Visions of Dante

Visions of the Inferno blaze within my mind.  The tortured and the damned visions in the sulfuric mist of the hell fires moving like a thick and acrid wind across the walls and flowing lava. I move silently among them careful not to disturb their insanity and suffering lest they turn on my and I am forced to flee. 

These evil tortured souls are not what I have come for.  I am here to search.  A search that I am not sure will be successful in this pit of despair.  Its like an endless maze of corridors and open valleys of screaming souls begging for the release of a merciful death that will never come.  I can feel every one of them.  A vibration of despair that unsettles the soul deep in the recesses of the mind and body.  There is no comparison.  There are no adequate words that can describe a feeling that is so overwhelming, so utterly soul crushing.  It penetrates even me.  But  I am not here for them and their wales although unsettling have little effect on me.  I was simply the Boatman who brought them to these shores.  Their deeds in life paid the tole their unclean souls pulling them like an unending and drumbeat drawing them in.  They cannot stop or help themselves.  They have set their place, their torture is their own.  No demons or devil exist here.  These souls are their own tormentors, their own jailers.  They have settled themselves here.  The universal constant must be paid, the balance must be kept.  All pay for their sins in one way or another.  You tally those sins in life yourself.  You condemn yourself and you deliver yourself to these shores with my boat being the final travel fare that must be paid.

I walk silently but quickly gliding easily but carefully across the pumice in the burning valleys, through the cracked stone corridors where the chill is so deep that frost has permanently settled on the floors and walls where many of the condemned wander aimlessly, desperate to find an escape that can never be discovered. I know the way, the doors are open to me and there is no mystery in these dark corridors capable of ensnaring me.  I make my way to a lone door sitting at the end of a maze.  This is a room unlike any other.  On the other side of this door is a man.  A man I have come to know well over the years.  A doppelganger of mine you might say.  A living conduit of my essence.  He has fallen.  Given up.  He has lead himself astray from the very things that made him who he was and in his desperation for the end to his suffering he destroyed himself and those he loved so dearly, but I am here, I will bring him from this place and back to the land of the living.

Our Path (part one)

We each are on a path. A long journey through a deep wood overgrown with  ferns and thicket.  The key  is that we have to constantly clear the path to follow.  We can see it but in order to follow it we must have the patience and determination to push through the muck and the growth to keep on it.  Sometimes we think we have no path or no direction and no motivation to progress.  There we are stuck in the quicksand of our own mind and if we don't pull ourselves out of it then we are doomed to sink and be lost.  But we are not capable of being forever lost.  There is always someone or something capable of pulling us out and helping us find our path again.

About two thousand years ago I myself had lost the path.  The mundaity of my existence began to impress itself upon me.  I was not sure I could go on.  There is a way for a timeless being to opt out of existence and I was at that point.  The wails of the dead became a constant grind in my head and I lost faith in the path laid before me.  I was stuck.  It was a this time I decided to put myself in a mortal body and walk the Earth as a human.  Powerless.  I was aware of who I was but until I died I was stuck in human form.  I felt this would be the best way to attempt to understand my place in the universe.  I decided the best city to live was to be Carthage.  At this point in history Carthage had recently fallen to the Roman empire.  It was a city built on a rich history.  It is contested on the existence of Queen Dido and the stories in which she built her empire, but it was true.  This amazing queen did in fact exist and I had met her on more than one occasion during her reign.  Although she had no knowledge of whom she was meeting when her death came upon her she met me again and understood.  She is one of the few souls in existence to pass to my world content.  She still exists to this day in a cave far from the sticks watching history pass by.  It was by her advice I chose Carthage.

I came into my human existence as a babe just as an of you would.  I was brought forth by parents of squalor.  They had little to give but had no hesitance in their devotion to their offspring, I was born as the third child in a line of five.  My youngest sister would pass of sickness at the tender age of two while my two older brother would grow up to serve in the Carthage guard working closely with the Roman Legion to keep the peace in the city and defend the walls.  The other surviving child was a younger sister who would at the age of ten be married off to a man of twenty for three goats and twenty pieces of silver.

