Nest of Light

I have gone on a journey to a city like Jerusalem, in a country like Peru.

I was with my tour group as we explored the city centre. It was a beautiful city, with new parts and old parts. Our tour group stopped for lunch in a square near a large fountain at the centre of town.

A festival goes on, there are beautiful coloured paper decorations adorning the streets, and all the people are dressed in richly dyed fabrics.

I look down each of the streets that lead off from the fount. There is one of them, the main one, that leads to a mountain in the distance.

As I’m looking down this road, I see an enormous jaguar as big as a hotel building jump down from the right and stalk slowly across the road and out of sight. It was a fair way away, but a creature that size could easily close the intervening distance in just a few seconds.

Its body was covered with bright glowing colours and patterns.

The creature disappears and I anxiously look all around for any sign of its movements.

I glimpse it again, and again. It’s moving just beyond the first row of buildings, circling the fountain. I move with it, as best I can, to keep the fountain between us at all times. I feel that the animal knows this is my goal, and instead of breaking through the fountain, departs for another part of the city.

Later we are all in the desert, in the mountains, in a garden of ancient ruins. The tour group is all gathered among the ruins having some interesting but ultimately meaningless conversations. I wander off and climb up to a high place where there is a house overlooking the world. Inside the house it is dark, and there are two windows. The first looks out over the mountains whence I came, and it is through this one that I enter. At its ledge, outside, there is a trapeze which leads to a nest in the sky which glows with inner light.

The second window looks out to the aerial nest of the great Jaguar, which overlooks the lesser nest.

I am in the house, examining the objects that lay strewn about in the dark rooms, when the jaguar comes to its nest and looks for me in the house. Everywhere it casts its eyes it casts a bright light. I try to escape its gaze, but everywhere the light falls, the Jaguar sees.

I try to get to the nest of light without the jaguar seeing me. I swing wildly, and cannot gain control over my trajectory. I let go of the trapeze above the nest of light, but I miss it by arm’s length and instead fall back to earth.