The Eyes of Anaskwa

By David Kala Ka La

A troubled man is found broken and unconscious at the foot of a steep cliff by a band of monks who transport him to their home in a remote monastic community that has grown up around the statue of the female saint Anaskwa. The statue emanates a peculiar potency and has a magical ability to bring everyone who gazes into the depths of her eyes, the realisation of the beauty inherent in every living thing and indeed the recognition of their own soul.

Rescued from the depths of despair and drawn into the spiritual life of the monastery this young man finds that the monks, and the town people that they introduce him to, begin to answer many questions for him and after experiencing many challenges and personal loss and confronting his own dark night of the soul he begins to find clarity and vision bringing him closer to a more enlightened perspective on essence of life itself.

'The Eyes of Anaskwa is a highly unusual story, fundamentally spiritual in nature, filled with reflections and observations on the ways of those on the path – whether they know it or not – and some of the ways of the earth and the universe in which we live. With echoes of Herman Hesse and Carlos Castaneda this is a mythic tale of reality told by a master story teller with quotes from ancient spiritual books that serve to both intrigue and illustrate the teachings within its pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Masterworks International
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780992770617

Book preview

THE EYES OF ANASKWA

David Kala Ka Lā

In memory of

Mike Kaha’i

to whom all secrets are now revealed

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I

To leave is to understand; watching at a distance is to perceive what we cannot see from the ground. When we have space, we have time. When we have time the guide appears. When we have a guide we have a difference that is not easily vouchsafed us otherwise.

Zumzebaka: Approaching the Grove - Path 2. (trans: Kala)

I fly around the earth; that is what I do. I watch and follow. Occasionally I learn invaluable lessons from that which I have seen.

Would you care to join me? Come, leave everything behind and we will fly together to another place. Use all your strength now. It only takes a little jump upwards; just hold my hand, your will is enough. Let us rise up higher and higher, away from the places where our ordinary dreams and dramas take place. Higher and higher from those that we love and those that we cannot stand, and those who, in all honesty, we really do not care anything about at all.

Rise. High. Up here there are cloudscapes and the always present horizon, something which you cannot often see from the towns and cities in which you live. It is intoxicating, this flight, with the wind whipping past us, the carefree release of anything usual left far behind and, in front there is space; a seemingly endless space, coloured with special and unique blues and whites, and far below the subtle colours of forest and mountain and sea.

To fly is to become anew again. It is to rise and observe; to see the difference. It is to discover.

Zumzebaka: Approaching the Grove - Path 4. (trans: Kala)

Hold on to me: just as you are beginning to revel in this weightless flight, you might experience a subtle tug – do you feel it – a momentary tug that calls to any human being on such a journey. It feels like gravity at first, but it is not gravity. It is short but definite and filled with meaning. It is everything which is known and safe – even if it is, in reality, as unsafe as any other particular place on this earth – but it calls to us in a very definite way at just the same time as we imagine that it would be wonderful to leave it all behind. It is usual for it to deliberately drown out the haunting and more distant sounds of unknown landscapes and new spaces imbued with adventures that could well scare and entice us in equal measure. And yet, and yet...the haunting song that you might now begin to sing, if you can catch but a hint of it, does still appear to us during our everyday life: during daydreams and sleep, we can hear its call; we look at photographs and films about the wild and less populated spaces of this earth and fantasise about living in them, about the reduction of our consciousness to simply having to find food and shelter and that something extra which we know exists but cannot name. But we cannot experience anything new until what usually fills the space inside us evaporates; until our everyday concerns dissolve and we are reduced to needs. Until we can simply experience what is before us.

But, despite that tug, here you are. That is what you are experiencing now: fresh air moving swiftly over your tingling face and flying over your skin; fluttering your clothes – if you have bought them with you – chilling us both with the reality of what awaits when our journey takes us, releases us, into something completely unknown.

I must warn you though to remember that we are not alone. Just because there are no other human beings here it does not mean that there is no other consciousness at all. The height that a human inhabits on a day-to-day basis is such a small part of the totality of earth’s depth that it is easy to become convinced that our consciousness expands and encompasses so much more than it actually does. Feel what you can feel, now, up here. What surrounds us? What is here that hardly knows that we exist at all apart from our occasional forays into its territory, its area of influence? Feel what you can feel, without commentary. And, if you choose to, say hello.  

I do have to say, however, that it is not simply other forms of consciousness that you might encounter: sometimes, during this exultant freedom, as distances below speed past unnoticed, the dream of another can fly so high, this high, and disconnect from the everyday in which it originated. This is where they become strange, mutated, bizarre, and then it finds its way back to the dreamer, igniting something inside that is secret and hidden and yet can drive us, in unsuspected ways, to discontent and boredom and unhappiness and a feeling that we should be doing something different than we are. But what is it?

That is what fuels the adventure and the disappointment.

Or else what we encounter is more of an assault, a violent release of emotion sent out into the world and out into the universe at large in the hope that this time, perhaps this time, there will be a response which shows us that someone, something out there, is listening; is responding.

Or could it possibly be the case that Zamaha spoke only once and was never ever able to hear us?

We are being buffeted, can you feel it? Hold my hand, we shall steady each other. I have not felt this kind of disturbance for a long time. It usually indicates that not only is someone in great distress, but that their distress will affect everything that they touch during this mass expulsion, this surfeit of cataclysmic consciousness. At least that is how it seems to me, but then again I have not traced all these violent disturbances back to their origins, for there are far too many to take notice of; if I did so my life would become a tragedy.

