The Man with the Infinite Eyes
There are some dreams we have that shape the course of our life. I call them significant dreams. Often, only in hindsight, after having lived the moments or metaphors that they foretell, do we understand that in the “innermost sanctum of our Soul,” there is no past, present or future. There is no separation between the One who loves us and our Self.
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one." — Chief Crazy Horse
She is walking up the hill, going home to the top of the Beacon. She is not alone. She is with the man she has known since before she was born. He is about 26 and the nineteen years between them are as closely held as her hand. No space, no age. They laugh as they walk together. It’s the easiness and effortlessness of old, old friends. She knows him before years count time. He has always been with her – her constant companion. And then there is the moment before everything changes. And then there is the moment when time stops. And they stop still. Looking out over Seatoun towards the reef. He stands facing her. Now holding both her hands. Suddenly serious. His gaze, a transmission of Love, his voice low and deep. And it imprints itself upon her dreaming retina as if it were carved. From this moment on, she sees and hears it all her life.
“I need to leave you now. I must go on ahead. Know that I am with you always. But now it’s time to walk up the rest of the hill alone.”
She looks on ahead. They are almost at the crossroads – two roads go down and two continue up. A ridge that spans this one great hill is transversed at that point with roads that ride its Tuatara back. She looks back to where he stands with her. She realises he is no longer holding her hands. He is not there. And she lets go a moan so low and long as if to shake the hill from its crouch.
I wake up. I am seven years old, and the companion I have seen and heard as guide and protector has gone. This voice of loving wisdom and reassurance I have heard since I died and came back at three. It is the voice that counselled and consoled when the screaming or the bullying got too loud. It was because of this Presence that I was able to endure the loneliness and teasing at school. The girl who was bigger than all the others - on steroids for the asthma that developed after the pneumonia. The girl with the funny name. The one who did not belong, who could never fit in. The one who could not run, or walk up the hill home without gasping for breath.
As the daughter of a devout Polish Catholic Mother, I called this voice, this loving Presence, Jesus. I look at photos of my first holy communion at seven, just before this dream, and I am so sure in my knowing that I am held safe in his love. I talk with him constantly. Or, to be more precise, it is the Voice I hear that so lovingly knows and accepts me, and guides me. Then at seven it changes with this dream. A dream so real, I now wonder whether I was actually awake, walking with him, until I looked back and he was gone.
This, and I would say it happens to all of us in different ways, became another one of the defining moments of my life. I was blessed that I could still hear the guidance. The Beloved Companion of my Soul was still there, just not so palpably present. And then, year after year, as the clamour of the world became louder and my need to fit in became stronger, the Voice became fainter. The stillness and the silence needed to be more pronounced to hear it. But sometimes he would still be unarguably there. Resting me assured.
When I began dating I think that unconsciously I sought him. Again and again they would love and then leave. Was this the pattern I was being prepared for? Was this the pattern I was meant to understand? Was I looking for something or someone outside of myself that could only be found within?
At 26, in London, I suffered a black depression related to my mother’s death and the unspoken (not yet conscious) realisation that my marriage was over. This while I was there with my husband, though I may as well have been there alone. It felt as if I could not perceive colour, that the world was covered in a blanket. And yet, there he found me again. I had gone into the Underground to catch the Tube home. As I paid for my ticket, the ticket seller said, “What a beautiful smile you have.” It lifted me for a moment into the light. I travelled down the escalator to the platform and stood opposite a billboard, waiting for the train. The image of a man surprising a woman with a kiss. Her falling into Heaven from his touch. I felt it, as if he were right beside me. Between this Beloved and the Dalai Lama, the depression began to lift.
At 40, another man kissed me on the cheek. He is 19 years older than me. I dreamed about him before meeting him. I fall into heaven and know that this man is the embodiment of the Companion of my Soul. The dream at seven had been a premonition of this moment. So that I would recognise it. So that I would never forget.
I now know, too, that this relationship only points to the one we are asked to find always within us. That in the stillness and silence of our Soul we find the Beloved - who walks with us, as us, strength for strength, in each breath. That abiding Love within we are all asked to find again. It is the Beloved that is your Self. The One for whom your Soul travelled here; to unite with again. To begin to do the work of the Infinite returned, incarnated as you.
How we recognise and come back to this embrace, this constant Presence, is the reason Nine Gems was created. It is a gentle and creative and compassionate process of remembering who we are, where we have come from and why we are here. We re-member ourselves as emissaries of Love. Lover and Beloved both.
Photo credit: Quinten de Graaf, @quinten149, on Unsplash