closed eyes archives

"Into the earth I go down, go down.
Nothing but earth will I be seeing, will I be seeing.
I sink down into the old river-bed,
Down into the interior."

-from Songs of Kumastamxo



do they come to take away, or do they come to return? either way i pray as i lay me down to sleep such dreams to come and reveal deep- if god is always on our side, then in the dark we burn and spark with fire light.

recently finished "Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges whose rich, layered pieces always feel culled and sifted from mysteries underneath:

"...he knew that his immediate obligation was to dream. Toward midnight he was awakened by the inconsolable shriek of a bird. Tracks of bare feet, some figs and a jug warned him that the men of the region had been spying respectfully on his sleep, soliciting his protection or afraid of his magic...

...The rice and fruit they brought him were nourishment enough for his body, which was consecrated to the sole task of dreaming...

...He understood that modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task that a man could undertake, even though he should penetrate all the enigmas of a superior and inferior order; much more difficult than weaving a rope out of sand or coining the faceless wind...

He dreamed that it was warm, secret, about the size of a clenched fist, and of a garnet color within the penumbra of a human body as yet without face or sex; during fourteen lucid nights he dreamt of it with meticulous love. Every night he perceived it more clearly. He did not touch it; he only permitted himself to witness it, to observe it, and occasionally to rectify it with a glance. He perceived it and lived it from all angles and distances. On the fourteenth night he lightly touched the pulmonary artery with his index finger, then the whole heart, outside and inside...Within a year he had come to the skeleton and the eyelids. The innumerable hair was perhaps the most difficult task. He dreamed an entire man- a young man...Night after night, the man dreamt him asleep...

In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke...

His misgivings ended abruptly, but not without certain forewarnings. First (after a long drought) a remote cloud, as light as a bird, appeared on a hill; then, toward the South, the sky took on the rose color of leopard's gums; then came clouds of smoke which rusted the metal of the nights; afterwards came the panic-stricken flight of wild animals. For what happened many centuries before was repeating itself. The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of Fire was being destroyed by fire. In a dawn without birds, the wizard saw the concentric fire licking the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the water, but then he understood death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him from his labors. He walked toward the sheets of flame. They did not bite his flesh, they caressed him and flooded him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him."

From The Circular Ruins, Jorge Luis Borges



Dreams as the poets of our sleep; tirelessly sensed with symbols- meanings that we seek.