" How many times have I journeyed to this cave," said the Sacred Prostitute. "I wonder what is outside this cave. Why do you sit here always? Aren't you curious what exist beyond these walls?"

"You have journeyed far and yet, you are no where," replied Eyes Laughing From Silence," a Native American shaman.

"And again, you answer questions with questions. I was thinking about the inner ceremony I experienced as a Hierophant. When I became one with one of the goddesses, it's as if my life got woven into a drama that is still playing out. And to free myself, I must no longer be a vessel for the goddesses or the gods. It seems that these ancient rituals have seeded something that would cause them to be doorways for these ancient beings not only in that lifetime but lifetimes to come. It's like human beings have become recycled power centers and these ancient deities keeping feeding off their essence."

"Now you are beginning to understand."

"But now that I am conscious of this life as a sacred prostitute what must I do?"

"Maybe you need your own inner ceremony, or ritual to reclaim your sovereignty, your divinity so that you are no longer a playing field for the madness of the gods."

"And where will that leave you when this has occurred?

"You will know the answer when you know the answer."

"Gee, so forthcoming, aren't you. So many of my selves have given over their power to others, caught in relationship dramas that are psychically draining and yet, to fit, we play the part we are cast in thinking this is the hand that life has dealt us. I have to reach every one of my selves and change their perception, help them to look within and release themselves from the tyranny of others and proclaim their own authority."

"As you gather yourselves, the Dark Ones will attempt to distract you," said Eyes Laughing From Silence.

"I know. But as long as I remember what I am, I will get through the madness."

As the Sacred Prostitute looked into the flame, he saw the image of a young black man, sitting on the edge of the bed weeping.

"Who is this?"

"He is the nexus for all your realities. He is the One. He is the perfect feminine consciousness in a male form. If he does not ascend, all that you know, and have ever been will die. He is the Male Mother. His name is Michael. You and Michael are the same person. The Ancient Ones have blinded you to this timeline so you will not realize your potential.

"Why are you showing me this now?

"The twilight of the gods are coming. A new pantheon will be born"

"Where will that leave you…me?"

Eyes Laughing From Silence threw herbs into the fire. "Look deeper."

The Sacred Prostitute looked deeper into the image of Michael and it unfolded and he saw an eagle descending from the sky. " Hmm," he thought aloud. "Soon I must face the gods again as this young man."

"You will face your beliefs and face the fears of the gods who fear the apocalypse of their existence."

 

Planets, as entities communicating, are in disagreements like families – I must project essence into other realities to heal their conflicts and assist their ascension.

 

Cain was sleeping.

Michael sat in a window sill watching him. "Are you my savior or my death?" Cain turns restless in his sleep.

"You want my tragedy on a movie screen, not in your face. Have you become so desensitized to reality? Your words still leave blood on my face. Does this mean strike three I'm out? I'm eroding in your embrace. I've become a low budget expression for your phallic. Must you imitate passion? Must you be a transfixed observer in a dark movie house where explicit sexual scenes are played out across your face as you stare blankly into the dark of unmet desires? The rain from your phallic is like a sky full of scorpions falling. Thy sting pierces my flesh. Is there hope in the breath you draw out of me with your kisses? Has your heart truly stopped? Now you siphon life force and no longer the blood. Are you dead to yourself except for images you project yourself into to have a semblance of life? How many body parts do you take to create a body to house your madness in? As you touch me, your castrated phallic cries out in my mind that it wants to attach it self to the woman in me. Don't make me an exhibition for your darkness of seeking expression."

Cain turned restless in his sleep. Michael sighed.

He had not followed the rules, the meditations to awaken the Unknown. The Unknown came knocking on his door. Unknown to him, there were many doors that the Unknown would knock on to wake him up. Cain was a door. There was another knock. Funny, how when one assumes they are conscious, or aware, they are still asleep.

Michael looked at Cain sleeping,"This aspect needs waking up."

 

"I dance in the mouths of gods, these inner and outer dimensional beings who will gather my selves in a sacred name that I will sing as I sit on a mountain as a sun like a Janus, looking forward to the beyond and backwards for my begotten sons.

