The Sealed Temple

“Just as a pool is of little use when the whole countryside is flooded, the Book is of little use to us now. So we will read it everywhere. Together we will find it on the pillars, on the walls, on the street itself. It is present all around us.”

At some level I know he is here to help me; or at least I believe he is sincere in his wish to help. But I am still hesitant to trust him completely. He is a stranger, a complete unknown, a kind of latent danger walking beside me. I look away even as he walks by my side.

***

A large group of school children in uniform gather right in front of us. The boys wear green shirts and blue shorts, the girls wear blue shirts and brown skirts. A line of buses waits at the end of the block to take them somewhere else, a field trip of some kind.
I overhear the children talking.
“There is no God,” a boy says, “no truth, no spirit, no moral order. Nothing. The basis of life is sex. What else can it be?”
“Lust is the highest that life can offer,” a girl answers in a mocking tone.
“Fuck ‘til you drop!” another boy says. And they all laugh.

***

I see a single half lit gas lamp at the northern gateway to the Sealed Temple. ‘Maybe there is water behind these doors, maybe there is blood.’ Maybe there is only solitude.

“You know me” he says.
I nod. I know what he means but I can’t explain it, even to myself.
Without a pause, he continues:
"I think of you most often when I'm in airports. It’s the same for you."

I see a white ghost standing by a stone pillar. I see her as somehow everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundations of the Sealed Temple. She's missing a face, part of her head, her arms, parts of her hip and leg. She is still recognizably a woman even through the thick scales that cover her skin. I sense that she cannot be pierced or burned, she cannot be wet or dry, she can barely exist.

***

“The Book says:
You will see a large skeletal bat flapping its dark wings above your head. You may look up but only briefly. If you look at it too long, it might look back at you. Then all will be lost..."

***

September 26

A second cracked pillar was discovered today.
At the base of the cracked pillar I found a little white bird. The bird was missing a wing and had a black mark above the eyes, on its head and on its beak. I took a photo of the black mark. I had seen this black mark before painted on a sidewalk. A small black box. Some kind of icon.

The Builder says the pillars were constructed in January. The cracks could have happened any time after that. The Temple is expected to remain closed.

***

(With my old friend, I once met a man who taught people how to meditate. I sat among other young people that my friend had invited and I quietly listened to the man talk.
At one point the man looked at me and asked me if I had read the Book of War and Understanding. I said I had read some passages but I had never read the whole thing.
He looked at me quietly for a long time and then said:
"There's no need to read it, you know? The Book is all around us right now if you only look carefully - if you know how to look."
Later we did a group meditation. He asked us to imagine the night sky. I looked up within my mind and I saw that the stars had become numbers, zeros and ones flashing in the dark. I saw them glittering over a long cement bridge that was also covered in lights.
I heard his voice then, talking very quietly to all of us:
"This is a liminal place, a space of transition. Like an airport or a train station. A place where you are not there yet but you are no longer here.")

***

The Builder says the Temple has become a place where people feel afraid.
“It's just not a safe place for kids or families. We have missed the mark. We have missed our opportunity.”

***

(From the distance I saw the dome of the inner sanctum, covered in yellow and black. I couldn’t find my way inside that day. I might never be inside. Not even within my mind. The trees waved in the wind up above me, like a forest suspended in the air - a forgotten paradise floating in the sky.
The meditation teacher said: “You will return to this place many times. This place is yours. As you return to it, it will become more and more specific, more and more real. Eventually you may not be able to tell any difference between what you think is real and this place you have created in your mind.”)

***

The Builder made very clear promises.
“You will be able to enter and leave the Temple at any time. For periods of seconds, minutes, hours or years. Enter at any time. Leave at any time. The choice is yours.”

***

(I saw a simple greeting written in orange letters. It was nailed over a door made of silvery steel.
Large orange letters with an exclamation mark to emphasize them: “Welcome!”
But the doors were closed and the greeting was empty and touched with a melancholic sadness.)

***

(I met a man by the side of the road. He asked me if I had read the Book of War and Understanding. I told him I hadn't. I said: “I’ve read some pages here and there. Or people have read them to me. But no, I have never read the whole thing.”
He smiled and said: "No need to read it now. That time has passed. Instead, I will guide you through it. We will walk together around the perimeter of the Sealed Temple and the Book will reveal itself to us. Its pages are even now wrapped around the Temple and over the streets that surround it. The Temple may never open again. But all that matters is that the Book is easily accessible. You can walk by it and not be aware of what you see. I will show you how to find it and I will show you how to follow the shifting shape of its thoughts.")

