I wrote this piece after reading many of C.S. Lewis' differenty writings about heaven. It is still a work in progress, but i think the general idea is clear enough. Enjoy!

Before I fell asleep, or maybe after, (how can one ever really tell?), I had a vision, or a dream, depending again on that approachable but indefinable boundary of wakefulness and sleep. I found myself atop a mountain, with no sense of height nor depth, no spatial understanding of my location except the sight of the rock descending steeply on every side of me.

I could not move. Not due to my zenith location or from fright of falling, but due to what my eyes beheld. The shards of brown stained rock shimmered in an all-illuminating golden light. They seemed to bask, to stretch, to delight in the warmth. Slowly, their stains, streaks, and imperfections began to rise, to float off the shale and granite and hover momentarily – impurities poisoning, scarring the brilliant illumination. Quickly, though, they fled from the fluorescence. Remaining too long, some suddenly burst into infinitesimal, white-hot flames, and vanished; ashes and all incinerated. As I stood blinking, staring, wondering at the unencumbering of the rocks, they began to take on an entirely new appearance. Each stone now shimmered with millions of pure minerals: gold, diamonds, silver, rubies, emeralds, and untold others for which I have no pre-existing likenesses with which to describe. Not that the solid earth turned into other entities; no, it simply became a translucency I could not fathom. All at once it gleamed like pure white marble, without a single impurity, while at the same time, displaying unspoilt gems in a magnificent array of colors distinct as well as unified. As a rainbow consists of white light broken into its composition from other colors, those stones displayed the true purity in their depths. The reflected light became almost too beautiful, too complex in its simplicity for me to bear. As my eyes slowly lifted form the spectacle of the mountainside, my awe unimaginably increased. So focused had I been on the mountainside, I had neglected my own being. Now, as I observed myself, I understood the rising sensation of weightlessness within me.

The same phenomenon that had enraptured me in the rocks was also occurring to my own body. Putrid black snake-like shadows writhed out of my skin, squealing in high-pitched screams of pain and fire. Fighting to remain inside of me, it was as if the streaming light invaded their nests and inexorably forced them out of their entrenchments. My body began to burn, but without pain, a weightless fire of white light saturated me. Faster and faster, louder and louder the shadows fled my being and my mind. Eerily screeching, they fled in pain or exploded in flames once they had been purged from me. Some of the final shadows were larger, slower, and as they emerged, I could noticeably feel the absence they left behind. These must have carefully dug their way into the depths of my being and become fat and content on the exploits of my filth before I stumbled into this penetrating light.

My head rang with music, heavenly harmonies, overpowering and demolishing the petty, shrill cries of the shadowy serpents. My blood ran smoothly and quickly through my glowing veins; the air replenished my muscles. Each breath became almost unbearable pleasure because I felt every cell receiving energy; each individual component of me, every particle of my being joined in reveling in oxygen, in the purity of true air. I became disoriented, my senses unaccustomed to this explosion of nature. Music vividly emanating, air penetrating, skin tingling with unquenchable and voracious fire, nostrils stretched to capture scents familiar, yet louder, bolder, unexplored depths of smell. My eyes, though, underwent the most indescribable transformation. The tangible light penetrated my opened windows as if fingers of fire, of heat and light, without pain were forcing their way in to my brain, my thoughts.

The whites of my eyes became indistinguishable from the light, no boundary or difference separated them. My pupils, wide with delight, started into a magnificent tunnel of white purity, distance meant nothing, only light. Rings of fire, dancing and rejoicing flames surrounded, framed and invigorated all that I saw. The purified stones now seemed utterly natural and unable to appear any other way. Their gleam and my sight, the whites of my eyes, the golden white light, the fire were all one, inseparable. The air became more dense, or perhaps I began to evanesce like the air, I cannot understand, but everything began to merge and emerge somehow.

Finally able to raise my eyes level, I beheld glory untold. Before my eyes, surrounding me on every side, infinitely stretched were mountaintops as mine. Each peak was lit as if in a spotlight, a spotlight casting down light purer, hotter, and whiter than the purest of sunlight. I saw others as myself, atop their respective peaks, in all different stages of metamorphosis. Some, head downcast, swam with slithering shadows; I saw them so clearly! Others gaped in awe as they observed their own purging. Some stared back at me connecting their pupils to mine, as if we were right next to each other, within each other, radiating, sharing, becoming, as I was, this unnatural, or, should I say, truly natural light. As I studied the scene more closely, I realized I had missed an entire element. Scattered amidst these enlivened peaks, outnumbering them by untold numbers, were darkened, unlit mountains. The light of this world being so brilliant, so engaging and so beautiful, I had failed to notice these nether regions. Looking more closely, I felt my eyes flinch with distinction, blink at the impurities and division to which I was subjecting them. These other mountains crawled with shadow; I could barely discern light and beauty in their depths. Each peak also contained an individual, although they seemed to be an entirely different species from their enlightened brethren. Some of these people, as their mountains, seemed on the verge of allowing light to invade their realm. It sunk heavily right above their head, and stretched and battled with the serpents within the individual, trying to join in a wholly purifying unification. On others, the gleam of fire fought a losing battle and rested further above the downcast heads, completely unaware of anything beyond their inhabited shadow world.

The most disturbing peaks, however, were the third species. Occupying enormous portions of space, I could barely sort through the thickened, black air to see the individual. Great, obese serpents reclined and even turned to look at me with conquest and satisfaction, scarring my eyes with their vile faces. They could not look long, though, I realized, for although they caused me sadness and discomfort, the glory that emanated from me, from the whites of my eyes, incinerated their eyes when they attempted to meet my pupils in their tunnel. Barely a spark of light, flickering valiantly, always hopeful, but repressed, neglected and ignored, smoldered within these people. I connected my eyes here, attempting to impart strength, hope and vigor, but I do not know how much I helped. I felt burdened by the unnatural weight of these shadowed peaks.

