Magic Of The Scarab Beetle Bracelet: Bedtime Tale

This is a bedtime story where you find yourself walking through a bamboo forest. You encounter a wise old man at a campfire who shares a special soup with you. You continue your journey to an archeological dig you are working on. You place a found copper bracelet on your wrist and find yourself transported into the past. You head to a settlement and are introduced to the elder. The elder gives you a stronger version of the soup which can help you connect deeper with the world around you. As you eat soup, you find yourself encountering a rat in an ice cave who talks with you and suggests you explore this land to find out why you are here. You set off on a horse, you meet a curious, friendly spider who knits you some socks to help with your journey. They join you on your journey up a mountain, you continue on the other side of the mountain across a desert to some old ruins. In the ruins, you have a powerful experience of heightened consciousness and gain knowledge and wisdom.

Transcript

So just take a moment to allow your eyes to close and allow yourself to begin to relax and as you begin to comfortably fall asleep.

I don't know whether you'll fall asleep faster to the sound of my voice or whether it'll be to the spaces between my words.

And as you comfortably fall asleep I'm just going to tell this bedtime story in the background.

And a mist permeates through the undergrowth within a bamboo forest and as the bamboo gently sways and the mist undulates peacefully so you find yourself walking and weaving through the silence and as you walk and weave through the silence leaning against bamboo as you go hearing it creak under your arms or under your back or as a hand pushes it aside so maybe you notice each step that you take the sensation of your foot on the ground and then the next foot and the next foot and that mist hangs so low and dense almost like walking through water on a seashore like walking through the white horses raking around your ankles and as you look around and the moon shines into this bamboo forest so the surface of the mist almost glows and illuminates standing out white against the background and looking around you it almost looks like you're walking on top of clouds the bamboo poking up through those clouds high in the sky and while walking under this moonlight aware of the silence just the occasional creaking of the bamboo a slight rustling and the sound of each footstep so you notice while walking through this space that suddenly each footstep that you take seems to give off a pulse of light and that light seems to pulse out in a direction and with a certain pattern or order to it pulsing away from your feet with each footstep in a straight line before you and you notice as you walk that that pulsing light with its regular rhythm and that pattern seems somehow familiar to you and you're unsure exactly why that seems familiar at first but as you look down towards your feet and you watch the light within the mist pulsing off from your feet with each step you suddenly recognize that the pulsing light,

That pattern is Morse code and you recall learning about Morse code a long time ago and so you go searching the library of your mind scouring the different recesses following wisps of connections to try and find what this Morse code means and you notice each step is making the same pattern and you start almost humming or beating out that pattern with your mouth trying to memorize it in case it stops and then you understand what some of it means it seems to be spelling out a short sentence and the sentence doesn't really seem to make any sense and so you're unsure whether you're correct about your interpretation because what you think it says,