The Old Ones speak my name in harsh tones not knowing I am the Dancer from the Dance.

I am from the Silence.

I am in-between the words these gods construct to imprison my names.

Know this, in Silence, there is nothing, no separation, no dualities, no gods, no demons only Silence."

 

The Madwoman's feet were wrapped in strips of cloth and sleeves of shirts. The strips were red, yellow, and green. Her toes were covered with calluses. Her skin was dry like a river bed. She had open sores on her feet, her arms and two on her left cheek. Her face seemed to hold the age of the world as she stood on the street corner. The lights had changed in her favor twice; yet, she did not move. Those in cars gave her a glance. People on the street walked in a curve around while giving her a condescending look. She wore an oversize pink cardigan sweater over a blue knit skirt. There seem to be two layers of skirts over baggy knit pants. She had her hands on the shopping cart loaded with bags of food, clothing and other thing not definable at a casual glance wrapped in newspaper that was turning yellow. Her eyes seemed fixed on something or was it an imagined destination. Michael decided he was not going to be like others, and not acknowledge her presence. He stood next to her waiting for the light to change.

She turned her face toward him. Her eyes were black as coal. As he returned her stare with a note of defiance, it seemed her eyes flashed as a brilliant diamond. She looked away, up at the overcast sky, shook her head and gave her attention back to Michael.

"There was a time I could see to the other side of the universe. Now, the sky is so cluttered with nonsense. The Dead Gods are parading their waste. Human thoughts are like tidal waves. Aliens are mining the minds of man. The Blood disease is turning into air pollution. My breath will not raise the dead this time. But I keep looking up thinking this hand's going to reach down and take this Madwoman out of here."

"Guess, we all could use a helping hand," Michael said in a mild attempt not to decipher her conversation.

"I had so many names until I got different responsibilities. It wasn't my doing. It's easy for people to see me in their blindness. There's less strain on their nervous system and obligation to know they are in error and need to correct their deficiency."

"We all make mistakes," Michael mumbled in reply while counting mentally to himself, while watching the signal light for it to change."

"It'll change when we finish talking. Sometimes you just have to catch your breath. Folks trying to breath tomorrow's air or still exhaling yesterday's air. Whichever, it is bad air. This is not of my making. Hurt the heart that's what they did with their bombs. Those atom bombs falling on Japan hurt my heart. My heart has been closed. The poisoning of the innocent through chemical warfare in China has caused veins to collapse. The genocide in Africa is killing my thoughts. I am systemically killed, murdered, dismembered, and buried alive."

"We're products of a modern society."

"So am I," she chuckled. "I'm dying. Need to die to be free. Be like coming out of a cocoon or hatching out of an egg, spreading wings flying into the sun to dry off the waters that held me so long. Don't want to be like the rest of them walking around, dead and don't know it."

"Okay, I will play this conversation out with you," he said while being curious about the signal light."

"Don't worry, no one sees you talking to me. They don't want to see you." She looks him up and down as if she was conducting an x-ray examine. "You have the Anti-Life equation in you."

"I love life, well, most of the time," Michael said emphatically,"Well, okay, maybe not most of the time, but it has its moments."

"You're here to help me die," she continued, adding a smile on her face which caused a visible disturbance in Michael.

"You're wrong! I don't know you. First of all, I don't believe in taking a life."

"My waters are filled with toxins and chemicals that either destroy sea life or contaminate it thereby affecting human immune systems and their genetic coding. Those that are starving will turn on each other. Insects and animals will carry death in their mouths and bites. The air chokes the plants, the trees. My skin is burning. The protective layers are dissipating. The manmade bombs give my insides indigestion and I find I must prepare to shift myself into another form to continue existence. So I've been asking the question: "What life forms shall inhabit me this time?" I scream and the lands move against each other; my breath grows foul as the winds lay man under. My body temperature reaches feverish pitches and it is not from sex. I've been raped by so many who give me different names to justify their crimes. I've been cut to pieces and fed to man. And as he names each piece, he consumes it. The memory of me becomes diluted. He calls me through psychology, philosophy, mythology, and alchemy. My consummation became rituals, symbolic offerings, and orgies of flesh. Was I present or am I only a fragment memory?"