But perhaps, with you by my side, we should follow this dream to its origin. Shall we disappear into the life and dreams of another human being for a short time? Will that help you to forget something that should be forgotten whilst we seek whomsoever is below us? Let us drop down through the wispy cloud. Be warned though that it can come as something of a shock to fall back to earth, where sometimes the sun’s light is no longer so bright, so clear and so near.

Mmm. It is a man. He is thirty-eight years old – sometimes such facts are revealed to me – unshaven and his dark shadowy beard shows flecks of grey when the light catches it. He wears dirty and torn jeans, a T-shirt, a light jacket. He must have wandered here from a long way away because his clothes belong to distant towns, not this deserted place. His body is sprawled over a bed of sharp-edged rocks. Lying on his back like this, with his legs and arms spread out, he looks like a sacrifice to the five elements, and it looks as if they are about to accept him. If you examine him closely enough there is movement inside his body. His chest rises and falls slowly and rhythmically and, beneath his eyelids, there is the jerky and disconcertingly slow gliding dance of his eyes surveying the landscape of a dream. Perhaps it is a continuation of the one that buffeted us so far away in the sky above, but I am not so sure.

Look closer. It is his final dream. In it he is dancing; dancing with his partner during happy times of love and wonder and grace. He had not the slightest idea they would be so short. He is dancing in mixed up images of nightclubs and weddings and parties; dancing in private, just the two of them, fed with just enough wine to open that final gate which holds back the full power of the love they had for each other. But, just as quickly as all that time passed away, the dream itself shifts; she evaporates and he is dancing alone, with his arms wrapped around his own body. In this new dream, which is more like the one that we felt whilst we flew, he begins to cry with those violent gut-wrenching spasms which only ever appear with such intensity in dreams like this. Slowly he surfaces into that space where we neither dream nor are fully conscious; where we take our bearings on our self, find the place which reconfirms who we think we are. Tears are streaming down his cheeks as he opens his eyes and fully remembers where he is and why he is here. Now the rocks underneath him dig into his back and it is so painful to move, but still he turns onto his right side, determined to stay here forever, as he is, and die.

If only he could fall asleep again and sink into the earth until he disappears even from himself. But he will not find that so easy, because, deep inside, so deep that even he does not know that it exists, is something that wants to live in spite of all that has happened to him. It is in all of us, it is in you. It sits like a lighthouse beam made invisible by the busy light of everyday existence; but, if you look for it, it is scanning the horizon, insistent, ever present, just on the off chance that it will catch your attention when you most need it; when the storm is at its height and the waves are piling up on each other with unbelievable force. Maybe there is just a chance that you will see a glimmer, far away from where you are now, on the horizon, something to aim for; something that offers the smallest possible hope that there is a reason to carry on living. But our man, our fellow human, is unable to see that faint light because the tears in his eyes have weakened his inner vision and obscure everything and anything that might come to his aid.

No matter how hard he tries he cannot fall back into sleep; even the sharp rocks are prodding him into consciousness and movement. They are not made for sleeping on. Finally he raises his head and sits up. The cold wind hits him hard. There is no time to notice the landscape around him which, if he had the strength and the desire to look at it, is magnificent, distant, large, cold, blue and shades of ochre and rock and horizon and sky. But he cannot see it because all that is in front of his eyes is what is also behind his eyes: pain and loss, an obsession with the emptiness which has appeared and never closed since the death that broke him in two. He stands up and feels chilled to the bone through his inadequate clothes. No food for days. All he can concentrate on is the horizon at the edge of the large flat rocky outcrop that he has slept on. That is all he can see through his tears. He struggles towards the edge with the sole intention of jumping off. Just that, nothing more: to fall into oblivion and never to come back to consciousness. No everlasting peace, no forgiveness, no understanding. No hope of heaven or even hell; no thoughts of redemption or reconciliation. There is nothing left here, only a desire for the pain to stop and for nothingness for ever and ever. Annihilation.

With each step he falls forward as if intoxicated. But the truth is that his will to live is simply ebbing away with each footfall; each step draining him of life. And yet, even at this terrible moment in his life, just as absolutely nothing matters to him at all, there are tears streaming down his face and he cannot even see properly. Why the tears? From where inside are the tears forming when he is simply about to achieve what he most desires?

Perhaps they are not his to cry; perhaps those tears are not his to own...

As he reaches what seems like the edge, he raises his head and prepares to gather his remaining strength and spend it all in one last effort to launch himself over the cliff. In the distance, on the plain below, a man tending the fields looks to where he is standing and waves a greeting at the figure so far away. Another life. A very different life. But no greeting returns because our man cannot see him: his eyes are closed; he is ready to jump. And behind his eyes he re-creates a scene that he will remember all his life. A perfect moment to finish this life with, once and for all. He balances unsteadily on the edge. This is it.

But, at that precise moment, he loses his footing and at first stumbles and then falls down the steep, but not precipitous, slope. He tumbles over and around and down and down and finally knocks his head on a rock.

His descent comes to a numbing sudden halt. He has tears in his clothes and large gashes on his skin where the rock has wished him goodbye. His arm is broken. His leg is twisted at an unnatural angle. Blood trickles down the side of his face. He is unconscious and his breathing is very shallow. His eyes do not move behind his eyelids.

