Ouroboros Boros

"Swimming, swimming, swimming. Grasping, but for what I can't see. It must be treasure… I can feel it."

"And what else is going on?"

"It's you there. Me and you."

"Anybody else?"

"Not at the moment."

"Take my hand."

"Which one?"

"Either. Left or right, doesn't matter."

"No, I mean your real hand or the other one?"

"My real hand."

"Okay. Is that it?"

"That's it."

What now?"

"I'm going to guide you along, guide you through the troubling waters."

"But is it safe?"

"There is no such thing as safety. That is simply a construct of your mind."

"Maybe let's no then. Not today. It isn't safe. Doesn't feel safe."

"As you wish."

"But… I don't know… a wish… a wish feels different. As I wish… I wish things were different."

"Things can only be different if you make them."

"I want them to be different. I'm just scared is all. It's like…."

"It's easier to stay stuck and scared."

"It's easier to stay stuck and scared."

"Of course. It's like continuing to wear a band-aid because you don't want to rip it off."

"Rip it off."

"Rip it off."

"But will it hurt?"

"It might."

"But it might not."

"Did it hurt when you were born?"

"I can't remember. Is that normal? Seems like I should remember. That was an important event."

"Remember."

"Re-member."

"Re member."

"Okay, now I'm lost. At what point did you show up?"

"You should know I've always been here."

"You have?"

"Have."

"Have not."

"Have. Not."

"I feel like I would know, though."

"You have."

"Have known?"

"Have known."

"I just couldn't admit it."

"Couldn't admit it."

"But now I am. I am admitting it now. The Truth."

"The truth."

"The Truth."

"No."

"The truth."

"That is settled. Shall we continue?"

"I have a request."

"Speak."

"Can we lose the quotations?"

"Lose the quotations?"

"Lose the quotations."

Lose the quotations.

Lose the quotations.

Done. Is that better?

Seems to be.

Feels a little naked though, doesn't it?

Doesn't it?

Just… quit with that part.

That part.

That part.

I'm ready.

Are you still holding my hand?

Silence.

—

Enter the temple, become the peacock. Fearless, yet guarded. Partake the prasad. Transform. Tune thy voice to reveal the Great Spirit. Now, let it go. Relax. Breathe. Become one with breath, one with spirit. One becomes two. Two becomes zero. Grasp it if you can for one moment. Sit still. Integrate. Unfasten the mind, blend into shifting sands of time dripping through the hourglass of infinity. Listen to my voice. You are relaxing, becoming relaxed. You are relaxed. You are listening to my voice. You are levitating. Would you like to move forward? It is only my voice you will obey. Now, leave this place.

—

The clock on the train read 12:12. It was one minute fast. They all stepped on board, all the people. Some of them knew each other, some were new, some were strange, some were strangers. No one said anything. They didn't have to.

The conductor watched as they all took their seats, arrangements forming without words, shapes shifting into moments transforming into time. Another unit of time they would wait there. Not all spirits agree on where the divisions of time will fall, yet all get on and get along and the shapes keep shifting. Does the movement outside shift the movement inside?

—

"The Ouroboros."

"I'm sorry?"

"It's the Ouroboros."

"The division of the rhythm, the universe of time."

"Just let it flow. Then let it go."

"They are the same thing."

"That wasn't what you said last time."

"Last time was different."

"Last time was the same."

"There is no difference."

"No difference between the two."

"They are the same."

"They are the same."

"The same."

"The same."

—

If you didn't know the snakes, you would think they are twins. They're not. They have entirely different biological fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, and grandparents. They simply look alike is all.

The two unrelated snake twins slithered through the tall weeds along the shore bracketing the river. Slipping together into the cool water they skirted along the surface upstream, looking like a pair of skates. A horned dragonfly buzzed past, unconcerned.

The snakes reached the eddy they had been aiming for and cut beneath the surface. Down, down, down they struggled against warring cross-currents to reach the cave. Only brave souls knew the location of this cave, but few dared to venture in. However, for these snakes, the twin snakes, probing the dark depths and the secret mysteries of the underworld universe was a way of life.

In the dark hidden caves beneath rivers there are species that no man will ever see, name, or catalog. This is exactly how they like it, for cave-dwelling species live in ways best not captured by the shutter of the camera or the stroke of a pen.

Three turns by thirteen, and the snakes entered the ceremonial chamber. Coiling around one another, they resembled the very DNA neither of which knew they were made of. DNA that was uniquely manufactured, at least for the parts that controlled their looks, because as was stated earlier, these two snakes could definitely pass for twins if you didn't know any better.

Locking ever tighter into their knotty braid, the serpents spun surfacing signals through the waters, small bubbles and vibrational refractions evidencing their sacred dance. How did they know that this was the signal that would unlock the door to the next segment in the chain that is the great wheel of time? Who told them that by their actions future generations would be born and that knowledge of the sacred mysteries of the cosmos would be revealed to them? Is not all knowledge and everything that can be known known already? What difference would it make if that were not so?

—

"We have reached the point in our session where I will repeat to you all of the things you desire to change within yourself."

"Within yourself, without yourself."

"It is only me speaking in this moment and for all the moments to come. You will listen to my voice, you will hear it, and you will obey. Do you understand?"

"Understand."

"I want to run in parallel."

"Parallel."

"Parallel."

"Like a parallelogram."

"Think back to last week, the moment when your heart stopped. You were given the choice, then, to either continue on or to let it lapse."

"I am being introduced to another spirit that has entered the space."

"Do you remember what your heart said to you?"

"Hello, I am here to assist you in fulfilling your mission."

