness. He awoke. He was alone. As consciousness came back to him, his sense of self and environment returned and he knew what was happening and he knew where he was. He was in a cold, dark, and lonely prison cell. He had been a prisoner for two long years.
Grey light of the coming day came in through glazed and barred windows. The jingle of the jailer’s keys signaled his approach with meager breakfast. He got up from his place of sleep and dreams. He was ready for the day.
Faithfully and fervently, he voiced his morning supplication. “Divine Mother, come to me as a lover. Stir me and still me. Fill me to overflowing. I am yours to use as you will. Come now softly, silently. I am yours to use as you will!”
The jailer opened his cell and he stepped forth to a new day.