It is very quiet again. There was a brief disturbance, a distant stone-fall, but now the desolate quietness of this windswept scene comes to us again. For a short while his rasping breath and violent dreams drew our attention away from the sound of the wind and the endless sky; sounds which continually absorb my attention and which, more often than not, obscure any other action. Perhaps it will be so with you. And now, after this tragedy, there is only the cool insistent breeze whipping over the rock; over and out into the space of this place. It pays no attention whatsoever – ignoring – the body lying below. It rises to the height from which we have been watching and then continues to fly away, past us, to heaven-knows-where.

*******

There is something you should understand about me: I do not know everything. Even after all this time, I still do not know everything. For instance I am not quite sure whether the broken body below us is about to die. From this height he is so small and fragile and the colours of his clothes simply melt into the surrounding rocks and the earth. In death he will be – as indeed he was in life if he but realised it – absolutely just another part of the earth. If we had not watched him so intently I doubt we would have any idea whatsoever that he is there.

As you may already be able to comprehend, I am sometimes easily distracted by views, by forms of consciousness that are anything other than human. They transfix me and then I am lost again. Just look all around you: the surrounding scenery is astounding. It has taken millions of years for these mountains and valleys to come to their present position; a never ending counterbalance of emerging into the air and sinking into the earth. And still it goes on. We rarely think about it at all, until some terrible loss of life reminds us of the unsteadiness of the very earth we walk upon every day. We think it is so solid but, in truth, it is something that is simply the most solid thing that we have contact with in the whole universe. We walk on it and yet it moves of its own volition under us.

See, it is so easy to forget our friend lying on the rocks below. It is easy to forget the small and – some would have you believe – insignificant when compared to the massive grandeur of even this scene, or of the earth, or all that exists in this infinite universe. But even I know that that is a mistake, a really big mistake. Humans need to concern themselves with this, more than that.

*******

 It has taken over half an hour to walk from the monastery to the rocks where he is lying: a long slow upward climb over the grassy terrain and then something more rigorous in order to reach his body on the rocks. The party, consisting of five people, is efficient, and work with the minimum of panic, though this is not a usual occurrence for them.

He is alive; just. Barely breathing. Two of the party tend to his immediate wounds, and two of them – one at his feet, one at his head – simply close their eyes and put their hands on his broken body. They mutter something that is too faint for me to hear as they become still and centred. At the same time their friends work away at their own particular skill, their art. The fifth person is busy snatching grass and leaves and ferns from the sparse ground in order to soften the stretcher which is made of sticks and wood. They would have used the grass and ferns whether the body was alive or dead – either way it would be dealt with in an atmospehere of due reverence and compassion.

‘Well, that’s about as much as we can do here.’

They carefully lay him on the stretcher and lift it up, trying not to disturb him too much. Of course they do not know his name, his age, his nationality, the reason he is here, the reason he fell. They know nothing about him, but that is of no concern to them. He is a human being with needs and wants – some of which are required immediately – just like every other human being on the earth, including themselves; and they will, therefore, take care of him. Why wouldn’t they? For there is a time in every life when the invisible and secret fuel which enables us to rise in the morning, which wills us to get washed and dressed, which gives us the strength to face opening the door, whether greeted by sun or lashing rain or bitter cold, and to, somehow, bear the invisible and heavy burden which we have amassed on our shoulders as we have lived; there is a time when that fuel and our access to it runs out. So what is left then, to move us and motivate our bodies? Sometimes there is nothing other than what our fellow human beings can somehow muster for themselves and share with us if they choose to. All around the world at this moment in time there are humans who are sacrificing their so-valuable time for those who they love and care for; maybe out of duty or obligation, but that makes no difference at all to what they are doing for us. Thank goodness for them. And that is why the monks are carrying him down the steep slope with care, even though he is heavy and unconscious; even though he is secretly and completely unconsciously wishing and hoping he is dead.

 What is it that we need when we are in such a state? At first it is very elemental: to keep the flame that flickers inside burning, so that the inside can, once again, greet the outside, where there might be food and warmth and protection. These simple requirements are what feed our physical body and allow our physical injuries to heal. But, after that is taken care of, it is very difficult to nurture the flame further; the flame must of itself incinerate the tendencies and incidents that have driven a human being to such a desperate and terrible state. It is a very difficult enterprise to understand and execute, for it is the healer who must have survived such a visit themselves; to have crawled back on hands and knees, to learn to stand again and to walk; to surmount such an incineration in their own lives. Unless such a person has visited such a place and returned they will not be able to see a way out that is not also itself attached to the web that originally entangled the sufferer in the first instance. The gaze of the healed must point in a new direction.

Here we are with our man again. We are looking through the window of one of the rooms of the monastery. It is high up, five floors above the ground, and the sun is streaming through the window and falling onto the floor and lighting the motes which float randomly around and about and up and down. It is warm.

At first he is only conscious of his being warm and comfortable; too heavy and comfortable to move. Then he hears laughter. The tinkling laughter of children drifts up through the window, is captured by his hearing, and coalesces in his mind. That sound of human voices, free as they are from care and concern, is the natural and pure music of the soul; they feed his heart with something it had forgotten it was so hungry for. Such a very long time, but he cannot begin to think about that. He opens his eyes.

