It looks Persian perhaps. Faded dark reds, muted blues, patches of yellow trying to break through jaded greens amidst swirls of stories told in symbols of chest combs, mother goddess hands and ram’s horns. This enormous carpet is heavily textured, edged in brocades of old golds, thickly woven around motifs of birds and fetters and stars and amulets and lies straight and squared neatly on the dusty floor of a long wide stately hall which echoes in shadows cast by high lead windows overhead. Thick with dust and history, this antique kilim holds messages from the hands that wove the carpet knotting patterns of stories – dreams, memories, sorrow and joy.

These hands that were held captive in an ancient society that restricted their every movement were free to express the stories in their hearts through the language of this flatweave rug.These are our stories – yours and mine – woven into this masterpiece.

When we first met, so many years ago now, one tiny thread had escaped from the tightly wound weave at the top corner on the right hand side. With our first words to each other, this thread began to unravel. If we look back from this vantage point, more than half the rug appears to lie in ruin, Behind us reams of unravelled thread lying scattered under the windows along the floor with no discernible pattern nor design, simply a teased mess of old yarn. Yet looking forward, the colours in the remainder of this sacred kilim, glow in the half light of this dank dark hall. It’s beauty becomes more intoxicating with every thread removed revealing its perfection.

My heart stops and I feel gripped in panic. There is less than half the carpet left and I realise that there are stories that I don’t wish to unravel. I don’t wish to lose anything.

Who am I without my stories? They are me and I am them.
How can I let them go?

I wish to simply snip the snaring thread off and even the rug so that this last remaining section can be once more appreciated and its function utilised again. We must stop now. This rug holds stories of great beauty and pain and within this last section it still holds a complete tree of life motif in rich tapestries of greens and blues.

How could I have unravelled so much of this rug?
How could I rip the pages out of my own history book?
Who will tell my story now?

I am pale and weak with horror. fists clenched grasping unravelled strands in desperation. Yet you are calm and centred and courageous enough to move away from this carpet. You no longer cleave to your stories that cling to the remaining threads and smile as the tree of life begins to collapse into strings of colour. Observing you while standing a little behind somehow provides a little relief from my fear and through my tears I see clearly that I have a choice to make.

Actually there is no real choice here. My only option is to surrender and submit and say goodbye to the remaining shards of colour and geometrical designs already woven knowing that behind me lie mountains of strong colourful beautiful thread bunched and strewn into messy balls of sheep’s wool, goats hair and silk.

Yet when I look again, there is nothing behind me – nothing – only space and light.

With no colour or design how can I look back?
Where is my story?
Where is my anchor?
Where am I?
I no longer exist.
I am nothing.

In my magic carpet ride, the story does not end.

There is no story.

Silent sentinel I stand in a world that holds endless species of light.

I am Surya driving through the heavens.

You look up and imagine that you see a golden orb. This sun is merely your own reflection.
It is your own heart. It is your own light.
The light you seek is within you. The light you seek is within me.

The sky of the old order fell when a bird was knocked from his perch and the deluge destroyed the people of the wood.
The sky of the new world could only be raised by an act of sacrifice.
I was the cosmic sacrifice.

I am earth and air and water.
I am fire – I burn my own wood.

I am Yggdrasil and I am the axis between worlds.
A world clock ticking endlessly: sometimes my breath is tired and rusty.
My breath can cut you as your language can kill souls.

I watch as another world rests within my bones, unseen and untouched by your kind.
I am a gateway, a lighthouse to others, a communicator for the between.
Like you. You are the spiritual internet. Like me.

I am both directed and yet directionless.

There is a hidden door – come closer you will see as no other can.
Enter.
Open.
There is nowhere else to go but here – yet here is everywhere.

I am Thor’s Oak.
Bonafcius did not fell me but my purpose was all in the telling of his tale.

I am a wet nurse for your race, watching and supervising and protecting – you have no concept yet of how I keep you safe. The Olympic rings were originally cut from my body symbolising the rings of truth that protect you from danger.

I am Sekhmet and I protect the land, destroying enemies with arrows of fire. Yes I have committed crimes in the eyes of many yet I am remorseless. I have carved death on many faces. Sometimes death has as much a purpose as life. You too have killed as much as you have birthed.

This is life.

I am Yax Imix Cheand.
I am abundance raised in the middle of the world.
I raised the sky and I birthed what you see is the sun.

Watch me; watch how my roots are sent deep into this earth.
The deeper you root yourself the easier you will bend, ebb and flow with the tides of your time.

Like your heart, this earth upon which you walk, is kept alive by me for I hold its terrestrial intention.
This intention is a submission to the point of resistance.

I am Sól and I count the years of man.
Every particle of mine is a book in a library far reaching beyond your wildest imagination.
I am every case study you will ever need.
I am every page every written.
I am every scientific experiment ever conducted.

There is a frequency that I hold upon which this earth was formed.
A frequency that beats your very own heart.

I am Helios driving my chariot across the sky.

My faith in the magnetic force and my trust in the safety of the flow hold me firm in a constant evolution of tension oscillation.

I am Ain Soph Aur, the tree of life – without end and with light.
When I bend, I am stretching and expanding – creating more space in this illusion while contracting and nesting.

I am Freyr, the Maypole, and the phalloi that Isis could not find.

My colours are crafted in the dramas of birth and death in this forest.
My leaves grow without any thought from me.
Your heart loves without any thought from you.
It is not possible for either of us to ever be alone.

I am a circle, a never-ending line, keeping and standing where you left me so long ago.

I am Lugh and I hold all contracts written of this world.

If I so choose I can fade like a ghost and vanish.
No one will ever know I was ever here.
But this will not end my life as I will live on through another seed, another pod, another root system, branching out and merging with more light.
I can be whatever I choose just like you.

You and I – we share a molecular structure so refined and complex yet so basic and simple.
Your digital world and formless currency are frequencies crafted and released by my leaves.

I am Kuker and my coarse and speckled bark forms part of my horned mask.
My reptilian skin is just one coat – just one aspect.

Every leaf that I lose is my gift to the earth.
It joins me at the base – never lost – only re engineered.
Every person that you lose from your life is your gift to humanity.
They are never lost always reappearing in another face in another time.

I am Ra and I command the sky, earth and the underworld.
Standing tall under Mintaka, his pulse is felt in my roots.
You were born under this star forever in between, in the middle of the two.
You are destined to strip my bark, shatter my myths and stand in between.
With one foot in both worlds you stand under Mintaka’s power.

Beings of light are the only words you can understand and they are around you now – watching and prodding without you even being aware.
Their home is here – not some far away planet.
The planets you see in the night sky are not real; they are your reflections – your hearts, minds, souls and bodies.
The organs in your body are the planets.
What you are seeing is a grand illusion.
When they said that God created the world in seven days, they were talking about you.

The stars that you see in the night sky are not real; they are your reflections – thoughts, feelings, purpose and intentions.

Your star burns bright.

Stand tall in this Terrestrial Intention.