In Temple-Mind

In temple-mind. My hair is hung with sunlight and my chest is tanned and firm. I wear a string of Indian beads around my neck to protect me from God. My eyes are bright and sure of what they are looking for. I lie in a grave of deep white sand, dissolving, slowly being taken into that spectral world, things speeding up, gaining in importance, as a sea-wind gathers me as a lover into the peace and excitement of her body. I see the sky as an infinite thing that is trying to eat me, as I become lighter and I float still higher into a consciousness of the sun melting like a liquid into my skin. I become aware of eternity and of my breathing out of time. A sea-gull floats like a shimmering light in one... long... slow... glide across the sky, and then drops, and I close my eyes, terrified I shall become him in each perilous moment of falling. But he hovers just above the rocks and the balance of the world is restored. The ocean is a blankness that makes me question my belief in myself as something separate and alone, the waves as glittery bursts of energy in communion with the moon, living beings as they rise and roll and shatter in slow motion, crystal by crystal, and time stretches out as an elastic band until I see letters forming in the froth, and I begin to understand. I see my soul as a sparkle of sun on the water, and then I see others, millions of them, coming and going in a death-birth flow at incredible speeds through a slipstream of ocean, light and emptiness- for the first time I can remember I am not afraid to die, or to be alive. Written October 7th, 2001 © on Oct 07 2001 03:38 PM PST   18 • 0 • 1