Echoes of me, you, us.
I'm standing on a hill. The sun is setting. The sky shifts from vibrant gold to vivid orange, momentarily lingering on pink before becoming bright purple, then a darker indigo, eventually settling into the inky blue-black hues of deepening night. The stars shimmer into view, like ethereal notes of music frozen in time. I feel the wind blowing softly around me, brushing past me, flowing through me. This moment is calm, inspired, and deeply connected. I feel myself relax - really relax like never before.
It begins in my body: my neck, my shoulders, my arms and legs, the tension I frequently feel in the pit of my stomach, the clenched muscles of my jaw, even the protective veil I often raise to mask the expressions behind my eyes. The ripple of calmness continues to go deeper.
As the muscles of my body find their peace, I feel the sensation continue up my spine and into the base of my skull, branching outwards through the nooks and crannies of my overcrowded mind. The chaotic swirls of conflicting thoughts slowly relax into a single unbroken surface. The stillness is beautiful. I begin to see who I am with a greater clarity than ever before.
As my Core takes form, I also become vividly aware of the aspects of me that lie outside of this sacred place: my job, finances, social status, age and birthplace, ancestry, accomplishments, clothing, protective wit and sarcasm, and the assorted mannerisms I have built up over the years in hopes of being valued by others. These Details are the things I have looked to for so long to define my concept of Self. While they have been a part of my context, the process of my development, these things are no longer important to me, to the future I seek.
When my Self burns down, I will not take these things with me.
As I see the separation between my Core and my Details, I feel my grip loosening on all of these unimportant bits and pieces. Starting at the farthest edges of me, one by one each Detail is released, and carried off by the wind. I feel concept of Self slowing unraveling, layer by layer. I am dissolving - the concept of "Mark" is losing value and relevance by the moment.
Instead of feeling myself diminish, I feel the opposite. A quiet strength builds within, rising ever so slowly, full of quiet power. As the Details of my past melt from my consciousness, I feel my Core taking on more relevance - expanding to fill the void - and the feeling is truly intoxicating. I feel overwhelmed, like my body isn't be strong enough to contain all of these emotions, like I might detonate in a burst of light and sound, and just fade right out of existence.
The last unessential pieces of me drift away. I am free. In that freedom, I am nothing more than a stream of conscious thought - a cloud of transcendent emotion. I can feel my mind expanding beyond the illusionary limits of my body and life context, reaching out across different perspectives, borders - even beyond my limited perception of time.
As I see beyond the current moment and into the future, I see - or more accurately - feel another person. I feel a deeply kindred spirit, standing upon the same hill, also stripped of their details, soul bared to the wind. The feeling of their essence is so familiar. The feeling from them is unmistakeable: they are also free. I soon realize, that without a name, or face, or unimportant details - just the essence of feeling and love I feel emanating powerfully from them - this person feels exactly like me, my truest version of Self.
I whisper the words: "I feel who you are. I understand you. I love you." The two of us share the same essence - we are the same Self - and thus the words I speak are reflected back at me. Together, as One, we speak to an even more distant future: I love you. We speak to another kindred essence, and another, and another - all standing in different times, but on that very same hill. We see them cock their heads, listening intently into the night, absorbing our words with a familiar intimacy.
And in that moment, upon that hill, I hear a sound drifting faintly on the wind. I hear the faint echo of words spoken from the past. Words spoken before my time. I hear a single voice speaking to me from the past: I love you. And then I hear another even louder voice, and another, and another - each one increasing in volume - until I stand amidst a thundering river of voices, a bolt of lightning from past, present, and future - nameless and faceless from different times, places, ways of life - and yet they are all shades of the essence at my Core . The words pour through my mind, filling it completely: I love you. I cannot feel my body, but I know that somewhere I stand upon a hill, head tilted to the heavens, my face streaked with tears beneath the inky blue-black sky, listening to the the eternal music of the stars.
I, You, We say: We are different people, and yet we share the same essence. Stripped of our details, we have no limits - not even time can contain us. We need not fear death, because our essence is continuously reborn. Our Core always remains. We are essence that sees, that feels, that cares. Our truest form of Self is eternal. We are the change we believe in.
I have been very, very afraid of death (much more on this later) - afraid of losing the future I believe in so passionately. But the more I am able to tap into this place of truest Self, the more my fear of dying melts away. I strive constantly to find my way back here to reflect upon the beauty of the world from atop this hill, to feel that cleansing wind blowing through me, and release the clutter of details that distract me, and are not essential. I strive to become the truest version of Me I can be.
I love life. I love people - what they are capable of, the genuine moments where the truth of them shines through. I love their vibrant energy and unseen potential. Despite the anger, sadness, fear and chaos I see spiraling in world around me, I do sincerely see a future where we are whole. All of us. I see a future where every single person stands on the very same hill from my vision, clutching only the truest parts of themselves tightly against their pounding chests.
Although "Mark" may not be here to see this grand dream waken into Reality, I do believe my truest essence of Self will be there when it happens. That is a deeply comforting thought.