The Sacred Flame

I find myself locked in a reality unknown. Shadows dance upon the wall. Teasingly they beckon me to follow them into a realm where dreams collide. To a place where light and dark do not exist; only malevolent shades of grey. Memories of the past stretch out before me from this distant place, pulling me in. I close my eyes and I am there.

Daunting are the sights, yet sensual is their touch as they tempt me from within forcing my eyes wide shut. I cannot open them! I dare not. For what shall I see? Visions of what are surround me. I cannot look. I am afraid. Summoning a shroud of illumination from my very core I gain the courage to look. Barren as a wasteland this place is. Cold and lifeless as a heart with no hope it is. I listen as voices carry over the open space breathing warmth into my weary soul. They whisper of a flame; a flame that burns ever brightly. “Seek it out,” they say.

In a moment I am carried to a new place. I feel valiant and proud. I am surrounded by the riches of Kings! Donned in robes of gold, strange beings fall at my feet. They offer to me unimaginable possessions. Gold and silver are their offerings. “All this and more shall be yours," they say. “You have but only to reach out and receive them.” Promises they are. Cruel, unsatisfying promises. They lie to me as I seek to find the strength to withstand. Purposely I reach my arms up to the heavens that I trust are there yet I cannot see. Can anyone hear me? Save me from this place! These riches that entice me are not what I seek. There is no comfort to be found in these. There is no sacred flame here. Let me be gone from this place, I cry!

Again, I feel the wind in my face as I am carried to another realm. This time I do not fear to open my eyes. What I behold in this place is the wonder of a familiar magnificence, but I cannot completely grasp it. There is warmth here but it offers no peace. I feel empty; unfulfilled. I behold many strangers yet they cannot see me. Or, perhaps they choose not to. Insignificant I am to them; a beggar among thieves. My worth is fruitless here. I plead to them to point me to the flame. Some laugh, some scowl. Some look upon my being in pity and remorse. They point at me. They judge me. I am neither man nor woman. I am not like them. I feel the flame but I am deficient in the knowledge of how to seek it out. I attempt to communicate but, alas, they cannot comprehend. Inwardly I forgive them. They do not know me. They know not of why I have come. Not a one notices when I move on from them away from this harsh reality.

Moving through the shadows I regard a bitter cold. It bites through the layers of my being peeling them away to expose me. Naked and vulnerable I am. “Surely there is no flame here," I utter aloud. I wander through this frozen place yet I feel no pain. Off in the distance I see a path and I move towards it. I see lights and colors. How beautiful they are! They begin to swirl about me bending and twisting in a form of dance. I have no body here. All that is mine is what I feel. I observe the colors as they take on shapes of the past, present and future. These colors become one with me. I am the very prism of brilliance. “Ask what you will,” they say. An ache resonates within the depths of my being. They call to me. “Do not be afraid,” they say.

I recite to them of the emptiness as I held fast to hope when there was none. I rejoiced in the riches that were mine, yet how they did not consume me. I admitted that I was humbled by the desolate existence yet I held on to the quest, not diverting to my lowly domain. I had traveled the expanse of many existences an immortal creature I am. So much searching; craving for the completeness that would be mine that would finally bring me back to the place of my timeless existence. “Much I have conquered,” I tell them. I confess of my desires to be made whole. “I have traveled the expanse of space and time. Where then is the completion?”

I can feel them smile upon me now. They envelope me in a love unlike any I have ever known. They wrap me in affection and feed to me the sweet fruit of unending elation. They confess to summoning me to this place of frozen dreams in order to feel the sweet pledge of the flame that is, and has always been, mine. With their blessings upon me they lull me into slumber one last time. As I drift away from them I hear them whisper to me. “Seek it out," they say. "For it was yours all the time.”

I open my eyes. In the darkness I can now see the light. I have cast off the shroud of deceptions and lies that I was born into. I rise above the illusions and cast off the weight of all that is unholy; the burdens of past. Clean am I now. I am half of the whole. Finally I am ready to receive it. I hear the melodious drone of Love's immortal chant. Calling to the half of my whole I let my spirit soar. Smiling to myself in a place where shadows dwell, I only see light. I open my soul wide to the flame. With arms wide open I can now receive it.