"Memory thus becomes the deepest hidden recess of the mind, in which God dwells by his light, and where he teaches us as our "internal Master." To learn and to know intelligible truth is, therefore, to remember in the present the everlasting presence of the divine light in us."
-E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages

Contents-
Prologue
Memory
Two
Three
the Gift
Five
Six
Seven
Descent
Nine
Ten
Epilogue

I was standing near the edge of the desert by the weathered-gray ruins of a church that hadn�t seen God for generations; when I saw him�walking.
When he came near enough, I looked into his eyes, and this was the story I saw there.
Having walked through desert time unmeasured, morning brought him to the open gates of an empty city. As he walked through it, every place he looked, every corner he turned, he saw an open gate leading to a different paradise�open for him, welcoming him.
There were a thousand gates to a thousand paradises. Each one complete. Each one the end of his journey. Each one all he could ever say that he desired.
To each he walked, gazed in, and grabbed hold of the heavy gate, pulling it slowly closed.
The onrushing chill of night brought him to the city gates once more, and as he pulled them shut�he knew that the desert was were he belonged.

The Raven, whose name is memory, on its way across the world, chased its shadow across the desert plains�to land on my shoulder, digging in its talons until the pain was more than real.
It cocked its head, leaned over to my ear, and whispered, "There are those whose duty it is in life to remember."
"Remember all that once was. Remember those who have gone before. Remember what they built, and what they dreamt. Remember where they lived, and where they bled. Remember.
"Remember until memory becomes your most precious curse, and you would rather give up the burden of your soul than the great sediment of memory you bear. Then, perhaps, you will know what it is."
And the Raven, whose name is memory, on its way across the world each morning�returns, from time to time, to open the scars on my shoulder and whisper in my ear, "Remember."

The ghost appeared naked, gaunt, and shivering from an unnatural cold�pointing at the empty page. She said speak, and I spoke�the black of ink on the white of paper�fire on fire burning. And the word upon the page was HOLOCAUST.
The God of the Jews looked up from counting the grains of sand on the beach, his gaze tore through me, looking for the guilt. It was not me! I had not been born yet! How could I bear the guilt! Still his gaze ripped through me like the crest of a mighty storm�until, distracted by a falling sparrow, he turned away.
Poor God, I thought, too late you look for the seeds of that evil. Where were you when the shadows of men�s hearts where gathered together into great pyre for your children?
Poor God, I thought, for you did not find the cold gem of blackest guilt I bear near my heart. As my fingers reached to touch it, its razor edges cut across old wounds.
And the memory rose up as a dark and terrible storm just over the horizon. Every rain drop of that drowning torrent, a tear shed for loved ones lost. Every gust of the raging winds, the last exhale of breath. The echoing thunder, cries to a too-distant God in a darkness lightning cannot penetrate.
So vast it cannot be held within belief nor imagination. To know it is to be destroyed�smothered by that human evil which shall rise ever again.

Wait�wait for it.
Wait�wait in fear.
Remember.

To speak the truth is to invite yourself to your own murder. Make the banquet table ready. Sharpen the knifes. Serve up the meaty chunks for appetizers. For wine, the vintage of our veins. The piece-d�-resistance, your heart looking small on a platter bathed in an erie blue flame. For dessert, the rare delicacy of a human soul.
However large the portions, they will not satisfy the assembled Ravens.
When all is ready, wait.
Wait.
Wait for them to finish. And when they complain that they hunger still�smile.

Then, one day, he tried to tell the Ravens about her. They gathered a black cloud of a hundred-thousand midnight feathers. Raising one foot then the other, closing too-keen eyes then glancing around warily�they listened.
He told them how at the beginning of all things one spark flew away from the creation-fire and fell through the stars. Unknown ages passed while it fell, until at last it fell into her heart at the moment of conception, and she grew shining softly with a divine light.
He told them how there were many who tried to posses her. And there were many who could feel the light and tried to destroy her. She herself grew weary of so great a burden, that she danced with the darker powers and looked longingly at the underworld.
Then he told them how he came to befriend her and then love her. That was when he could see the light glowing around her hard edges.
He told the ravens how he was happy at last and how he thought that she was his reward for all that he had gone through, that at last Atlas had been relieved of his burden now that she would be with him forever.
At this the Ravens laughed, for they knew that there was never any reward, only continuance. And that all happiness was based on an illusion.
But what of joy, he asked them. Joy, one said, is when you realize that what is real is more precious than your dearest illusion. And another said, your burdens can never be lifted, but if they are precious to you, you will never doubt your strength to bear them. At this he said, "I am blessed."

