Sunday, July 22, 2012

Sunday, March 14, 2010

The 32nd Path, Tau, The Universe (The World)


The Administrative Intelligence


On a summer evening, you descend a sloping path into a narrow canyon striated with folds of ancient rocks. The walls of the canyon are bare except for their layers of color. By the time you reach the bottom, the sun has set and you walk in twilight to a small temple made purely of onyx, which rests in the middle of a cypress grove.

There is a spring to the left of the temple, which allows for the trees to grow, as well as the nightshade that hems the temple’s perimeter. As the evening grows darker, the fluted white blossoms of these plants are just beginning to open. Compared to the barrenness of the canyon walls, you have found a flourishing oasis.

On either side of the temple’s vestibule stand statues of Demeter holding a shaft of wheat and her daughter, Persephone, with a pomegranate. You walk between them and come to a platform, also made of onyx. The sky is dark now, without stars, but there is a brilliant full moon whose light reflects on the smooth dark surface of the platform and pillars that surround you.

You lie down and let the warm night hold you and listen to the spring bubbling from the ground. This gentle sound relaxes you, so when the platform lowers into the earth, you willingly go with it. You have come to this temple for revelation and are ready to take whatever journey is needed.

You close your eyes and sense yourself sinking into the darkness of your body where you begin to see the atoms spinning, each a small world in the vastness of space. When you open them for just a moment, the moonlight is gone. The only source of light now comes form two spiraling rods supporting the platform, creating an electromagnetic pulse, one rod pulling energy form deep in the cavern and another sending it back to its source. You shut your eyes once again as you continue the descent but open your spirit to allow this energy to flow without resistance.

Finally, the platform stops and you feel as though you have taken a long restful nap. You awaken immersed in complete darkness. The soft splashing of waves and mild motion of the platform feels as though you are floating. The platform, in fact, has transformed into a small barge and is carrying you on an unlit sea.

You float for a long while, and when your eyes have adjusted to the lack of light, emanations appear. You seem surrounded by a swarm of crocodiles, the water full of their rough brown heads, sharp teeth and eyes, but recognize them for what they really are, pure illusion, and so your barge sails among their bodies with ease.

To your surprise, though, a fish with the head of a goat leaps upon the boat, its body lit by a violet luminescence. In its mouth is a key. You take the key and the fish slips out of your hands and jumps back in the water.

In front of your barge, the visage of an angelic young man appears. You look to your left and see a bull, behind you there is a lion, and to your right, an eagle with its wings unfurled. Your barge stops so that if lines were drawn from these images they would intersect where you sit.

Above this invisible cross of energy, you have a vision of Christ healing a blind man and a sick woman. You also feel His healing power, and it is as though a door opens. There is a sudden gust of wind and you take a deep breathe of fresh air.

The sight awes you, and as the vision slowly dissolves, a flaming torch appears in front of the barge. You must step across to reach it. Thinking that with Christ all things are possible, you place a foot on the water to find that the sea has solidified and become earth.

You take the torch and meander though narrow passageways until you enter a spacious crystalline chamber where the light of the torch is reflected and magnified. Touching one of the walls, a white substance comes off on your fingers. Licking them, you discover that the chamber is made of salt. There are three statues of gnomes, also made of salt, guarding doors carved into the wall across the chamber from where you stand. You walk over and, after a moment’s hesitation, choose one of the doors and place the key the goat-fish gave you into its lock.

The door opens easily, swinging into a garden full of fragrant jasmine. Taking the key, you explore this garden until you find a plain lead box lying in the midst of the bushes with a cross that is deeply engraved into the lid. You find that your key unlocks this as it did the door. When you raise the lid, there are some parchments lying at the bottom, brown with age.

Carefully, you pick up the top one and taking care not to rip the paper, open it to find your name written on it. The remaining papers detail the plan of your life. As you read, you see that what has and will unfold is steeped in purpose and meaning. Joy fills you, and your life's path that the papers clarify becomes illuminated inside your heart, an embodied gift that will always be there to guide you.

You feel a gentle tap on your shoulder. When your turn there is Persephone, the temple guardian comes to life. She takes hold of your hand and the two of you dance as your both emerge from the underworld. While spinning with you, she transforms into her mother Demeter, now pregnant with her child. She then becomes a crone with eyes that understand everything about your personal story.

