Inward Journey, darkness into light

I am totally alone. Sitting on a desolate hilltop, there are no lights from the distant valley below, no shadows. I am surrounded by total darkness. I turn my head heavenly and feel more alone still as I stare into the abyss of the infinite blackness of eternal space. There I find no movement or sound to give me direction, there is no wind to push me forward. Here in this desolate place, there can be no inner reflection, no greater understanding, no secrets to be revealed and self-awareness is unattainable.

Yet even in this place of doom, I have a distant feeling that there is something more. I turn my gaze inward and sense an object, still and black as the midnight sky, lying until now unobserved in the place where my heart used to beat.  There must be an answer there, there must, yet the harder I struggle to understand the meaning of the object the more elusive it becomes.

In virtual tears, I abandon my desperate search and collapse into a state of abject misery. Discarding all sense of hope I give myself up completely, letting the darkness consume my mind, body, and soul. It is at that moment of absolute defeat that a pinprick of reflective light appears at the edge of the object in my chest. At that very instant the same speck of brightness appears into the midnight sky above, and from this smallest of reflective light their begins to emerge shape and form, the moon has appeared in the blackness above, and I feel the connectedness of this celestial body to the object within me, they are one and the same.

As a razor-thin line of iridescent fire cuts slowly across the new moon both inside and outside of me, the battle between light and darkness plays out. The intense light slowly reveals the surface with great clarity.  Each deep scar and crevasse and crater, vast oceans of emotion now motionless and dry, great mountain peaks of happiness and the deep dark valleys of despair and self-inflicted misfortune that has been my life.

I seek through remembering to find the significance of each deep gash and crater and the incredible force or violence that must have created it. I sense also the silent erosion that has creased the moon’s surface from the constant battering by the celestial winds, and my own, a lifetime of experiences which eventually will crease all of our faces. Each new experience taking us farther and farther away from the purity that was our being, our soul, the wide-eyed wonder and curiosity of early childhood.

As more of the moon’s surface is revealed, as is my life story, bathed in new universal light.  I try to come to terms with all of these events, there connectedness in time and how one event led invariably to the next. Yet, the more intently that I look upwards and inwards the greater my feelings of remorse and desperation become. How could I have let this happen?  Is the Universe so cruel and uncaring? I try and turn my head away as each new piece of my life shows me more of what has been that I cannot change, but my eyes will not waiver.  The dark attraction in witnessing my inner pain and suffering is too strong.

I cringe and weep as more and more memories, a huge ocean wave of despair sweeps over me and just as I am certain that I can take no more; suddenly the entire surface of the moon is bathed in brilliant reflective light and my entire life is set before me. My body now bathed in the brightest moonlight trembles and shakes as previously unrecognized feelings of understanding and contentment overcome me.

The moon, inside and out, is full, bright, majestic and powerful when seen in its entirety. The craters and deep scars on the surface could no longer hide the smooth and optimistic surface that lies in between, or the steadfast, solid and enduring inner self that lies beneath.

Unable to control my emotions, my body and soul are swept away in a luminous great river of comprehension and mirth. An unstoppable smile as broad as the night is long, overwhelms my face.  I see myself now in my entirety, blemishes, and beauty, crying and in laughter, and as I gaze outward and inward, observing the full naked face of the moon cast against the background of the starlight from countless suns and the infinite power emanating from deep space, I see myself and I am beautiful, one with all things, a true giant reaching with open arms forever deeper, past the moon and into the endless universe beyond. 

And just as I thought I might be torn from my worldly body and consumed by the sheer power of acceptance and self-awareness, the face of the man on the moon, my face, raises its eyebrows and winks at me breaking the spell.  I find myself once again sitting in the grass, my body silhouetted against a much brighter universe, being just me again, staring contently into the night sky.