***

I see crystalline flowers flipping back and forth on elastic stems, a dance of wind and weight and color, a gentle teasing - the flowers get very close to each other but they never touch.

***

“The Book says:
You will see three musicians made of bronze and silver dancing slowly through time, so slowly they may seem to be standing still; but the movement will always be there, the dance will continue. You will see bolts holding their limbs together and the curves of their bodies will draw shapes over the sky. The musical pulse will be so slow as to be physically heavy, the beat will be so long as to be lost for days… and even longer.
These musicians have no attachments. They are equally disposed towards their family, towards their enemies, towards their friends, to those who support them and to those who are hostile, to the good and the evil alike. They are unaffected by the results of their music;
even while playing, they really do nothing at all.”

***

I see a black tree in the shape of a church. A sign on the tree announces that this is a public place, a place where anyone can sit, where anyone can talk and rest and meditate.
But it warns that there will be no sleeping here. Sleeping is not allowed.

“You ask yourself who I am, how is it that you know me, how is it that I know you.
What I can say is: of all that measures, I am time. I am the destroyer of all; my hunger consumes the world. But my hunger never ends, and the world is infinite.”

I see triangles over cubes over rectangles over more triangles, pure shape, pure form. I sense that this is where it all comes from, and this is where it all goes.
I sense the man nodding even while I look away. I haven’t said anything out loud.

Whenever I turn around to see him, his face has been subtly transformed, as if the light is changing it. It makes me feel dizzy, confused. It makes me feel as if, even while walking outside, I am alone in a small room with this one other person, a familiar stranger, someone I can almost recognize.

***

September 25

Today a crack was discovered in a steel beam beneath the hanging forest. The beam is on the eastern side of the third level of the Temple. The entire Temple was immediately evacuated and closed.

***

“The Builder fights for his creation, knowing he has no way of winning. But he does it anyway. The worse thing that could happen is for him to deny his destiny, his true nature as a Builder. He would then be lost, lost in an endless ocean, a ship without a port. He could stay lost for a very long time, even forever.
The only way to avoid this aimless drift is to continue to be a Builder, even if he is now the Builder that failed. He will forever be remembered as a failure.”

***

“The Temple was a lively place for a brief time. There were two restaurants and a bar, which was happily and noisily patronized at night. There were two stalls actively selling newspapers, magazines, sandwiches, drinks, candy and cigarettes. The stalls were open from dawn until late at night. (Of course, the Temple itself was open at all times.) People constantly circulated in and out. Many of them simply wanted to have a look inside. There was once an arcade located close to the third gateway. The arcade was seedy, as was the surrounding area outside.
I used to play cards in the arcade. I would play for an unusually long time. When nobody was around to play with me, I would just arrange the cards in different orders. In some way they spoke to me in a language only I could understand. On one card was a white flower with wide open eyes, a white flower sliding up on waves of red and yellow. Another card had a single dripping blue point, under it there were blue curving handwritten letters.”

***

“There is a sign that clearly states our destination is beyond reach. It is painted in light green letters over a surface of dirty white metal. It has recently been repainted in red emphasizing its primordial warning. The hanging forest has many gateways, many ways to enter, many ways to leave. Today they are all closed. We don't know if they will ever open again.”

***

(Suddenly it becomes clear. We should have died that night. That was the night of our death. The night when the soldiers took us away. Suddenly I don’t see it as something bad that could have happened, but simply as something that should have happened, something predetermined and certain, an integral piece of the overarching framework of reality.
But we didn’t die. And from then on we have lived in a kind of after life, a life beyond death that leads to a kind of flight, a levity that allows us to fly freely above life.)

***

He speaks again:
“When your mind finally overcomes the confusion of good and evil, of certainty and solid absolutes, you will attain a state of holy nonchalance. Then, and only then, you will be able to hear the things you hear, and see the things you see. Until then you will remain blind.”

I see a couple of giant bloodshot eyes. They stare up and out from under a giant leaf. It seems to me as if they are full of hunger and yet they also hold a certain hint of doubt. The mouth is hidden by the leaf, the head is absent.
I see tall long rectangles of darkness surrounded by pillars of gray stone. I feel a sense of solid permanence. People come and go all around me. The Temple remains.