The old woman kisses you and, once again, you are standing in front of the temple in the middle of the cypress grove. The moon shines down on the entire canyon and the path to the top looks like a ribbon of white lace. Before you make your ascent, you turn to the temple and bow, giving thanks for being made ready to walk the other paths that lie before you.

The 31st path, Shin, Judgement


The Perpetual Intelligence

Imagine the letter “shin” above your head taking the shape of a molar on fire, a bright living flame that enters the top of your head and descents like a stream of scarlet fire filling you with Divine Light.

Your inner self expands, and you feel your consciousness stretch beyond your physical body, extending outward through time and space until it seems as though the whole universe is contained within your being.

You take some time to bask in the wonder of this experience, knowing that within your small self lies the vastness of God, that there can be no separation.

With this realization, you feel yourself contract and discover you are in a banquet room, warmed by a huge fire that glows in a hearth built of a circle of stones in the middle of the room.

Along the walls torches burn with the same scarlet light that entered your body. The crackling of their flaming tapers and that of the wood kindling in the hearth are the only sounds you can hear. The temperature of the room is quite warm, and you feel feverish, as though your body is cleansing and becoming purified.

On one side of the hearth, a statue of a lion faces you, and his eyes glow with the brilliance of fire opals. You wonder how these lights have been kindled and sense that this beast is alive and could step easily from its perch if it so desired. You feel no fear, though.

A table materializes, piled high with all of your favorite food. Lamps flicker every few feet illuminating the bounty. The banquet expands with the room as far as you can see in both directions. You know that this room represents the part of you that is eternal and that this feast has been prepared just for you.

You feel as though you have traveled a long way and become ravenously hungry and begin to sample the offerings. As you feel yourself digesting this miraculous cuisine, you sense how nourishing it is and your body responds with newfound strength. You wonder how you have survived in the past without the type of subsistence you are receiving at this moment. What is even more wondrous, you know that this food will sustain you forever and regenerate your body, no matter how little or how much you eat of it.

The lion transforms into a real animal with hair and flesh, stretching and yawning. It looks at you with such sincerity that you find yourself kneeling in its presence.

Follow me, it tells you in a gentle voice, and then disappears into the flames.

Warmed inside and out by this room, and given courage from the food you have eaten, you trust the lion and step into the flames. The smell of burning copal surrounds you, and you feel the dross of your false self melting away. You feel uncomfortable and for a while, the fire burns, but in time this sensation passes and you feel renewed.

You step out of the flames and discover that you are in a field of red poppies. Your body feels lighter than it ever has, almost as though it could take wing and fly away. The sky is scarlet, matching the color of the flowers that surround you. You realize that it is early dawn. In this sphere of existence, the day is always beginning. The sun’s rays always glow on the eastern horizon and are always present to give power for spiritual renewal.

As you study them, the rays form the shape of a serpent. The snake rises above your head and opens its mouth. As with the lion, you feel awe but not fear. A fang hangs from its mouth and you sense the potency of the serpent’s bite and know what it will be like. Because of the feeling of liberation you have already experienced, you prepare yourself, knowing that after the serpent has done what it wants with you, the transformation that you undergo will be even more glorious than the previous one.

The serpent leans closer. Its breath is sharp, but instead of biting it whispers, Rauch Elohim. A great wind comes out of its mouth. You feel the fire of transformative passion: the power held by the banquet room, the power in the lion’s spirit and body, and the power in the fire that did not kill you. Passion passed down through the eons and now extends to you, making you a part of its manifestation.

The serpent fades away, leaving only its fang hanging above you in the air. The tooth becomes a trumpet. The archangel Gabriel appears, with flaming wings and wearing a dark blue robe. The angel brings the trumpet to her lips. The music she plays sounds like a melody made from sparks and flames and the whole world around you glows with intensified radiance.

The sun’s rays descend like tongues of fire, and in your inner ear, you hear the annunciation: You have become a new container, unfolding with new life. Christ Consciousness, the fruit of Holy Fire, lies within you. Listen with your inner ear and converse with the Holy Spirit. Your Holy Guardian Angel is at hand ready to guide and protect you.

Wafts of lavender come up from the ground and you see shoots of this plant growing and intermingling with the poppies. Gabriel’s figure disappears in the clouds that have formed to cool the land from all this intensity, but you feel a new presence descend. Gabriel’s music has prepared the way for your intermediary, made from the fabric of your highest energy, who has come to be a co-creator with you.

