Follow the opening of a wonder cabinet which has been closed for centuries, since before time and measurements as we know them today.

We live within this largest of cabinets, furnished to our liking, a high-rise holding the jewels of life – most precious hearts of the people, families, in the adobe settlement or the cluster of houses near the Mediterranean sea, or the circle of huts in the village, or the groups of temporary yurts on the Mongolian steppes.

One zooms into the other at a glance — human settlements, lives, families, hearts, births, deaths, ceremonies, stories. All compressed in layered stratified jewel forms, then taken into through the compression so all that is left is a single jewel, one beating heart of all, for all time.

This object, more than precious, ephemeral and fragile, almost invisible, nearly nonexistent, is protected by in numerable unseen beings, shadows and light forms surround and permeate it, for these are the beings who have moved through earthly life, and who left marks in their passing, marks that entered the compression chamber of their people’s offering – a ritual offering to the source of all.

In that sublime uber-ritual they were dematerialized as their home settlements, cities, and nations were layered into the time compress, then cut, flattened like sediment rock to eventually become this jewel. They hovered near, as others flew on to magnificent other worlds and new creations in the inter-dimensional time-free space.

Even there a hovering was an intra-dimensional awakening with the purpose of bringing us all back home, back to the circle of life. Rather than gazing at the remarkable jewel, we place it for safekeeping in our wonder cabinet. And close the doors, as we step forward to the circle of life’s immediate now.

***

Holding the envelope that contained the old dossier made me feel nauseous. I just wasn’t ready to open it, even though the archivist had assured me that it was not very incendiary. Still, I placed it on the side table in the hall.

Not ready. Maybe never ever ready? Voice said and thought. Maybe never, I stubbornly insisted. Or I’ll do it when I’m ready and that’s it. Final. It was one of the earlier reports I had submitted, ready for examination. For some reason it had been held back, not even opened. Now returned? A curious stamp on the back dated and with an X over the rest of the stamp.

Canceled. Never opened. Not by HQ and not yet by me. It can wait I thought. I have enough on my plate right now.