The Sands in Our Eyes

The Japanese Shinto religion speaks of a certain essence called the kmi. This is essence is
innate within everyone, and when in a communal gathering honoring the presence of kami is
held, that essence also conglomerates into a form of mega-consciousness. The magnitude of
what happens can only be compared to a divine power. As such, the Japanese see themselves as
part or having a part of something sacred. In Christianity, we have a similar yet gravely
overlooked comparison when Adam was given the breath of life from God.

This easily illustrates what I think of Gods beauty, and dont get me wrong here. Beauty for me
is not of an apparent quality. It is more of an essence that completes our humanity, and given
the limitations of our earthly existence, we can only bear so much. We do not easily see this
beauty because that is the downside of our earthly existence. Our bodies, if anything, hamper us
from attaining the divine.

Because of our physiological needs, we thirst for many things. Affection, intimacy, gratification,
pleasure, our bodies answer to these primal needs while our spirit is in chains. The worse part of
it is that well never get out of this vicious curse while were on earth. St. Augustine puts it more
eloquently when he comes clean to God on his vices and frailties.

If we want to count in Gods presence, it will not be based on how we react as the vulnerable
humans that we are. Our spirit alone is the measure of our divinity, and the proof of us as Gods
creations. It is His breath that sustains us, after all. And if were finally confronted with this grim
truth, wed all understand why St. Augustine nearly trashes himself on God, degrading himself to
a worthless scum.

This spirit is the spark of divinity within us, the thing of beauty in us. A pair of blue eyes and
rich blond hair is not beautiful to me for it does not exhilarate ones heart. A man talking about
his passion for films and his thoughts on pursuing screenwriting no matter what; or, a young
woman with a sad family history hell bent on pursuing his odd bunch of dreams as a doctor and
a fashion designer; these are what I find simply beautiful.

I believe dreams are the manifestations of that spirit; that spark within us. I actually had that idea
when I read Neil Gaimans Sandman comic series. Sandman is a god-like deity that gives
people dreams in their sleep. He even has the power to enter in them. He manifested how
dreams can drive one man to build an empire, or make leagues and pantheons of gods rise and
fall, or change ultimately the fate of the entire universe. At the ending where the Prince of
Dreams died, many humans stepped up to speak of him in his eulogy in the land of the
Dreaming, of course while in their humble sleep. It was one of the best funerals that I have read
about.

Since then I believed in the power of dreams. Every time I would ask one person of their dreams,
it would light up their eyes and they would start talking about their passions, or if I inquire
about their life story and they would start coyly but continue on with a sense of pride that they
have surmounted such challenges. Right then and there, in the midst of verb, the warmth of
their deference to these dreams and stories would rub in you.

Stories are fragile, temporal vessels of our dreams. Many people would agree that it
immortalizes people as in legends and epics, but I think literature does the opposite. It buries us
deeper and deeper into dusted libraries, all the tales of imaginary lands and alternate realities
forgotten with torrents of paper and ink. Your story would be as good as the people who have
been with you lives. Why stories, then? Because we need them.

Humans need tales to survive. The essence of stories is not merely to express. It is to
encapsulate time and weave words to create the setting and perform where we mold the
shadows that will roam our minds world. Stories awaken us to the fact that we are also creators
as we are creatures, too. Quoting Professor Dumbledore, Words are our inexhaustible source of
magic. It is the inexplicable magic when we hear how the prince goes to save the princess, or
how the son manages to defend his dead fathers dignity, where the beauty of stories lay.

Again, we do not need tales to express or to be remembered. We need stories for that brief time
when we hold our breaths from the first inhale up until our last sigh after the ending. We need
time to be not-human. It is a transcendental act that we do for the sake of ourselves, as spirits
encaged in flesh.

Stories and dreams are why I fell in love with my first love, or how I started with my odd
fascination with astrology, and my inquisitive attitude towards the people I meet. Getting to
experience this beauty over and over again is a privilege as a human who is tragically flawed,
vulnerable, seeking the beauty of God because it will be his only way back to where he belongs.
It is a humbling experience; a certain kind of warmth can envelop anyone who reads a good
novel, or anyone who hears a good story, or anyone who intensely performs poetry.

What explains then, this warmth? Simply enough, it is love. That special deference towards their
dreams, and the serious amount of thought and time it takes them to realize it, only true love
can fill such arduous task. Love and love alone, even St. Augustine can testify, moves us to our
dreams, manifests that divine spark within us, the beauty of God; ever ancient, ever new.