We are all pilgrims each with our own journey

And so they set off to find the edge of the earth. Travelling only with faith and hope that their travels would bring them full circle and deliver them to the beginning in time for a new start. They waved good-bye and with each sweep of their hands the people on the shore grew smaller and smaller until they had become one with the horizon. Waves lapped at the sides of their small ship ticking like a clock timing their travel. They remembered how people had laughed as they built their boat and prepared to find the edge of the earth. How as they left they heard a chorus of non-believers chanting, "idiots, look, a ship of fools". Time passed, as it always does, but in this sea, supporting a ship of fools, time started to bend and vibrate and wonders began to appear. We called them wonders because we wondered what they were. Strange shapes played before us like wisps of smoke taking form and then drifting into nothingness. Creatures playing to the left and right, but as you turned they were gone and you wondered if they had ever been there at all. We journeyed on through the rolling sea; flying fish barrelled out of the mists, changing shape, leering at us with peeled back lips and gnashing teeth and plopped back into the water laughing at our startled faces. Above us we felt a rushing, a pulsing of air, pushing us on, urging our journey, encouraging our foray to the edge of the earth. We thought back to the start of our journey, back to our loved ones, warm in front of their fires and we imagined ourselves standing behind them and in that instant we were, but in a changed state, and our presence in the room made them uncomfortable and they got up and checked windows and doors for the draft we were causing. We were bending time and the wind the waves were being stirred by was seeping back into our loved ones living rooms, with the curve in time we were causing, cracks were appearing in and around what we believed and it was becoming hard to understand why we had been frightened of the past and the start of our journey. We saw ourselves balanced on an enormous disc, our little ship the bravest warrior the world had ever seen and us with our maps and telescopes a series of eyes documenting, remembering, imagining wanting to bring it all back to explain. It was then we saw a small ship on the horizon coming toward us and we realised it was us coming back from where we had been and meeting ourselves, but we were younger and smaller and we saw the fear in our faces and felt the panic in our hearts and realised this was not a normal journey, and to journey to the edge of the earth was an undertaking that all must do, and the fear of the fall as you find the edge, is the fear we all fear most, and the fear that stops the journey, and as we came closer to the edge, to the abyss, our hearts and souls began to rejoice at the prospect of the fall, but our minds began to race, and worry, and cry, and claw at the ships oars, and try to paddle away from the edge. But as we fell, our hearts began to sing like the purest of angels and the sound melted the fear in our minds, until it became an intensity of colour cushioning our fall. And all at once we were the ship, the angels, the colour, the people at home, the sea, the world, the wind, and more than we can comprehend or explain. We were a light brighter than the brightest thing you have ever experienced and then even brighter. To tell you this now brings tears to my eyes and in our little ship we clung together and had no words for what we had seen, just the knowledge that we had been to the edge of the world and returned. And as we approached the shore and were embraced by the warmth of home, we knew nothing would ever be the same again. The bend in time our journey had caused, had shaped the earth in our minds into a perfect sphere and now we could see planets, moons and stars swirling around us. The sun left and rose again, the moon carrying earths shadow buried itself in the sea only to be born again and we, we stood together staring into the vast changing blackness, and just for an instant, we weren't frightened anymore. We knew where we fitted; we knew our name, and the name of who had made us. We didn't need to speak or fill the space time had left. There was no time and space was a chattering, humming, living thing; we were one person an I, a you, a me, and an us.