Homesick

I felt strangely calm during the drive to my destination that day. Following some inexplicable intuition, I had prepared several items that just… felt right, even though if asked I probably wouldn’t have been able to explain why. I had brought the beautiful feather that I had found walking the day before. Had picked some sage from the garden, the one type of plant I had always felt a rather special connection to. When I sat down with the old man, he asked me what I was here for today.

“I’m hoping to find out soon enough”, I said.

“Fine with me”, he mused. “Just tell me what you need of me.”

“I might be going places today. I might get lost. If that happens, I need you to pull me back. Can you do that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

If his best wasn’t enough, nothing would be. He was well over 70, a renowned Therapist with a history in both the scientific world and the beyond. I've worked with him before, and trusted him. He would have to do.

I used the match I brought to light the sage. Breathing in the familiar smell, I waited for the remains to turn to ashes. With the widely traveled water I drew from the river Danube before coming here, I alchemized some ashen color and painted it on my face. I knew I had to prevent myself from rational thinking long enough for this to work. Focus on the bodily sensations. Let it do the work. Breathe. Let go. Breathe. And let go I did…

The first thing I saw was the hawk, or was it an eagle? Sadly, I didn’t know much about birds, but it soothed me to think of him being the one that had gifted me feather the other day. Looking around, I found myself on the top of some kind of mountain. Only after taking in the grand view for a few seconds did I marvel at the true size of the hawk, or whatever bird it was. It was way bigger than myself, and yet it radiated with a very friendly, almost inviting vibe.

Then I would find myself on his back, flying over the mountaintops I had gazed at before. I felt a freedom that I could only describe as profound. Like not being constrained anymore by anything in this world. After a while, though, we descended through the clouds into a huge forest, where my winged friend left me to meet someone quite different.

It didn’t take long for her to show herself, even though her rustling skin camouflaged her very effectively. In another world, she might have been an adept or even feared hunter. Here in this forest, she was the undisputed queen of life, all-seeing, all-knowing, the snake-goddess of the living woods.

Yes, her words formed somewhere deep inside of me, yes I am. And I know you. You go deeper.

With that she led me to a grove, and waited.

You go in there.

So I entered the grove, which soon turned dark because it really did go deep. But for some unknown reason, I could still see anyway.

It wasn’t long before I heard someone mumbling something in a language I didn’t understand. Something passed me, fast. Another voice, this time from the other side. See, my snake friend implored me, and suddenly I could: Gnomes. There were quite a few of them, being busy with whatever, but definitely very busy, mostly ignoring my very presence.

Continuing my journey, I soon realized that the grove was but the entrance to an intricate system of tunnels. It was almost like an underground city. When confronted with the decision of which direction to go next, I would simply decide on where the background voices sounded the loudest. If this was a city, there had to be some kind of center to it

After what seemed like an eternity, I discovered this center to be an enormous fungus. I didn’t realize just how big it was until I dared to touch it. Only then did I realize that the huge branches I had seen go out in each direction would branch out and branch out again until one could barely even see the ever-thinner branches, and then some more, almost into infinity. The fungus – and when touching it, I as well - could sense everything happening as it was because it was intricately connected to just about anything there was. I sensed the snake queen creeping around happily through the forest. I evem sensed my winged friend enjoy the freedom of the skies. And before I knew it, I found myself in utter darkness again, sensing something even beyond the realm of the fungus. Go deeper, my reptilian keeper of knowledge said. Follow the waters.

I wasn’t sure of where I was next because it was quite dark, but it felt… wet. Allowing myself to sink deeper and deeper into the earthen grounds, I could feel myself absorbing and being absorbed by the groundwater, and then even deeper, until we hit rocky underground. We followed it along for a bit, until we collected into sort of an underground lake. What creature would meet me here? I could swear I was sensing some movements every now and then, some flicker of light, some wet noises. Something was lurking around here. You cannot truly see her yet, I was told. No use trying. Just go deeper. So I did.

It took my eyes a few moments to adjust to the new surroundings, but after a while I thought I saw a glimmer of light not far away. It wasn’t very bright, but it was moving. Something or someone might be alive, even down there.

When one of those glimmering hazes faded away into darkness, something else started to glow where it left. Investigating, I discovered something akin to a crystal, but warm and life-giving to the touch. I didn’t know what to do with these, and yet they felt familiar somehow.

Go deeper, the keeper of knowledge let me know. Go even deeper, and find.

Now the space was wide open again, made mostly of rocks, and smelling slightly sulfuric. In the distance, I could make out something burning or glowing. Was that magma over there?

“Finally!”, he said, only making his presence known after I had some time to take in the view. He looked strangely familiar, even though he could have jumped out right out of one of the computer games I had loved as a kid.

“Well, I don’t really have a specific form I’m bound to wear, you know. So I figured I might as well take on one that you would recognize”, he explained, chuckling. “Well, do you recognize me?”

I shook my head. He looked like some rather friendly devil with his suit on and these tiny horns. His lower body seemed to kind of disintegrate into the smokey environment.

“You might not remember. You were in such a haste back then, when I brought you back”, he continued.

I still had no idea what he was talking about, and said as much.

Liar, my former snake friend let me know through her mysterious ways of communication. You do know.

Mr. Devil eyed me suspiciously. “I suppose you would want to rest for a little while after what happened, to mend your wounds for a bit. But you wouldn’t truly forget again, would you?”

Open your eyes now, she said. Or I will open them for you, and force you to see.