What you think is pulsing from your feet is scarab beetles don't like goats in coats but you know that just sounds like such a ridiculous sentence that you must have made a mistake but at the same time you're curious at how you could make a mistake and still have a full sentence of words and you watch that Morse code beating out from your feet and again and again you work out what it's saying and each time you get the same answer as your feet keep pushing through that mist and off in the distance you notice faint glow of a campfire and before you can even hear the crackling you start to head towards that campfire and as you near that campfire you see that there's somebody sat down by the fire there's a slight clearing and the warmth of the fire seems to be pushing back the mist in this area thinning out that mist around the fire and the clearing and as you reach that clearing a wise old man who's sitting by the fire invites you to take a seat gesturing to the other side of the fire and you sit down the other side feeling the warmth of the fire on your cheeks putting your hands out slightly in front of you allowing the warmth to soak gently into those hands and spread that healing warmth and relaxation into your body and down to the tips of your toes and from time to time this wise old man reaches forward and he stirs a concoction he's cooking above the fire and you're unsure exactly what this concoction is whether it's a soup or something else to eat or drink but it has a sweet delicate scent to it and with a ladle the old man scoops some of that into a bowl and then gets another bowl and scoops some more into that bowl for you and offers it to you and you accept it but are unsure what it is and whether you're going to actually consume it and as you look into the bowl so you can notice the way the liquid in the bowl is shimmering and sparkling almost like it's infused with the colors of the rainbow and pulsing and moving almost as if it's alive with energy as the convection within the liquid churns and moves the contents of that bowl and in such a friendly voice the old man turns to you and says that it's perfectly safe to consume in fact you might quite like it and then puts a slight wry smile on his face as he enjoys some from his bowl with a spoon his cheeks going gently flush his face looking younger more relaxed and noticing a wave of relaxation spreading down his body his hair seeming slightly younger than it did before as if somehow that liquid had some kind of healing properties from walking all day until very late at night you feel that perhaps you should drink some of this you've got some aches and pains from all your walking and so you put the spoon into the liquid and it's ever so slightly thicker than you expected and that sweet smell only becomes sweeter and more enticing the closer it gets to your mouth as it wafts gently tickling your nostrils and you have a sip from the spoon and almost in an instant you can feel the way that liquid caresses the inside of your mouth dances on your tongue tickles your cheeks and slides down your throat and a certain warmth and numbness sets in around the inside of your mouth your jaw as deep comfort begins to spread and with an in-breath filling your body almost like that comfort is breathed in and consumed with the liquid as any tension or stress seems to fade and be breathed out and as you get on to the second spoon and then the third spoonful so that only increases the comfort within you almost like a certain stillness is setting into you a stillness of mind a stillness of body a clarity you perhaps haven't experienced before a deep sense of peace and calm and you work your way through that bowl of food or liquid or perhaps a soup for want of a better description and once you've had that soup you relax back for a while just enjoying the night sky and enjoying the distant rustling and creaking sound from that bamboo forest enjoying the occasional shooting star overhead and that deep relaxation you begin to experience more fully within you and you realize you still don't know the name of this person who they are they are as relaxed as you and so you ask them who they are they say that their name is Cogsworth that they're out here on a journey of discovery and you ask what they're here to discover and they say they don't know their journey of discovery they only know what it is at the point that they've made the discovery they don't know what they're seeking until they've found it but the journey is the important part because the journey ends with the discovery and then they have to think about a new journey to go on and so they just enjoy the journey and relax into it and you ask about this soup they made and they say that in these parts growing in this bamboo forest are some funny mushrooms speckled with little dots of color that shimmer under the moonlight and those mushrooms help to guide you onto the most incredible trip in your mind and it takes a little while for that to work through your system but once it does it helps you to see the world clearer to see connections within the world that you otherwise overlook to hear the thoughts of all the animals the plants not thoughts of dialogue but thoughts of being of existence those deeper thoughts that don't have a voice or a language that are often indescribable that you just intuitively know like when you have that friend who is going through a very difficult time and they can't find the words to describe the difficult time they're going through and you don't know the words for the difficult time that they are going through but you perhaps put an arm around them and in a reassuring way you know what they're going through and they know you know what they're going through and you both know that neither of you could put words to the experience all you could do is just be and just being present and supportive and so it's connecting on that level but with all things connected where you notice that between you and a tree there's not just empty space it's not like reality exists outside of your skin and then you exist inside your skin you're not walking through reality you are reality you are just information moving and changing like a wave through the ocean a wave can leave one place and arrive a hundred miles away and someone can watch that wave make the complete journey but the wave that arrives on the shore 100 miles away isn't the same wave that was present at the beginning the water,

All of the particles that were present at the beginning are still there at the beginning the water and the particles that are present at the end were never present at the beginning but you watch the wave move from one point to another and so it's the same with you,

That deep connection and understanding of reality that you're not separate from it you are it you just develop certain ways of processing and viewing the world that make you convince yourself that you're somehow separate and yet this soup can help to open the curtains on that illusion revealing the fundamental nature of the reality and you find yourself absorbed in Cogsworth's words,