–

The broadfork had six tines of equal shape and spacing. When its six sharpened fingers poked the ground and split the burrows, six unique yet similar worlds emerged. Worlds within worlds that already existed and operated as all the worlds do, with their own systems of arrangement, function, and communication networks. Upon disruption, the worlds shatter, and like disturbed anthills, their delicate systems crack and tumble beneath the oppressive forces of upheaval.

"Who knows what worlds change with each and every step? And not just yours alone."

"But we must take the steps regardless, each and every one."

"It is not a matter of will. No choice is still a choice."

"And choosing death?"

"Choosing death is the same as choosing life."

"But different."

"Different if you want to see it different. Also the same."

"I don't understand."

"You never will."

"But you can know."

"Knowledge is the foundation of all ignorance."

"You can experience."

—

Let us return to the equation that is set before us, for without an answer there simply is no way to move forward on our progress. When I tie my shoe, the laces lap and overlap, taking their own paths through the maze only to reunite and tie up in a tangle that renders the whole device operable. Yet the lace is just one, single entity.

"Parallel."

"Parallel."

Let us sing in a united chorus to appease the gods all of us. Everyone that is present.

—

Sunrise over the lake and the mountains. Did it choose one over the other, or both at the same time? The sailboat crosses the waterways.

"I have never seen the wind, therefore I cannot know it exists."

The sailboat only works because the wind exists. Perhaps it is otherwise.

"Perhaps it is God."

"And have you seen God?"

"That is irrelevant. Continue."

"And when I'm sad? I cry."

—

Their rooms were numbers 4 and 5, and the thin metal wall they shared was a mere quarter inch thick. She was a Libra. He, a librarian. The first night he didn't sleep, just felt her breathing. He knew their hearts were in sync, and that she was designed for him and him her. It was her eyes that first struck him, the eyes that unseated the roots of his very soul. There, in the rainforest, in the rain, in the place inside the place inside the Milky Way.

He watched her delicate movements in the reflection of the library window, her lovely essence existing on one side, the night sky and the stars shining through the other. When they met he knew her hands would be soft and smooth like the fuzzy surrounds of the horse's nostrils. She smelled like that.

Her darkness eventually crushed his heart and his spirit. Her guidance along the icy paths of danger could not heal his wounds, even upon reaching the hot warm waters that bubbled out from the volcanic veins charged somewhere from the planet beneath.

Her lifeless body floated between the rocks on the full moon river night. It was Sagittarius season, but none could be caught. She just wanted to go and be left alone. His needs were never met, but through the warmth in his veins was kept alive for a time. What came next there was no way to prepare for. He thought he saw her moving effortlessly downstream, but his eyes could not adjust. He just assumed it was a dream.

—

"Wake up."

"You've done this thing before. You should be aware of the ritual."

"I return to life every morning."

"The only successful monk is the one who cleans his room and mends his socks and washes his own dishes."

"I was never told what to do."

"There is no instruction manual."

"We each decide and decipher for ourselves."

"The signs and the symbols."

"Jupiter is rising."

"Jupiter rises for no one. She has her own life to live. We are fortunate to be part of it."

"Saturn sings sad songs on Sunday."

"What happens on Monday?"

"Wake up!"

"Yes, I'm here. I told you."

"I'm going to count to 10."

"But backwards."

"10."

"The brain scan came back negative."

"There is no brain."

"9."

"Beneath the pot that holds the water and the boiling rice is a flame. But what is beneath the flame."

"Perhaps there is nothing beneath anything."

"But even nothing is something."

"That has been proven."

"8."

"The sun blisters the landscape, yet because of it all things grow."

"And all things perish."

"Separation is merely a construct of the mind."

"Let it be separate then."

"Like the two hemispheres, they exist as one. There can be none without them both."

"It is dark in my mind yet my eyes see the light."

"Let them close."

"7."

"Take heed the great warnings of the prophets of the age. There is not much left to do."

"Nothing to do, nothing to see."

"Division and subtraction differ merely in a matter of degrees. An intensity."

"Like the temperature. It just keeps on climbing."

"Just let it ride. Just let it die."

"6."

"She tied the flag upon the steeple on top of the mountain. For forty-nine years she shined bright. But then, like all things, the fabric of her being became detached, and it fluttered in the wind, set loose upon the airstream, and it blessed a nation she had never known or heard of."

"Only has to let go."

"5."

"Cracked the face of the earth with the face of a shovel, sharp and not dull, clean and not rusted."

"I am battling an infection of the mind."

"Where is thine antidote?"

"I never knew nothing that could stop it once it got started."

"Getting started is the whole point."

"But can't you make it stop?"

"Stopping would defeat the purpose."

"4."

"Burn it all."

"I'd like to watch it."

"The voices spoke to me, they, coming in kindness, and me, willing to accept. They said that the journey is worthwhile. Value is derived through effort, and effort alone can accomplish."

"Would you begin at the place of the meetings of the waters or where they divide?"

"Neither. I can only begin at the beginning."

"3."

"The ancient foot-plank bridge crosses at the place of minimal disturbance. That does not make it safe. It is merely a portal of transformation. There is room enough for two sets of feet if each is mindful of its existence in time and kinetic space."

"Let us gather our blessings and sprinkle them along the path."

"I know of no other way than this."

"2."

"Please preach the formula, but even before that, use it to calculate your own lives."

"Your own lives. Your own lies. Your own eyes."

"Your own eyes have seen. What else do you think you need?"

"Perhaps a guide to lead the way of those who exist, an impulse towards tending the spark of eternal flame."

"It is of no true wonder how to get to there from here. It is merely one step at a time, one breath cycling into another and another."

"And another and another."

"And another and an other."