The darkness returned as it always shall, blown in on the wind howling from the mouth of the underworld. He sat in the blackest heart of the darkness while it whispered to him. This is what it said.
"You were born to bear the burden of the world. And when you saw that it was without foundation you stood on the firmament and grabbed it with all your strength until sweat poured at the effort. You will not lay down your burden for anything for it is your strength, it is your duty, you were born for this.
"But one day your strength will fail you, and when you fall you will see that the world will not shift. That all of our effort was in vain, and vanity was your life.
"Knowing this you will not change in your struggle for it is your strength, it is your duty, and you were born for this.
He replied, "I am no Atlas but a mountain which once upheld the sky and now seems only to obstruct its view. And if the mountain should one day disappear, there will be none who could remember or guess at its circumference or its height, but only think that once perhaps there had been something there."
And the darkness laughed, "How vain you are even in your vanity. Do you not know that this darkness is as much in our heart as you are in its? Do not flatter yourself that you hold up the sky, while you weigh down the earth. For hidden inside your love of humanity is your deepest hatred. It is your strength, it is your duty, it is what you were born for."

As he sat, broken, on a broken rock on a desert plain�the sun hid her face, and the desert was still.
The breeze of a thousand desert miles came to him, smelling no longer of anything alive, bearing no life of its own and said, "Forget words, for they are born and die on the same breath. In your greatest moments of Joy and greatest sadness they will always abandon you.
"They rattle as old bones in your head, past life, past caring to live.
"Know that all you struggle to say has been said thousands and thousands of times.
"Your suffering has always, will always be in vain. And yet you suffer still.
"Give up the struggle. Give up the pain. Will anyone benefit from it? Will knowing that you have suffered too, help anyone bear their own soul easier?
"What good will the love that you have for them all, do while you sit in the desert?
"Give it all up, lay it all aside. Your words are lost on the wind, we do not listen, it does not change our course.
"If this is your treasure, if this is all you have, then you have nothing."
At this he nodded, and when the breeze had passed he said to the broken rock, "I cannot say the world has forsaken me, for it was never here for me.
"I cannot say words have forsaken me, for they were never here for me.
"I cannot say the sun has forsaken me, for she was never here for me.
"The universe was not made for my pleasure, I was not made for my joy. The world and nothing in it owes me even the slightest nod.
"If I can know happiness for only an hour in the light of the sun. If I can see beauty in the distant desert mountains for only a moment. If I can feel a flash of hope when a strange bird�s cry sounds almost human, then I am blessed for truly I have nothing.
"Upon this rock I shall build no church."

Sometimes in the pain around his eyes you see the remnant of a dream, for this was how he came to the desert. Sometimes its voice echoes still in the everfull silence of death-chilled nights.
"As you were born in exile, go into the desert, for it is your kingdom. Leave behind all that you have worked for, leave behind all that you have known. Leave behind all that you have loved. The desert will take you into its heart, for it is in your heart always. It is beloved of God for it is desolate, and God only loves what is desolate, what is lost, what is beyond his reach.
"The desert is the landscape of your soul. Go into the desert, go into your soul�loose both and be destroyed. For it is your soul that weighs you down. It is your soul that hounds you and will destroy you. You cannot escape. Will the destruction. Will it and be damned.
"Take with you only the book in which your life is written. All you have learned, all you desire, all you believe, all that you wish, all that you know, all you have been, all you will ever be.
"Take it and sit in the winds of the desert. Open and read every page. And when you have read the page, when you have recognized your very soul in it�tear it out, separating soul from flesh, and give it to the winds. Do this with every page. Some will take an hour, others years. Some you will clutch in your hand in defiance until with the effort you pass out and fail.
"And when you reach the last page, blank as a snow field, close the book and forget it ever existed.
"Then the desert will be truly yours."

Oh the wax will melt, the feathers break away to follow the whims of wind. All wings fail. All flights end in the fall And fall you must. The apex cannot bear you, hurling you back again. Oh, but the abyss will unfold its darkness, inviting you to rest in your first and last home. Fall. Descend. Return.

