Unchanged And Unchanging

I am Pygmalion and Galatea, Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn, the excavator and the pit.

It is my job to find the jewel within, the chalice, the seed inside the stone apple, the life that is the epitome of life.

A bit of dusting, some major hacking away and finally out with the tiny diamond chisel to refine the details until what is left is so ethereal it is hard to discern at all.

Like a Trojan horse, I am not what I appear to be at all. Bones and muscle, crinkly eyes and smile lines, character and voice, tone and tune, all are only the coat and undercoat of the real me. Peel them away, one by one until they are all gone and I am here.

Here where I always was, where I always am. Here in the present, unchanged and unchanging.

Unadorned by all these heavy trappings I find myself where I never thought to look. Past my wrinkle lines and baby teeth. Past my birth and death. Past all thought and desire....I exist alive and living. Water from ice. Lava from rock. Breath beyond breath. Beyond definition. Beyond recognition. Almost beyond discernment...

I Am the I am.