I Am the Space In-Between

20 June 2011

I awoke to a desert;
  white sand all,
  except the blue of sky,
  both reaching to infinity.

'In this space, you shall find holiness...'

This is the space of the unknown.

But, what can we know of the 'unknown'?
  Of what does it taste? smell? feel?
  What lies therein?

White sand all,
  except the blue of sky,
  both reaching to infinity...

and me.

Solitary among the trillion bits of sand.
  A single breath laced into the gentle wind.
  A soul alone in the vastness of...
  what?
  of what?

Quiet.

Unbounded openness, empty space.
  Standing on a blank page;
  waiting for the writing to appear.

Nothing.

'Oh my god.

There is nothing.

Nothing except me.'

Roused by the empty space,
  my demons jump to the fore;
  fear, uncertainty, doubt, guilt, judge...
  voracious, black, eager.

Lusting after the empty space,
  the opportunity to fill the void;
  gluttonous, insatiable,
  never enough space to fill;
  unquenchable thirst;
  ready, ready, ready
  to be let loose.

Assuming the mask of authority and import,
  they shove violently into the space,
  quickly consuming it,
  casting shadow where light once shown,
  polluting the pristine sand with slime and filth.

White sand all,
  except the blue of sky,
  both reaching to infinity...

'Where have you gone?'

I close my eyes,
  remember the white, the blue, the openness...

I remember the child puppeteer, the one sending the demons.
  I see her fragility, her misguided attempts to protect me, her frightened heart.
  And, as so many times before,
  I take her into my arms and hold her;
  love, compassion, understanding, reassurance...

The puppets fall from the sky,
  melting into energy,
  transforming into chi.

'It is okay to be frightened.
  There is no need to be ashamed.
  Hold it, allow it.

Fear is part of being human.
  You walk in human form.
  Honor it, love it...

And, keep walking.'

The first lesson from the 'unknown'.

To be human is to know fear.
  A sage doesn't lack fear;
  she acknowledges and honors it.
  She learns to walk with it.

and...

She allows others to see it,
  to witness her fallibility.

For in her honest presentation of her self,
  she empowers others to embrace
  the humanness that is them,
  and to learn to walk
  in that humanness,
  to experience the divine.
-------------------------

'I am the space in-between.
  Look carefully.
  You see?

Here I Am.

Always there, here.
  Can you feel?

I feel your fear.
  I see the veil with which fear clouds your vision.

I love you.

You learned, did you not, in physics
  that the space in-between is vast,
  greater than the material forms I created from this space;

  that the material forms, too, are mostly the space in-between.

My child,
  that space in-between
  is not empty.

It is the all of life;
  It is the chi;
  It is the source.

It is the vibration in your body.
  It is the energy rushing through your hands.'

White sand all,
  except the blue of sky,
  both reaching to infinity...

The Unknown;
  the Holiness in the Unknown;
  the life in the Unknown;
  the source in the Unknown...

'There...
  There am I.
  There I AM.'