The 30th Path, Resh, The Sun





The Collecting Intelligence

On a balmy evening under the silver light of a full moon, you stand in a walled garden holding a golden chalice in your hands. The night is so quiet that you hear your heart beating, keeping time with the pulse of the summer night.

Your body is very much a part of the deep grass your feet sink into, the laurel tree that grows by the gray wall, even the clay from which the bricks were fashioned. Moonlight bathes you, and you feel your intuitive powers keenly.

Raising the chalice in your hand, you say this prayer:

Dear Eternal Mother, Lead me on the way to the path of the Sun. Let your great understanding guide me to wisdom and my liberation. Let the child in me be reborn. Amen

You lift the chalice to the sky and liquid moonlight flows into it. A cross of rainbow hues rises from this mixture and hovers over the garden, shining spectral light over your body. You feel a slight shift within and then bring this elixir to your lips.

As you taste the last sweet drops, the moon transforms and the sun bursts brilliantly from it as though breaking through a porcelain shell. The garden comes alive with light, birdsong, and the humming of insects beneath the blue sky that has been newly painted above. Peacocks now roam near you, displaying their full plumage.

At the bottom of the chalice, you see sunflower seeds, the residue of the elixir you have just consumed. Pouring all but one in your hand, you scatter the seeds along the bottom of the wall. Within moments, sunflowers shoot up to the sky, each like a small sun all its own.

Far in the distance, perhaps as far as the wilderness outside the garden, a lion roars. Something in the deep resonance makes you desire to find this creature. The thought of coming face to face with the lion seizes you with joy, not fear, and you know that this will be your quest.

You twirl on the grass to celebrate the miraculous explosion of life that has been born around you and the possibility of an encounter with this mysterious beast. This sunlight has become a part of you, regenerating the core of your being, giving you strength for the destiny you have chosen.

The pungent smell of laurel leavens wafts down. You pick a leaf and put it in the chalice, and decide to explore this magical realm, you own special garden. You find a faint trail through the tall green grass and descend a hill, adding parts of the flowers and plants to the chalice, gathering other herbs that you happen upon.

A blood red flower especially interests you, and so you bend down to study it. The petals are hot when you touch them. You carefully take a few of them and drop them into your chalice with the rest of your collection. The addition of these flowers makes the contents smolder and you set the chalice down.

The mixture bursts into flames much like the moon did when the sun came forth. In the midst of the fire, a baby dragon is born. The dragon stretches its wings, cries quietly, and then waddles over to you. You carefully pick up the little creature and gaze into its amber eyes.

The dragon flaps once or twice on your outstretched palms and then lifts on pearly wings into the sky, circling around your head, and then flying toward the south. The lion roars again in that direction. You follow entranced with this magical realm and the guide you have created.

The dragon leads you deeper into the garden to a grove of what must be a thousand ancient trees. As you enter, your intuition tells you that you have come upon sacred space. Though you experienced joy with the dawning of the sun, you realize that this was only a reflection of the exultation that waits for you.

You walk a long way through the corridor of trees until you see the dragon fly to a golden temple glittering so brightly you must shield your eyes. The dragon disappears into the light, and then, at the top of the steps, the lion appears sitting regally on a large stone. Light permeates the entire temple, radiating out from him and the sacred rock that generates the electric pulse to which the whole garden has been tuned.

The lion transforms into a man and the scent of roses permeates the air. Realizing Whom you are encountering, you fall to your knees. Earlier, you had thought the world and your very essence had been reborn, and though you indeed had undergone a transformation, you understand now it was only in preparation for this encounter.

The Divine Man, God made Flesh, Love opening its heart to the world, has come to meet you in this beautiful garden.

You hear Jesus’ gentle words: I am the Resurrection, the Eternal Body of Light, the Logos made the world. I am the Word, the Light and Life inside of you, the divinity that indwells in your being.

The world breaks open like a rose blooming, petal after petal, a part of the eternal becoming of the universe. At this moment, there is no past or future. There is only always, only the Source: a place of understanding and wisdom, compassion and love, where all things are created.

The next moment you are alone. The King had journeyed into the wilderness just beyond the garden wall. You now wear a crown, amazingly light for something made of the purest gold. When the time comes, you will follow the King into the wilderness, carrying His light with you, for you have been reunited with the essence, the Christos within. For now, though, you begin to dance.

