The Fragrance
Guest Piece
Español |
Guest piece inspired by “The Bees” / Part 1 of eXis
Author: Diederik Vemer
The Fragrance
There was something about that day… The laughter of the morning had shaken loose the straight lines of the city and set me free from them. I recognised it as it happened, with a small internal confirmation that it took about 3 days for the softening to occur. It felt clean in my hand - a warm stone of remembrance. My Self, washed clean of the city’s mind, looked out with fresh eyes into the natural space between Sea and Mountain. It had rained last night, washing the dust out of the sky and leaving everything sharp and crisp —as if God had cleaned His glasses. I was still for a moment, resting in what was happening, and in this space Andreas called out to follow him…
The bee lighted on my finger and watching it, time froze. So cold and Still, it cracked open to reveal something glimpsed in the corners of consciousness, but never seen. Now here it was - an instant that lasted forever - and none of my senses could make sense of it, except … it had a fragrance.
It smelt of honey and sweat and ice —raw, clean and present.
“I” had disappeared and in its place was “This”.
“Nothing’s going to happen Gael” drifted across the timeless field and I knew he was right, everything was right. The hand that gripped mine was my hand, the sound of the bees was the blood flowing in the veins of a body. Whose body? Where?
I rested in recognition in the endlessness under a blanket that obscured no light. A canopy of bees above us, the fabric of the world was gently brushing against itself like a flag in a breeze of God, rustling out a story that required no pencil.
Like the unified mind of the swarm, any ideas that I was apart, disconnected and requiring completion were obliterated in the gap. “I would rest here” I thought. But that too dissolved.
Even before the words came I saw them forming in the ether like patterns extruded from a memory. An idea in the idea-less space presenting itself:
“I missed you Gael” walked across Presence like steps across crunchy gravel and I noticed “I” was what Andreas was looking for, “I” was what I was looking for and it was here - in a gap in Time; the fragrance of Presence.
Honey and sweat and ice.
I’ll never not remember it.
About the Text
The Fragance turns the bee scene into an experience of consciousness rather than a simple memory: the self dissolves, time is suspended, and everything condenses into a single sensation, that smell of honey, sweat, and ice that remains as a trace. The text works beautifully on that border between body and presence, between physical perception and something larger, a kind of totality. It’s a brief, contemplative, and deeply sensorial piece that expands the bee scene from eXis into an openly spiritual territory while still feeling intimate and personal.
Gon Vas
About the Author
Diederik Vemer The spiritual aspect of this life - which had been at play in the background ever since the age of ten - has flipped to the foreground. Once an architect but now no more. That mind trained to find order in structure now focusses on the order inherent in the structure of The Endless. My prayer is that confusion is dissolved in Clarity ♡ Still listening to how this unfolds and how it is shared, so follow me to hear when Silence speaks. What I do know so far is that it’s very good news : )
 | A guest post by
|