Wandering womb

1.

The word, wait, holds so much weight
It grips us as if a mighty fist
Both so strong that we are held in one place, motionless and silenced
But also so delicate that our breath becomes more expansive and deliberate, our senses more free, our awareness heightened, broadened and deepened
And none of this is a contradiction
Everything is here, can't you tell?
Wait... Just wait... I want you to wait... We are now waiting together

2.

Now I want to play a game; a game using your imagination. Imagine that you are on a hospital bed. With gentle reassurance, you are told you are about to have surgery. You lie face up as the bed is pushed down a corridor of white. Your eyes strain with the bright fluorescent lights that flash in and out of your vision as you move at a dizzying pace completely out of your control. A soft voice, muffled behind a surgery mask, comforts you in your journey. You sense genuine concern that would be at pain to hear of your discomfort or unease. Partly because you do not want to create tension for the friendly voice and partly because you have nothing but full trust, you swallow your glowing anxiety for what is waiting for you. You swallow down a dry throat because you have not been allowed to drink or eat for 12 hours.

Your bed stops. The gentle voice vanishes. You realise that the thick bed sheet that has taken the place of a blanket is feeble against the cold of the sterile, bright white room that you find yourself in. Above your face you see another face looking down at you. Another surgical mask, a bouffant cap and a pair of glasses identifies themselves as an anesthesiologist. You are told that you will be put under general anesthetics prior to the surgery. You will feel no pain and when you wake up, the surgery will have been performed outside of the spotlight of your memory. An anesthetist nurse attaches a tube into an intravenous needle that has already been inserted in the top of your left hand. A mask is put over your mouth and you are told to take heavy breaths. You feel a strange, almost metallic, sensation from the needle spreading through your blood vessels in your left arm. You can feel your veins expand with this foreign liquid as if they were a balloon on the brink of bursting. It makes you imagine a thermometer tube being filled with mercury. The alien unease of this sensation is offset by the delirious relaxation contained in the gases that you are inhaling at a meditative rhythm and intensity. You are told to count slowly backwards from 10. Ten...Nine...Eight...Seven...Si...

3.

Now you are nothing
Or you are missing
Either way, there is no longer a 'you'
Pronouns lose all meaning
Pure consciousness, incapable of memory or processing any experience
Incapable of processing every wonder of the universe in a flash
But also incapable of processing the smallest of life's demands:
The task of putting a pebble back in its place
Pure consciousness that is not attached to biology
That is free to wander and embed itself in any materiality it chooses
That floats around the entire globe aimlessly
Until it rests when it finds itself inside a new body
A tiny heartbeat connected to a monolithic heartbeat

4.

This connection is vein and arteries
Blood flow towards and away
This connection is push and pull
It is the spring tides
When waves crash against a sturdy sea wall
Only to retreat to uncover hidden walkways to islands
It is the experience of gravity on a snowflake softly sitting on someone's nose
Which is the same gravity of a black hole that sucks in all approaching mass, light, energy into its void

This connection is yin and yang
The interdependency of opposing forces
The implosion of action and reaction
That means all forces in the universe are interactions
No force is unidirectional
There is always connection
This connection is all there is
It provides everything
There is no room for need or desire

A mass of sensitivity starts to grow
It feels and is simultaneously felt
Simultaneously sends and receives
It starts to be sensitive to being sensitive
It starts becoming aware of itself
It is increasingly thoughtful
Firing thoughts as hollow words
That are merely vehicles for moments
To pop in and out
Thoughts that draw arbitrary lines
Claiming one body from another
Claiming 'me' from 'the other'
Thoughts that determine values:
What is positive, attracts and is good?
Secreted dopamine
Comfort, safety, security, privacy, health, love
There is only this blissful state

A state that is made up of opposites folded into each other
My heartbeat and your heartbeat
Me and you
Trauma and love
Inside and outside
Internal and external
Darkness and light
Everything and nothing

These contradictions only make sense
When they are untangled and stretched
With the rude intrusion of time
With time, there is
My heartbeat
Me
Trauma
Outside
Light
Everything

And all of this becomes known with the violent shock
Of the loudest cry to ever escape your inflated lungs

5.
<Life sequence>

6.

The light entering your eyes fades
The gaps between your thoughts widen
You increasingly become the gaps
Until you become mind-less
Yet aware of your absence
You are no longer you-are
No longer being
No longer sensitive
You are only surrender, acceptance
Chaos, disorder, instability
Transitions to nothingness
The most complete order there is
The cosmos in its perfect state
The essence of oneness bursts so loud
That it is impossible to be conscious of anything else
And that what was is not
The moment is eternal
It is raw beauty
What was lying beneath every desire, impulse, force, push, pull
Reveals itself
Energy common to all forms of energy
Yet previously undetectable
So basic yet so elusive
The lack and the excess
The space before, between and after
The most refined and sophisticated intelligence
Unable to be packaged and communicated by knowledge
Or words
Including these words
Every word uttered gets further away from grasping it
Suffering and longing are lost
All that is left is bliss