“You have always enjoyed talking with mysterious strangers who stop you on the street, isn’t that right? Sometimes they speak to you as if they know you. Right? I am just one more. Just like the others. And you can listen to me, just like you have listened to others before.
I am the process and the pain; I am a living drug and the sound that emerges from the breakdown. I am a kind of gift and the fire which consumes it. And you? You happen to be the one to whom this is offered. Today. Right now.”

I see concentric circles around a black box. We stand together at its immediate perimeter. There are other larger circles around us, larger and larger circles getting lost in the distance. We are so close to the center and yet the Temple remains sealed.

***

“The Book says:
You will see flowers birthing interstellar biological spaceships and complex sentient servants made of light. You will see a living garden of delights extending in all directions.
Here you will learn of the five elements, the five elements necessary for the completion of every wish and effort. You will need the body, constructed from binaries that flash across the night. You will need the means, which are predetermined and remain steady. You will need the mind, through which the garden will lose its randomness. You will need the action that may lead you to fall into a state of knowledge. And you will need the secret will, which you must never allow to fall into decay. These are the five elements in all possible actions, right or wrong, good or evil, selfish or selfless, dark or bright.”

***

August 10

After so many years of work, the Temple is about to open to the general public. It is six levels tall. Two additional levels are underground. There is a hanging forest above it and around it, and giant metal spires reach up to the sky like frozen rocket ships. The perimeter is covered in a kind of lacy shawl - a reminder that something fluid and feminine lives among these heavy towers of concrete, among these rivers of steel and asphalt. The insides of the Temple are composed of curving paths that lead visitors through different chambers and halls. In order to create a structure that blurs the distinction between roof and ground, the hanging forest integrates vegetated hills with giant domes that allow light to go through to the halls below.
A solitary woman in a dark thick jacket and a knee length skirt waits for the doors to open for the very first time. She tightly holds onto her purse.

***

(As I continued to see the glittering stars above the cement bridge, the meditation teacher spoke again: “All these visions before you are radiations of your own thoughts. These are your thoughts shining down upon you. They haven’t come from anywhere else or anyone else. They’re yours and yours alone. Don’t become attracted to them- don’t become weak or afraid. Stay in the mood of a man witnessing his own body drifting down a river. Don’t try to grasp at anything. Don’t try to stop the flow of the water.”)

***

(Many years later I found myself inside a small plane. Beneath us was the city I saw when I was a boy. I recognized the clock tower, the bridge and the waters of the bay. I could even see the dome of the temple, the spires seemed so close I felt the urge to reach out and touch them. To my young self, this looked like an exotic and romantic place. I could see masses of people going everywhere, a throng of ants moving in all directions. A boy in a sleeveless jersey and long blue shorts, a woman in a blue dress that showed her bare shoulders, a tall black man wearing a white hat backwards, holding a phone in his hand.
With me in the plane were two young girls I barely knew. They were looking for a man I used to know; an old friend, a friend I hadn’t seen in many years. They had asked for my help in finding him and I had agreed. From the plane, we looked in every corner, every street, every empty lot. But it was impossible to find him no matter how carefully we looked and by the time we landed, I was ready to give up. I felt as if we were hungry ghosts looking for something we would never find.
Later that night, the girls managed to find my old friend in the flashing darkness of a dance club.
Both of them rushed towards him with wide open eyes and mouths. My friend looked like a giant next to them, a thick solid brown giant covered in tattoos and scars. They looked like vicious tiny wasps running after him. It then became clear that they were very angry and they were looking for some kind of payback or revenge. If I had known this, I would never have agreed to help them in their search. I left the club right away, unwilling to be part of this unfolding scene. I heard later that there was violence and blood in one of the club’s bathrooms. My old friend got taken away by the police and I never saw him again.
I felt sympathy for him. I knew what it was like to be taken away by fearsome men with guns. One night my mother and me got taken away. We were meant to die that night. It was all agreed and pre-established. But somehow we didn’t die. There’s a kind of privilege in living beyond the night of your own death. I see us now as ghosts, beings beyond death whose only goal is to explore the dark, to search and search, without any clear sense of what we are looking for or what we can find.)

***

“I remember when I’d stop in at a store in the lower level to buy candy, nuts, juice, magazines and even a plant. I loved to walk past the cocktail lounge and look inside.”

