Valley of the Sun

 

They say the Valley of the Sun is equally close to everyone, no matter

where they live. The Books put it differently—the same path leads from every point in the world to the Valley. This doesn't change the fact that the words of the Books say the same thing as the songs of the Aoids: the duration of the journey depends not on the place from which we set out, but on our readiness.

I remember walking along the banks of a lazy river whose names I don't remember all, for human tongues have renamed it countless times over the centuries of exploiting its womb. There was a madness of knowledge in this naming, as in every human action. The madness of fragile beings fleeing their own mortality. Yet I won't swear that the river's sluggish waters were truly the last thing I saw before the Valley. Just as I can't be certain that the first thing after was the Lonely Mountain, exposing its flat underbelly to the steely sky. Dreams have intertwined with reality, truth with expectations, reality

with ideals. I have wandered long, measured thousands of miles, and time has become tangled in my memories. I cannot draw a map, as no one before me has. I will not show the way. Perhaps it is different for everyone. The books speak the truth: No one can find it. It is it that finds the Chosen. The wisdom of the books can be irritating to those who long to see the Valley and spend their time in restless search. For them, no words can suffice. They are hungry for more stories, descriptions, directions. They do not understand.

So I wandered along the gentle banks of that slumbering river, whose current no longer remembered the former vigour of its mountain springs in the lowlands. To the east of its murky waters, the wild steppes awaited me, and I remember plunging into them in search of the cry of a hawk and certain useful herbs. I toiled through all these lands until I lost track of time and didn't even know where I first set foot. Yet somewhere amid the memories of the lazy river, the eastern steppes, and the Lonely Mountain, whose flat summit is adorned by the Astrologers' Tower, lies that singular moment for which almost everyone prays: I stood at the gates of the Valley of the Sun. I saw it in all its glory, along with the towering Tower of Memories, and discovered that the Books and the immortal songs of the aoids were a thin mist of delusion, obscuring the true form of this incomprehensible place. I descended into the bosom of the valley and, with joy, even a certain tenderness approaching a meditative ecstasy, bathed my eyes in the white light of the Day that must have reigned there eternally. With delight and not without sadness, I discovered that what we used to call day was but a pale shadow of that pure light of the Valley. The sun did not wander here in the sky, for everything in the Valley was. It burned with an extraordinary, self-contained light that enveloped everything around it with a blaze of divine glory. And I, the pilgrim, felt within myself a part of that luminous power. My thoughts became clear, and I longed for the highest light. The one that shone before me, atop the Tower of Memories. There lay the Chamber of Thousand Years. Delving into the Valley's embrace, I repeated in my mind, like a litany, the passages so familiar to me from my reading of the Books. They were obscure, like all the wisdom contained within. Still carrying within me this incredible mixture of peace

and excitement, I pondered the mysterious nature of the Chamber. The Books say that

in some incomprehensible way, human experiences accumulate within it. Some passages even suggest that the experiences of all living beings—of all God's creation—are cumulated there.

As I finally approached the Tower's gates, emotions playing a concerto in my soul on the highest notes, only one passage from the Books haunted me: "Everything has its turn. [...] If you have not descended into the valley, you will not conquer the mountain. You will not see the light unless you have plunged into the darkness." I placed my hand on the smooth surface of the gates, admiring their structure, composed of an unfamiliar material, unmatched by gold or silver, nor by any of the most precious stones in this world. I trembled with unbearable tension as the wondrous gates gave way, opening the Tower's interior to me.

Upon entering, one sees, above all, brilliantly illuminated walls, which, encircling the observer in a perfect circle, climb upward in a heavenly orgy of light, seeming to shimmer now with gold, now with silver, now with purest white. Craning my head, my gaze sliding along the exquisitely shaped window openings, I could

discern the Chamber of a Thousand Years somewhere above, in this play of divine light, beyond the reach of imperfect vision. No path led to it, however. No staircase climbed the Tower's smooth walls to lead the traveler to the desired destination. I felt disoriented. Surprise and disappointment completely obscured the splendors I was gazing upon, which I should have admired with rapt emotion. And I might have stood there for eternity, had it not been for a black bird that, announcing its arrival with a flutter of wings, perched itself in one of the windows. Filling almost the entire window arch with its noble silhouette, it seemed to create a living image, so beautiful it could only have come from a divine hand. Powerful and statuesque, at once dignified and menacing, it dazzled with a majestic charm. Never had blackness seemed so beautiful to me as