There is nothing but brightness. Then he gradually becomes aware of the outline of a shape looking over him. All he can see is a dark head and shoulders and brightness all around. Perhaps he has awoken in heaven, or in some paradise, and now he can forget his pain, leave it all behind; perhaps this is an angel or being of light who has come to greet him on the next stage of his journey. He tries to raise his head but a pain shoots down into his chest. Surely there cannot be pain like this in paradise...

‘Careful...don’t move just yet.’ It is a woman’s voice. It is smooth and gentle; but now he knows for definite that he is still on earth. He closes his eyes and tears well up and begin to drip down his cheeks and onto the pillow. All his defences dissolved when he decided to die and now they are nowhere to be found. He cannot speak. There is nothing to say. He is alive and there is nothing to say.

If you have survived and did not expect to survive, to whom should you really be indebted?

Chulumbaka: Song Four of ‘The Laws’. (trans: Kala)

She picks up a cloth and wets it. He can hear the drips of water drop into the bowl as the cloth is wrung out. Then she wipes his forehead and gently dabs his cheeks. It is cool and comforts him, but the tears still come. Now there is the shame of these tears, and he dare not look at her because without his defences she might see into his weak and broken heart. And that would not be a good thing: he said he would never allow that to happen again. His body aches and is wracked with pain as he turns onto his side and cuddles up to himself, foetal-like. He slowly falls asleep again, but it is not the oblivion that he has known for the last few days. It is an intermittently conscious sleep, in which the confusion of his past and the few images of his present intermingle and tangle so that he is not rested when he next wakes up, but is feverish and disconnected. He is irritable and hot as he opens his eyes.

It is night, or at least it is dark. There is a candle flame in the corner which sheds a glowing light on the stone walls surrounding it. There is the open window and darkness without. He looks around carefully and slowly in order to orientate himself now that he knows that this is a real physical space; and one in which he has been sleeping for days without having the faintest idea where it is. He shivers with a chill because he is sweaty and it is cold, and also because he is realising that the fact of him being alive at all is something which he did not count on, and has not the faintest idea how to cope with.

All of a sudden, out of the shadows, the outline of a human being stands and walks towards him. Simon shudders with fright: it is just as if the shadow had come alive. The shadow takes a blanket from the foot of the bed, unfolds it, and lays it carefully over him.

You are recovering; there is no need to worry, just sink back into sleep. You are safe and protected and we are taking care of you. There is always someone here to watch over you. Go back to sleep now and rest

With that the shadow dissolves back into the darkness.

He closes his eyes and lies quiet and still for a short time. The voice he heard was gentle but firm. Secure and reassuring. It is the voice of a man. What would it be like if he really were to fall asleep with the knowledge that he is absolutely safe; absolutely cared for; with somebody always watching over him? Had he ever experienced that in his life before now? Perhaps when he was a baby, when he didn’t even know what danger was?    

For a minute I think about his lack of defences. From our vantage point up here I wonder if you are aware, in any way whatsoever, how much of you is kept secret from the world; hidden away and guarded with an absolutely violent and powerful protecting force – albeit subconscious – hidden and secret even from yourself? How could you afford to know it: as you are now, it would destroy you. You would be as a child lying in the cradle, vulnerable and open, flowering with nothing but energy pouring forth into the world, and whatever comes back to it is received without defence; without learned defences, without even a knowledge that defence is needed. That is why a crime against a child is so heinous. That is the great sadness: that we have to learn to defend ourselves, otherwise we are destroyed very early on in this world, without a chance of even finding a place inside where we can keep the ability to shine forth without reservation, without a consciousness of the need for defence in the first place. It is an innocent naivety which is frowned upon and made fun of, and yet the real truth in essence is that this is where we all began; vulnerable, open, sparkling aliveness. It is in you now and you are defending it with all your might.

He awakes later to the sound of liquid being poured into a cup.

Take a little tea. It will help the pain.

A hand is placed gently beneath the back of his head and gently lifts it so that he can sip the tea. The liquid trickles down his throat and seems to permeate his body with a radiating trickling warmth. What a wonderful physical sensation. Like the moment when cold feet flush with blood in front of a fire.

A little more?

He grunts a yes and sips more of the hot tea.

His head is gently laid down on the pillow. It is day again, and the room is brightening up with the sunrise, with the bright sunlight beginning its journey down the wall behind him. He looks at his helper. She has the same voice as the woman who helped him the last time it was day. Sooner or later he has to face her. He looks at her directly, with the gentlest of eyes because he has no energy to muster his defences, and he is startled. She is shaven headed; she has a radiant and absorbing expression in her eyes which look at him with care and openness; fierce though: fiercely alive, fiercely in charge.

Good morning, she says.

Hello, he answers.

It is so quiet all around, just a bell tolling somewhere in the distance. So quiet. Peaceful. It is the kind of silence that it is a shame to break. A safe, all enveloping, silence.

I think it would be a good idea if you could try to get up today. We need to get your body moving pretty soon.

He nods.

First of all, just stretch your limbs very gently. You have many injuries and you need to know where they are: you have a serious head injury and your right arm is broken; your back and ribs are bruised. You will be very sore in spite of the magic tea. She smiles and looks into his eyes.

He begins, tentatively, to stretch his body. As he does so there are screams of protest from his muscles and bones, from cuts on his skin and bruises underneath. His arm is wrapped firmly, but it does not feel like plaster. He lets out a whimper or two and is embarrassed.

