My incredible journey being nearly over, I face it with conflicting emotions. I have floated timelessly in a tomb-like cocoon of cosiness, my only companion in this silent world the mysterious vibrations drumming deep in my soul. I have travelled far and yet I have not travelled at all. The constant expansion of mind and body is a unique , unrepeatable experience and I relish the journey’s end to know what I have become.

Feeling a shift in the movement of my pleasant prison, I know my time is here and I am expectant. The shallow shifting becomes a constant pressure then suffocating tightness. I cannot breathe! I am being propelled forward and I cannot breathe! Gasping, thrashing, fighting for air I slide slowly into the light. Blinking rapidly to soothe my searing eyes, to banish the brightness for an instant, I cry with relief. I am alive. I am beginning. I have begun.

I am stretched out now in a clear lidless box, but feeling safe and secure, a little restless perhaps to view my surroundings. I listen avidly for my journey’s invisible friend, the sibilant sound of the beat but it is no more. Instead a patter of strange noises quickens my heart and I am a little anxious. Shapes continually approach my resting place, gaze and sigh, touch me gently, lips moving delivering that which I cannot comprehend. I am drawn towards the shadows, instinctively trusting their judgement towards my welfare. Anxiety dissipates and fear does not make an appearance as I feel myself lifted and carried across this wide, white wilderness to be placed in a soft, smooth place that completely fits the contours of my form. Sighing with extreme contentment, my eyes travel upwards to the face above me to meet the misty gaze of a goddess, the golden smile of a Madonna. I sense the familiar vibration of my travelling friend, the beating heart that gave me life. I smile as I listen to the warm, velvet voice, feel the cord binding us together and I know!

“Hello, baby,” my mother croons, “we made it, you and I, didn’t we just.”