Bejuco de Oro

The part I remember most is the dying. It is always the death I remember more than the purge that led me to it, it's generally the stuff of nightmare and fantasy all at once. I often wonder later how much of it I bring on myself or rather, to what extent and precisely how. I ponder how much I shape it on a conscious and subconscious level taking into account everything from my expectations to the unpredictability of the circumstances as well as the innate. I have often been taken aback by innate wisdom, that there is a part of us all that is always connected in one frequency or another, it's different for everyone I suppose. We all have it though, a deeper understanding, an innate understanding of things that is all too often ignored or put on the back burner in favor of the security that comes with letting others make decisions of a spiritual nature for us rather than making our own way. At any rate, I was ready to venture out and find my own way and the tea was strong on this night. The moon was full and there was a wolf.

At first the wolf and I had a sort of staring contest. My mind had created a vast space outdoors. I don't know if it was a field or a desert or what. There was no temperature and the lighting could best be described as grey. I was sitting on the ground when I first opened my eyes, it was as though I had been there for a long while, meditating. The first thing I saw was the wolf sitting across from me about ten paces away I tried to access the logical parts of my brain to pick it for what I knew about wolves. Was I to maintain eye contact or did they consider that a threat? Was I meant to get low? I was already sitting down, but then so was he. Of course none of this was relevant in the place we were but as I started to realize that the wolf stood keeping his head down and bared his teeth. I heard a low growl that didn't just come from the wolf, it seemed to come from all around me and as I finally broke eye contact with the wolf I looked around me to see that there was an entire pack surrounding me, all of them getting closer and closer to me as I sat there.

Part of me wanted to get up and run but in the real world, as in others, that likely wouldn't have done any good so I remained still telling myself I needed to see this out. There was still some part of me that remembered the tea, the real world. I remained motionless and closed my eyes. At this point I heard things, it started with the growl. If you've ever really listened to a river you can hear how there are a lot of different levels to the sound. If you listen long enough it begins to sound like music. The wolf song was like that too, from growling to howling it became music to me. When I opened my eyes the pack was so close I could feel their breath on me, I could see my own reflection in their eyes and as I looked into the eyes of that first wolf I had seen, I suddenly knew what was coming so I lifted my chin to look at the grey sky and put my arms out and waited. The pack descended on me to tear me apart, all but the one wolf, the first one I had seen, he continued to watch and for as long as I could I maintained eye contact. It seemed as though so long as I continued to look into his eyes, I felt no pain.

The Alpha, that's what I'll call that first wolf I saw, had a calming effect on me, he was like the anesthetic. Once I could no longer maintain eye contact it was as though I was watching it happen from outside of my body. There must have been some part of me detached enough to think I wouldn't feel anything, as though I was only observing. I was wrong. For a moment I felt everything, it was agonizing. It wasn't just the pain of it, there was something else as well. I think it may have been adrenaline but while I have had minor adrenaline inducing things happen to me in my life this was far more intense. It felt as though my heart was going to explode. Then all at once I was standing next to the Alpha, something compelled me to place my hand on the Alpha wolfs back and as I did I shared sight with him as he moved in to finish the job. All at once I was the hunter and the hunted, the feaster and the feast.

Most of the experience is difficult to describe and I'm not sure I can. Using words to describe such an experience not to mention the way I viewed the world afterword is like using a cupcake to tune a radio. There are some things one must experience for themselves, not to mention the fact that it's different for everyone. I have heard the expression that certain things can open the doors of your mind, doors that under normal circumstances might stay closed. This was one more experience in a series of them that brought me another step closer to not merely opening those doors but to blowing them entirely off the hinges. I lost myself for quite some time in the experience and as the whole thing was coming to its end it had me thinking about death and life, dying and killing. As the Alpha I hadn't felt good or evil, there was no sense of that, being a killer wasn't even a factor it was innate, I was efficient in my process. As the hunted I remember the surrender. I remember feeling at the end that all was well, that everything was happening precisely as it was meant to and I remember finally letting go.

I have noticed that these experiences are often multi-faceted. There is a lot to process after it happens and unlike this world or dimension, whichever you prefer, in others there are far more than six senses with which one acquires data. That experience, like others before and since, provided insights for me that I may have never otherwise been privy to. I'm not certain if there are circumstances in this world that would generate the fear I conquered in that one. There was fear of the wolves, the fear of the pain of being shredded by them and of course, the fear of death. However, because the experience didn't happen in this world I got to feel other things as well such as the feeling of being a proficient killer, the sweet release of death and the wonder of re-birth rather than simple epiphany. I got to connect to the infinite thrumming web that connects everything to everything else. I got to feel the connection and I got to be the charge, the bolt of energy that is the connection itself between one thing and another. Two things that otherwise would have remained separate, now connected.