The smell of earth is loamy and deep. There is damp wet earth all around me now and I stretch my arms ever so slightly as I bump into its cold dampness. I retract my arms, chilled and white, and huddle deeper into myself. My own being is dark and my eyes are closed and I am only aware of sensation without sight. These closed eyes won't open and I feel murky and foggy, and sluggish and slow. I wonder what my mind is trying to wrap itself around. I feel as though I have heard something. There was a sound that has called me from this stupor. And I ask myself how long have I been in this half curled position lying on my side. It was comfortable a minute ago but now I feel aware of the wet and the cold and the hard points pushing against my frail and thin body. I am unable to rise it seems and I languor a bit more in this dark haze of forgetfulness. It is quiet here if I can just let myself slip back again. Slip into these dreamless sleeps that call me once more.
But there it is again. Some sound seems to vibrate deeply thru these clods of dirt and I feel like it is brighter and still more uncomfortable than even these brief moments just before and I find myself annoyed in this place and vaguely restless. And suddenly I feel this rumbling growing underneath me and I feel my heart quicken. Was it beating before? Or did my heart just now start it's stampede in my thin and bony chest? I push again with my arms and find myself with hands to claw away the dirt in front of me. I create this tiny space in front of my nose and draw a breath of stale and moldy air. I push again and then more and more and I find myself suddenly rising without having made a choice to do so. I hear a loud pop as a lid springs open above my head and I am immediately drawn up and standing but without my muscles causing me to do so. It's as if some unseen force holds me in this now upright position and I realize my eyes are open and everything is so blurry and indistinct. I blink harder and brush at my naked body with sore and water sogged fingertips. I am so dirty I realize. Mulch and clods of dirt speckle my gray and uneven skin. My eyes are clearer now and I try hard to brush at this dirt and cause it to fall away but it is damp and I only succeed in smearing it further into my cold and lifeless skin. I realize my skin reflects who I am. I am dead.
And I startle to realize that my body is frozen and no blood moves thru me. I realize that my pallor is further enhanced by the fragments of dirt and decay lying heavily upon my shrunken body and frame. But somehow I can think and somehow I am realizing the murky qualities are quite lifting as I try to use these long shadowed limbs. They have sat still for centuries and in so doing have atrophied and decayed more than I wish to admit to myself in this startling horror that I am a cadaver. My sunken eyes...they seem to move and they seem to have a life the rest of me doesn't yet. I raise them just a little and notice I am standing in some sort of long wood box. And I raise them further to notice that the box I am in, seems to be floating on this grand space of water. The sun shines bright and yellow in harsh contrast to the gray and dark wood of my tiny ship. And still further - I am not alone!! There are others just like me. And I realize just how ghastly I must appear. These bodies all stand at strange angles unsupported by their own muscles, men and woman and children and half beings move their gray heads and dirt smeared arms in jerky gaits and struggle to understand as they blink against this harsh light.
And suddenly a bright and horrific peal of thunder breaks the hazy quality of this scene before my eyes. I notice all of us jump collectively and our small coffin boats rock precariously in the ocean water. I feel something slide off of me and I glance down hurriedly to watch a great swath of dirt slide from my body to hit the coffin bottom with a dull thud. And below that is this pink and lively skin. I lean to brush at it and am at once startled by yet another blast from some place far above. But this time the sound is more distinct in that it sounds less like thunder and more like a deep and throaty brass instrument. I strain to see out of my still watering and unfocused eyes. But I am distracted by yet again noticing dirt and grime sliding off of me and my own limbs beginning to feel stronger. I try to help the process by continuing to brush myself off. But to no avail and I look over to see others the same as I am with strips of soft pink alive flesh against gray deadly pallor. It is a strange and unworldly sight and I find myself wishing to dive into the ocean to complete this process more readily. But even as the strength returns to my limbs, I seem suspended against my will by some force field holding my head and spine up straight and tall. And now my eyes rise. I realize the color is slowly evolving into creamy peaches and golds and warm yellows. I find myself drinking in that light with all of my being and craving it and leaning into it. I feel as though I have never before been warm and I yearn for the gold comfort I feel emanating from these pillowy clouds and yellow sun rays.
As I watch, the clouds part slightly and the large bell of a solid warm brass instrument comes into view. I find myself realizing this is the source of the great sounds that woke me from a deep, deep sleep, that was deeper than death itself. Already I wonder at that time and how alive I feel in comparison now. My skin is fully pinked and I raise strong arms to the golden light of the sun. I notice as I do that on the instrument is tied a large flag of white and red. Color!! Color!! I find myself reaching higher for it and wanting to wrap myself and once and for all rid myself of these dark shadows and these murky gray dead parts. But I am becoming as the clouds and I glance at myself to notice I am beautiful and radiant and as I once was. I can remember now. I was once as alive as these clouds that dance and billow and stretch and live. And I feel myself drinking in their beauty and filling myself with all the radiance they emanate. I sway and I double over with tears filling my eyes. My knees fold beneath me finally and I find so much feeling coursing thru my blood and my now living veins. And again I reach my hands up and feel that there is a grand presence above us all. And we all reach as one into the heavens and begin to ascend as a collective being.
Larger than I can even imagine looms a being without distinct form but I feel this comfort in feeling this warm presence. I feel no fear now as I am rising with everyone around me. Coming closer and closer and our hands touching until we are as one. And I realize that this being is all of us together now. We are the ones blowing the horn and my eyes are this being's eyes. My hair glows orange and yellow and everyone next to me seems to be myself. I am them and they are me. We have become one in this collective place. The water is so far below and I realize all the coffins have been swept away and only the fairest of blue waters dances and shimmers in our golden light. The past is just that, the past and it is barely a memory in my heart. I feel peace and calm and lightness and so much hope. I have come thru the death of my past and I have been reborn to follow what I was meant to be. My body has been shed. And I realize that gray self is no longer even a small part of me. Transformation.
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