Inner Legacy (6 page)

The Lake of Fire

The changes in the valley were at first difficult to grasp. It was obviously different but I wasn't quite sure why and there was a presence. A shadowy silvery presence beside me. I allowed myself to float face down my head turning in to the wind. I rose to perhaps two metres off the ground and looked downwards at the grass which was changing slowly but surely.

I would glance to my left to try and see my companion but failed to detect more than sense of being flowing out into the wind, I received impressions of this figure rather than saw its presence and I could tell nothing of its nature or sex. I sensed rather than saw long flowing robes and golden hair flowing in a faster wind than I experienced, a creature being drawn out in to the distance by the wind.

This all sounds unlikely all I can do is faithfully relate that which I experienced, how or why I made this experience fit this description may owe more to my brain's need to put into concrete form that which it was experiencing by calling on past images and forms to make sense of the reality that was now shifting as though ruptured.

I cannot vouch for what actually happened as now on reflection I realise my brain  could play many tricks on me in this fluid environment. I recalled many times late at night when I had heard footsteps in the house which of course did not happen but my brain interpreted the sounds of a cooling house with its creaks and groans as footsteps. How often we are fooled by our brains.

It is therefore with some diffidence that I try to describe the events that appeared to take place in the hours or days that lay ahead. That the experience was real I have no doubt it is just that I am trying to describe experiences to which there is no easy relationship to vocabulary or the earth bound reality we experience. So I have to resort to simply trying to describe what I think I saw happening without being able to do it adequate justice. I know as I write this down that it would be easy to fall in to the trap trying to explain it as I go along to add a commentary to the events, to try and explain after a period of reflection, what happened to me, however I fear that my illness progresses rather faster than I had hoped and that I might not even be able to finish this tale before I am overtaken by death or weakness. Rest assured though that what I describe to you is as real as these notebooks you are reading. This was not some morphine fuelled tripping into an imaginary world. If time is allowed to me to finish this tale then of course I will try and add what commentary I can to give you the key to fully understand what has been granted to me in this experience. Only time flows so rapidly in these dwindling days of my life and I am so desperate to pass this on to you as I suspect or at least hope you will be the one to learn from this tale and understand what to do with it. I lay a heavy burden on you. I know that. If you choose not to accept it then feel no obligation or guilt just let it all go and lay it aside. The tale now takes a turn onto greater strangeness and I feel it necessary to warn you of this and hope that you can find the key to understanding the nature of what happened and I pray you will forgive my poor attempts at explaining it to you. I know I have to record this for you and you alone that much is crystal clear but it has not been given to me to see beyond that point in time. I am not permitted even to know if you will read this but since the imperative to communicate  this to you is so strong I have little doubt this will find its way to you. I know I doubted earlier in this tale but as I progress with it I am ever more assured that you will come to this, and you alone. That much I have been permitted to see and know but what happens beyond that I cannot see and I know is not my concern. I simply pass this on to you Adam and what you do with this is up to you. Perhaps it is for you alone? Perhaps for others also? I cannot tell. Let you not think that I am mad and above all else do not dismiss this as the ramblings of a deranged dying man or worse that of a madman. What I share with you in these writings is a truth that has no end or beginning. At least that's what I understand it to be. I am not deranged, trust me on this. How hard it is to send these words into the future knowing that you will not be able to look me in the eye to see the truth and the clarity of mind and to know that I tell you the truth. Across the void of time and death I am reaching out to you to communicate that which I have seen with my own eyes. I hope you can find it in your heart not only to believe me but also to understand what I am writing. More than anything I want you to understand what I am writing, understand the great truth within these words. Even if you choose to dismiss what I describe as a mind's poor effort to make sense of an experience as faulty at least see the truth contained within the words before you. I have digressed from my tale my experience to plead with you to stay with me and learn from what comes next. I make this plea as I grow weaker simply because I am not sure I can describe in any meaningful terms what happens next. Attempting to describe the event about to unfold is I fear beyond me and the reality of the experience impossible to communicate. For example I can write about standing on top of Everest and you will have all the information the written word can convey but nothing will give you the reality of what it was like, not that I have ever been to Everest but you will understand I trust my meaning in making this point. I fear failure beyond this point in what I must try to describe. Forgive me that and try to see beyond my stumbling, fumbling words. I cast about trying to find what I must say and find it hard even to know what or how to begin to explain what happens next as I find myself not only lost for words but having no reference point for your reality and mine to which I might attach a rope to anchor all of this to something better than metaphor.

Try I must. I know there will be no time left for revision and therefore what you read now is the raw material with all its faults and failings. I grow weak today and will rest a little before I continue my feeble description. Fail though I might in this task I feel honoured above all else to have this tale to share with you. So as always I give it my best shot which will probably be wide of the mark. I am going to lie down now to sleep for a little this afternoon.

