Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle

It’s a strange feeling when one’s body shuts down completely. This vessel that has carried you, that has served you faithfully for an entire life, stops reacting to the commands of your soul. It’s almost as if someone has flicked a switch to cut the electricity. I soon understood that even if the river’s current did bring me to an opening, it would be too late. My hands would not be able to hook onto its edge and, even if they did, I would lack the strength to pull myself out of the freezing water.

The most damning realization was that I could no longer expect our baby to be unharmed. With this, my spirit surrendered. I closed my eyes, because this is what one does when underwater and dying. My body dropped, and all my fear just left. There was a moment of startlingly beautiful acceptance. It’ll be easier this way, I thought with some relief, in the final moments before everything went black.

What happened next-I can tell you about it, but I can’t explain it. Not properly, not in a way that you could understand. At birth, I was given the gift of languages and I’ve been perfecting that gift for seven hundred years, but the words to describe what happened on that day do not exist. Not in English, nor in any other language I know.

When I woke, it wasn’t really like waking, because I hadn’t been asleep. It was more that I’d been in a state without any consciousness, and now I was returned into awareness. But not awareness in the way that we perceive the world around us: it was something greater, something sidelessly wide and endlessly deep. I was still under the ice, still being swept by the Pegnitz, but at the same time I was not in the water of a specific river. I was in the water of the entire world, the entire universe, but I wasn’t even “in” the water so much as I was a part of it. I was indistinguishable from the water itself; I had become fluid.

When people die and somehow come back, they always talk about a tunnel of light. This was not my experience. There was light but it was not a tunnel, it was all around me. Luminous air supported me, keeping me aloft even though there was no ground that I needed to be kept aloft from. It was in me and it was through me; I was the water and I was the light. I felt as though I were floating liquid radiance, a steady glow without warmth or cold. I no longer had any sense of my body.

Time does not exist when one’s body no longer exists, because there is only the body’s perception of time. We rarely notice our innate feeling for time until it’s removed. This is why amnesiacs are so confused when they become first aware of their condition. It’s not because they’ve lost memories-we all lose memories; it’s because they’ve lost time.

I became aware of presences. You couldn’t call them ghosts or spirits, because they possessed not even that much form. They existed only because I could sense them. But sense is again the wrong word, because how could I sense something with no substance? Like the light and the water, they were inside me. I felt them so completely that I knew that not only were they inside me, but they always had been. I had been ignoring them, all my life, in a kind of self-defense. It’s like listening to a conversation-you can’t concentrate on the words if you’re also listening to the clock across the room and the cars outside and the footsteps down the hall and the breathing of the man sitting beside the woman sipping tea. You cannot process all this, so you concentrate only on the words of the speaker. So it is with the infinite voices of the human body. You listen to your own thoughts, and you shut out the rest.

But now I could embrace every voice within me. I could hear all those presences, and they sounded like golden circles. I could taste them, and they tasted like comfort. They touched me, and it felt like music.

See? I wish I could explain it, but I cannot. It is impossible. Anyone who believes that she can explain the Eternal Godhead has never truly experienced it.

Three presences separated themselves from the host and came forward. Although they did not assume physical shapes, I recognized them nevertheless as the humans that they had been, even though in my physical life I’d only ever met one of them, Father Sunder. The second was Meister Eckhart and the third was Mechthild von Magdeburg.

I knew this was not a trick, but a gift to be embraced. It was natural, even comforting, when Father Sunder indicated that he was pleased to be in my presence once more. Words were not used; it was more like I could feel his thoughts brushing up against mine. It was the same with Meister Eckhart and Sister Mechthild when they communicated. Our “conversation” was a kaleidoscope of brilliant vibrations.

They were not there to take me away, they explained, because I was not ready. I had not died properly and I was unfinished. They would help me achieve a state in which I was ready to die and, to this end, they had been assigned as my Masters.

Why am I not being sent to Hell? I communicated. I have killed the man I love.

That’s not the way it works. Eve’s sin was to eat fruit, and for this she was punished with the Fall of Mankind. For the transgressions of your life, what atonement is necessary?

This is not for me to decide.

But it is. Your path has taken you from the Life of God and made you the hand behind a death. Do you repent?

No. Even in the Eternal Godhead, I could remember my life with you. I may have betrayed my monastic vows and I may have betrayed my prioress and the Lord God in doing so, but I have never betrayed myself. I have remained true to my heart, and I will never repent my love. It is the one great thing I have ever done.

My Three Masters understood that I would hold to my love for you, even in my life’s end. Surely they had seen it before, and surely they would see it again.

Your heart has always been independent, your supreme and most damning gift. Therefore it is through the processes of the heart that your penance will occur.

So be it.

You learned to give your heart over completely to the one, but you have not yet learned to share the heart beyond the self and the other.

I confess this as true.

You shall be returned to the world, and your chest shall be filled anew with thousands of hearts. You must give each away, until all are gone but one.

How shall I achieve this?

These hearts must be given out of your chest and die for you, while finding life in others. This is so you can overcome your earthly nature and be made ready for Christ.

I do not understand the method of releasing these hearts.

You will learn the method.

And when only my final heart remains?

That one you cannot give away yourself. Your last heart must be passed over to your lover. He must accept it, but he cannot hold it. He must release it, to release you. Only in this manner may you finally be delivered to the Lord.

I do not understand the purpose of my lover’s involvement.

Your lover will know the purpose.

This is where it was left. I was pulled from the Godhead, the light and water stopped flowing through me, and I was violently plunged back into the cold dark currents of the Pegnitz.

When I awoke, I was lying on my back and could not open my eyes. They were fused shut with ice and it must have taken five minutes of effort before I could blink them unglued. It was early morning and the storm had stopped. I tried to speak but was unable to produce any sound, because all my body was paralyzed. I was so much colder than I had ever been.