Wrapped up in those words,

Curious and fascinated by the words and as you find your mind drifting with those words so you have that morse code in mind and you start to hear the morse code like the sound of gently tinkling bells jingling in your mind as you also find yourself feeling more relaxed and drifting peacefully asleep by that campfire relaxing down and drifting asleep enjoying the cool air on your cheeks and the warmth of the fire as it burns down to embers to the most gentle glow and the next morning you awaken and find you're alone by the fire and Cogsworth has moved on,

Perhaps travelled off,

Continuing his journey of discovery as you'll be continuing yours and you see next to the fire is a flask and a note and the note says that there's some soup in that flask and it's the soup you drank last night only this is even more concentrated and it may help you on the journey that you're on and you stand up and you stretch in the morning air listening to the morning sounds of nature around you as you start to walk from the clearing back into that bamboo forest continuing your journey as the sun continues to rise the most beautiful golden yellow light permeates through the bamboo around you giving everything a slightly green hue as it shines onto the bamboo and all day long you walk through this forest until eventually you find your way to a path and you follow that path out of the forest and down through some undulating hills,

The most beautiful meadows with the sky looking so calming overhead the grass seeming to move in waves with the breeze butterflies darting softly from flower to flower as you continue walking and you can see in the distance some tents that you're heading towards and they're large white tents and you continue heading towards those tents through these undulating meadows and you find yourself approaching those tents and as you do so you can hear the clinking of a hammer and chisel and other gentle working sounds of an archaeological dig and you arrive at this archaeological dig you introduce yourself you get shown to the person in charge who's excited to greet you and begin to tell you what they've been finding so far and they tell you that this location seems like it was covered incredibly quickly that there's evidence that a tsunami had passed over this space burying everything and so a lot of stuff had been churned up and damaged but they're also finding things that were in boxes that were in concrete style alcoves that have managed to survive damage and you take a look around the site and you see trays of things that have been found many very small items with little bits of paper saying what's in all the different sections of those trays and they take you over to a larger box they open the lid of the box and they show you an elephant's tusk and they say that this tusk doesn't seem like it came from a living elephant it seems like it was given as a gift thousands of years ago and someone cherished it and brought it to this location and you take a very close look at that tusk and you see that on the tusk are some small notches,

Some delicate scratches and you realize that the scratches seem to be some kind of language,

Some kind of pattern and somehow you instinctively think you know what it means you still have the residuals of the soup that you'd eaten within you and you realize that it seems to be creating a connection that allows you to understand those scraped notches and you look closely from all angles at that tusk and the tusk looks hollow but you recognize that it looks flat deep inside the tusk and so something is obviously in there and you delicately pry that out from within the tusk and what you pry out is like a small wooden box,

A bit like a cork box,

A very soft wood to that box and within that box is a copper bracelet and this copper bracelet must be thousands of years old based on the age of the tusk and you closely examine that copper bracelet and you don't really understand where it's from,

Why it's in a tusk and what significance it had to whoever put it there and you sit in a tent just looking at that bracelet admiring the metal work really examining that bracelet you unclip the catch,

You look at the back,

You clip the catch back up and there seems nothing particularly special about the bracelet other than the fact that it seems very old and it was found in an unusual location and you place the bracelet around your wrist and your mind thinking I wonder what people back then looked like wearing the jewelry they had back then what did it look like on?

