This morning, at precisely 10:33, I stood in princes street, thinking about something. the street lay in shade, like a canyon, tall buildings either side kept the sun out, but shafts broke through at every intersection, down the length of it, bathing the grey walls in light.
I was thinking about a dream I had a few weeks ago. There were three ribbons of light in the dream, far away, beyond space. The ribbons are difficult to describe now: qualities of beautiful, alive, luminous, kind, learning, unfolding. Mine but not mine, because 'I' was just a glimmer of their light, projected through a screen in a dark room. The ribbons were qualities of soul: nourished, strengthened – changed, but never for the worse – through my actions 'here', on earth, embodied. But the relationship was indirect, mediated, filtered: there was a tremendous distance between 'here' and the ribbons, the flow was slow and obstructed, often the effect of action was minimal, filtering diluted into the heart of a great rock through capillary channels, hairline fractures. Or perhaps, rather, out of the great rock.
Drawing closer to the ribbons, clearing a transparent space to them permitted this influence, this 'learning' to happen better, more quickly. Collapsing the distance, action in the world acted on them, and illuminated itself in the process, tuning dull matter to the vibrant light. The 'space' between 'here' and the ribbons was a function of clear understanding, vision, of dispelling the thick veil to make an opening. Aligned more closely, minimal actions could have much greater resonance. It would be easier to draw this than to explain it in words.
Affecting these ribbons, strengthening them, becoming them, making them more beautiful was the secret purpose of existing: of incarnation, of 'being here'. The ribbons were me, I was them – but I was far away from them, on the surface, a suburb in the far periphery of a thick, sprawling empire. And this remoteness was precisely the reason I was, the reason I was 'here': breaching, slowly, the density of intervening mass, learning to act in resonance, to align and connect across the great gulf. The learning was slow, action clumsy and often alienated, meaningless. Waving a stick in a cathedral, firing guns into a pillow. But even seeing the ribbons was a transvaluation in itself: in the light of that, everything that seemed to matter on earth might not, and the most trivial act could be consequential, affecting, graceful, increasing the light. Nothing mattered the way I thought it did, or for the reasons I had been taught to consider important.
Everything 'here', every gratification I could desire in the world – money, success, growth, achievement, insight, intelligence, being loved – was all incidental, meaningful only in relation to the logic of this secret unfolding, this refinement, strengthening, nourishing. The relationship to these strands of light-that-were-my-soul. Equally, there was nothing 'here' to fear. I was the ribbons, though I was far from them. Nothing here mattered the way I had thought it did, or how the world made it seem to matter – yet at the same time, everything mattered most profoundly, in relation to something I had not realized before, in ways and for reasons that I – still a child – was only beginning to fathom.
It is difficult to put this into words. The world – matter, beings, entities, actions, philosophy, laws, thoughts, values – everything was a theatre of shadows, puppet stage, the play of children. But this is the key point: it was no less real for that, not therefore without consequence, not at all. every gesture, every tiny event was intimately important, fundamental, transcendent. But not in the way I had imagined.
The dream was not an opening on the real, to dispel an illusion: rather more, it was like waking up in the middle of boiling a cup of tea to realize you're actually on a stage, blinded by the footlights, enacting something of vital importance, a historical event. You had forgotten what you were doing, but that was part of the event. The audience hinges on your every word, absorbing it, their life depends on it. Everything is already real, vital, important – more so than you realized, but in a completely different manner. Suddenly, real significance inheres not in your actions on the stage, but in their effect on the audience, the relationship they articulate to it: a hidden axis of meaning, fourth dimension of space, extending into the darkness beyond the footlights. Everything you do after that is different.
Your aim suddenly is not just to boil that cup of tea: your aim is to do it with grace, purify the act, elevate it, feed the audience with your being. Bring the audience into the act with you, inhabiting it, transforming it through their attention, and through your attention to them. The better you understand what you are doing, where you are, the better you will boil that cup of tea. Boil it, eventually, by standards that no longer belong on the stage – and thereby shift, transfigure the act, yourself, the audience. Until you realize what you are doing, recognize the audience, wake up to the parameters of the situation, your actions lack the grace, the awareness required. Their efficacy is incidental. The audience remains attentive, concerned, profoundly interested in what you are doing - but their concentration goes mostly unrewarded.
Of course, this is just an analogy – and there was no audience. No urgency, no judgement, no observation. No footlights. No performance. No actor.
But these thoughts led to others. In the middle of this, someone released a balloon at the far end of the street. A single balloon, bright bright red, heart-shaped. Buffeted by the wind it climbed the side of the tall buildings, bouncing into the dark walls, out of the shade and into the clear light above. Having noticed it, I watched it, puzzled, wondering what sort of omen this might be. Sad? Melancholy? Joyful? Finally it reached the clear blue sky above the street, through the narrow canyon between the buildings and out, above the rooftops. As it did, it began to move down the street, directly towards me: riding a current, dancing back and forth, turning over and over on itself. Happily.
It seemed poignant. As it passed over my head, I grinned. Some will read more of what I'm saying here than others.