Michael got a disturbing look on his face.

"Why would I want to carry around a dead carcass? Would you want to wear something aged, decaying, diseased when you know underneath you're warm, beautiful, and passionate? People want to do all they can to keep me in a dead body. Am I to be mummified in their mind? Am I to be institutionalized so they can give me proper care in their rituals and propaganda? I know you will hear me. I need to shed this body. I need to stop wandering in madness that is not my madness. Who wants to rape an old woman like me who is not in her useful years? Watch yourself on these streets. You still smell fresh, full of fire. I can smell something in you still sacred, still untouched. Maybe you should walk around like me, looking like a madwoman. Never know what fool will jump out from the bushes or from behind a tree wanting to eat you up like you were the last crumb on the plate."

The light finally changed.

Grabbing her cart, she turned it in another direction and began heading off.

" You have a nice day," Michael said.

She turned, stopped. Her voice took on a commanding quality. "The living shall envy the dead before I am released from this decaying body!"

She walked away leaving Michael quiet.

In the meditation, he saw an Ankh appear before him. With out thought or strain, Michael found himself walking into the eye of the ankh. He had this sense of going through a wormhole. A consciousness spoke to him through images not words. He thought of an entity whose face was turned away partially. He knew when this entity faced him completely, his physical and sense limitations would be burned away from him. He would be pure. He would be the crystal body. But before this entity would face him totally, he would be blackened in a fire that would consume him until he was ash from which he would rise. But every disruptive dark feeling would rise like phantoms consuming him. He knew he would be a Sin-eater. He would be a Death Walker.

 

I am the mystical child

of the two men.

I am the occult eye

who sees the spirit realm.

Yet, I am the Wanderer, the Eye, the destroyer of illusion.

There is no material world, no reincarnation

when the Eye is birthed

and opened from two partners.

I am the Great Work manifested, the non-duality

the Shepherd of the Anus

the Lord who returns from the Dead

 

A walk was necessary. No particular destination in sight, no preconceived itinerary, though there was an inkling of hope of meeting an interesting person, there was that I-don't-want-to-acknowledge-I'm-looking-for-a-husband look stance - must not appear to be hungry for companionship, potentials tasted the desperateness in your voice.

Also, there was a need to embrace him self as if he was the sun on his bare shoulders giving him a sense that the darkness that had been riding him and whispering its poisoned honey words into his ears would vanish once he became his own sun to disperse his darkness.

He walked to air out his head, as he imagined a breeze would take the debris of fallen thoughts away, the misshapen thoughts, thoughts that had been imprinted by others out of his mind, shadow essence of sexual encounters, ghostly glances that lingered to long on people, memories on crutches because he wasn't ready to entomb them. He had to get his mind off being on a cross as Madam Monkeyfoot would say,"someone else needed the wood."

The warm breeze wrapped around him protectively; Michael once summoned the wind spirits to protect him in New York during his encounter with dark forces who were seeking to possess him when he was in his alien mind.

A walk was necessary. He didn't necessarily let down his defenses around humans. He had their fears before he knew the truth about him self, and now he feared human's destructive nature which he possessed since he had entered the human birth cycles and reincarnated for several eons. Still he was to participate in the human drama until the gods return. The human existence of work had been a hair day; he felt he'd be bald if his employer continued his Zeus-on-the-rage mentality.

She watched him as he was walking down the sidewalk. He could already hear her loud discourse with the Invisibles. Her eyes widened when she sensed him. She stopped talking as he came near. She sat on the stoop of an abandoned appliance store called"Fred's Ware," which seemed long deserted. The windows were painted over, steps were cracked and she sat there in a regal posed though her clothes were filthy and hanging off her body. She wrapped herself in a faded woolen blanket, as if it was cold.

A thought became judgmental: Why do I keep running into these madwomen? Maybe it was to avoid the cold and the predatory nature of humans.

Her face was slightly shrunken in, taking on the texture of leather. Skin hung from her bones. He could smell the piss and alcohol. Read some where homeless women didn't wash to often so as to scare off street predators. Even though the body was decaying, there was a hint she had been beautiful.