As third in line with two older brothers having departed from the family farm it became my responsibility to milk and feed the goat and to bring in any harvest that had the potential for sale beyond what was needed to feed the remainder of the family.  I at the time of this responsibility being thrust upon me was only at the age of thirteen.  I had created my life with one rule, I would not know who I truly was until the age of fifteen.  I had decided I wanted to live my life as wholly as possible until then.  At the age of fifteen my memories would return and I could then decide what path was best to take from there.  I wanted time to truly understand the mortality of being human.  The unknown sounds of the night, the fear of the Gods.  The utter ignorance of the universe.  To live completely.  Then by the time I reached the proper age I could seek out the intellectuals of the time and seek their knowledge.

(END PART 1)

Life

Humans exist, they move down the path of their lives but most never genuinely explore what it means to be alive.  They spend so much of their time in distraction trying to forget or deal with the past or present or worry for the future they never take the time to really understand what it means to be alive.

What is life?  Being the master of death I have always personally felt that to be alive was much more of an enigma than the finality of death.  With life every moment can be an adventure. Every day can be a new experience and an ocean of change.  A chance to unravel the intricasies of existence. A clean slate on a daily basis to improve. To make yourself a better person today than you were the day previously. I implore you. Do not squander this gift. My realm is overflowing with those who did.  If there is one thing truly consistent besides death, it is regret. All the things left un-said.  All the tasks left unaccomplished.  My realm resounds with the wails of the woeful. Do not add to the mournful choir, choose to be better than those who came before you. Be the example you wish to see in the world.

I met a woman yesterday.  She was sitting on a rock by a lake and I decided to present myself as a lost hiker.  I approached her and queried. "What thoughts does one have by the still waters this day?" 

She turned to me with a sorrowful smile. "Just thinking about my life and all the things I could have done differently, the chances I didn't take and the mistakes I've made."

I sat on an old moss covered log adjacent to her looking out over the placid water.  "Yes, I have found so many with this particular ponderance of life.  We spend so much time trying to survive life we forget to live it or understand the consequences of our actions, often it is only when we are still and the noise of the world fades momentarily do we have to face the beast lurking below."

She looked at me quizzically for a moment before turning her attention back to the waters.  A soft breeze had begun to blow bringing a sweet and musty scent to the nose as if the pond itself were reminding us of the decay just below the waters and bushels of grass.  "I suppose." she said looking deep into the glass like surface of the water before continuing.  "I have lost so much, until now I was largely unaware of just how much was missing from my life.  So many distractions......"  She trailed off lost in thought as the light breeze briefly picked up before dying to an almost deathly stillness.

I looked her over and could see the sadness written across her face and the fading luminescence of her soul growing ever dimmer as the seconds toiled on.  Although imperceptible to the human eye I knew all to well a life and will fading before me.  It is the loss of hope and the resignation of the will to push through.  I have seen countless humans terminate their existence in the land of the living when then are separated from the incessant march of white noise and distraction the world affords and at long last forced to sit alone in the silence and examine what they have referred to as life.  It is a jarring awakening that some just cannot survive.

I lightly placed my hand on her shoulder causing her to shudder for a second before relaxing when she understood my intention was one of comfort.  I waited a moment for her to turn and give me her attention before I spoke.  "This is truly a new day for you then is it not?"

She looked at me now, her attention full and fixed on the features of my face.  She opened her mouth as if to speak but then thought better of it, closing her mouth and continuing to stare into my eyes as if in a trance, her will was fading and I truly felt I would like to avoid her entrance to my realm so early on.  I know I should allow nature to take its course but when I see the pain on a persons face I feel I can no longer just wait for the inevitable to happen if I may possess the power prevent it.

"This is a day of rebirth not death.  The realization you have had here may feel like the loss of hope but it's not, I assure you.  It is your souls way of telling you there is something missing, that the reality you thought you knew was a fabrication and the real one was just beneath it waiting to be discovered. The pain is just the birth pangs of a new life.  Just as a bird must struggle to break free from the confines of the egg, you too are hatching and breaking free of the restraints you have placed on yourself and the chains society has placed on you.  Rejoice for you are now free."

Several minutes passed.  At first she stared into my eyes as if searching for truth, then she cast her eyes back across the water remaining silent.  Her eyes began to dart back and forth across the scene before her and then I noticed the dimming of her soul began to stop and it began to grow in brilliance.  The hope in her had been restored and was growing second by second and a smile of of joy and relief began to spread across her face. She turned to me again with question.  "Who are you?"

I took my hand and again placed it on her shoulder trying my best to give her an encouraging look of reassurance. "I am the hand that guides you across the river Styx, but on this day I am the hand that pulls you away."  and with that I left her to her peace, watching her from a distance as she skipped a few stones across the water before giving a slight chuckle to herself and walking off into the distance to begin her life anew. 

