By River Rapunzel Blavatsky

In my dream, Rockstar and I are passengers aboard a train called the No Narrative Express. We are winding through the Rocky Mountains toward a sanctuary advertised as the Monastery of Pure Presence. Through the windows, we see prayer flags fluttering in the thin air and snow-capped peaks that seem absurdly high.

According to the promotional brochure I’m holding, our destination promises to be a retreat center dedicated to "the dissolution of all personal narratives." It’s a “retraining facility” where visitors learn to "abandon the illusion of individual stories" and "merge into the undifferentiated ocean of being."

The marketing copy makes my creative soul feel like howling dark chthonic oaths to summon Hecate. But as is our occasional practice in both dreams and waking life, Rockstar and I have deliberately entered an environment that gets us riled up on behalf of friendly shock awakenings and in protest of soggy, sappy, insipid brands of disembodied “enlightenment.”

Among our fellow passengers are spiritual seekers and teachers, many dressed in muted earth tones, as if bright colors might accidentally tell a dangerous story that will hurl everyone into the pits of hell.

One is a renowned American mindfulness instructor who teaches about "the futility of narrative identity." (Though I notice he keeps checking his phone for messages.) There’s also a British meditation master famous for her work on "ego dissolution." Her luggage is covered with stickers from her global speaking tours.

The American woman seated across from us is a famous spiritual teacher. Her expression is serene to the point of vacancy. In her books and videos, she dismisses personal stories as delusional ego constructs that distort our relationship with reality. To be fully wise and perky, she says, we must condemn our precious narratives to the blandest abyss we can find.

Rockstar and I exchange glances, each of us winking our right eye and arching our left eyebrow. That's our secret code for, “How can we cause maximum polite trouble?”

"Excuse me," I say to the teacher, "I have dutifully and pukingly read your work on shedding and escaping our stories about ourselves. A nagging question chafes my soft underbelly."

"Nagging questions arise from your inability to simply commune with raw reality," she replies in a voice like distant wind chimes. "The goal is to see through all stories. To recognize that there is no one here to have experiences, no narrative thread connecting one moment to the next."

"What about the story of how I learned to paint?” I say. “The way each canvas taught me something new about color and light? The narrative of my relationship with creativity. Isn't that a marvelous gift from life’s bountiful array of blessings?"

"All stories are just mind-made and mind-mangled constructs," the teacher says. She seems averse to looking me in the eyes. "They keep you trapped in illusions that alienate you from your actual experience. True awakening comes when you realize there is no 'you' to have a story."

"My story buddy here and I disagree with your dank assessment," I say, feeling the rebellious fire rise as I nudge my elbow into Rockstar’s ribs. "We are acutely and exquisitely sure that at least some of our stories aren't prisons. Just the opposite. They are the Big Shiny Dark Storyteller’s way of knowing Herself through infinite unique perspectives."

“What’s the ‘Big Shiny Dark Storyteller’?” she says flatly, not in the mood for a little fun.

“You know,” I say. “The Almighty Melodramatic Dramaturge. The Serene Explosive Everything Laugher. Aka the Vast Sentient Exuberant Intelligence formerly known as God.”

“That’s just nonsense. You’re wasting my time.”

“OK, sorry. How about if I phrase it this way: My mythmaking friend here and I ferociously and precociously certain that at least some of our personal tales aren't the equivalent of spiritual penitentiaries. Just the opposite. They are the universe’s way of knowing itself through infinite unique perspectives."

"The universe doesn't need your little story to know itself."

"Watch this," I say, pulling out my sketchbook. I begin drawing our conversation. Not just the words, but the energy, the gestures, and the way the mountain light plays across faces.

I say, "This story—right now, this moment—is the Divine Wow creating Herself afresh. My mother's hands teaching me to draw. The story of how my bond with my soul friend here expanded my perceptiveness and made me a better artist. The narrative of how he and I have learned to love each other better and better as the years have gone by, and how that richness is imbued in every one of my pencil lines. These aren't obstacles to enlightenment. They're enlightenment celebrating itself."

“Stories are what keep you identified with a small wounded self,” the teacher grunts with more than a hint of impatience. “They're false maps that divert you from experiencing your true nature, which is beyond all stories.”

"What if that's exactly wrong?" I say calmly. "What if our selves are marvelous creations that are among the universe's most magnificent achievements? What if our stories express the essence of the Creator's creative glee?"

"You want to know what I think?" Rockstar says, butting in. "I think the universe is a Boundless Radiant Benevolent Rogue who creates trillions of marvelous ongoing stories, fresh in every moment. Our little stories partake of the magnificent blissful play of the Big Story."

"You are romanticizing the very prison that keeps you from true freedom,” the teacher says, though her eyes are drawn to my sketch. “You are attached to forms that will pass away.”

"Of course they will pass away!" I say. "That's what makes them such treasures. The story of this train ride and the story of this conversation: They will never happen exactly this way again. That's not a bug, it's a feature. The Holy Sideswipe Serendipity Engine creates through stories because each one is a unique facet of Her infinite creativity."

