Asherah Returns 1
I am out to see the first total solar eclipse observable across the entire U.S. in a century. Today, life changes.
The sky becomes dark and cold. A chill runs up my spine and the hair on my head, arms and the back of my neck stands on end. In an instant, I am altered.
Out of a clear sky, I am struck and crushed to the ground.
I am immobile. The silent darkness broken only by the afterimage of a lightning bolt, seeming to emerge from out of the eclipse.
Then a voice, “Awaken!”
I can move again and rise to look for the speaker, whose voice called me back, but do not see her. Then I notice that the familiar world has changed.
I observe the eclipse still in its totality and a bird, almost within reach, motionless in the sky.
I see a still figure in a fetal position, half face-down. That form seems to have little to do with me.
I am enveloped in a strange radiance, and entranced by intense colors, which surround and dance as though alive.
I hear a buzzing noise and then a sound like music or wind-chimes, harmonious tones that go both deep and high. I’m not sure how long I listen.
I notice something dark, like dirty oil, stalking beyond the dancing lights, apparently trying to pass through and get at me. I feel panic well up inside.
The voice speaks, “You need not fear.”
Suddenly I’m not afraid anymore, but filled with a peace deeper than I recall.
I am asked, “If you choose, you may convey a message and then return home. Will you serve as Amanuensis?”
I have never before heard the word Amanuensis, yet know the meaning.
I take my time to agree, as I sense much rests on the question.
More happens that I intend to tell later.
Then, I’m back inside this body and smell burned hair and flesh. I see nothing now and the pain comes. I am being moved, but I don’t know where, or by whom.
Sometime later, I wake to a voice rhythmically murmuring something like the words of a song. Over and over it repeats. My voice, but not my words.
I listen, as though a spectator to more than words alone. There is meaning; layer upon layer, behind the sound.
Then it is done. As silence returns, I consider this new life.
I feel many of the marks of the lightning which remain. Now blind, deaf, in continual pain, yet filled with joy.
I am told this heart stopped and valves were damaged; brain changed and spine fractured.
A branching scar on the left side of this face, head and upper chest, radiates back over the spine. I am told these eyes now bear a curious star pattern.
I sense when the message approaches. The most intense feelings I’ve ever had well up and merge in a firsthand knowing; unfolding and opening everywhere at once.
Understanding, which defies description rises to immerse.
It begins and continues rapidly, nonstop to a conclusion.
That former existence now seems a meaningless pattern followed by some other. Before the change, I was asleep and half alive.
This life is now austere; monkish even.
Time is short and those for whom the message arrives recognize it.
In the moment which remains, I am to fulfill a lifework.
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