Returning my attention to its natural focus, its shared glory, fire and light, I felt my being slowly lifted off my perch. “Lifted,” is the only verb I know to describe the experience, but it is far from accurate. I did not begin to float or change from standing to flying; instead, I simply existed amidst my same substance. I stood on air, in a sense, I stood on myself. Air surrounded and became me. I did not feel as if I was walking on solid ground, yet I had no sensation of “flying.” I simply moved amidst, among, and within my very essence. Where I ended and the light that bathed me began, I could not say. I still remained a distinct entity, nonetheless, I felt my body, my person, but I also experienced a type of dissinegration or translucency to physical light. I moved through it or it moved through me, I cannot say which occurred in reality, only the sensation of bathing, wading, or climbing without effort in water or fire that bore no essential difference from myself.

Searching my also rising companions, I witnessed this transfiguration from the outside. Somehow, the unification of flesh and spirit did not conceal or demolish the body. I witnessed these figures mingling in the light; I watched their demarcations blur and sway, but their figures also became radiantly distinct. Instead of either spirit or body dominating the other, both somehow achieved a higher definitiveness, a higher existence by their purposeful abdication. The body did not become spirit, nor did spirit disappear into a perfected body. Instead, spirit and body unified into a perfect harmony between distinct melodies. My chest felt as if it would burst, I did not feel capable of containing such unutterable, ineffable joy, such vast emotion; perhaps, my translucency assisted me, for all the air and fire cradling me contained this same vastness of joy and beauty. As I feasted on its delicious heat and beauty, my diaphanous skin allowed my own inner radiation to pass into the light. Absorbing more of this essence with all parts of my body, simply allowed me to share more of it. Insatiably I devoured this joy, and luminously I exuded as well. In this way, I remained on the threshold of collapse, of immobility, but I never crossed over.

As I slowly became accustomed to my seemingly precarious, yet perfectly secure position, I began to revel, to dance, to thrust my hands into the air, shout, and sing as loud as my newly formed lungs would permit. I had finally discovered the limit, the perfected ledge, the ultimate saturation with love, joy, and beauty; I could go no higher, yet neither could I descend. I rose suspended in the fire, looking down in the darkened abysses, without fear of falling. Assured of my place amidst these pinnacles, soaring, crawling, dancing and sliding within myself, I finally found the courage to look upward towards the source. My two fiery tunnels turned skyward, toward the heavens, the place of man’s inspiration and awe for so many centuries. Blue no longer, sun and stars overwhelmed by the brilliant white fire, unbrokenly layering the expanse, I leapt as my pupils connected with their superior. The whites of my eyes blazed white-hot, wonderful searing heat, life giving, satiating. Pouring into their windows, seeping through my translucent skin, music penetrating my deepest thoughts, I savored the purest flavors of honey, the most penetrating melodies, a bath more invigorating, more tangible, heated in soothing fire, than even poets could have imagined or artists conceived.

Embedded in the heavens were two pupils as well; only two, but wherever I looked, they stared back at me, and I had no doubt they were doing the same to others. Body, fire, light, and spirit all existed unencumbered above, in absolute and necessary harmony. It seemed as if whatever I wished to see existed, whatever I possibly imagined had always been. At first I imagined a body like mine, and I saw one far surpassing in its capacity for vastness, able to contain as well as project all the beauty and fire that encompassed me. Next, I envisioned a mystical spirit, hovering, consuming, unembodied and it was, and had always been so. Pure fire, white light displaying its striations of colors while remaining untaintedly white, hovered over all. No body had ever restricted its movement or existence. Both had always been, both were, both would always be, I knew. I understood, though in reflection it seems paradoxical and absurd. As I traversed the streaming tunnels of fire, reveling, soaking and reflecting at all times, I saw the isolated mountain peaks begin to grow. The spotlights began to grow, increasing in scope and intensity. Others joined our heavenly host and I felt each new arrival in the pulse of the shared spirit. I saw the enormous swath of darkness, the valleys and concealed summits begin to shrink from exposure, withdraw into themselves. Helpless creatures, consumed by their own darkness for so long, lay prone or on their knees, exposed to reality and light, and their horrifyingly piercing wails and pleadings punctured the harmonies above. A cacophony of squealing protest and screeching pain was visible to me, and my heart stretched to share its light for comfort. However, most could not stand the harshly exposing, incinerating fire, and, embarrassed by their nakedness in the new light, they attempted to flee to shadowed shelter. Slowly, though, methodically and decisively, our being, our essence overcame and pitiful, hateful black creatures began exploding into white-hot flames; their cries lost amidst its harmony.

Finally, the world lay exposed to Reality. Like the transformation of the stones I watched so long ago, all the earth released its impurities, its tainted hues and obscuring shadows. Everything shone in translucent white color; everything became as I – beauty. Swimming through the air, sprinting in its embrace, my heart rejoiced. I had become myself and all had become me. I had become all; and all was. As the whites of my eyes burned aflame, vitalizing and enlivening heat, I became overwhelmed by the brilliance of the majestic light. I became dizzy, disoriented, and incapable of seeing anything clearly any longer. I stumbled in the air and fell awake, back in my cold and shadowed existence. My mouth hung agape and my soul rejoiced, and I knew I must share what I had seen. I had to share who I had become, who I will become, who I am. I only wish I could have more accurately portrayed what shone through the whites of my eyes and what now smolders in the unreachable region of my soul, its vastness and invigorating fire, but these polluted words will have to suffice.