Re-Membering: reclaiming, rewriting, restoring
It's been quite a journey for me so far...

So last November I felt the darkness coming, beckoning me, and instead of kicking and screaming and fighting and resisting, I packed my bindle and entered it willingly. When I crossed the threshold, I could see, like I had night-vision. I was walking through a village square and there were all these little cottages/huts and a fountain and then a stream of women came rushing out of all the cottages, calling my name and welcoming me and telling me how they were so glad I had come. We built a bonfire and had three nights of drinking and dancing and singing and drumming and then we all lounged around and laughed and talked and slept.

When I woke from the bonfire party, it was time to start the actual journey and they all kissed me goodbye and I was alone again. I felt pretty confident since the darkness was already so much easier this time through. I walked and walked and walked in the night. I had to do battle with some viscious night creatures, but nothing I couldn't handle. I traveled to my homeland, where I reconnected with my family of origin and re-membered my childhood.

Then a tornado picked me up and swirled me around and around and around. At first I tried to fight it, I tried to steady myself in the whirling, but eventually I let go and let myself get moved wherever the chaos was taking me. The tornado put me down and before I could even regain my balance, the ground fell out from beneath me.

The ground disappeared and I was falling, falling. It was unlike any other feeling I have had and yet strangely familiar. It was Nothing. Void. Aditi. I thrashed and flailed and sobbed and wept as I kept falling. And then, eventually, I grew numb from the constant rushing wind of nothing. I grew still. Silent. I entered the Void as I entered the Darkness: willingly. I became comfortable there and yet I knew I had to come out. But I had no idea how to get out.

I kept being told to reach out a hand, to ask for help. So from the Void, I reached out a hand, not truly believing it would do any good, but hopeful despite myself. Out of the darkness, a hand appeared and grasped mine, heaving me back onto earth. I felt myself being rescusitated, I felt life being breathed into me, I felt my heart being restarted. It was painful.

Now I am here on the cliff, standing on the earth, aware of the Void, surrounded by the darkness. There is a fork in the road and I have chosen the middle ground, forging a new and unknown path. Good thing I brought my axe.