You wouldn’t want to have an argument with an all-seeing, all-knowing snake-queen about twenty times your size, so I relented, and accepted the possibility that I might really have been here before.

At which the memories finally rushed back. First a trickle, growing into a creek, a stream, pushing the floodgates ever wider, until I was there again, almost twenty years ago.

My mother, in her sickbed, dying, gasping for air, yearning for connection, any sign of the outside world not having left her to this sad state of being. And although she was surrounded by family and friends who talked soothingly with her, touched her, fed her, loved her endlessly - nothing, not even a trickle would reach where she had gone by now. “Why is nobody there?!”, she had gasped repeatedly, feeling utterly alone and disconnected from a world that was desperately trying to comfort her somehow.

And then something must have snapped in me, the specifics of which I couldn’t – or wouldn’t - remember for all these years. But I did remember that it had suddenly made my own body revolt, gasping for air for several minutes. “Don't you dare die now as well!”, I remembered my little sister screaming, and yet I couldn’t control my own breathing anymore. Years later I was told that I had had a panic attack back then, and that I could expect to experience more of them after having had one. But it remained the one and only in my life. Just a panic attack, from seeing someone dear to me dying. That’s what the doctors had said.

You know better, though, said the queen of the forest. You know you went farther.

And then I finally remembered the rest of it. I couldn’t picture it, though. There were few visual memories to connect to. But I could feel the truth somehow. I hadn’t let go of her. I couldn’t let go of her, leave her stricken in that all-encompassing loneliness when she was about to die. So I followed her over.

“I did try to stop you, but you’ve never even been on the mountains before, let alone the forests, or deeper”, Mr. Devil explained. “It all happened so fast. You were not ready. None of us were.”

My inner eye now began to remember passing through some kind of funnel in a torrent of colors rushing about. Following her. Holding fast. “You are not alone!”, I would cry. “I will not let you go!”

“You almost died that day, way beyond what your body was accustomed to endure”, Mr. Devil said, pointing far ahead to the magma clouds. “It cannot survive over there, not without first developing the necessary skills. So after a while I got hold of you, and brought you back. Or at least the part of you I could save.”

“So, part of me is still… over there?”, I asked, and he nodded.

That would explain the excruciating pain that had started to plague me on and off ever since then. That weird pain had left me paralyzed for months, with no doctor able to tell me what had caused it or how to heal. Now it finally started to make sense. Part of me was still over there. I had accidentally been torn between worlds.

“So how do I get it back here?”, I asked, puzzled.

“Well, you can’t just go over there like you did the last time. Back then you were doing it on instinct alone, broke through of all the safety mechanisms of your body at once and just rushed in to safe your mother. I do not know if your body would survive this ordeal a second time. It’s a miracle it did the last time, really.”

“So I’ll have to live in this strained state until I actually die myself?”, I asked.

“Well, there might be another way”, he said, “since you’re already here at the border again, and we’re talking. Do you think you can come here again? Like, on purpose?”

“Well, I didn’t know what to expect, but my intuition told me to do certain things, in a certain way. So I think I can, yes.”

“So there might be a way for you, after all.” He chuckled. “Do you know how rare it is that I talk to an actual human who still retains a body in the physical world? Many do pass me when their time has come, but very few come back or stop to have a chat. Well, I have all-knowing Kaarn here for company, and your feathered friend also visits from time to time. But humans do not tread here all too often.”

He came closer, looking quite amused.

“You know, they tend to fear me a bit, even though I do not know why. But well, they even dislike old Kaarn, keeper of knowledge. I’m told they even wrote a whole chapter in some book about her, about her leading people astray from some magical garden or something. But you’ve met her. She basically is the garden. Or rather, a whole forest. But that’s what you get when so few people come around and visit any more. Those who do – or at least think they do – get to write all kinds of things in world-wide bestsellers, and then everyone up there starts to believe the stupidest stuff… Anyway!”, his impression going serious again. “You might want to come here every once in a while for a visit. Kaarn can teach you things. Help you remember things. As can the others, once you meet them. And no, you haven’t met all of them yet. There have been people like you before. A while back, there were more of them. What if this is your path? Perhaps you didn’t just lose an essential part of yourself back then. Perhaps it just… went ahead, to give you some direction. So you could follow it, as soon as the rest of you was ready.”

I took another close look at my surroundings. Yes, I had been here before. This felt… familiar, in a most profound way. Like… home.

And then it hit me with the weight of millennia: Yes, I was home again. Finally. How come I forget this every - single - time?

“You recognize me now?”, asked Mr. Devil, seeing my eyes light up in revelation.

“I do!”, I said, laughing hard now. “You made me remember. Again.”

“As always, friend”, he said. “As always. One can so easily get lost, right?”

Yes, I had been here before. Not only once, when my Ego mistakenly rushed to save my worldly mother from where she was supposed to go, but many, many times. No wonder they all seemed very friendly. They were old friends, a relationship that had developed over Thousands of years and cycles. And again and again, they invited me back here, gently, so my new physical form could safely endure the journey, and go back and forth whenever necessary or convenient. They offered a bridge, but they were more than just a bridge. They were... friends.

When I opened my eyes again, the old man who had kept watch eyed me knowingly.

“It seems you’ve reached a worthwhile destination”, he mused.

"One worthwhile indeed", I nodded. "I was home."

But that didn't capture the full profoundness of it all yet.

"Or rather, I am."