She was now humming to herself. She was a Native American woman. How displaced from their own country he thought as he attempted to shake off a chill that unrolled a memory of his time as a shaman and the destruction he brought to his village. But he covered the memory with an astral mist, he wasn't ready to see.

He was several steps from her. She watched him, he watched her watching him. They were making eye contact which was an invitation to snap, giving someone permission to walk in your head, look around, drive you mad, do some damage. It has been said eyes are windows to the soul, and some people will crawl into your life through whatever opening presents it self.

A used paper coffee cup sat in front of her empty of change. The street wasn't particularly busy with foot traffic though cars were heavy, horns blaring, voices rising, people impatient to be somewhere but where they were, cell phones glued to the ears, all styles of music competed for air time as every car was broadcasting its personal identity and the pollution of sound was causing a traffic jam in and outside his head.

Their eyes were locked on each other, she mumbled and he thought he understood her. He walked slower toward her, normally he'd walk fast, didn't want to hear them ask for money, always embarrassed to see them, or answer the curious questions in their eyes; yet, a part of him wanted to unfold his wings and comfort them from their despair, wanting to know why they had done these things to themselves.

Someone in a passing conversation said, ‘These are the stone cowboys, remnants of those wanting a wilderness to conquer, and their mind was an undiscovered country that they sought to homestead. What was madness to us is the curtain rising on their reality. They are awakening from someone else's dream. With what Michael had experience he knew there was a harmony in their madness.

He noticed as he got closer, there were no offerings in her cup. Her eyes were pulling at his mind. Maybe it was a warped sense there might be camaraderie, they could be sensing each others loneliness, both homeless from affection. Was it the mad recognizing its counterpart?

She looked at him, through him, staring off into space and Michael had done the same when approaching people even in conversation with friends, he was conscious of being in several places simultaneously; so it seemed each had privy to the others madness and welcomed the recognition. Were they both shedding the manacles of reality for the divine madness of the Invisible?

" You're staring. It'll cost you," Sanctuary said. Strangely enough, clarity was in her voice. Maybe she lapsed in and out of sanity, striking the chord of reality that necessitated street survival.

" Don't have much too offer. Some coins," Michael replied as he fished around in his pockets, found paper money, but no coins. ‘Keep what he can, take what he must' - that was his motto for surviving now. He looked in the coin section of his knapsack knowing there were coins. Make it seem he was doing a favor, putting in an effort. He dropped three quarters, four dimes, two nickels and three pennies into her soda stained cup.

" Guess, you want some wisdom or a facsimile," Sanctuary said looking at the coins weighing their value and measuring her words accordingly.

" Use it for food, whatever."

" No one gives without expecting to receive. Not a begging woman. This isn't a permanent fixture I'm in. I'm in a life transitional phase. The wealth of the world has made me a poor woman on the outside. I have been reaping the riches of the inner world. Yet, I'm still out here, like you. My cup is empty, nothing is running over with riches accept the pain in my lower back. Shoulders are aching." Pausing, she looks him over as if her eyes were undressing him, smiling a toothless smile, and then closing her eyes for a moment as if to shut him out, she opens slowly, shakes herself as if dust had settled. "You look like you got sturdy fingers. Mind taking them to task and massage my shoulder."

Michael was surprised, appalled, and intrigued but suspicious and concerned how he'd look to others talking to this crazy bag woman. "I don't think so. Actually, I have some place to be." Michael attempted to give his lie credence, but the validity of his stature counteracted all stories his mouth prepared to conjure.