And you have your sleeve rolled up,

You place that bracelet on,

You look down at your arm and your hand with the bracelet around your wrist and as you do,

So you start to be aware that something's shifting for you that the landscape seems to be fading and changing the tent seems to fade in an undulating kind of fashion as if it's waving itself out of your existence and you find that around you the landscape looks very different the undulating meadows are no longer so undulating and they seem lower down and you can see a coastline,

Not that far away and you can see some circular huts,

People milling around,

Doing different tasks some people looking like they've got some basic farms on the go people riding horses past this small settlement and you turn around as you look around you taking it all in noticing that everything around you has changed as you turn full circle facing back the way you started that's just you with your backpack dressed in what to anyone here would look very bizarre clothing with that bracelet on your wrist as you walk towards the settlement and while walking towards the settlement you wonder whether this is what the place looked like before the tsunami and if so,

How long before you head down to that settlement and someone greets you in a very friendly way having noticed the bracelet on your wrist and you realize you can somehow understand them and as you respond to their greeting they can understand you and you notice that wearing that bracelet identified you as someone who's a friend or who they must know in some way and they show you through this settlement and you say that you're from another land there's someone you once knew a long time ago and that's where you got the bracelet and they walk you through this settlement and they introduce you to the elder and the elder says that they've been having visions of a certain type of future that they don't want to share with the rest of the settlement but they do need to plan what to do and you express how you know about the giant wave that hits this land and they interpret it as you being able to see the future like they can and their plan is to get everyone away before that wave hits that they don't know exactly when it'll happen but in their vision the settlement looked very different so they know that it isn't for quite some time and so just in case it's a long way off they're going to record their visions for future generations and you notice that at this time they weren't tracking time the way people in the modern day perhaps do and so it's very difficult for them to be able to judge deeper time very long periods of time beyond lifespans and you notice that this elder is drinking some of that soup and you show that you have some of that soup too and so the elder offers to share some of their soup with you and they say that they found a way of making it even more effective they go to a basket with some cut violets they tear off some of the violets and then with a pestle and mortar they crush that down and turn it almost into a paste and they add that to their concoction mixing it with the mushrooms they then ask you to put your arm out and so you do and they remove the copper bracelet for a moment and gently dunk that copper bracelet into the liquid just a couple of times before wiping the bracelet and handing it back and something strange in the moments when they took that copper bracelet I think you noticed almost like a glitch around you things temporarily glitching and phasing but returning to normal once you put that bracelet back on and they explain that the copper in the bracelet just a dash of the copper touching that liquid is enough to make that liquid even more potent and you know that they don't know about particles but you have this sense that perhaps that's what they're talking about that a very small amount of the copper dissolves with that liquid and they stir that up and they leave it boiling while they talk to you as it gently simmers and from time to time they give it a little stir and they say if you have the patience to let it simmer right down so that it's almost like a paste then it's even more potent,

