9. Meaningless
It’s near sunset and I open one eye; the desert light bathes us, rock faces watch us, eucalypts with ghost-white trunks surround us. Three others who complete our circle continue to meditate with both eyes closed. Finn guides the ceremony. He says all these comforting and spiritual notions, and yet I am consumed by how annoying flies are. They’re relentlessly sticky, incessantly buzzing. With closed eyes, I swat them away. They return too soon; two of them, three four five.
I open one eye again. Simpson’s Gorge is ablaze with invisible fire and there is sharp sand underneath my thighs. I wiggle my body, shift my legs, twist my Burmese sarong in shades of oranges and mustards into alternate positions to better protect me from the sharp sand. Still, my feet are uncomfortable and hunger claws at me. Finn says something using my name—our sister Sarah—and when I hear this, I repeat my intention: clarity of intention.
My eyes are open and Finn is before me. He’s holding a bong packed with DMT he made using Acacia plant somewhere in South Australia. The lighter flickers and I’m breathing, hearing the familiar gurgle of water, connecting, inhaling, every last drop, and then—I’m later told—my head sways to the left, my head sways to the right, and I fall to the Earth with legs still crossed, my body slumped over, forehead against the sharp sand of the riverbed in Central Australia.
—
No longer attached to my body, the notions of humans were forgotten as I transcended this Earth and went far far away, beyond Neverland, to a realm, a dimension, a parallel universe, a something that cannot be described in physical distance nor within this language. There, wherever it may be, I was a soul, freed, swimming amongst other souls. There, wherever it may be, I was a sensation. And in this sensation, we were one.
Can we exist in this world without opposites? Here on this Earth, opposites give way to our very existence. But there, in this soul sensation, there were no opposites.
With no awareness, no consciousness, no body, Sarah did not exist in any shape, any form, any thought, feeling or concept. There was no taste, sight, smell, hearing or touch. I was not sitting, nor standing, nor running, nor walking, nor sleeping. I wasn’t confined to a body slumped over a riverbed, nor was I watching that body like an out-of-body experience.
There were orangey and mustardy colours, static like an old TV, like colours amongst the sun, like colours of the sunburnt Earth, like colours of my sarong, like the colour you can experience when you half close your eyes in broad daylight.
Soon, my mouth must have opened, must have gasped enough to keep hold of the body of Sarah slumped over a riverbed in Central Australia. The breath was fleeting. While the girl beside me near-poked my slumping body to see if I was alive, I returned to that other place. And the buzzing that filled the space surrounding my sporadic inhalations returned with me. It is a buzzing that, even now, takes me away: an all-consuming buzzing, an over-powering buzzing.
The spirits saturated my soul in love and acceptance. In harmony, we were free from doubts, free of trivial obligations, and I was not a burden but a purpose.
They gave me unwavering certainty of more than immediate life.
BREATHE, I am told.
I breathe, a sharp gasp for air, keeping a hold of Earth.
BREATHE.
I’m with the spirits, the spirits are above me, below me, around me, within me. The spirits have given me hope and purpose and belonging. But what is going on?
BREATHE.
Where am I? Near Alice Springs, on a riverbed.
BREATHE.
There are people sitting around me. What are they doing? They are waiting.
BREATHE.
They are here to protect you, they know you, they are here for you.
BREATHE.
But why are they waiting for me? They are waiting for you to return.
BREATHE.
But return from where? They want to know where you’ve been. They want to decipher the far reaching corners of knowledge. You must tell them.
BREATHE.
And so I breathe, and the girl who thinks I’ve died relaxes further.
BREATHE.
Over there is a carpark. Eventually you will go with these people and in a car you will go back to a hostel. At the hostel, you might eat dinner. And then you go on with life.
BREATHE.
Life? Why must I go with these people. Why this life.
BREATHE.
Return to them, tell them where you’ve been.
But I don’t want to go back, I tell the spirits.
You must go back, Sarah.
Emotions glimmer. I don’t want to go back, please can I stay, I plead.
You must go back, Sarah.
But why?
Your time is not done. Your purpose is not reached. Go back and assure them, show them, and remember, We are watching over you, We are looking after you. Remember this, remember us. We are with you. And BREATHE.
My eyes grasp for light like my breath gasps for air. Centimetres from my new sight, the orange and mustard patterns of my sarong are entangled between my still-crossed legs. Puddles mix through the patterns of my sarong, the DMT spirits (for lack of better word) lingering like a mirage. The puddles shift, they transform, and clarity slowly returns. I try to understand where I’ve been but my legs, I can’t feel my legs, I have to move my legs.
BREATHE.
The people who are sitting around me, waiting for me, giggle and one of them whispers, Did you see that?
I close my eyes again; I don’t want to go back there, back to that place where the stigma of words can ruin universes of possibility. I want to stay in this space, this feeling, where meaning and magic are inherently understood.
BREATHE.
I want to stay here in this overwhelming sensation, free of battles with my body, battles with other bodies. I want to hold the unwavering certainty that spirit trumps all.
My legs moan. I rock between; to the ether, to breath, to the body, to breath, to the ether, to sharp sand underneath tingling legs.
I have to move; I have to feel my legs again.
My forehead peels from the sharp sand of the riverbed, the fading spirits continuing to support and remind me.
My shoulders lift to the sky, head hanging down to Earth, torso straightening as each small movement sends jolts of new energy that transcends old understandings.
A frog jumped passed you, the girl who thought I’d died tells me.
I breathe. The intake is sharp and heightens me to the ringing that has returned with me, keeping a hold, setting a different scene to the same place on the riverbed. To explain this sound is to tell the tale of a mosquito that flies too close to your ear.
I swing one leg to the side, and then the other. The light has faded, slate clouds fill the sky, the air is dry and warm, a slight wind.
Where have you been, the girl on the other side exclaims.
Already I struggle to describe what it’s like, what it all was. People would think me mad. But never before have I felt so sure, so assured of more. I think, of purpose, good intentions, family, tribe, creativity, community.
Wow, I breathe and laugh. My face is wet with tears.
And then I keep breathing. Deep and meaningful breathes that reinstate my oxygen levels. Breathes that won’t stop for hours along with the longing to return to my new discovery, this place of comfort and knowing.
The girl on the other side starts telling of her personal experience days before to which she saw colours and codes and couldn’t stop laughing to the cosmic joke. The girl on the other side doesn’t stop talking about herself and her own experiences and beliefs in portals and power centres and downloads and the fifth dimension.
Drowning in the mediocracy of her words, I want to block my ears and block her out so I can remain at peace, so I can stay in this state of nirvana, so I can better remember what the spirits had told me and the fact that I had conversations with spirits at all.
I want her to stop talking. I want her to listen. To understand that we don’t understand everything. That she doesn’t know everything. That by talking at us, by talking over us, she is forfeiting an opportunity in growth.
The light is purple, spotty, yellow. Like the fuzzy yellow amongst the orange. Meaningless, I say. Everything we know as truth, this is all so meaningless. And here I am, back again. I look around the riverbed, to the eucalypts, to the ancient culture, the connection to land. I see something more. Through a slight shift in my breathing, I heighten the ringing like a mosquito, in unison with the crickets welcoming the impending storm. Safe in this sound, it is easier to blur her voice. And to feel the relief in acceptance.
The breeze is soft, fresh, and my face is wet. Finn smiles at me. Behind him, the sky lights up, showing the pathway through the rocks of the gorge. Did you see that? I whisper and laugh. Lightning explodes through the rocks, flashes and flashes of it, slicing holes in the sky. The lightning is a display, a show, a reminder to be grateful for the ability to see beyond the meaningless.