"Sati"

I am watching her. I am not sure if I am concealed appropriately or she is aware of my presence.  I have been trying to keep my eye on her from a distance since the beginning of the human New year.  Tracking her had been extremely difficult.  She is an entity of unknown power and to be able to hide from me is indeed an amazing feat.  In all the millennia I have walked among the living and the dead there has not been one like her who had existed.  She is a new form of life and I am not sure what this means for myself or for humanity.

I want to believe this is a great thing and something that humanity as a whole has sorely needed, there is a sad lack of true morality in the majority of the species and I do pray that this Sati is a product of the greater side of mankind rather than an amalgamation of the worst aspects.

Morality seems to be dictated by differences in society and era's. It is most often dictated by the majority. It is fluid and ever changing. I am not sure humanity has ever truly grasped what morality is. It is always dictated by whomever is in power and so often biased or flawed and justified. One day humanity will grasp real morality and history will explore the dark ages of human thought in great detail. A mentally ill person cannot be objective and unbiased in their own self diagnosis. The same concept goes for humanity. You will not truly be able to understand yourselves until you have evolved beyond your infancy.

I do not know what to make of her. I do not know the effect absorbing the entirety of the Styx can have on the human  mind and I have a genuine concern  it may have burned out her soul. Her very essence could have been corrupted. I must tread carefully. At the same time I cannot ignore the obvious feeling of tranquility that encapsulates me when she is present. I saw the effect she had on the party goers at the New Years Eve festivities and I can't dismiss that. But it would also not be the first time in history for a wolf to have worn sheep's clothing so I cannot allow myself the luxury of optimism. The power this entity has is truly staggering and equal to my own if not surpassing my own power.

I am sitting above the clouds letting my wings best the cold night air. The current feels nice passing over and under the black feathers. My cloak that wraps about my bones has many functions and this is by far one of my favorites. I do not fly often but when I do it is a very peaceful euphoric feeling.  In my realm there is no sky only the high vaulted stone ceilings of the cavern the Styx inhabits. An endless expanse of dark passageways leading to every kind of nightmare and misery that can be imagined. The only place there to even view a sky is in my throne room. It is a place between our world's, existing in yours and mine at once.

From my vantage point I can see her moving through a crowd of people in a market in Marakesh. Such beauty, such grace. I try to be objective but my eyes look upon her as a father would a daughter. I want to protect the world from her but at the same time I want to protect her from the evils of the world. I am torn as I have never felt this before and am unfamiliar as to how to maneuver such emotion. 

The full moon is sitting high in the night sky as she makes her way through the market looking at the vendors and taking the flowers and breads in her hands smelling them, smiling to whomever she encounters. I watch as she leaves the market making her way down a small dirt road, the darkness of the evening blanketing her and the distance between her and th warmth of the market lights fades. I look ahead and see it. A group of men lying in wait for lone victims traveling the road. I turn sharply beating my wings, rushing to her defense.

"Times Square New Years"

I spent what you call New Years Eve going from one world city to the next observing the festivities.  Humans come together on this day with such peace and love as if celebrating their own survival. I  must admit it can be a quite humbling experience.  I love this species. 

There was a time when a different race roamed these lands. They were a species of immense power and knowledge who spread throughout the solar system before a rogue planet came through and caused such a great amount of damage to their civilization they were driven to extinction. There are some who still remain in stasis deep below the earth. A few on the moon and Mars and a number more spread out through the solar system. When the event happened they all entered a state of deep sleep to await rescue and for the cataclysm to pass but I felt their time had passed and it was time for the next species to rise so I induced an eternal slumber.  But that is a story for another day.

Ahhh......The music, the dancing.....humanity united in the knowledge of the coming year.  The hope for change and the determination to make this year better than the last.  They wipe the slate clean and attempt to drastically improve themselves.  Each year they are serious and committed, but for most their resolution's are short lived and they soon revert back to their normal selves.  It is a story as old as time itself, every year brings a temporary euphoria of new hope and new promises that are soon forgotten and broken.