Don’t worry, no need for pretence here. We know you are hurting.

After he moves his body a few more times she walks over to him.

Ready?

I think so, he answers.

With that, she pulls off the blankets. He is wearing a white cotton shirt and bottoms. The air feels fresh and cool on his skin.

Now, if I put my hand under your back I will help you to sit up.

She does so and he is surprised at how strong she is. With only a little effort of his own, he is, very stiffly, sitting up.

OK? she asks.

Yes, I think so, but he is panting with pain. It shoots through him like electricity.

Now just support yourself with your good arm....

She holds his lower legs and swings them out of the bed and very slowly, oh so slowly, lowers them to the ground. His feet feel some kind of carpet beneath them and for the first time in days he is looking at the world the right way up.

Oooo... he says, as he becomes a little dizzy.

It’s OK, just stay there for a few minutes and get used to sitting up.

He cannot remember when it was that he had this much time to get up out of bed. Always the insistent rod of time has poked him into action: work, duty, cleaning, washing, ironing, even leisure has been allocated its allotted time span. And here he is just sitting on the edge of a bed doing nothing at all apart from breathing, looking, listening and feeling. But, after all, that is all he can cope with.

He looks at his helper. And then it occurs to him that she does not even know his name.

My name is Simon. He smiles shyly as he says this.

She smiles a faint smile: Hello Simon. My name is Lemula.

He looks at her face longer than he should. She is neither young nor old, perhaps in her early thirties. She is dressed in a kind of robe that is wrapped around her, somewhere between a sari and habit with a hood on the back. The cloth seems to be coloured in swirls and very light pastel shades of orange and yellow ochres, but if he looks away for a moment it seems to be plain. Her eyes are deep brown and mesmerising. He holds her gaze for too long.

Sorry, he says, suddenly realising how intense his gaze has become.

She nods her head. Then, very matter of factly, says: We will do our best to restore you to health. This place has many means to do so. We will soon have you up and about. For the moment though, just get used to sitting and standing and stretching your limbs. She moves towards the door. I am leaving now. Someone else will be with you very soon. She begins to open the wooden door.

Wait..., he says, but does not quite know why he says it. Then: ...Sorry, I’m sure you’re very busy...thank you for your help.

She smiles and closes the door behind her.

Alone again. He can hear the activity of the morning outside; people are chatting as they pass his window; in the distance he can hear bowls and plates clattering as food and drink are served; and, in the great expanse beyond his window, there are birds singing. But in here, in this room, it is silent. Only his difficult breath and the insistent pain that nags at his body. He looks up at the window. From where he is sitting all he can see is blue sky; bright, light, blue sky. Not a cloud in that little square; pure blue. Not even a sense of its wondrous depth.

Then he remembers who he is and why he is here. His heart sinks. For a short time he had forgotten his personal memory as it became submerged under his preoccupation with pain and just surviving, but now it hits him with full vengeance. The memories of his past are far too substantial to have dissolved during his comatose sleep; a sleep that began the moment he fell off that edge but which became something other than the end he had hoped for. And during that sleep there was no memory of anything: no memory of falling forward instead of jumping off into what he thought was death; no memory of his very real intention to kill himself, but maybe there was a shadow that the attempt had cast over his consciousness and the dark, utterly miserable feeling that has now begun to infect him as he becomes fully conscious of his actions. He sighs and lowers his head. He has no idea what he will do now. He is a man who has lost – and is lost – and completely filled in every part of his consciousness with loneliness; overflowing, overpowering loneliness.

After a few minutes submerged in this utterly empty state, the door opens and an older man walks in. I think you would enjoy a warm bath, it will loosen the scabs on your skin and help them to heal.

Simon says nothing but, after a hand is offered, accepts assistance and rises painfully into a bent over position. The man supports him as he shuffles out of the room and into the corridor. It is made of stone and is cold to his feet. Sunlight glances down one end of the short passageway to the left, but they move to the right and into the next doorway. Inside is a bath filled with warm water which has a light green tinge. The man notices Simon’s look of reticence.

It’s OK. We’ve put some herbs in it to help to heal and sterilise your injuries. Now, sit on this seat.

Simon sits down, very slowly.

Can you manage to undress yourself or would you like a hand?

Simon is too preoccupied with the pain in his body to care if he is naked or not in front of another human being; besides, this man is older than he and must have seen many things.

When he is undressed the man supports him, and walks him over to the bath.

Slowly, very slowly, Simon sinks into the warm water.

Is the temperature OK?

Yes, it’s fine. Thanks.

I’ll leave you alone. Just soak in the water, you’ll feel better for it. It doesn’t matter about your arm; let it get wet. I’ll be in the next room, changing your bed, so just shout if you need me.

He leaves the room and closes the door.

Steam is rising from the water and light beams from a partially curtained window are made visible in the mist that surrounds him. The warm water is indeed very soothing. Within a few minutes he can feel his body slip into a more relaxed state. He sighs involuntarily and sinks deeper under the water. Only his face is showing now. His ears, submerged and stilled, hear nothing. All is quiet. He has given up thinking about anything in particular and simply lies there, occasionally shifting in the water to get the full effect of the heat. His last thought is ‘what am I going to do...." and it goes round and round and down, deep down inside. At first he follows it but he cannot keep up; then he watches as it sinks so far, so far away, that he can no longer keep track of it at all. It is like a whale disappearing into the black darkness of the deep dark sea where nothing can follow it. And then we forget that it is even there, even while we are here, feet on the earth, and completely awake. But whether we are aware of it or not, it still swims into that unknown blackness; even while we sit here watching in the bright sunlight, its massiveness is alive and well and living a life which we know nothing about, which we have forgotten even exists at all. But that does not mean that it will not surface again, at some future time.