With weary eyes, weary legs, and weary heart he plodded all day toward a well he saw in the distance. reaching it, he found it dry, with the white bones scattered in its long shadow of one who had made the journey before him. Sitting beside the bones, he waited to join them.
Too weary to curse his fate , he accepted it. he gathered together the bones and set the broken skull upon them, for he wanted a companion even in death.
As the shadows spread across the desert and rose to fill the sky, the ghost rose into the skull and accused him.
"Why didn�t you come soon enough to save me? I had a dream, so I came to the desert. I lost everything in my wanderings, even myself. I found the gates of paradise and closed them. The wind mocked me. The sun crushed me. The ravens laughed at me and said I would be their dinner.
"I came to the desert and found no comfort here, no mercy. I learned the language of stones, of sand, but they only know of what once was and has been lost. I have called to the sky, the stars, the sun, but they are silent.
"I came to the desert and gave up everything seeking what cannot be lost. I have filled with love and hatred, darkness and light. I have glowed like the sun and the heart of midnight. I have remembered and forgotten. I have been born and died many times.
"I came to the desert not knowing what I was seeking, finding only what I already had. Nowhere could I rest. Nowhere did I find a place to comfort or sustain me. I felt my strength wane, I felt death grow through me like the roots of a white flower about to send its bud to blossom. I saw this well, and walked towards it all day thinking it was my salvation, and found it dry.
"I came to the desert and found only death. I pleaded with the sky for rain. I pleaded with fate, with God, with destiny, for help, for life. In the end I pleaded with the ravens when they came, but they only laughed and pecked out my eyes and ate my tongue.
"I came to the desert and now I am part of the desert. My flesh has fed the ravens, and now my bones will crumble and the winds will take their dust. Why did no one save me? Why did no one or no thing show me mercy? Save me?"
He turned away from the skull and looked up at the stars before he replied. "You came to the desert and no one else. The desert is your desert, what did you expect to find here?
"You came to the desert and lost everything. The desert took from you everything and will soon take even your bones and you do not call that mercy? The desert was always your desert. You chose to come here, you came here alone. The desert can only be the desert. If you did not want to be here, why did you come? If you did not want to die here, why did you stay?
"You came to the desert greedy. You found only what you already had, what else would you find here? You came to this well hoping for salvation and found it dry, what else would you expect in the desert?
"You pleaded for something or someone to save you, how could you expect the desert to save you once you had fallen down here to die? You want too much, the desert is the desert. It takes, it does not give. You were greedy for help so you lay down to die. But the desert kept no secrets from you and when you wanted to die it let you.
"Nothing could save you then, nothing can save you now, and I no longer desire your company." With that he struggled to his feet and plodded on by the light of the stars.

When on the ninth day he lay dying, exposed on the desert floor, the raven, who�s name is memory, landed by his shoulder, cocked its head sideways, then hopped toward him and dug his eye out with its beak.
The pain and blood revived him enough to utter a far-off whisper that did not even reach his ears, "Why?"
The raven, who�s name is memory, paused to finish swallowing the eye, then bent to whisper in his ear, "that you might see better."
"I cannot see at all."
"Already your vision has improved."

So, with every breath a spark of life flew free to ride as pollen upon the wind. For the seed of death planted in his heart at birth had spread its dry white roots through all the veins of his body, and now its bud was rising up through his mouth to blossom. Only the fat old fly on his lip knew that he still lived.
The ravens fell upon the rocks and sands around him like midnight�s shadow and waited, for death was their favorite flower. The stones waited silently, patiently, for the company of his bones. The wind brushed across him whispering, "...all is for naught, all is for naught, all is for naught..." As the bud rose through his mouth, he tried to say "remember," but could not. Each moment stretched and tried to touch infinity, but did not. The ravens stilled and cocked their heads.
Thunder shattered the heavens. The wave of a wing of clouds spread over the sky, brushing aside the impotent sun. Thunder tolled. The ravens fled.
The thunder spoke -
Time is that it may not be.
God is that he may not be.
Man is that he may not be.
The heavens fell in flood. Lightning danced across the plain, across his empty eye, his empty mouth, his empty heart.
The storm warred upon the desert�turned sand to mud, ravine to river, plain to lake�casting the sun from the sky.
The thunder spoke -
Abandon faith
Abandon hope
Abandon love
Abandon fear
Abandon sorrow
Abandon self
Abandon life
Abandon the desert
For the desert is within you.