The 29th Path, Qoph, The Moon


The Corporeal Intelligence

Visualize yourself sleeping soundly in the soft sand next to a pool of deep blue water that ripples in gentle waves near your body. A full noon passes in and out of the clouds intermittently shining its light upon your sleeping self. As you watch this scene, you feel pulled into your body and become the one sleeping.

You hear the rain before you sense it on your skin, a soft tapping on the ground all around you. Then its rhythm intensifies; what feels like the cool touch of fingertips running up and down your body brings you to consciousness. Still in a dreamy state, you sit up and raise your face to the sky and breathe in the scent of the newly washed earth.

You have the profound impression that you are waking from having touched something of the eternal in the deepest part of your sleep. You wonder if you are now in a dream, but your arms and then your legs fell real and substantial. You are convinced, though, that this quiet evening beside this sapphire pool is something you created from your encounter with Divine Darkness.

You turn toward the pool and wash your face, hands and feet. As you do, the rain stops and the sky becomes clear. The sand, stones and the trees behind you shimmer with white lace. You are at peace and feel no hurry to leave, even if you knew where to go, so you sit watching the water reflect the moon’s face and then break it apart upon its gentle ripples.

The moon in the water changes before your eyes, shrinking to a half moon. A large fish rises, with scales so bright they must have caught all the light expelled as the moon grew smaller. The fish balances on the water with its back fin and then transforms into an angel, with scaly wings instead of feathers shining with incandescence.

You must leave here now, the fish-angel says in a voice made more for water than for air. Here the womb surrounds you. Give birth to yourself and follow the path that lifetimes have crated to find the truth of your existence.

Where is the path? you ask, but wings become fins once more as the avatar of this pond blends again with the rippling water.

There is a rustling behind you. When you turn to look, a sheepdog stands on a path that starts just where you are kneeling. You laugh, as you have been on the path all along. You call the dog to you, instinctually knowing that it has come to guide and to protect, but instead of heeding, the dog barks once and disappears over a rise. You take a small stone from the edge of the pool to remember this place, put it in your pocket and follow.

The path winds through some tall grass, and though your mind tells you that the rain stopped a long, long time ago, judging that the moon has now waned from half to a quarter, the grass is still wet and the smell of rain lingers.

You walk to the top of the rise and acres of carefully cultivated fields roll out before you. Even in the orderly nature of these fields, you sense a numinous quality to them, as though they are at once very old but also newly created.

The sheepdog leads you past poppy fields and hibiscus, both magically flowering at night, rows of wheat and barley, and vineyards with plump grapes on the vines so ready for harvest you become slightly intoxicated from their bouquet.

You wander through these fields, following your guide, until you feel another significant amount of time has passed. Has it been days, or weeks, or years? You don’t know, so pause and look at the sky once again.

The moon has now changed to crescent and the shadows that lay just off the path have grown darker. When you take your eyes from the sky, you find you are not alone. A young woman dressed in a gown fashioned from black feathers stands in front of you. She hands you a chalice filled with wine and a piece of bread. Her voice is gentle but you hear her authority all the same

Drink and eat these for the next part of your journey. I am the Divine Mother, the Queen of Heaven, who links Heaven and Earth, Father and Son by my Love. I am the mother of the Living God within you. Drink this for the path will be darker from this point on. Let this Wine kindle the light within. Eat the bread so you will be sustained by my Son’s own body, knowing that His Divinity resides in you.

You thank her for her gifts. As you sip and eat, you feel the bread and wine become one with your body and blood, sense a new life entering and renewing you. The same mystery that you brought with you from sleeping by the pool, but could not then bring to consciousness, now transforms the consciousness of your cells. You are becoming a new creation, even on a lonely road in the midst of a dark night, Christ-consciousness is lighting the path within.

You hand the cup back to her. She places it by her heart and then lifts from the earth, metamorphosing into a black swan whose body blends into space and the stars above.

The sheepdog is still there, its white coat brighter than even the moon. You follow this light through two gray towers from where you hear voices of men and women: some arguing, some crying, a few praying to be released from their stone imprisonment. You sense that you once lived in one of these towers, that your voice has fallen discontentedly from it before you were awakened by the rain by the pool.

As you stand there and look to what is beyond, the sheepdog finally joins you and sits at your feet. The moon has disappeared all together and you no longer see the way to go. The sky, though, is not longer black, but crimson, and the smell of roses surrounds you. The unknown offers you this aroma as comfort, one familiar thing along with the faithful sheepdog, before you step into what has yet to be manifested.

