A Meditation on Flame and Altar

Early in our discussions, I told papa about a vision I had of myself as an altar and its flame, burning away parts of myself until all that remained is the living flame. There are a lot of reasons this was foresight (I knew next to nothing about vodou at the time), but the image sticks with me.

It is my freedom I seek, but it is not until I am burned away—until personality is gone, until I have evicted my mind from its choke hold, until I have quieted thought and erased my past—that I will be free. I do not need the chains of personality.

It is my freedom I seek, having been exhausted by the projections of my mind into past and future. I can remember but need no memory.

It is my freedom I seek, to burn away the dross in which I am encrusted and to know it is not me. I will take no stain.

There is something inhuman in the image. As a family, we joke about humans and mystics. A human can become a mystic over lifetimes, but once a mystic, the experience of living changes. I’m not just here to be here.

I am here, in this body, in this now, in the tangle of existence.

I am here with you, all of you, to burn away.

I am here to burn up all that I am until I am the altar.

Until I am nothing but the flame.