After about fifteen minutes the man returns with some fresh clothes. Simon does not hear him because he is still cocooned in the water, with his eyes closed, in a world without thoughts or problems, where time has simply evaporated and he is entirely submerged in the void. The man taps on the outside of the bath and for a minute Simon has no idea what he is sensing. Then he opens his eyes and sits up too quickly. Again he is dizzy: to be pulled back from the void so quickly is never a good idea.

The man looks at him:

Feel a bit better?

Simon closes his eyes and calms himself. Yes. Thanks.

The man holds a large towel and Simon stands up as the towel is put around him.

Dry yourself. Here are some fresh clothes to put on.

He leaves him alone again and Simon rubs himself dry with his one hand and tries to dress himself as best he can. He can move a little easier now. As he dries himself he can see large bruises on his chest and arms and shins. His broken arm is wrapped in something solid, but not totally immovable. Whatever it is made from it is wet through now. He stands, then shuffles over to the door and out into the corridor. He moves towards the sunny entrance of the corridor where the man is standing.

Ah....that’s better. Come, first we had better eat, then I’ll get a new dressing put on your arm.

The man assists him as they slowly walk along the stone balcony.

For the first time Simon looks around at his surroundings. Along the balcony there are other doorways until the balcony path turns at the end and disappears. The sunlight of the morning is warming the stone and there is a faint and very pleasant smell of freshness in the air. His assistant stops, intuitively, so that Simon can take in the view. It is amazing. In front of him is a vast expanse of sky above and an ever extending green valley below and on into the distance.

He looks over the edge of the balcony and realises that he is looking over a series of floors that are stacked on top of each other; though from the few windows he can see it is obvious that the floors are not duplicates of each other and the view below and to the sides seems pleasantly chaotic. At the front of the building there is a large courtyard that is low walled and leads out into the surrounding grounds. There are various paths which lead to fields of vegetables and crops, some livestock graze in the distance, and then he sees that along the valley the river, which is to the left of the monastery, wends its way out of sight into a forest. There are wooded lowlands and then a steeper rise to the sides which, as he follows them back to where he stands, rise out and away from the monastery. He realises that the top of the building rises many floors above him. There are various coloured flags waving in the wind from some of the floors. Where the building meets the beginnings of the valley sides there are higeldy piggeldy buildings which seem to have been built without any normal sense of order, but present a pleasantly scattered appearance: rustic and yet solid and reassuringly covered in the light yellow ochre render that matches that of the whole building. It is a beautiful and idyllic sight.

OK? his assistant asks.

Yes. Thanks. He nods his head. Thank you, so many times...

After descending a few steps they walk into the gentle chatter and clatter of people eating their breakfast. He looks around. There are people at single tables, some eat in groups, others sit in what seems like family units, with children doing their usual children-at-breakfast routine. One or two of them look up, but most carry on as usual, though many of those who look do so from the single tables where they eat alone. Simon notices Lemula and smiles. She smiles back and continues eating her breakfast.

Now, just sit down here, and I’ll get you something to eat.

The man walks up to the cooks with whom he consults for a short time and then returns with cups of tea and a kind of thin porridge.

It doesn’t taste great, this tea, but it will be good for you. Put some honey and dried fruit on your porridge, but eat it slowly because you haven’t eaten much at all for quite a few days now.

As Simon eats his porridge he looks at the man and realises that he manifests the kind-time of an older human, something which he has received a few times in his life: time to take care; time to spend on just attending to another’s needs. His face has deep laughter lines and crows feet, and his forehead is also lined but relaxed. He wears his grey hair short and is clean-shaven, though the hair of his beard shows through his rough skin in that way that the face of an older man does. Simon likes him and feels well disposed to him.

What’s your name, he asks the old man.

Oh, sorry, my name is Amaka.

Is that your original name?

He smiles: No, but it has been my name for a very long time.

Where do you come from?

Um...well...the thing is that we don’t ask those questions here. People volunteer information if they want to.

Sorry, I didn’t know.

Of course you didn’t. Don’t worry. I came from a country that is far away from here. Though I didn’t set out to end my days here it seems that I probably will...

Simon suddenly feels something sweep over him like sadness, but then it seems more like tenderness and delicacy. This man is completely gentle and utterly open to him and he feels protective for the first time in a long time; in fact, the last time he felt such a desire to protect was over his child. But that had been a waste of time because, in reality, he could not protect her against the only thing that she ever really needed protecting from.

They finish the meal in silence.

Now, if it’s OK with you, I need to leave for a while. I will show you to the place where you can get some treatment and then pick you up later – unless you’d prefer someone else to show you around and explain how things work here?

For an instant he thinks about Lemula, but he likes Amaka and his gentle ways. He has not met many men who are like this, and he feels calm in his presence.

No, I’d like you to talk to me...

Amaka accompanies him up the stairs and walks back, past Simon’s room. A few doors on they enter a large room with several curtained cubicles. One is closed, the others are open.