The Black Plain

The wind blew and as I floated I kept my head towards the wind, feeling my hair flow backwards over my shoulders. Looking down I saw the ground begin to ripple as though the wind blew over the surface of a still pond with little undulating waves of grass and soil and river. I watched in amazement as my seemingly solid little world began to behave like a large lake. I looked behind and to my left and right and as far as I could see there was this rippling. The wind blew steadily but nothing moved in it except the ground. The leaves on the trees did not move, the water in the river did not ripple, apart from the steady undulating landscape nothing else appeared out of the ordinary.

A chorus of bird song, happy songs of early morning filled the air and then the pulse began and with the undulation grew longer and the wavelength increased and the ground rose higher and fell further with each passing wave as though the ground was no more than a covering on a great lake.

It was hard  to notice at first but below me, directly below me the earth began to split and a sliver of gap was visible and below what looked like fire without heat. As the wind blew the gap widened slowly and the ground moved away like a carpet being rolled up. Many hours seemed to pass as this wind continued and the whole of the world where I had dwelt so happily gave way to the redness of fire, smooth fire, small flames a gentle burning lake. It stretched out on all sides and as the mountains disappeared so there was an edge of darkness around me that took shape until I was floating above a very obvious circle of fire.

My companion radiated peace and I simply lay head to the wind and let it all happen before my eyes. I could now neither rise nor fall but seemed to be locked into position.

The lake of fire began to settle and no longer ripple, no longer being affected by the wind which was slowly fading until there was nothing but a lake of fire surrounded by darkness and myself and my shadowy companion floating above the fire.

There was no heat or cold in this place. No sound for with the passing of the wind which seemed to roll over us and move on rather than die away completely, the sound of bird song faded in the distance behind me borne along on the wind that blew onwards on its journey.

I hung there for a long time. I was in reality stuck in the one place. My shadowy companion remained like the Ghost of Christmas Past.

I closed my eyes and tried to think without success. I kept my eyes shut and I think I drifted off to sleep in this strange landscape.

Waking again I opened my eyes and the lake of fire had disappeared and I seemed to be moving, led by my companion who felt as though he were holding my hand and guiding me onwards. Although it dark, I could see and although I floated along through this darkness it felt as though it had form and substance. It was the strangest of experiences.

We moved into an upright position and in the far distance I saw a light radiating upwards as though from under the ground, spreading funnel-like into the sky if I can divide the blackness into ground and sky which is the only way I can find to express what I experienced. We floated on it seemed at a regular unfaltering speed and the light ahead grew slowly larger. It must have been a greater distance to  cover than I imagined as the light only slowly grew in intensity and size.

There was of course nothing against which I could calibrate distance or size or even our speed. In fact all such notions became irrelevant and what came to me were impressions and feelings. The sense of ground and sky intensified and I felt as though we were traversing a large black plain or at least approaching one. I began to notice other lights flooding up into the sky. They appeared widespread and smaller than the one towards which we were travelling. Of course my brain saw them as smaller and assumed they were further away but my eyes might have been deceived, I can give no reference point to any of this only tell you that as we approached the first light I had seen, more and more lights seemed to be appearing in the distance as though lights were being punched through the fabric of this black space. I looked upwards and could see no sign of the light fading over distance but simply going on and spreading out into the space above me until as we drew closer I had the impression of being under an umbrella of light.

We stopped moving  hanging there in mid air. I could see now the first light piercing a round hole in the black fabric of the ground. It was like a torch being shone from below cutting a cone of light into the darkness until it fused with other lights to give the impression of an umbrella or I suppose a sky of light.

We seemed then to rise upwards or at least my perspective changed and I was able to see far across the plain of darkness and saw a myriad of lights punching through the darkness, I would not even dare suggest how many but it was more than all the stars in any night sky I had ever seen. Slowly I rotated through 360 degrees and to my amazement this plain with light stretched all around me, for as far as the my eye could see there appeared to be no horizon for this plain was flat and stretched out to all eternity it seemed. This wonderful sight puzzled me for we had passed no lights to get to the one we were close to and I had assumed that behind me there would be darkness or perhaps the distant glow of the lake of fire but  there was nothing but the dark plain punctuated with light.

Nothing made sense in any physical or even mental state that I could grasp at and yet at the time while gently puzzled by it all it made sense in a strange way as strange things do when they come together in our dreams. But this was no dream.

This was a reality outside the one in which I had been born. I tell the truth strange as it may sound.

I felt a tug, that's the only way to describe a pull towards this hole, and I began to descend until my feet touched the solid darkness of the plain.

The hole ahead of me seemed now to encompass my whole range of vision and I was drawn forward to the edge and even before I got there began to hear noises. Noise is inadequate. Sounds. Different sounds. Sounds than can be separated into the discrete voices of familiarity. Here at last was something I could identify and understand.

I heard the sound of a human voice above all others and I longed to call out, to be heard, to be in touch with the familiar but my lips were sealed shut and my companion eased me forward and then on to my knees as though to pray and then further down until I was prostrate on the ground. Only then did I have permission to move slowly forward to the edge of the hole and to let my head hang over so that I could take in the scene that lay below.

I don't know what I expected but it wasn't this. Never could I have imagined looking down on this scene.

