A Vision

I crawl down the roots of a tree, following an intuition that something awaits me. Once under the roots, there is a river which leads from its underground branches, starting smaller and leading to the sea.  I straddle it, a giant, though the river itself is not so small, so I realize I am out of proportion, that it is real, not a trickle, after all. I put one foot on the right bank, then the other on the left, delicate, not tromping, yet clearly unable to lay my body down and bathe. It is only when I see the ferryman that I realize the river I am straddling is the classic Styx. I stumble through my pockets for change, but I have none, yet he never asks anything of me, him being smaller than my pinky toe, it's not like he could really demand anything of a giant like me, bigger than death and caught in-between.

As the Styx empties into the sea, I seem to shrink, and flow with all the corpses floating down her gullet and into the great belly of human experience.  Now I am not above death, I am a part of her flow and suddenly I feel the sorrow of myself and all other humans who have lost or are lost. It is a relief, not to feel I have cheated death somehow, but can feel it like the others do. 

We pass through a drain, the sea being sucked yet underground again, below the ground of the underground, and there we all become pellets which nurture the earth.  I see nothing of myself again or anyone else, all egos dissolve, all desires, and the last sense I have before I wake is of utter peace, as I fertilize the roots of an oak tree and move upwards inside its life, beginning again.

(This came to me lying on the acupuncture table - as birdfarm and her partner call "an expensive nap" - later I found out the sound I thought was drumming as I stumbled into a semi-conscious "journeying" state was actually their washer and dryer! I had just been back in my home town the day before, death on my mind, thinking about lost childhood and my parents, both dead and never coming back. It was a rough trip, and this was a healing journey which gave me back some sense of perspective, without any conscious mind at work. Yay!)