" The smell is not going to rub off. Hopefully, the aching in my shoulder will, if you'd rub it right. Fingers won't get contaminated. You won't catch any disease. You might hear a story. Our body is full of stories but we don't take time to listen. Touching folks, you hear stories. Some of them stories grow in you, mess with your head. I am carrying a lot of folks' stories. I'm like an Ark. But I carry darkness so the light can come. Stories call me Sanctuary. That's my name, Sanctuary." She rubs her hands. "Nerves in the fingers all twisted. Weather has played havoc on this body. Pollution has settled in my left hand, my right leg throbs all the time, left foot is numb. I'm not as old as I look. The pollution from men's minds, their mouths, that devil look they give me, settles on me, gets heavy, hard to carry all that anger, denial. This makes folks repugnant toward me. Don't look like them; don't want to think I could look like them either. I'm what they don't want. Sanctuary is a den mother to mad thoughts, homeless essences, and ghosts who are tired of asking to be heard. You think I'm speaking of human waste, man made pollution. I'm talking about emotional pollution, sound pollution that is all that shit settling in the air and invading the body. We are always under attack, always fighting off them demons. No matter how many I slay, folks keep making demons with their diseased minds. The smell doesn't discourage them. Those demons that have taken over parts of my body have caused other parts to go to war. They have that divide and conquer attitude. Body war is what I call it. Demons are coming through the mind. Folks expect some spaceship to land either with gods or devils. There is no rapture like the books preach, it's a harvest. We are at war. It is within. We didn't understand they are coming through the mind first so they can manipulate people to use their willpower to open the doorways to bring them through. You know that phrase ‘as a man thinketh so he is.' Yeah, well they are making man think about them and in his ignorance with his mind and technological; he has placed a long distance call to these demonic gods. Oh, they are coming and I keep making brooms to sweep them out the door. The sky in our head is falling; no one thinks about it. ‘Oh I'm confused; oh I'm having a hair day; oh, I feel not myself; oh I feel scattered; or oh, I just don't seem to be myself today.' It's the war in heaven, it begins in the mind. I keep telling people but they move away from me not realizing they smell themselves, they are not smelling my heart; my heart is like a rose. Yet, you look with eyes in the head and not the eye inside. I'm in you now like you are in me. Don't get nervous, you walked this way because you heard me humming. Catchy song isn't it. Always land a big one with it. Haven't been fishing like that for a long time. It's not often one of you wake up. Shoulder still aching. Thought with all this talking I could get some of this tension out my shoulder. You're surprised. You thought I was crazy, wouldn't make sense. Body messages seem to be in many tongues. No one part of my body seems to confer in the same language. The result is every part is going its own direction which is causing the aching. My body reminds me of the tower of Babel. I'm tight. Legs are stiff. It seems like it takes a lifetime to walk a block. You've been standing there long enough so you could be tending to my shoulder."

" I'm not very good at massages," he said sternly and feeling surprised at the tone of his voice. He knew answers came from many sources and wisdom was never obvious with its appearance and he knew truth resounded in her messages but he was still feeling this need of distance. What fear was she giving? Continuing,"You need a professional, someone who knows the body. Might not hit the right spot or press to hard on the wrong nerve and that could put you in more jeopardy than you are already in."

" You really believe all this nonsense you are quacking. Afraid of a woman, that's your problem. I haven't swallowed a man yet though it has been espoused in patriarchal bullshit. No man died in my arms. Few have been known to rise above their means," she said chuckling. "Surprised? Yes, I've been sexual. I have not always looked like this, smelled like this. Men always find me wanting. Now, they clothe me as the discarded part of them. Even if I draped myself in a string of lights, I'm still to dark. Last man said a ghost came out of me like some unholy rain. One man said he found himself falling and couldn't reach out to hold onto to anything. Darn fool should have trusted his wings. I'm not a demon with a lecherous appetite. I'm just a spirit with a different apparatus. It scares you, huh, the business between my legs. It has birth gods and goddesses and consumed universes. You come. You go. You come. You go." She laughs.

" Go. That's exactly what I need to do. Go. I need to be somewhere else."

" Sometimes to get out of your pain, it helps to ease someone else's pain. Shoulders are getting tighter. Just a quick feel, I'm not asking for a commitment."

" I don't want to okay. I don't feel right about this."

" What do you know about feelings? Still standing on the other side of the bridge with a comb caught in tangled hair. You were the one who walked over here, filled with curiosity, asking me questions with your eyes than thinking you can buy me off with a few coins. Wisdom isn't cheap. It's demanding."

" I made a mistake okay. Let's pretend we never saw each other. Let's be like everyone else. We see nothing."