The Cathedral

I feel the cold all the time now Adam. It has seeped into my bones and no matter how much they pile on the blankets and place fires by my side, I am cold. My body is shutting down as the cancer cells eat me alive. I am seriously worried now that I won't be able to write fast enough or for long enough to get to the end of the tale.

I know you will forgive me if I fail to complete the task as I am doing my best. I wish I had longer to go but I haven't and time is not going slower now as I approach the end rather I feel it rushing towards like a speeding train while I lie shivering and tied to the rails.

I will die on October 27
th
. I know that. You will ask why I know that and I will only ask you to read on as that is more important than asking that question. If I am able to finish this perhaps you will know the answer.

I have so little time left and it is hard even to tell the tale in a bare bones way without trying to describe to you the actual events in minute detail.

I am looking down from very high above on a human figure lying prostrate, arms outstretched, on the floor of a Gothic Cathedral. He is wearing simple but clearly priestly robes. I can see the High Altar with it large candlesticks reaching heavenward. The altar seems like an integral part  of the high intricately decorated reredos. I can see it now in my mind's eye with great clarity, the intricate patterns and in the midst a huge cross on which hangs the crucified one.

I can see nothing else but this limited view of the cathedral.  The rest fades to darkness, well blackness or non existence would be more adequate I think. He, the priestly figure, is begging for mercy for his sins and the sins of others. Although in his mind he believes in the forgiveness of sin he is in his heart constantly convicted of his sins. His own heart sits in judgement over him at all times and whips him into doubt about his eternal fate. He wants to cry but tears cannot be forced. He wants to feel forgiveness and to be washed clean of the memories that haunt him but try as he might in prayer he fails to find that erasing of memories of sinful acts no matter how hard he tries. Casting them out of his conscious mind he is brought back to them in nightmares and dreams that twist and accuse him of more than even he intended for in those dreams he catches glimpses of the consequences of his previous actions. How they have rippled out to touch and defile others and even those sins committed in private seem to have ripples in the very fabric of time and space and eternity itself. He knows that even now he is just as capable of sinning in the same way only age and a better will power contain him but the temptations and vicarious nature of his dreamy thoughts feel just a much a burden as sins committed in the flesh. On a scale of one to a hundred he knows many people have done much worse but that is not really an issue for him as he knows and is crushed emotionally by his sin, he is just as deserving of punishment as anyone else.

In his mind he has lain prostrate many times before this high altar and begged for peace. What is obvious as an onlooker is that is punishing himself and only himself. There is no word of condemnation from the crucified one, there is silence waiting for the day when he will truly trust that he has been forgiven not only for what he has done and thought but for that which will cause him to fall again in the future. His hell is made by himself and no one else.

The man's soul is laid bare on the floor and can be seen as clearly as a map might be viewed.

The tenor of his thoughts change as he moves from self pity and immolation[?] to raise his voice to life instead of the internalising of pain. Across the great vaulted cathedral his voice carries songs now of praise to the one who is crucified and as he  sings out these ancient words his soul loses its  darkness and begins to pulsate in light. He is troubled, tortured every day by his life and mind.

He prays now earnestly for souls in need and as he does so the light increases.

More than that I feel his prayers as they waft upwards and pass through me in the process. I seem to not only observe the man but to be the man looking down on himself from above although this is a scene played out in the mind of an individual.

Before I can examine that thought I am pulled forward over the light and on to another of the myriad of holes in this black plain, pulled on by my companion. We stop at many of the holes and at each one I look down to see a solitary person within a church setting praying for souls. The churches vary, the constructs of the individual mind altering the shape and dimensions but everywhere there is the crucified one.

Some holes seem larger than others and here I am able to glimpse groups and celebrants being caught up in a dialogue with and here my words fail me. I could write the crucified one but as we move across the plain I am becoming aware of something more than that something that transcends visual imagery and was never meant for words.

I have no words. I have searched my mind for anything that might come close. I know we loosely bandy about a certain word that contains little reality in its meaning. A vague abstract hopeless word. An abject failure of a word.

I can only say I experience otherness.

I think because I cannot express in words this experience of mine I am given visual images of things that I can relate to you in this tale. I am convinced these words are for you and while for just now this experience is for me and I think not prescriptive for all nevertheless I think you will as this reaches its end know that you  too will make this journey one day albeit in a different way.

As we pass over the lights taking our time I feel a form of warmth, not physical but deeper than that a radiance of warmth and light seeping into every part of my being.

I notice my companion becomes clearer now, while wispy and always just out of sight or out of understanding would be more accurate nevertheless the presence is ever more solid, definitely outside me and no longer possibly an extension of my own being brought to life in this strange yet wonderful place.

I am not allowed to linger long in any one place but am gently pulled along pausing ever more briefly at each window of light.

I look and in all directions there are the lights piercing the darkness no matter how far I have travelled there is on no end in sight in any direction, no thinning of the light, no pattern that I can discern. I am moved on and on and on and the lightness of being increases. I feel less and less solid. I am sure when I look at my hand I can see light through it. My vision too is altering, shifting. I see more not less. I see things beyond human sight.

It becomes clear.

Clarity.

Sense.