Even more effective at allowing you to connect with the world to see reality as it truly is including seeing the past present and future all rolled into one and there's many things they say they've seen that they just don't understand and can't even comprehend and that to them this is all a learning experience but they have to learn to comprehend things unknown they talk of seeing things flying in the sky made of metal shimmering and shining high overhead but they have no concept of how that could be possible and they've seen so many things they just can't explain but they write these down the best way they can trying to explain them with the knowledge they have and the knowledge those around them might understand or at least glimpse at what it is they've seen and after some time that soup is almost a paste and they serve up some for you and some for themselves and as you eat some of that soup so you feel that warmth again that healing sensation through your mind and body your mouth going gently numb your cheeks going warm and comfortable your body relaxing deeply and you find yourself drifting into a vision a vision of a time previously unseen you find that your eyes want to close and so you let them and as they do while you rest so relaxed there you get a sense that your body is comfortably cool and as you open your eyes you find yourself in an ice cave and in this ice cave you're greeted by the most friendly rat in a hat who taps on your head with a paw going rat-a-tat-tat and then takes the hat off and bows down and introduces themselves and asks where you came from and how you came to be in their home and you're more curious about the fact the rat lives in an ice cave than you are about the fact that they're talking and wearing a hat and you hadn't even paid attention to the suit jacket they were wearing or the polished black shoes that didn't seem suitable for walking around on ice and they said that in this land this isn't unusual and they show you out of the ice cave and you find that here there are many ice caves but between each ice cave is open meadow and they say that it's just an ability they have here to be able to manipulate the elements when they want somewhere to stay they have the ability to manipulate moisture so the moisture in the air coalesces and turns to ice and in their mind's eye they have a sense of the shape they want it to be and it turns into a house and so they form these ice caves and the rat turns one poor palm up and thinks about a hammer and while thinking about a hammer an ice hammer forms in the palm of their paw and they hand that to you to prove a point that here mammals have the power over the moisture in the air they can turn it to ice or snow whatever it is they want they can form with it and you say that you're unsure why you found yourself here but here is where you found yourself you explain that you were just sitting down eating some soup and the rat says perhaps you should take a look around and see if you can figure out the meaning of why you would be here and they recommended that to travel around faster perhaps you should ride on one of the horses and they call over one of the horses who responds with a yawn and the most british accent you've ever heard so british it almost seems put on and as the horse trots over so its hooves seem to be playing music with each step and the most relaxing tune with a rhythm and a beat to match the strides and the horse comes over and the rat says will you give my new friend a ride they're here in the middle of somewhere but they don't know where here is and the horse says but you've just told me that here is somewhere so don't they know that they are somewhere and the rat says i think they know they're somewhere they just don't know where somewhere is and so they'd like to know where that is and the horse says well do you want me to take them to nowhere because i know where nowhere is it's down the road from somewhere it's a short ride if that's what they'd like to do i can take them from somewhere to nowhere if they don't know where they're going and you ignore the conversation as it goes over your head and decide to mount the horse and the horse begins to trot along while engaging in conversation and as they talk and walk so you look around and you try to avoid asking about somewhere or nowhere and the last thing you know you want to do is tell them you're happy to be taken anywhere in case they actually do that and so as you head from somewhere perhaps on a journey anywhere but knowing you could end up nowhere you continue exploring this land and the horse takes you through the land through the grass through meadows along the edge of a river until eventually you arrive at some mountains and the horse explains that they're not really built for climbing mountains their hooves just don't work so well for that but they tell you that there's someone here who might be able to help and you look around and you can't see anyone and the horse walks over to the edge of the tree line at the foot of these mountains and whistles up into the tree and out of the tree a spider descends and this spider sounds so friendly and looks so cute with large eyes and a fluffy body and you say that you've never seen a spider looking quite like this and the spider says is it because of my jumper?

Not many other spiders are knitting spiders you get jumper spiders who like knitted clothing but they don't normally want to do the knitting themselves and you get spiders that like doing weaving and living in weaved holes but they never seem to knit anything for themselves but this spider explains that they do enjoy knitting the only thing they like more than knitting is swinging from tree to tree and walking the tightrope they create between trees and they drop down,

Land on the ground they see what you're wearing and they say that's not suitable for a trek over the mountains and then they head into the woods gathering up different plants and mosses they come back and seemingly rapidly they start knitting and the first thing they knit is a sock they tell you to put that on just over your shoe and then they knit another sock which they tell you to put on and the socks are knitted with different things and don't look at all the same but they say that is it really about what it looks like?