"Please stop fantabulizing,” the teacher says. “There is no such absurd entity as the Holy Sideswipe Serendipity Engine and all your other ridiculous names. Stick with ‘universe’ or ‘life’ and you’ll have more credibility. In any case, the universe has no need for stories."

"The Vast Sentient Exuberant Intelligence IS stories!" I say, my pencil still moving across the page. "Look at that mountain range. It's telling the story of tectonic plates and millions of years of geological drama. Those prayer flags tell stories of human longing and devotion. The snow tells the story of water's journey from ocean to cloud to crystal. Every atom in existence is participating in the ongoing narrative of creation."

"Those are not conscious stories," the teacher says.

"What does that even mean?" I ask. "What if consciousness isn't separate from story but at the heart of it? What if the Divine's consciousness expresses itself with exquisite flair through the ceaselessly inventive stories being lived by every being, every galaxy, every grain of sand?"

The teacher is unmoved. She says with more certainty than seems warranted, “To see, perceive, and experience life without any story, so that the bottom falls out of the center, is truly the greatest act of compassion you can do for yourself and others. Because then you are self-less. Free of that degrading error.”

"What if," Rockstar says, "the goal isn't selflessness but glorious, unpredictable, imaginative selfhood? What if we are designed to become the most gorgeous versions of ourselves possible?"

The teacher shakes her head firmly and turns away. "Enjoy your pretty illusion prison," she mutters. “I feel pity for you.”

"In my art,” I say, unfazed, “I've learned that every brushstroke tells a story: the story of pressure and movement, of color meeting color, of intention becoming form. When I try to make art without story, it dies on the canvas. It becomes empty technique."

"Your art is ego expression."

"My art is the Absolute Peekaboo Surprise Authority expressing Herself through these particular hands, this particular sensibility, and this particular lifetime of experiences. When I paint, I'm not separate from Her. I am Her learning what it's like to see through these green eyes and create through this unique constellation of experiences that is my story."

“The big hole at the core of your delusional theory is yet another bogus story that there is such a thing as a creator deity. And furthermore, that it is a She.”

“I refer to the universal consciousness as She, though of course I understand she is pangender.”

“There is no universal consciousness of any gender,” she says with utter finality. “Everything that exists undergoes endless random cycles of formation and dissolution, driven by karma, accident, and natural laws, not some big creator’s design.”

“How astounding it is for me to witness the emptiness and sterility of the world you embed yourself in,” I say.

“I am as free as it’s possible for a human to be,” she says. “No attachments, no worries, no roots. Just raw reality and me.”

As the train sways around a mountain curve, Rockstar intervenes again. "You teach that stories are illusions,” he says to the teacher, “but what if the teaching that 'there are no stories' is itself just another story? And not a very interesting one, actually."

"It’s the story that ends all stories, is it not?" The teacher says.

"But why would we want to end stories?" I ask. "Stories are how love learns to express itself. They're how wisdom gets transmitted. They're how the Divine experiences what it's like to be us."

"Because attachment to stories causes such intense suffering,” the teacher says, for the first time flashing a smile, albeit a macabre one. “You believe so many erroneous but very hurtful things about yourself and the world. No need for that at all.”

“Of course I understand that not ALL of our stories are true, empowering, and real,” I say. “Some of our stories do indeed weaken us. Some are rooted in delusions about who we really are and what life is about. And it’s crucial that we identify those debilitating stories. Shed them and abandon them.”

Rockstar pitches in: “But just because some of our stories distract us from our soul’s mission doesn’t imply that all our stories are inherently problematic. In a similar way, we might observe that some of our dining experiences have been awful, but that doesn’t mean we should disown food as being harmful.”

"Some stories cause suffering," I add. "The story that I'm separate from the Omnipresent Seed Bomb Director is painful. And the story that the world is meaningless. But the solution isn't to abandon all stories. It's to find the true stories, the ones that heal and connect us to our deep nature."

Rockstar nods. "Like the story of how River and I met at dawn in a cemetery on a pagan holiday where 31 souls were celebrating ‘A Happy Birthday for Death.’ It’s clear from such a novel invention that the Goddess who keeps recreating the universe in every new moment is a consummate artist and a daring dramatist. Spinning tales is Her wheelhouse. She’s an exuberant storyteller!”

"Not so,” the teacher says. “In truth, your so-called interesting story is a mildly interesting example that personal love is just another attachment."

As I add an image of the mythical Garuda bird god to my drawing, I say, "Love is how the Joy Leaking Root Manager experiences what it's like to care for Herself through billions of innovative plot twists. Every love story—romantic, familial, friendship—is Her learning new ways to cherish Her own creation. She really is insatiable in her adorations."