The dog places a paw on your pocket reminding you of the stone you brought from the pond. In your hand, the stone is now a translucent pearl that shines with the same light as the loving guide who waits patiently at your feet. You hold the pearl in front of you and take the first step beyond the towers, into the infinite and possible, knowing that love is there and will never leave.

The 28th Path, Tzaddi, The Star

The Natural Intelligence

You awake swimming at night just below the surface of the dark violet sea, the realm of Binah, the Great Mother. Starlight reflects in shimmering waves of light penetrating the first few feet of the water’s surface. You have become a merman, or a merwoman, and know that you have been swimming in these waters for incarnations.

You also are aware that the small crystal you wear around your neck is made of the same star-force that shines above, and you flick your tail in joy.

Below you lay Mystery, where thought forms merge with the primal elements of Creation, and then drift through the layers of the subconscious. The water is warm and you relax on the surface of the waves, feeling the support of the Eternal Depths.

You come up to the top of the sea and are surprised you can breathe air as well as water. Floating on your back, you let the waves take you where they will. Occasionally, you roll on your belly and look down at the marvelous creatures sharing the current with you. Phosphorescent fish pass by, casting their small light next to the starry pattern from above.

But then, water around you begins to churn and several small winged creatures appear in the foam. These water sprites have transparent bodies that seem to me made of air, salt, and foam, and they blink like fireflies. They laugh, and their small voices cry out, The Queen is rising to greet you.

Then, in the midst of the empty surface of the sea, rises a scallop shell carrying the Great Mother, manifesting as Aphrodite. She lies languidly on her shell and the sprites descend to attend to her, combing her hair, holding a mirror up for her to contemplate herself, others lighting the foam of the liquid path. You bask in her great beauty and wonder if she is aware of your presence, but then she looks from her mirror and motions for the sprites to leave.

You have enjoyed your play, and that is good. But now you must go within the find the truest treasure that lies within the fabric of my body. As you are made from my body, the Kingdom of Heaven lies within. It is time that I give you new birth for you have the knowledge of its transcendent nature.

The Goddess lowers a cupped hand into the sea, and when she raises it, she slowly lets the water flow back through her fingers. The water becomes murky, and you can no longer sea the marvels beneath you. The starlight above also disappears, as Aphrodite continues her instructions to you.

It is now the time to search inward. Meditate and release the great flow from where your Self arises. Fix your mind on the star above and bring your greatest gift to the surface.

She vanishes and you are alone. You float in darkness as her words sink deeply into body and mind. And then, one star emerges in the opacity surrounding you. The faint light it casts allows you to see a small boat floating far away on what may be the horizon. Through it will take effort, you decide to swim toward it; the only sound the movement of your arms and the splashes of your tail. Once you finally touch the boat, your tail slips from your pelvis and your human legs begin to move to keep you afloat.

Climbing aboard the boat, you find a fishing reel made of olivewood that has an iron hook at the end of the line. You bait the hook, not knowing what you might catch, and then let the boat gently rock while you decide what to pull from the sea as you contemplate the one light left to you, the silent star in the sky. The quiet allows you to sink deep inside of yourself and search for greater stillness. You breathe, feel the waves rise and fall, and sense a peaceful presence guiding the boat along the current. You are patient, letting yourself drift, trusting what needs to be asked for will be known at the moment you can receive it.

You feel you are at the point of bringing something up from your subconscious, an image not quite formed but riding on a trail of energy uniquely yours. You remember the crystal necklace and take it off to wind it around the hook. You lower the bait into the sea. As you let out the line, you realize you are floating toward the dawn.

When the sun has completely risen, you back in its warmth until you feel a tug on the line. Your attention turns to the gifts you are about to receive from the force that supports and protects your small vessel. You pull in the line. As you peer over the rim of the boat, the murkiness clears and your treasure emerges. When you bring it into the boat, it is as wet and slippery as a newborn. You clasp it to your heart.

Land appears and you use your mind to guide your boat toward it. Once you reach the shore, you leave the boat and walk in the sand on unsteady legs to a line of palm trees heavy with coconuts. They point to the oasis where you will stay until the time comes for your gift to manifest in the world. Peacocks feed spreading their tails like jeweled fans, reminding you of the beauty of your gift.