at that moment, when it responded with a subtle play of reflections to the caress of the light filling the Tower. This sudden and unexpected event roused me from my stupor. Unable to discover any way to reach the highest reaches of the Tower, having already resigned myself to the idea that there was no direct path upward, I turned my gaze to my feet. The smooth blue floor, composed of an unfamiliar material that seemed to resemble glass of some nobler variety, reflected all that wondrous illumination, which I could admire as I turned my eyes toward the Tower's invisible summit. I could also see

the bird's shadow, albeit faintly, in the form of a blurry, darker spot. In the center of the room, I discovered a round trapdoor, made of the same material as the Tower's gate. Beneath it, a staircase, the length of which I could not guess, for, to my utter surprise, it disappeared into the impenetrable darkness. The light prevailing

The Tower didn't shed a speck of its light on this strange place, even though I'd opened the flap covering the entrance as far as it would go. The light suddenly and irrevocably ended before the first step, as if cut off by the divine Sword of Creation. Just as suddenly, with the first step, a world of darkness began, in which my vision could only immerse myself for a few steps. Darkness stood before me like a wall, and there was no other path. Like an echo, the words of the Books returned to me, the ones that had haunted me while I stood before the Tower's gates. A fragment of the song about the Sinful Hermit, sung many years ago on the Isle of the Sleepwalkers, also resounded in my memory: "But, Noble Man, there is no light without shadow, / Besides angels, you will find devilish songs within yourself." There was a comfort in this that can only come from surrendering to the wisdom of those who came before us. At the same time, however, I felt a pang of unease at the thought of descending into this darkness, without the certain hope of seeing the light again. The books say that fewer than half of those who had glimpsed the Valley found the courage to reach the Chamber of a Thousand Years. Standing at the top of the stairs leading

into the unknown depths, I finally understood what had held so many back. An overwhelming desire to be among the chosen, more than courage, urged me onward.

With each subsequent step, my uncertainty diminished. At the same time, the stairs seemed to recede into the distance, curving unnaturally in the deep blue. This dance of the stairs could only be an illusion of senses dulled by the impenetrable night. I saw before me only the vague shapes of a few steps, nothing more. Without a foothold in space, without any points of orientation, body and spirit seemed to float in an indefinite space

devoid of directions or dimensions. I lost my certainty that there were any stairs at all, that I was entering the Tower and then beneath it. Afterward, if there could even be a later in this extradimensional Existence, all of this became unimportant, irrelevant. All these states of my spirit intermingled so much that now I couldn't swear which had come first, or in what sequence they had appeared. Everything merged into one vast chaos of sensations, where the past and the future were on equal footing with the present, like three facets of a single truth. One thing I am now certain of is that this downward journey led me to lose my physicality, to abandon the boundaries of my body. In this subterranean darkness, I felt that I existed within everything, yet at the same time, I had a strange sense of being outside of it. I was myself, the core of my own being, which, hidden in the secret central point of the body, is at the same time outside of it, which, however, in a normal state of consciousness we cannot feel, but only understand rationally, which is equal to being saturated with the story itself

About the feast. That incredible feeling of being a part of something incomprehensible, timeless

, and transdimensional, accompanying those moments of illumination-filled wandering deep into the Valley, reminded me of my childhood. Only then does one still feel the touch of eternity, the gaze of the gods, and brush against one's own divinity, while still remaining human. This state is later attempted by various "mystics," but in them there is too much reason and too little spirit. Never will an adult feel so strongly this gnawing longing for something incomprehensible, something they cannot grasp, as in their childhood years. We learn to live in a world that takes us over—captivates us until we forget our youthful illuminations. There, on the stairs that now seem like an illusion to me, beneath the Tower, in the bowels of the Valley, I was a child open to impressions that normally escape our attention when guided by reason. I felt the pulse of Infinity within me. I felt myself part and whole, a drop in the ocean and the sea, a star in the sky and the cosmos, a grain of sand in the desert and the desert. I felt myself as other people, and they were me. Beyond time and all place. I saw within myself the same darkness I had just waded through, and things I didn't know or didn't want to acknowledge. And then, in the midst of these divine experiences, in unimaginably endless moments when understanding everything seemed within reach, I realized I was in the Chamber of a Thousand Years. The darkness gradually dissipated, and I could see around me the panorama of the entire Valley of the Sun. I was perched somewhere high above it, as if suspended in space. This fleeting sensation gradually passed,