“I wonder if you know the work of Clarissa Pinkola Estés,” Rockstar says to the teacher. “The Jungian psychotherapist and folklorist. She says the right kinds of stories heal the distressed parts of our psyches. We can attract the right kinds of stories that will heal our wounds by reframing them as an initiation.”

The teacher looks out at the mountains, and for a moment her mask of serene detachment wavers. "Stories end in loss. Everyone you love will die. Every experience will fade. Better to not grasp after any of it."

"Yes, stories end," I say genially. "But they also begin. And while they are happening, they are the realest of realness. The story of this conversation will end, but right now it's exciting my joie de vivre. The love between Rockstar and me will change form, but for now, it's a slow-motion epiphany that keeps making us ever smarter, kinder, and wilder.”

"And what about the story of your own spiritual quest, which I read about in one of your books?" Rockstar asks the teacher. "How on one terrible October morning many years ago, before you embarked on your teaching mission, you were lying on the floor of your ramshackle cottage in a state of despair and self-loathing. You were overeating cheesecake, addicted to wine, popping Valium pills like candy. But then you experienced the miraculous breakthrough that catapulted you out of your squalor and launched the career that has made you rich and famous?”

“Praise to you for giving us that first-rate entertainment,” I say, not meaning to chuckle but nonetheless chuckling.

The teacher goes quiet. She studies my sketch, which now includes her. I’ve drawn a faint smile touching her lips, not the weird one she has now, but the one I imagine she wore during her milestone upgrade.

Finally, she speaks. “That story . . .” Her voice catches, and for the first time, it sounds human rather than ethereal. "That story saved my life."

The train rounds another curve, and through the window, we see the monastery ahead. It’s a collection of simple white buildings nestled against the mountainside.

"Here’s a theory," she says slowly, watching me add shadows to my sketch. “Not saying I believe it. But I’m willing to imagine it from your point of view. Maybe you would say your so-called “Divine Intelligence” tells interesting stories because that's how She falls in love with Herself over and over again."

Rockstar grins. "Now that's a story worth believing."

As the No Narrative Express begins its final descent, the teacher pulls out a worn journal from her bag. Its cover is decorated with pressed flowers and ticket stubs, photographs and handwritten quotes: the accumulated artifacts of a life fully lived.

“Curious that you brought it with you, eh?” I say.

“Maybe,” Rockstar says, “you had an inkling you would meet two story lovers who could offer you new perspectives about stories.”

"I haven't written in this journal for years," she says. "I long ago decided that documenting my experiences was just feeding the ego. I carry it with me just to remember where I came from.”

"The ego does create stories," I tell her, closing my sketchbook, "but so does the soul. Yes, the ego may try to hijack the soul’s stories. But when we let the soul's wonderments flow through us, they usher us home to who we are becoming."

The train pulls into the station. Through the windows, we see other passengers from different cars beginning to disembark. They are talking animatedly. I like to imagine they are sharing stories of their journey.

On the platform, the teacher disappears briskly into the line of pilgrims heading toward the Monastery of Pure Presence. Her spine is rigid, her journal clutched under one arm like a relic she refuses to admit she still secretly cherishes.

Rockstar and I step off in the opposite direction, toward the overlook where the wind is loud and the mountains are telling a billion-year-old cliffside epic.

He exhales a laugh, half triumphant, half incredulous. “Well,” he says, “that was a respectable round of cosmic mud wrestling.”

“Not bad at all,” I reply, tucking my sketchbook under my arm. “She didn’t soften, but the conversation had teeth. And thunder. And at least three surprising plot twists.”

Rockstar nudges me. “You were magnificent. Like a purveyor of a mythic trial-by-dialogue. If they gave Olympic medals for dismantling disembodied doctrine, you’d take gold.”

I bump him back. “We did it together. You were the perfect tag-team partner. The way you invoked Clarissa Pinkola Estés? Chef’s kiss. I almost saw her doctrinal fortress quiver.”

We turn to look at the monastery. Its white buildings gleam with an austere invitation neither of us finds remotely tempting. Pilgrims file toward it silently, as if entering a museum designed to display the absence of story.

“Strange,” Rockstar says. “People come all this way to erase the very thing that makes them real.”

“They claim they want freedom,” I answer, “but what they’re chasing is anesthesia.”

He laughs, low and fond. “Meanwhile, we’re out here tripping on meaning. High on narrative. Drunk on plot.”

The wind rips a prayer flag loose and sends it fluttering across the tracks, flapping like a bright, liberated punctuation mark. I scoop it up and tie it to my wrist.

“Another artifact for the archive,” I say.

“Another story for our book,” he adds.

We start down the mountain path that leads away from the monastery, our boots crunching gravel. Each of us humming with the particular electricity that comes from standing together against the barren insistence of story-denial.

Rockstar squeezes my hand. “One more debate survived.”

“One more reminder,” I say, “that our holy, unruly, honey-dripping stories are worth defending.”

We walk on, radiant in our teamwork, carrying our stories like torches in the thin-air dusk.