***

A thin old woman approaches us. She holds an even thinner old cat in her fragile hands. She looks at me and speaks:
"She's getting so thin. I've tried wet food and animal vitamins. I took her to the vet. He offered nothing but a lack of bright ideas. We've lived together for 9 years. She helped me find a home. She never judged me... she was the best friend I ever had! Maybe there’s still hope somewhere nearby, somewhere I can't find at the moment"
And then she walks away.

***

“The Book says:
I have given no persons permission to sleep, lie or in any way remain within the doorway to my Temple while the doors remain closed.
It must be understood that perception is higher than matter, and your mind is higher than your perception. Above your mind is the sign, and above the sign is the eye. Once you know what is most high, let the eye remain open. Read the sign above your head: ‘Wake up’
Once awakened your first impulse will be to triumph over your enemies. Don’t forget. This is not just the Book of Understanding. This is also the Book of War. It is not enough to Understand. It is also necessary that you fight. It is precisely through this violent victory that you will know
that you have finally come up from the abyss of deep sleep. It is only through the violent struggle that you will finally open your eyes.”

***

(I can’t help but think of her, of her hopes and dreams, of the things she was told and the things she believed. She still believes she can unseal the Temple, or that she must try. Or that she must appear to be trying.
At this moment, I know that I don’t need to change anything. The Temple is precisely as it is and as it will be. As it should be. As it ever was.
I can explore it, I can walk its long perimeter, I can find new things each time I come around. Here and now I live at the doors, I brush my hands at the gates, I feel the subtle shaking of the pillars.)

***

“I understand it’s hard to look at me. But listen. Something that may seem like poison at first,
may taste like nectar in the end… this is the joy of walking the perimeter, the joy that emerges from a mind at peace with closed gates. I stand next to you, as the taste of cool water when you are thirsty, the radiance of the sun when you are cold. I am the gentle word that alleviates all fears, I am the sound that makes your heart burst, I am the courage that makes you human. I am the smell of wet earth and the red burning of the fire; I am life. You don’t have to turn around yet, but you will.”

***

July 10

“The hanging forest will be open to everyone. The Builder says he envisions school children coming through for tours and lessons under the shade of the tall trees.
‘When you climb high above street level and you find a dark dense forest, your perception changes,’ the Builder says.
The hanging forest will also be accessible by plane.”

***

(When I closed my eyes, I looked for indications for when and where to enter and found all the doors crossed over by yellow tape. All the gateways had been annulled, forbidden, placed on permanent hold. It may take a while before this place opens again, I said to myself.)

***

(I went back to that night of nights, and I saw a ghostly cup which held a tiny blue bottle inside.
I knew immediately that the blue bottle held some kind of deadly poison. It had been waiting so long for us to arrive. I saw again that I had been given a kind of privilege. We had left the blue bottle unopened. Somewhere it still waited for us. But for now we could fly high above the city and explore it without any rush.)

***

(I say the teacher’s words softly to myself: All these visions are radiations of my own thoughts. They haven’t come from anywhere else or anyone else. They’re mine and mine alone.)

I saw four white arrows that pointed towards each other in a self referential circle. The circle wrapped upon itself. At its center was a simple message: "Too much information can make you fall within yourself. It may then be difficult to find a way out."

I saw a mountain of many colors, all these bright waves of color slipping and sliding against each other. I saw a kind of mouth at the top of the mountain, a gaping mouth hinting at a deep hunger, a restless appetite for disintegration.

(I won’t become attracted to these visions, I won’t become weak or afraid. I will stay in the mood of a man witnessing his own body drifting down a river. I won’t try to grasp at anything. I won’t try to stop the flowing motion of the water.)

***

“A struggle developed between two opposing factions - one faction hated the very idea of the Temple; the other faction wanted to defend it.
The faction that hated the Temple wanted to destroy the very process that would lead to its construction. The Builder wanted to set the process moving again but he had made a mistake.
According to the Builder (this was narrated by him many years later, after all these events were almost forgotten history) one night a stranger appeared in his office and spoke to him as if he knew him, as if they were old friends that hadn’t seen each other in a very long time.
The stranger said: ‘You have been an idiot in the way you have dealt with these things.
I will guide you but you have to obey me.’
The Builder, realizing he had no choice, agreed to obey.”

***

(I have always talked to strangers who stop me on the street. Especially the ones that speak as if they know me. I am one of a million diverse forms, an infinite variety of color and shape. Among all those forms, these strangers seem to recognize something in me, something they think they know. The least I can do is listen to what they have to say.)