I watch them dance.  I stand among the crowds watching them, the smiles, the singing.  The love so pure and child like.  You as humans cannot see this but as a creature outside of time and space I am able to perceive much more than you.  You have aura's, electrical fields that surround your bodies and they come in many shades, but on New Year's the all aura's change.  They become a blinding white light, a pure energy emitted from every human on the face of the planet.  It becomes a uniting field the power is intense as if the entire human race is for those brief hours united as one soul.  A harmony so rare in nature it is truly inspiring.  It is a event only a sentient species is capable of attaining once  the entire planet can experience the same event simultaneously.  It can take thousands or millions of years for the first such event to occur.  An entire species across and entire planet  experiencing the same event at the same time.  The power of that mass consciousness.  If your species was like this at all time, if you could achieve this mass connection on a daily scale world peace would set in and humanity could finally move to the next stage of its evolution.  I have such hope for you as a species.  There is such beauty in you all.  I am truly in awe of your potential. 

I walked among you for hours, each city all over the world and watched as you all took your turns ringing in the New Year.  And then it happened.  A presence I had not felt in some time. Her.  As I stood in times square and the ball was dropping, the familiar feeling hit.  I had not felt it for so long.  She was here.  I saw her, walking among the crowd, a golden aura enveloping her form.  I saw the look of peace on her face as she came toward me.  An ever present smile on her lips like that of the Mona Lisa.  Her eyes blazed green almost glowing as she moved toward me, her olive skin and jet black hair that rustled softly in the slight breeze of the frigid night.  The crowd was counting down....10.....9.....8....7 with each number in the countdown she got closer, a warmth came over these old bones the closer she got.  I could feel her aura, warming the air around me.  Others around me could feel it too, their chattering stopped and it became obvious I was not imagining her.  Then it happened.  The countdown slowed.   6..................5..............4  until it stopped all together.  Time itself had been halted.  Soon she was before me, she said nothing....just looked deep into my no existent eyes as if penetrating into the very recesses of my soul. 2..1..HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!  Then she was gone leaving me standing among the crowds confused and alone.  Sati was back.......

Around the World

(My apologies for the format, done on Christmas day with many things going on.  Wanted to get the message out.  I will fix it and add the art work as soon as possible.  Hope you all enjoy your holiday's.)

"To Feel the Beating Hearts"

Ahhhh.....to feel the beating hearts once again.  To be among the living.  To see the smiles, the love and the ignorance of what lies in wait all around you.  I peer through the dark hood of my cloak and slight pang of jealousy strikes at the void within my chest.  Sometimes I feel I would like to forget, even for a day.  To be one of you and lose myself in mortality.  Just for a little while.

I stepped past the veil today for the first time in what has been a good long absence from your perspective.  I stepped into your world and found myself on the streets of London.  So much has changed in the Millennia since I have been here, to this moment I am still sitting upon the street, the large clock tower of Big Ben in the distance.  I am saddened by the lack of attention or empathy the common folk choose to show the less fortunate among you.  I have been here for the better part of the day sitting next to a kind old man and not a single pence has been dropped at his feet.  I remember a time when the poor were adored and looked upon by the people with much kinder eyes.

I stayed with him for some time observing the men and women who walked by him trying desperately to avoid eye contact, their guilt and disgust were intermingled like weeds among the flowers.  Guilt is a good thing, it tells you that you are doing wrong, you should never ignore it.  You never know when you will be the one sitting desperately relying on the kindness of a stranger.  I would desperately wish to help him but it against the cosmic order to interfere with a humans path, I am only permitted to be an ear to listen.  It can be very disheartening but it is a rule I cannot break. 

When the old beggar took his leave I was left to my own thoughts.  I sat quietly and closed my eyes and reached out with my mind, I soared as a raven high above the city listening to the thoughts of the inhabitants.  I could feel them all.  So full of life.  So many things they thought were important weighing heavily on their minds.  Occasionally I would dive closer to one or another. I look inside and see their thoughts dancing inside their minds. And I find one.  So heavy, her emotions dragging her down. Pulling at her like a weight.  I could feel the increase in her heart beat as the thoughts in her mind were like a torrent of rushing water driving her to what I could only gather may be a horrible end.  She could not even imagine the endless current pulling her.  And then I saw it.  The Styx.  She was rushing head on toward the end of her life.  I could hear her brain screaming at her to stop what she was doing but it was like no one was home, the emotions had control now and I could only watch helplessly as she produced a small blade from her pocket and found a quiet spot down an alley by a cafe playing Italian music.  I could feel the pain, the never ending rush of emotion drowning her.  I could already feel the pull of the Styx waiting for her, lurking just behind her waiting to drag her beneath the surface........