Have you found paradise? You find the spring that feeds the oasis and drink long cool draughts, reveling in your natural self, the beauty of your naked form. You feel aligned with the Divine Child, who was given birth by Staris Mari, the Great Mother Sea. Peace washes over you as he realize He is working through you with this gift, and also with other presents you now know you have been given, to make things healed and perfect in the world beyond the oasis.

The 27th Path, Peh, The Tower

The Exciting Intelligence

During a night without moon or stars, you stand at the top of a tall tower. Bellies of dark clouds skim the battlements. You feel imprisoned by the weight of a heavy crown on your head. The clouds feel as oppressive; the atmosphere so thick you can hardly breathe.

Your feet and your legs are weary from standing on the hard stones. Longing to be someplace new, you try to speak your desire to the impending storm, but find that you are mute. You see no way out of the tower’s interior and find that its great height imprisons you as well.

What good is it to rule this place if you have no freedom? The dreariness of your future, which you can only perceive as limited, full of hunger and thirst, and dull as the gray stones that entrap you fills you with despair. Words of protest surface and you try to scream, only to find that your fury is locked deep inside of you and cannot be released.

At this time, you see flashes of lightning. As they rip through the sky, you see several towers illuminated far off in the distance. One by one they ignite. They burn brightly for a brief time, and then collapse. A few seconds later, thunder rumbles so loudly that the tower shakes. A few battlement stones break off and fall to earth as you are knocked down to your hands and knees.

Where the stones were torn form the tower, a winged creature with a lion head, the body of a goat, and a serpent’s tail hovers over you with feathers that burn crimson with fire. The chimera’s eyes also smolder, while the rest of its body writhes before you.

You feel electrified with fear that this beast will snatch and throw you off the tower, your body to break so far below, or that the lion will devour you. Instead, the beast cocks its head and steps so close that the sulfur that reeks from its body fills your nostrils.

I smell your fear. I smell your despair. You wonder why you are trapped here? Every stone below you is of your own making. Each stone was made with desperation, of self-hatred, and guilt. The mortar was created by your false beliefs. You are indeed the sovereign of this lonely spire.

I have not come to consume you, as you fear because you conceived me. I am manifested by your shadow, and made from the myriad ways you deceive yourself. Yet, you called me to you even in your inability to speak, and by facing me, your transformation begins.

The chimera’s scream pierces the sky as it flies into the storm clouds. Lightning zigzags across its path and hits the tower. The electricity convulses through your body as you fall headfirst into the abyss.

You experience complete darkness and flat in the black space, but eventually the smell of cinders brings you to consciousness. You wake and tower has disappeared. Before you now bubbles a fiery lake. The ground beneath you is composed of jasper and garnet, hard red stones that dig into your body. You sit up slowly and wonder if this searing world means you’ve descended to Hell.

As soon as this thought passes through your mind, laughter surrounds you. Up from the lake rises the god Krishna, playing his flute and dancing on the burning water. His music is the first comfort you have experienced in what feels like eons, and, slowly, his music soothes your rattled spirit.

When tension has left your body, Krishna stops playing and speaks. You stand at the edge of the fount of creation. Join me in the dance of your new life.

Though you fear being burned, you step onto the lake to join him. Krishna puts his flute to his lips and fire surrounds you. Yet, instead of fearing its destructive power, peace and hope grows inside of you.

Krishna transforms into Horus, a young god with a falcon head, holding the sun between his hands. Just as quickly, Horus becomes the god Mars, a robust man holding a flaming sword. As you swirl by him, kicking up sparks with your feet, he hands you the sword.

All power of transformation comes from this lake, and the flames of this sword will always be renewed. The energy of the tower that you were trapped in has been consumed and transformed. Use this fire to propagate your new existence. Spread its flames on the new fields your thoughts and words will sew.

You choose to stop your dance and find yourself in a field of dark green grass that cools the soles of your feet. The flaming sword is clasped in one hand, and a small blood red stone, still hot from its source, gleams brightly in the other. These are the only sources of illumination you have, for the stars and moon are still absent; above is only a void tinted scarlet.

You see the letters IHVH inscribed on the stones, and the significance of having danced with the many faces of the Father-God become apparent. Remembering what you have been told, you finally find your voice.

Let there be light, you say into the emptiness. Your word ring clear and true.

The sword flies from your hand into the sky and becomes the sun. The scarlet above you unfolds into blue sky. Clutching the stone, you spea k again, from the depth of your being, now healed and transformed, and from here you begin to recreate your world.