The World, Traveling through the Bardos

A Bedtime Story

From the edge of the bed she was sitting on, the grandmother leaned toward the three children, tucked in for the night. Wide-eyed, they listened, as the grandmother continued the story in hushed tones,

“after the last heave, The World died.

And that’s when the magic really started happening.

The World did not realize it had died.

Great, noble beings, skydancers, came to gently coax The World to look into the mirror in the black hole at the center of existence. When The World looked into this vast, dark, cool mirror, it realized, ‘Ah… nobody’s paying attention to me anymore… I must have died….’ The World stared so deep and long into the entrancing black hole that it almost melted into that sublime oblivion.”

Gasps from the children. “What happened then?”

“Oh, the magic got stronger,” said the grandmother. “From all over the cosmos, lights began blinking and flickering and exploding and racing across the field of awareness, and creatures like you’ve never seen before, with thousands of eyes, began dancing to the music made by an accordion of musicians, all joined through their hearts by long rainbows, and the world felt joy so unimaginable it almost burst.”

The smallest of the children began closing her eyes, slipping into a dream about the great cosmic circus.

“The musicians oomphed and they poomphed and struck a glorious chorus of sounds across time, and the lights swayed in agreement…“ the grandmother continued. “Such glee The World felt. It wondered how it could possibly contain this feeling, and it breathed a long sigh.”

The grandmother paused for a moment, relishing the flush of youth in the children’s cheeks. “Then The World began to feel a tickle in its belly, and a sweet little tremor in the center of things, and it knew it was time to become quiet.”

Outside the window of the bedroom, a soft rain began to fall and the middle child stepped into the grandmother’s voice, right onto the land of dreams.

“Water was made,” the grandmother crooned. “Then Earth... Then Air... Then Fire…” The oldest child felt these proclamations land in her chest as great, satisfying morsels, as she too, struggled to keep her eyes open.

“Trillions of years went by as these energies knit a new world into being, slowly, slowly, slowly, moment by moment by moment.”

With all the children now asleep, the grandmother got up from the bed, wrapped herself in eternity and walked to the window, melting into the shining folds of Her Story.