The space is illuminated in soft yellow light bordering on orange. It comes from an unseen source. It’s cast over everything, creating the sense of a space that exists outside the extremes of day and night. It is a chamber neither lit nor dark, cloaked in a space that seems to be free from the constraints of time. The light is warm, almost embodying a feeling within its colors, a warmth that is calming and safe and full of something that can be perceived but not fully described.
The chamber is enclosed on all sides by thick rock walls made only of natural curves and a stucco-like texture. There are no clear angles or smooth surfaces, just raw rock hollowed naturally to create a near-perfect circular chamber without windows. The boundaries of the space are seamless, wall gradually drifts down, becoming earth without announcement or clear distinctions. Higher up, the walls gradually merge into ceiling, an entire space without boundaries or clear definitions or hard angles. The walls are thick, there is a mountain between me and the sky I vaguely remember.
In the center of the space is a small naturally occurring pool of water. The edges of the earth around it are moist and small green sprouts gradually give way to pure water that ripples with tints of yellow and green. Foliage is scattered through the chamber, it grows up through jagged cracks in the rock, sprouting green shrubs with long thin leaves. Some have tiny white flowers in the shape of miniature cones. In abundance by the pool, growing thick and in bunches, they display their obvious preference for moisture.
The cave is completely silent save the soft sound of slowly lapping water. I can feel the thickness of the walls, the intense isolation of the chamber.
A man is in the water. His torso appears to be floating, riding the edge between water and air. His legs are submerged, visible only as shifting pale light without clear shape. The skin of his chest and arms looks quite white, very bright in contrast to the dim light. His dark-hair-covered chest glistens with a sheen of water, leaves and small twigs are entwined in the flowing mass of his long black hair and sprinkled on his chest like the adornments of an earth god. His arms, outstretched, play with the water. His wide-spread fingers move softly along the water’s edge. He smiles as the sensation of liquid moves through him, past his long fingers.
I stand several feet from the pool, inhaling the scent of moist rocks.
