Walking in the Void
By: Elio D'Anna
Tags: Books, Creative Writing, Writing, Positive Thinking, Essay

The world is the dreamed and the dreamed can never hurt you

artwork by Sossio Mosca courtesy of the artist

Another Excerpt from a new book ‘No war within, no war without’

The blinding daylight and the memory of those afternoons under the hot Neapolitan sun warmed me to the point that I placed a cool hand across the nape of my neck as He spoke. “You stole away to the terrace every time you could and walked back and forth endlessly suspended between the two skies — the real one above, and the reflected one on the tray you held flat in front of you. Every step you took was a step into the abyss…when you remembered that before you was merely an image, you were even able to run, but when you forgot, your steps would falter and you would stumble into the imaginary void in front of you.” As we walked I remembered the feeling of my mother’s cold silver tray in my tiny clenched fists and the hole in the pit of my stomach each time I poised my foot over the abyssal blue sea in front of me.

“The whole game is based on entering into the abyss of the unknown remembering, at the same time, that there is no abyss at all.. No matter which sky you use to get your bearings — both are illusions.

Divided inside…Trapped in a horizontal vision you can only run after the things you aspire to possess — forgetting they are already yours… like a dog chasing his tail.

In these moments you must be still and raise yourself above thought and memory. The Dream contains all.., and More..” He said.

The sky I had reflected in front of me was the mirror image of the blue sea that soared overhead and now, next to the Dreamer that childish game I’d played seemed to have happened only moments ago.

“ It seems to me that I am living two different lives in two separate worlds that fight each other for survival. How can I find the right balance between the ‘Work’ and the business of everyday Life?” I pleaded.

“All this time you’ve been mistaking the world for reality — exchanging a flat lifeless reflection for life itself — just as you did when you were a child and fell with the tray. Narcissus fell in love with his own image and was lost in it — and you fall under the world’s spell in the same way. You believe in what you see before you, and so are so easily lost because you forget it is merely an image of your own projection.

“Should I be doing some other job? Maybe I’ve misunderstood and am not playing the right role?”

Act your role in the world as an actor does on the stage. There is nothing wrong with playing and nothing wrong with the role you act. The problem arises only when you forget to act and identify with the role itself.”

We rounded a bend to find ourselves in front of a huge lake. The intense blue sky reflected in the glassy surface before us was interrupted only by an occasional swan and the ripples of a passing breeze. I breathed in deeply gathering that scene and fixing the last embers of that childhood memory soundly within me.

The light reflected on the water was nearly blinding and I unconsciously veered us towards a line of trees that would have shielded us from that overwhelming splendor, forgetting so quickly the game with the platter.

“Don’t forget, the world is the dreamed, and the dreamed can never hurt you. The dream is entirely depending on you. You are the sole Dreamer and creator. You are the very cause of its existence. Without you, the world disappears. The world owes you all….” He said. I never connected my actions with His words until now.

I reached down absently to touch my scarred knees remembering how, so many years ago I would set off walking slowly and cautiously, then gain speed only to stumble and fall in a heap on that silver tray in front of me when I was distracted.

The many falls I’d had were examples of my distraction. Strangely, the Dreamer had not sent me away but saw everyone as a trial that was to strengthen me. We had spoken at length of each.

“Gods and men are part of a beautiful game that you yourself have created for your own satisfaction and pleasure. Gods are made to solve the problems of the Universe. Men are made to aggravate and perpetuate them….” He’d said cryptically when I voiced my bewilderment over those events.

“The moment you dream a new dream you are creating also the antagonist that will help you to realize it — an antagonist of equal strength that can make the path towards its realization visible and possible…. “ He had spoken at length about the Antagonist and although at the time I was sure to understand, when the Antagonist appeared it was always ‘the enemy’ — a foreign identity who was not part of a game at all, but a dangerous and mortal foe. He paused before uttering what would be from then on both the emblem and epitaph of my entire life.