These are being knitted for your comfort not for you to look at and admire and so you put both the socks on and they carry on knitting and they knit you a long jumper and you place that long jumper on and then they climb up onto your shoulder and you begin to ascend the mountains wrapped up so warm the knitted socks over your shoes seeming to do a better job at gripping the ice and the snow below as you crunch your way through that snow and you say goodbye to the horse and you crunch and walk ascending the mountains as the day continues on and as you near the top of the mountain so twilight begins to set in and you're curious whether you're going to make it somewhere to stop before the sun's fully set because you know you're not going to make it all the way over the mountain and the spider tells you there's a perfect cave just a little further up not too much further to make it and then as you continue ascending and the sun continues to descend the stars rise in the sky and the moon starts beating its silvery glow over the mountainside making the snow glisten like a million diamonds attached to the side of the mountain so you see the faintest hint of a glowing light flickering gently in the night and the spider directs you towards that glowing light as those socks continue to work almost like magical shoes helping you climb this mountain with ease and as you near the glowing light you realize it's an oil lamp outside a cave and the mountain levels out slightly you head over to the cave you settle down in the cave and just inside the cave you light a campfire and the spider sits down beside you as you sit and talk to each other while relaxing in that cave before drifting and floating asleep knowing tomorrow you'll make it over the top of the mountains down the other side as you fall peacefully and comfortably asleep and the next morning you awaken to the glow of the sun weaving its way gently into the entrance of the cave the fire now completely burnt down but still giving off just the slightest warmth and the spider says that from this point you can probably complete this journey yourself they've helped you this far you'll be at the top of the mountain within a couple of hours and it's all downhill from there they say with a wry smile and so you say goodbye and set off heading up over the mountain and as you head down the other side you have plenty of time while looking over the view to ponder the entire experience to try to think about what it is that you're here for what's your journey and the words of the wise man go around in your mind about the important thing being the journey not the destination and you continue down this mountainside and while continuing down the mountain looking out across the view you see that this side of the mountain is mainly desert at least stretching out as far as you can see and as you get to the foot of the mountain so you walk into that desert and you begin to walk through the desert and find it's difficult work walking through this desert your feet constantly sinking into that sand as that loose dry sand blows around you gives way beneath your feet making it more exhausting to walk this side than it was even walking on the mountainside and as you walk you think this would be so much easier if this sand was wet because then it would hold it together and while you're thinking that you feel some drops of rain but as you look around you you don't see any clouds and then you notice above you a rain cloud forming and you're reminded of what you were told earlier and with a smile you think even more about the rain as that rain cloud forms above you starts to rain around you soaking the sand beneath you and as the sand soaks and the rain cloud gets a little larger so it's raining around a wider area around you you start to run across the desert you realize we're moving fast it's like walking on custard that the faster you travel the more solid the surface is and so you run at a comfortable pace in the rain in a dry desert leaving this trail of rain and wet sand behind you feeling cooled by that rain helping you to traverse this desert even easier and eventually deep in the desert you see the top of some ruined buildings looking like they were covered years ago as the desert has gradually traversed the landscape you stop at those ruins and take a look around the ruins you see that there's a small gap you can probably squeeze into to take a look inside these ruins and you head into that gap and it's such a relief being in the ruins compared to out in the desert in the desert it was hot the wind would whip up the sand but down here it's cool and you shine a light around the space and you see this space has a certain peaceful quality to it and there are some pictures painted on the walls looking like they were painted generations ago and some of it looks like it was marked with chalk and the only way for that to be possible is if this landscape was very very different at the time this place was inhabited and you wonder how long ago this place was inhabited as you look around and you see a staircase leading down and you follow that staircase deeper under this structure and you notice artwork which looks Egyptian and you enter a corridor and on one wall you see a picture and in the center of the picture is a drawing of a scarab beetle that's incredibly colorful like someone's put a lot of work into creating that and on the wall opposite the scarab beetle is a picture of what looks like somebody carrying a goat under their arm tucked into a coat it's almost like a flash of light goes off in your mind making a connection with that morse code like an aha moment exploding itself into your consciousness not just creeping slowly but just suddenly being there that the scarab beetle doesn't like the goat in the coat and you see these two pictures on opposite walls and you don't quite know there's something just on the edge of consciousness that you're trying to grasp and you think the best way to grasp an idea on the edge of consciousness is to move on,

Continue down the tunnel and so you continue walking down the tunnel walking along this corridor looking at the different pictures on either side what looks like an Egyptian priestess priestess holding an offering and wearing unusual earrings walking a bit further and seeing some pictures looking like another offering and you carry on walking and at the end of this corridor is a mirror resting against a wall and it doesn't seem like the location the mirror is supposed to be and so you take hold of that tall mirror you move it around and as you move it around and see the way the light reflects off of it you have an unusual idea you take that mirror back down the corridor and you place it over the person with the goat facing that scarab beetle and then as you step out of the way so you notice a beam of light reflecting back and forth between the paint of the scarab beetle and that mirror and that beam of light starts to hum and the color of the light start to become more vivid and as they do so it's almost like the light becomes a liquid flowing and starting to fill this space and it fills the space with the most comfortable blueness like an ethereal blueness that permeates through you and as it envelops your body so you feel your chest,