Hello Amaka, who have we here? The request comes from a man who seems to be in his late twenties; shaven headed, with wide open eyes. He wears light white cotton trousers and a short sleeved cotton shirt and seems light-hearted as he smiles at them. Then, as he begins preparing a cubicle, he says, Oh...it’s our visitor... He glances at Simon: you were lucky we found you. A few more hours and you wouldn’t have been alive... Then he stands up straight, looks directly into Simon’s eyes, and says, You would have been dead; dead to this world; dead to the whole wide world; cold; nothing but rotting flesh and hair and gristle and bleached white crumbling bone. Simon feels as if he has been hit in his belly and his legs give way. Amaka helps him to a chair. After a few minutes Simon begins to surface from the depths to which these words have taken him, and he tries to take in the dramatic shift in the healer’s demeanour and the seeming cruelty of his words. Come, sit down here and we’ll take a look at you. The man smiles as he says this, but there is clearly no feeling behind it.

Amaka leaves without a word.

The healer is completely silent during his ministrations. Gently but firmly his hands mould their shape to the contours of Simon’s body; sometimes they are still, at other times they gently massage the skin and muscle beneath. He pays attention to Simon’s hips and back, his legs and chest. He undoes the wrapping around Simon’s broken arm and after taking a look at the bruising beneath, very gently holds it in both hands. A pleasant warmth pervades the tissues of his arm and Simon closes his eyes. Even though he does not trust this man, nor does he like him, he cannot resist the relaxation that his touch brings to his body. As he becomes absorbed in the warmth in his arm he sinks into a strange space, where the words the man had said about death mix with the feeling of his arm breaking on the rocks when he fell. He can feel the cold and the snap. And then there is just space, and he loses his sense of himself and where he is for a time. Then his whole body convulses and shudders in an almost painful contraction. He suddenly re-enters the present and opens his eyes.

There, that should get better quickly now. Your arm is mended; it’s just that we need to get your mind to forget it was broken.

Simon thinks that this is ridiculous:

How can it be mended, it’s only been a week, it takes weeks for a bone to mend.

Maybe in your world, not in mine.

He wraps a dry bandage around the forearm and then:

OK, that’s you done for now. Pop back this evening.

At that very moment, before Simon has a chance to respond in any way, Amaka walks in.

All done, the young man says to Amaka. He sets about tidying the cubicle for the next visitor.

How do you feel? Amaka asks.

Simon notices that his joints feel a little easier, less stiff, and that he is walking much easier than before. He nods his head and says, Actually, much better.

Good. Let’s go for a walk.

Slowly Amaka takes him out of the room, back to the veranda, and then along and down through various corridors and short sets of stairs until they come out at what seems like the front of the building and into the courtyard. It seems to be much bigger than it appeared from above.

Now, where do I start? After a few seconds, OK, well, this, he absentmindedly turns back to the building, is what you might call a type of monastery, but it isn’t like any kind of monastery you might have encountered beforehand.

Simon had not encountered any kind of monastery beforehand.

There are many people who live here, and many who visit. The whole atmosphere is one of cooperation and mutual support. Both men and women live here, and it is quite permissible for relationships to exist between them if they happen to manifest. This is not a place of religious bigotry or discipline, but acknowledges the spiritual in humans, and there are many different ways in which it supports the completion of those who partake of what it has to offer.

Simon looks around at the superb structure and now notices how it appears to emerge from the ground and re-emerge into each section until the whole building seems to rise organically above him and disappear into the blue sky. From here it seems to rise very high and to expand on either side into countless rooms and windows and balconies. It is a miracle of design.

This place has been built over many many centuries and is remarkable for the atmosphere which permeates it and the area surrounding it. But don’t think that it is perfect or paradise. It is, of course, made up of human beings. He nods in a knowing way to Simon. People come here for many reasons and leave for just as many. You’re free to leave at any time and no one will ask anything of you other than your name which, if you should choose to do so, you can change at any time.

Where exactly are we? I mean I don’t have any real idea about where I am – I walked for at least a couple of days... His voice trails off, not wanting to give anything away.

Cryptically Amaka answers: Oh, just a hairsbreadth from where you fell down the cliff edge. He looks around to the left and points to a small outcrop in the distance. Simon thinks that it seems so small from here; such a small place to end ones days; such a small place to leave one’s flesh and hair and gristle and bleached white crumbling bone. For a minute he is back in the cubicle with the healer’s eyes looking directly at him. He shudders.

It’s lucky someone saw you really.

Simon makes no comment.

When you’re well enough, and if you decide to stay for any length of time, I know that it would be much appreciated if you could help in some way; the kitchens, gardens, food gathering, tending the animals. Anything really. But there’s no obligation.

Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. How much will I need to pay you for the care you’ve all given me?

No, no, no. I didn’t mean it like that. You can walk away from here without having contributed anything if you want to. As I said, it’s not a place like that. It’s just that there is work to do, and it isn’t unknown for people to stay for a very long while without lifting a finger, and that’s just taking advantage. Mind you, he continues wistfully, ultimately the atmosphere of the place is too much for them anyway and they leave of their own accord. He laughs to himself and walks on.

Simon follows him into the gardens, but begins to be troubled by thoughts which break through the beautiful scene before him.

