Your entire life, all your experiences, thoughts, and memories, all your quiet victories and deafening defeats — everything you have ever known is something like an epic movie, being projected upon the empty screen of consciousness. This screen was present before the movie ever began, is present during the entirety of the film, and remains present long after it ends. As vivid and intense as the film ever gets, the images on the screen never affect the screen itself.

And yet, when we are so fully engrossed in the dancing images of our lives, it can be very difficult to notice the screen itself, even though it underpins every experience we have ever had. In what might be described as an existential suspension of disbelief, we no longer notice the permanence at the very core of consciousness. Rather than identifying with the eternal presence that we truly are, we tend to identify with the sounds and visions of our relative existence — seeking refuge within the film itself, losing ourselves in the characters and story arcs and special effects. Seldom do we notice the empty screen that lovingly embraces all we have ever seen, heard, tasted, or felt; the empty expanse upon which the living light of reality is cast.

- Corey W. deVos -

art by Andreas Rocha Artwork - Fantasy Theater