I see an old chariot left behind by the side of the road. Its sides are a bit rusty, the paint is fading and falling away. But it still retains some element of its former glory. I can almost see the outline of the powerful individual that once commanded it into battle; the supreme War commander who entered the field of battle and offered death while manifesting life.

***

“The Book says:
They should have died. Soldiers took them in the middle of the night. That night they should have died. It would not have been good or bad, it would have simply happened. That is all that death is. Something that happens. And it should have happened to them.
On the perimeter of the Temple there are only two orders of creatures: the perishables and the ever changing forms. They were perishables and they should be gone by now. Now they live beyond their death. Now they live by the side of the road, in the afterlife.”

***

He stands for a moment and points up at a sign above a gateway.
“The Temple is closed. It will remain closed from some time in the past to some time in the future. The secondary streets will also be closed during this window of time. Invisible guardians will remain on site. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.”

I see bright red arrows that curve and turn and point in all directions over a surface of gray and white; broken, cracked, dirty.

“Stay close to me. We can enjoy a kind of solitude as we stray away from the crowd. This is how you read the Book. This is how you seek the knowledge of the Temple while the gates remain closed. Of course you wish to enter. To seek anything else is ignorance. But you will forever remain outside. This is where you belong.”

***

June 5

“Following many years of construction, the Temple is almost ready to open.
A dirty homeless man outside the construction site loudly proclaims its imminent closure:
‘The pillars will shiver and crack, the beams will start to break. The Temple may open but its glory won’t last long! Once it closes, it will be closed indefinitely. Entire generations will come and go and the Temple will remain closed!’
The Builder continues to struggle but he has a growing sense that he has no chance of success. He continues to struggle anyway. The worse thing that can happen is for him to simply surrender. He would then be lost, like a ship in an endless ocean, and he would stay lost for a very long time.”

***

The Builder once claimed that he had seen a giant female creature made of black ink
bathed in rainbow blood. By that point nobody paid any attention to anything the Builder had to say. He was at best an obscure joke, at worse a pathetic figure erased by time. His head was bent low and he was getting ready to die. His face was a mask of deep regret and sorrow.
In a voice barely louder than a whisper, he said:
“Both of us were naked, together. She was being very playful and flirtatious. I didn’t understand why. Why would she come back to visit me after all this time? ‘Here’s what I can finally tell you. There is no God,’ she said to me, ‘no truth, no spirit, no moral order. Nothing. The basis of life is pleasure; what else could it be? Lust is the highest that life can offer.’
I refused to make love to her and eventually she got very quiet. Her expression was a mixture of sadness and anger. Then she made her way out of my room through a rip in the red fabric that formed the walls. Neither of us ever said goodbye.”

***

(One day I received a single written note from an old friend I had not seen in a very long time. The note had only a single word written on it: my friend’s name and an exclamation mark. I closed my eyes and pictured him floating on the surface of a tall blue wave or maybe sitting on a small fishing boat off the coast of El Salvador. I saw him putting on a black hat. Something I might have seen in a children's book. I sat in front of him, eager to finally talk to him again.
I tried to tell him something I had seen, something I had been wanting to say for many years but I had never been able to say it. It was hard to say it - not just hard, but impossible. So I mostly listened as he told me about his life off the coast of El Salvador and where and how he had found the black hat.
Later that night we played with a set of cards with pictures on them. We played for a hours and hours. We both kept arranging the cards in different sequences. One card had a bridge floating over green cubes. The cubes repeated endlessly in all directions. Another card had a few clouds on it. Another card had a few birds. Another card was just a picture of an empty sky.)

***

(When I think back, I imagine a small room. There’s one other person in the room with me. Their face keeps on changing subtly - sometimes it’s a man, sometimes it’s a woman - sometimes I recognize the face, sometimes it seems to be a complete stranger. The light keeps on changing.
I don’t know how long I’ve been in this room. But I know I’ve been talking and talking and talking for a very long time.)

***

“The Book says:
You will see a green arrow wrapped around a broken circle. The arrow will come from nowhere and it will point to nowhere. The inner circle will be broken but complete. Above it, in large block letters you will see the word: system.”

