Waking Up to Being: A Fairy Tale

By Yana Spasova

A DROLL ADULT FAIRY TALE ABOUT SELF-DISCOVERY AND MORE

 

Waking Up to Being is a fairy tale about self-discovery and getting to the core of our being. It is a dream-like story that combines magical realism with folklore, mysticism, mythology, Eastern spirituality, humor, and childish naivete.

A life-changing event has brought Yana back to the archaic primordial essence of her being. This mental retreat has dulled Yana's former understanding of the world, and now she has to relearn everything from the very beginning. The world appears to her as simultaneously familiar (Yana's feminine grown-up nature) yet also fresh, bizarre, ironic, and often completely illogical (Yana's new child-like, back-to-the-core nature). The path of her rediscovery follows an evolution-like logic. It starts at the plant kingdom, goes through the animal kingdom, then to the world of the "half-humans," the world of the humans, and ends in the world of the gods. While passing through these worlds and adapting to their oddness, Yana experiences a range of peculiar occurrences such as entering and exiting time, realizing the inner and outer poisons, identifying the Purpose and finding the Path. On this journey of rediscovering the world Yana will also meet the person who will ultimately lead her to the deepest part of herself and help her grasp the most sacred truth about her existence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordwooze Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223199694

Book preview

Part One

The Vertical

The Folding of Spirit

This story begins with a rainbow. However, this was no ordinary rainbow. Today I even wonder if my memories are not an illusion, whether what I saw was really a rainbow or if it was something beyond my earthly, routine understanding. A celestial eyelid? A cosmic smile? Rainbows usually last for about ten minutes, then liquefy and melt back into the sky. This rainbow remained for nearly four hours. It was bright and vivid, with a distinct, palpable presence. From time to time it would fall apart into two smaller arcs, then merge back again into a large semicircle of colors; yet however it morphed, it refused to disappear. I was completely stunned by this heavenly sorcery. Was it real? Was it merely in my mind, or was it really up there in the sky? I remember thinking, I don’t know you, but I know that I very much want to know you.

The next day I found out I was with child.

Realizing that new life is developing inside oneself often goes hand in hand with the promise of spiritual growth. For many women there is a notion that they will experience elevated consciousness and float among ethereal mists of wisdom and bliss. For me it was nothing like that. Not only did my inner path not elevate me, it made a sharp curve and brought me downward, inward, and deep into the instinctual core of my being, among raw impulses and primitive sensations. I couldn’t float. When my child was ready to meet me, he would be a perfect, primordial being of nature. If I was up there in this promised ethereal bliss, how could I find him? How could I understand his needs? How could I protect him? No, what I had to do was not to expand spiritually upward, be blissful, float. What I had to do was to fold my spirit inward, return to the archaic core of my mind, and become a primordial being myself. It was the only way I could connect with the being to whom I was going to give birth.

Chaos

In the early months of my pregnancy there was only chaos. Nothing in my physiology was visibly different, but I could feel every cell in my body transforming into something foreign and strange. I didn’t want to eat. Food tasted like poison and had the effect of poison. I didn’t want to drink. Water made me feel like I was drowning. There was no comfort or rest for me in anything. There was only brutal sickness.

My mind became violently distressed, as well. At one moment I’d be feeling lethargic and indifferent, with no regard for my life or my future. At another I’d be feeling overwhelmed with fear, anger, or sadness for my life and my future. Everything felt chaotic and unpredictable. I was confused on all levels of existence. Where am I? Who am I? What am I becoming? Who’s coming?

More chaos.

Looking back, I think I now understand the purpose of this physical and mental turbulence. Up until this point my evolutionary path had been moving in one direction only: upward. Throughout my life, both consciously and instinctively, I climbed the ladder of my mind, constantly reaching for higher and finer states. Now the direction of my path had to change. I couldn’t go up anymore; I had to go down. Instead of going irresistibly toward whatever was enlightened and illuminated, I now had to return to the dark states of the primitive. My inner drive for growth had always accelerated my spiritual evolution upward, and I now understand that I would never have agreed to change direction voluntarily. Someone or something had to do it for me. I needed chaos to convert my route. I needed chaos to start folding my spirit.

After three long months, during which my sense of reality was in continuous disarray, chaos finally left me. The course of my path was turned around. I was at the highest state achieved by my mind, looking inward, looking down, at the core of my being. What followed was an internal descent, which led me to that core. While descending I went through six mind stages.

The Higher-Mind Stage

The first stage, which occurred around the fourth month of my pregnancy, felt the most blissful. I experienced my body as an invisible string of energy that was merging with the flow of the universe and breathing its emptiness. All phenomena were clearly present but felt like a breeze—without outlines or solidity. My whole being was a transparent projection of my mind. My mind felt as sharp as a mountain peak and as soft as the river flowing down that peak. All living beings were timeless pure awareness, and the world echoed with the blissful sound one hears in that magical twilight space between being awake and falling asleep.

These sensations were not entirely foreign to me. They were feelings of great joy that I had experienced before but only for short periods of time—when I was gazing up at the nighttime stars, listening to the silence of snowfall, or diving under the tumbling ocean waves. All those moments, however, had only been brief and disconnected. Now they were constant and continuous.

I experienced myself as being free.

The Material-Mind Stage

In the next stage of my descent, the sensation of the transparency of all phenomena began to condense, and the world slowly began to take shape. Objects were appearing one by one, and all the spaces around me began to populate with matter and substance. Things were now solid and opaque; they had their own purpose, direction, and trajectory. Material existence arose with all its complexity. I also became complex.

Just like the objects, thoughts and feelings arose, but they were still only passengers en route. Even though I experienced them as real, I was aware that they were only streams of conditions.

Since phenomena were beginning to appear, they were also capable of disappearing. In that way, time emerged. It began to measure the lifespan of the objects, the duration of the thoughts, the longevity of the feelings. Continuing with its purpose to define and measure, time divided the world into day and night. Duality emerged.

The Dual-Mind Stage

In the next stage of my internal descent, the newly emerged duality pulled the universe into two contrary directions and divided life into opposites. There were black and white, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, as well as countless other categories, which expressed reality with deep precision, enabling phenomena to be clearly understood. Each phenomenon now had shape and color, which gave it a complicated and distinctive character. Each object had a three-dimensional appearance and a predetermined location in space. Each object had substance, weight, and stability. It was singular and unique, which made it desirable. Attachment emerged.

The simple oppositions of the universe contracted back and interacted, creating countless shades. From the shades emerged the shadows. As a silent agreement between the day and the night, the shadows began to divide phenomena against themselves. I, too, had a shadow; therefore, I was also divided against myself. Constantly accompanied by the presence of my shadow, I was never alone anymore. It held the dark and the unknown, my worries and my doubts. Fear emerged.

Attachment and fear inspired me to