Limits of an Infinite Self

[The following is a fictional adaptation of a totally natural, very minor, and definitely un-weird experience. ;-) Or alternatively, you may think of it as the narrative of the Fool, caught in the delirium he deems reality...]

I recently had a soul flashback, a sudden awakening, to a deep, dim racial memory encoded in the oldest parts of our mitochondrial DNA. I remembered the nature of dinosaurs. Part of me almost became a dinosaur, channeling the energy of dinosaur-ness, across the vast evolutionary gulf that divides our lineages. I felt the coarse, primitive instincts of that colder, duller, fiercer and more ancient race of sentients that once, for so long, held dominion over the earth. After a tiny flutter of dismay, curiosity won me over - I observed these energies, embodied and amplified in this part of myself engaged in re-membering. I went through, subjectively as my own, the looming ancient forbears of what are, in us today, reduced into core-level functions, esoteric vestiges and mere latent potentials in our farther-evolved patterns of consciousness. Through this experiencing came empathy, acceptance, and the reconciliation that comes with finally understanding a previously alien other.

As I continued re-membering, I was hit with another flashback – this one more jarring, vivid and fearsome and immediate as it was. Much closer on the tree of life, on the very branch from which we descend: I remembered what it was to be a wee mammal in those times. What it was to cower before these mountainous, overwhelming, thunderous beasts; to fear these cold-blooded giants above any other creature; to subsist in the meagre cracks afforded by the world of our aloof, antagonistic superiors. They were lords and titans; we a newborn race – hardly able to survive, much less challenge their rule, which only followed from the unsympathetic laws of that lower animal nature.

As I watched and felt, I saw the dynamic between our two orders change, over the millions of years they shared the planet. There was a gradual shift from enmity toward acceptance. The dinosaurs' initial vicious hatred and xenophobia toward us, gave way to a mild sort of antipathy and resentment, to mere annoyance, to grudging acceptance, and finally, as we gained in strength, to scattered stirrings of respect for such a longtime, worthy evolutionary opponent – all ending in the Great Time of Transition, with the decline of the dinosaur clan: the cosmic culmination and phasing out of that great, awful, and awesome form of being.

They died and were raised up again, the harvest together with the mulch, passing through the accelerating event horizon of chaos, to emerge in a new world order in the form of birds and lizards. Post-apocalypse, we mammals rushed to fill a larger world with a new cast of primaries... including, eventually, the primates...

The gift in this small glimpse was to be able to see, acknowledge, understand, forgive, bless and release these very deep traumas and conflicts within us: to process, integrate, and transcend that collective karma. It's all part of the Great Work. Those of us engaged in it, do it on behalf of God and Goddess, in service to the sun, the planet, the human species, our soul groups, and our many selves in parallel realms of the universe.

And I realize that all of it, all my interpretation, only reflects how I see myself!

That all my judgments are illusions born of the sense of separation that I bear.

How much clearer

and more blessed a quality

would these things bear for me,

if I saw and if I felt them

with the eyes and with the heart

of love!

But I do see it,

now I do see it

all, perfect.