and soon I could realize that I had, in fact, somehow, wandered to the very top of the Tower of Memories. The transparent walls of the Chamber surrounded me in a circle, though I can't say with certainty that they were made of glass. Their inscrutable nature allowed me to view the landscape of the Valley as perfectly as only the purest air could. Yet one sensed being surrounded by a substance as impenetrable as the hardest stone. I also realized that the air in the Chamber, if it was air as we understand it, was not as luminous as that in the Valley. This surprised me as I recalled a moment, which seemed years in the past, when, standing at the gates of the Valley, I gazed at the summit of the Tower and longed to be at the very center of the divine radiance that emanated from it. Standing in the center of the Chamber of a Thousand Years, I could marvel at how perfect light flooded the entire Valley. But there,

in the center of the Tower, a state of incomprehensible balance prevailed between light and darkness.

None of these states prevailed in the Chamber, nor did their combination produce the effect we can admire on the border between night and day, just before sunrise or after sunset. Our mortal eyes would likely be unable to discover such a perfect unity of light and darkness. Yet, in the Chamber's extraordinary space, I could easily observe everything, testifying that in some incomprehensible way, at that moment, I was seeing things not with my eyes but with my soul. And there was much to see.

The Chamber's floor was occupied by a gigantic circle, containing smaller circles, intertwined with multicolored fields. I quickly noticed that the colors were shifting. The image changed subtly at first, in rhythm with my timid amazement – ​​but over time, it became increasingly vivid, following my thoughts, which were born from this extraordinary display of mystical geometry. The shapes changed, the colors shifted smoothly into successive shades, and images in my imagination followed. Until I suddenly discovered that I was beholding myself—my "I" freed

from the shackles of flesh. I also saw everything as it had been before the Sword of Creation began its work. I saw things both beautiful and terrifying, for mortal reason cannot comprehend the Absolute. I discovered the pain of birth and the sweetness of death. I saw human lives like the wings of nocturnal butterflies, beating rapidly and nervously above a candle, the faster they beat the closer they got to the divine flame that burns and purifies everything. Comets of human emotions, racing across the firmament of eternity, vanishing in its vast arms. I saw trees that outlived men. Stones that outlived trees. Mountains that mocked the short lives of stones. Infinity that indifferently absorbed everything we cannot encompass with the knowledge of entire generations. I saw thousands of mortal bodies whose suffering was only an illusion. I saw a life that was a dream. All these illuminations appeared

in my mind, while my eyes were lost in the subtle play of colored circles, shimmering with their splendor on the Chamber floor. It was difficult to pinpoint, however, at what moment or place this frantic carousel of colors transformed into visions and multiplied revelations. The boundaries blurred, and I saw nothing but my own thoughts and images, which appeared suddenly and quickly transformed into others, in mysterious synchronization with the circular mosaic in the Chamber. I no longer saw the Valley through the supposedly glass walls, nor the circular floor, but only my own revelations, flowing from the swirling colors.

and the shapes of circles. I felt my senses threatened if I remained subjected to such a powerful machine of knowledge about everything. As magnificent and dazzling as everything my eyes saw and my spirit experienced was, my fragile mortality trembled with the overabundance of great and ultimate things. Through the swirling circles of color, I almost saw the face of God. The only one that contains within itself all its earthly emanations, names, even those not yet known to us humans, and even those that had already passed into oblivion. A face that contains far more than the unimaginable number of human names and images, formed by generations of doubt and revelation. I think I fainted.

The astrologers I visited on the Lonely Mountain looked at me strangely, but I cannot be certain they were the first people I met after the Valley. Taking advantage

of their dry and absent-minded hospitality, I nevertheless write down this imperfect memory, not knowing why I do so. Perhaps it's the pride of the Chosen One to See that speaks through me. As I write these final words, I think about it with a certain resignation. Perhaps I'll surrender this document to the blessing of the flame. If I leave it, I'll do so with a sense of the insignificance of what I've created. The truth is, nothing can be written about the Valley and the Tower beyond what's already in the Books. Everything has already been written. I am a mirror. I can only console myself with the hope that someone will see something in the reflection I've left behind that will allow them to better understand.

The world has changed. I feel as though I'm outside it, just as much as I'm part of it. I have nothing to say in it except what I write now. So I speak much less than I used to, so as not to offend the patience of the gods with my multiplication of words. But I see a little more. I wait. And I'm no longer afraid.