It occurs to me that I will not survive purgatory. I realize, all too painfully, that I also have a part in this, a dark share in what is happening, and it destroys me, it shatters me, as if in a volcanic mine. Nothing will remain of my identity, my entitlement, my opinion, my stubbornness, my clinging, my little will. I still try to hold out, to justify, to explain, to blame, to ask for forgiveness. And then I give up. I no longer fight for or against anything. I surrender. And I encounter the will that accepts that things are just not as I would like them to be—even if I have aspired to an ideal and found it to be good. Ideals can be tyrants, too. How I would like things to be is the “image” that I have created for myself, dreaming with the forces of the here and now. When the innocent one awakens, the pain of awareness steps in. I let go.
To see myself in my will and to not want anything anymore—therein lies the beauty of dying. I am standing on a threshold. On thresholds, it is always now. The flow of time stops here. Something reverses. I am a moment of birth that heralds another eternity. I see everything and nothing at the same time. It is distance and closeness at the same time. Trust and certainty at the same time. A great wakefulness expands my perception. I take a first breath and a first conscious glance. In beholding letting go, I become that which comprehends and at the same time participates in the events of the transition.
Sleeping with the forces of the hereafter, the unknown enters me, and I am beyond the “images.” I become canvas and color. The life that I cannot yet know paints with me now. But no idols are created. It is the ongoing creation itself that I am a part of. Hidden life plays with us here. Its ashes are like dried blossoms that drift into view with the beautiful lingering smell of summer. Here, there is healing from isolation, from addiction, from loneliness and death. There is no blame here, only harmony and connection. Whether my dying will be poor or rich, whether it is full or remains hungry, is up to me.
Translation Laura Liska
Photo From Shaping Light, Laura Liska, 2025.