Even in the most beautiful surroundings we may be unable to see the truth of what is around us because our attention is clouded by personal concerns. In Simon’s case he is wondering if anyone knows why he fell down onto the rocks. Do they all know? Is he looked upon with some kind of pity? Suddenly he feels frighteningly conspicuous. Alone and obvious amongst all this. The healer’s face appears in front of his eyes again.

Now from here, as he leads Simon out of the formal gardens, you can see the fields, then down to the river at the bottom of the valley and then there is the forest and various villages and towns further along in the distance. Simon looks, but does not take any of it in, so preoccupied is he with what the healer had said: ‘you would have been dead; dead to this world; dead to the whole wide world; cold; nothing but rotting flesh and hair and gristle and bleached white crumbling bone.’

He looks at Amaka:

I need to talk to you. Can I talk to you...? His eyes well with tears.

Of course we can talk. But this is not the place. We have special places for talking in the way you would like. Let’s go there.

Amaka leads and Simon follows. They turn back to the monastery, skirt the gardens and walk towards the left hand side of the building. Then, slowly, for Simon’s legs ache and he becomes breathless very quickly, they rise floor by floor until they reach the top of the monastery. The large flat roof is dotted with small round rooms. It is cool up here, and the rooms, each built individually and separately, are placed on a flat section of the roof. They are round and some have opaque windows in the sides, some just a door and a couple of windows in the sloping thatched roofs. They are used for counselling, but they can just as well be used by individuals for thought and reflection, meditation, or to simply isolate oneself from the world.  Amaka and Simon walk into one of them and shut the door. Inside there is a continuous seat around the wall of the room. In the middle glowing wood smoulders in a small pit. Amaka adds some dry wood and it begins to smoke and then flame.

Will you be warm enough? Here, take one of these blankets. Amaka takes a large thick blanket from a pile at his side and helps Simon to wrap himself in it.

Let’s just sit here for a while...

They sit in silence. Very far below are the sounds of daily activity, but within this room they seem very far away indeed. Then Simon becomes aware of the sound of the wind. It breathes in and out, around the outside; gentle, but only gentle because it chooses to be. The fire begins to warm the space and he appreciates the sense of isolation in this room. Gradually, slowly, he feels the beginning of a kind of clarity in his mind. He sighs. Amaka looks at him but says nothing.

I need to say something to you. He wonders about how to say it, but then it just tumbles out. Although I did fall from that edge, it was no accident I was there in the first place. He hesitates, then, I intended to kill myself.

Amaka does not look at him, but just nods and continues looking into the flames.

There is no immediate relief now that he has admitted the truth; if anything he feels the full weight and impact of his actions because he has spoken them out loud. These people have spent time and attention on him and yet all of this was necessary as a consequence of his own actions; of his own volition. He is a fraud, and he does not deserve the help he is receiving. But the truth that is still deep inside him, the one that he cannot admit, even to Amaka, is that even in this place, which could not be better for him, he still wishes that it had all ended on that edge of earth high in the air.

He continues: I’m sorry, I realise that you must be appalled at what I’ve done. I’m sorry that I’ve taken everyone’s time up... His head lowers because he cannot risk even looking at Amaka any more. He sinks into the abyss of his self-reflection. The truth, underneath all his conscious thoughts, is a phrase circling round and round: ‘what am I going to do...what am I going to do...what am I going to do...?’

After a few minutes Amaka speaks:

You are not the only person to find themselves here after such an attempt.

Simon looks up and there is a tear dropping from Amaka’s cheek. He dare not say anything, the emotion of the moment pivots on the point of a needle. Perhaps he should leave the room. He stands up, wraps his robe around him, and walks out of the door, shutting it behind him.

It feels cold and bleak out here after the stillness and warmth of the room. He hobbles to the edge of the roof and leans on the wall. Looking out over the scene below he sees that the pattern of flower beds in the courtyard appears to shimmer from this high up; it looks as if it is a face; the face of one he will never see again. She looked so peaceful in those last hours; that is what he remembers, those last dreadful hours. Nothing of the few years they shared, just those last few hours of gut-wrenching certainty that she would not survive until the morning. He rubs his eyes and just as quickly the illusion disappears; the garden reverts to the hedges and flowers that he has already visited.

The door opens and shuts behind him.

Amaka puts his hand on Simon’s back:

Come; let’s get some more tea to warm ourselves up.

They walk down just a couple of floors where there is somewhere to sit that is warm and has the comforting background of chatter and children’s voices within earshot, emanating from what he presumes is a classroom nearby. The warmth and the tea and the noise make what had happened just a few minutes ago seem distant, as though it never really happened at all. Simon yawns and suddenly feels very tired.

After all this activity you need to rest again. It’s sleep you need at the moment.

Amaka is right: rest and comfort and a comatose sleep are what we need more than anything when the world is too much for us.

Simon pulls the blankets up over his chilly body and waits for that first glow of warmth to begin to insulate him from the outside. In here, in the warmth of his bed, he hopes that his cocoon will not only protect him from all that there is out there, but that it will also protect him from all there is in here, inside his head. For at least a short amount of time there will be nothing but a dreamless and peaceful sleep where there is no reflection, no thoughts, no mental misery, no physical pain; no aching and over-arching loneliness penetrating everything in his world – the bricks of this room, the sky above, the earth below, even the wind and the sun and the clouds; all of it is grey and the whole of the world means nothing to him at all. He just wants to sleep and forget.

Take care in there, in