“Yak’s Room”

“This small bedroom functioned for Skylar as a cave did for a young sadhu, as the Telesterion, or great hall, did for initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries, as an incubator did for hatchlings, and as the crow’s nest did for the lookout on Magellan’s Concepcion when the ship emerged from the Chilean straits and its sentinel first glimpsed the Pacific Ocean. Protected within the walls of this 8-by-15-foot chrysalis, the larval Ohioan began the metamorphosis that would one day allow him to fly, a child’s delight, on spotted fritillary wings. Here, in three-quarter repose, he would, like that hermit in his hilled niche, begin to hear the silence of his own Being, not figuratively but literally, in crepitations like those of some vast crinkled foil at the base of everything. Here, like the ancient initiate into the Greater Mysteries, he would consume a communion sacrament or kykeon, travel through dark, netherworldly places, and experience release from chthonian depths into the brilliant heaven that was Light. Here, in this protective alcove, wherein the conditions of acceptance, freedom, creativity, philosophy, joy, and love had been optimally set, the fragile egg of his soul would have the best chance for healthy development. Here, in a sort of elevated oasis, tucked off from the warring world, the youthful explorer would witness, spread out before him in every direction, that great calmness, that tranquil sea, that ocean of Being.”