***

During an afternoon walk, I meet a man on Market Street. He stands behind a table covered in books and pamphlets. He asks me if I have read the Book of War and Understanding. I tell him I have read some pages.
“When I was young, my mother would read it to me. She was always into these kinds of things. But I have never read it in its entirety.”
He says: "You should read it. I will give it to you. But I will do more than that. I will guide you through it. All the stories and poems in the Book are written on the walls of the Sealed Temple. But they are hard to see and hard to comprehend without the codes hidden inside. You know, the Temple may never open again. But I will show you how to read the Book anyway. The young think that knowledge and action are different, but I will show you that they are the same. I will show you how to find the Book through action, and I will show you how to follow the shifting rhythm of its thoughts."

***

(I had thought of the Temple as a place to meet, a place for people to come together, to find each other and then leave. But maybe these meetings were too fleeting, too fast. I had thought of it as a kind of hive, a dome covered in curved yellow lines over a textured black background. Maybe at the boundary between yellow and black there was a secret entrance. But I didn’t have the power to open this secret passageway, even if I imagined that I knew of its existence.)

***

As we walk, I overhear a couple talking among themselves.
“In the end, the Builder is real.”
“Yes, based on the story he tells in this book, he could be the author himself.”
“No, but the thing is… that doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, nobody is talking about proving anything… we’re only talking about what we’ve seen, what we have felt through our intuition. Of course none of it is real. It ultimately makes no sense.”

I see paths that wrap around themselves like snakes, I see a multitude of cars driving upon gray surfaces. All the cars are red and the paths have no entrances or exits.

***

“The Book says:
You will find yourself underwater; your will paralyzed, your mind confused. There will be a red squid on your right and a blue fish to your left - the water will be clear but dense. You will feel a yearning to stay there, to close your eyes and slowly float downward.”

***

February 15

“The roof of the Temple will be covered by a hanging forest. It is our intention that this forest should become a kind of liminal space of transition for the many who come to visit. Similar to an airport or a train station but, we hope, with a deeper resonance. We wish to inspire a feeling of being suspended between the known and the unknown. Giant spaceships will land here and you will be able to stand next to these spaceships. ‘It will be a true miracle when it is complete’ said the Builder during a conference. ‘Anyone will be able to enter and leave the Temple at any time. They will be able to remain inside for periods of seconds, minutes, hours or years. We will be ready and equipped for all possibilities.’”

***

I was walking on Fremont street one afternoon when I found a kind of handwritten map that outlined the city in a very rough way. I noticed that certain blocks of Market street had been marked with a peculiar little symbol, a small black box. On the back of the map, in barely legible handwriting, were the words: "don't try to find me"
I walked into a supermarket and found something to drink. Then I very slowly made my way towards Market street.

***

The thought keeps on recurring within me. ‘He is here to help me.’ But I remain unsure, suspicious, afraid. So I still look away. Even as we continue to walk together in circles, large concentric circles.

***

“The Book says:
I will give you two measurements. With them you will construct the black box. The measurements are two and four fifths and eight and a half. That will be all I will tell you.
You may have to work on this for a very long time. As long as the project remains unfinished you will be a ship lost at sea unable to find a port. If you renounce your wish to finish, there will be hope. The wish itself is an obstacle. As long as you continue to work, there will be hope.
Strangers will say they want to help you, and some of them will be thieves and some of them will be lost and hungry and some of them will be friends but only friends and nothing more and some of them may actually help. Those will be very few and far between.
Above all, do not despair, do not fall into sleep. If and when the box is finally finished, you will hold it close to your face, close to your ears and eyes. You will then see a golden circle slowly come to life around you. And large glowing flowers will glitter before your eyes. Large orange letters above your head will announce your arrival.”

***

The man stops walking and turns his head. I stop as well, just as he stops.
“Turn towards me. It’s time.” He says.
I turn hesitantly.
“What do you see?” he asks me.
I am unable to answer out loud. What I see are infinite mouths and arms, but only one man. I see infinite eyes but only one face. I see one body pregnant with all possible forms. I see him everywhere, without beginning, middle, or end. And yet he is here, now, under the sun. Finite, vulnerable, fragile. 
His eyes are shining with tears; his mouth is about to open but he has said enough. The Temple stands behind him glittering in an array of bright colors, its long spires touch the sky.
I look at him and my heart opens painfully. I have lost all sense of place or time.
“Do you remember me?”
“Yes, I do.” I finally answer. "I think of you most often when I'm in airports. When I’m getting ready to fly."