" You have such a reaction from someone who doesn't want to make a commitment. You can't go back. It's that human part of you that is disgusted. What does your heart say?"

" I don't go around having conversations with…with homeless people, with madwomen. Just leave my heart out of it. I don't need my buttons pushed. I'm just out for a walk to forget, to relax, not think about things.""

" I know I'm homeless while you make your bed where you can. Don't give me that go to hell look. It struck a nerve, made a bad sound huh. Don't be too quick to toss this old woman aside. Been plastered, reshaped, philosophized into so many forms, it's a wonder I retain a sense of purpose, identity. I wouldn't trade that for a massage. What are you afraid of; it's not like you haven't touched someone you didn't know. I'll share my mind. The curtain is open. The show has begun. Enjoy the revelations. They come. They go. They come. They go."

" Who are you? Why are you bothering me?"

" Your feet are not glued to that spot."

" I need to be somewhere."

Really touching someone hurts doesn't it. They look good far away. It feels good when you're touched all over. Then it seems like you lose a little luster. Touching someone means sharing but people equate this to losing themselves so if they don't lose themselves in someone than the person can't be real or they force themselves to lose themselves in a drama of their choosing to be real. So much bullshit passes itself off as God's laws. Not going to bury you in me. There is no space here for rent."

" You don't understand. I was just curious about what put you out here. Why are you this way? It's obvious you were pretty. You are intelligent. What went wrong? You know things. Did it become too much, for me, it seems, it's too much. I guess I'm afraid.

" Afraid somewhere in your make up, we might be holding the same equation. Is it easier to explore someone else's life instead of your own? Is that your safety valve?"

" Maybe viewing someone else's pain, I can find a bandage for mine."

" Wrapping it, dressing it, will not alleviate it. You must go into your wound."

" Is that what you have done?"

" Sit here long enough and you'll see the bodies of your enemies pass by."

" I don't know what that means."

" Just rub a shoulder; maybe the right one just a little, then I'll tell you."

He looks around.

Not everything that's in the dark is frightening. You take what you meet in with you. So rub a shoulder, sit a spell, we'll share stories."

" Stories? I don't think I have any stories."

"Don't let your mouth tangle your words. You want to heal your wounds. Then it's time to tell stories. We can start as soon as you start working a shoulder. Don't think you're getting familiar. We're just sharing between friends."

"Let me tell you a lament of a tree," said Sanctuary her eyes growing dark, her demeanor shifts and he sense a face rise over her face; it is a young woman with a other worldly beauty.

"I was human once. Now I am a tree. I walked upon myself once when I was the ground. Now I am like a librarian. I am holding history.

I heard my sister, an elder tree, as she fell into the forest. The noise of those teeth cutting her flesh still haunts me. Many of my sisters lay dead. Soon these humans will come for me and then, I will not be able to hold their dreams, their lives, the air they breathe.

My branches hold up the sky. My arms are always stretched out in prayer. My arms are like a rooftop sheltering you from the temperaments of the weather. Yet, you seek to pull my arms down. My thoughts are leaves. Leaves falling to the ground nourish the ground of the pain it feels. It is like an ointment. It is like feeding the hunger that never seems satisfied. Yet, my leaves, my thoughts are taken from my sisters before they are ready.

My young sisters are falling, bleeding and yet, no human hears their cries. You don't hear the weeping as you take our flesh and reshape it to hold in your hands to write your messages upon other parts of our flesh. You don't understand so you take what you need but bless us as we bless you. We give in love. You take in anger, you take in jealous, you take in greed, and we bleed.

My arms have never been tired. My feet reach deep into the Earth. I have always stood proud holding up the sky for human, holding his history in my rings that carry his ancient sound, stand as a symbol of the tree within man.

Another face rises and another sister screams. "Heavy machinery is approaching."

The previous face returns. "The wind carries my sister's screams. I shake not from a breeze. I shake from the sound of humans who do not honor me as I have honored them.

Once I was human, I too, forgot and choose this expression to give back what I had taken in greed.

I am a tree. I was a tree. Now watch me bleed as I become pages upon pages holding your weeping because you raped me. There was no love as I fell from the touch of your hand."