Your arms,

Your legs pulse and stretch out of your body like consciousness leaving that physical self there and as consciousness floating above your body you look back and you see your arms spread gently and comfortably out your legs resting barely touching the floor your back very gently arched your head slightly back as if you're resting on the surface of a pool of water just floating there gazing up at the sky the whole body weightless and relaxed and you see a golden thread between you and your body and find with a thought that you can move away from your body you can explore beyond the corridor you can rise up and see the land and explore this land you can think about anyone or anything anywhere it can be somewhere,

It can be a place it can be nowhere or it can be anywhere it doesn't matter where,

You can think about them or it or that and you're there observing you can think about any time and find yourself in any time it's almost like the cogs in your mind have been freed to circle and move empower your mind in a way completely unknown where you go with the flow where you move with resistance where everything that happens in any given moment is treated as the right thing to be happening in that moment where you take that right thing and just direct it in the direction it needs to go you know it's so much easier to redirect a river rather than stop it and try and force it to change direction and so you find your mind connected as a spirit with this world around you and you have the most incredible experience of deep learning and an understanding far greater than you could ever explain and the experience is timeless there's no future or past,

Just a present,

This moment and you enjoy this moment before following that golden thread through space and time easily and effortlessly back to your body settling gently down in your body as that blueness fades and while the blueness fades so the paint on that scarab beetle begins to chip off a little bit and some small scrapings of the paint fall to the floor as delicately as a feather falling to the ground and as that falls to the floor so it begins to sparkle and twinkle and it turns into something as it lands and on the ground you see what looks like a very small version of that scarab beetle only made out of copper and you pick it up and you touch it to the bracelet and its legs wrap around the copper of the bracelet and seem to pull tight on the bracelet pulling itself into the bracelet becoming a smooth and flat part of that bracelet as if that's how it was always made and then you begin to find your way out of this space with this curious experience you've had you head out into the desert you sit on the sand near the desert you think about the experience you've had as you take that flask from your bag and when you go to drink from the flask you suddenly become aware that you know the smell of that soup that sweet soup smell suddenly evokes a memory of the smell of hot apple cider bringing a deep comfort through you of an idea of a distant time maybe another life of relaxing in a cornfield on a sunny day enjoying a drink of hot apple cider with some friends and you drink from that flask and you find your mind opening deeper and then you carefully remove that copper bracelet from your wrist and as you do everything around you begins to glitch and fade and shimmer and a hum begins to reverberate around you and you find yourself back in that archaeological dig tent holding that copper bracelet in your hand holding your flask in the other hand and you look around you and everything looks normal and you look at that copper bracelet and you see that scarab beetle on the copper bracelet and you know that it wasn't there before and you place that back in the box with the tusk and you talk with others at this archaeological dig and you share your expertise only you share more than you otherwise should have known because of your experience you share that there should be some evidence of a settlement just a little way along these undulating hills you share that it seems like everyone left before the tsunami hit and that they must have known that that was coming and you don't explain how you know any of this you just say these are your hypothesis and you're shown to a tent you'll be staying in for the night you stay in that tent thinking about the experience you've had pondering its meaning and as you lie down to sleep so you start to feel a deep connection with the world around you as if something about that state between wakefulness and sleep allows you to connect with a deeper reality and you wonder when you head back the way you came whether you'll re-encounter that wise old man whether you'll decide to pick any of those mushrooms for the future and you know more about making a potent version of that drink than perhaps that wise man even knew but for now you settle down in the tent and you drift and float so peacefully so calmly relaxed asleep into slumberland