Elysium

One particularly beautiful place in the Astral Plane is an area I can only compare to the Elysian Fields. I was given this comparison after describing the place to someone else. While far from a perfect match, the general idea seems to fit well.

There is a field of flowers, as far as the eye can see. Tiny wildflowers grow here, with different colors and shapes, different scents and textures. It is so truly beautiful it's enough to make you forget to the physical world exists. However, the place is inextricably attached life on Earth.

Each flower, in this immeasurable multitude of blossoms, has a story. If you focus on it, bring it close to your face as if you were trying to smell it, you will hear its tale at once. It is an instant knowing.

It will tell you the story of a single human life, how they lived, how they died, and what was important to them in their living. What they kept, if you will, when passing on to the next phase of existence.

Some of the stories would be very sad if you heard them in the earthly plane, but here they don't seem to be so. There is beauty and light even in the deepest darkness. Other stories, if you heard them told in the earthly plane would sound like stories of great victories and lives well lived, but in the end what's kept doesn't seem any better, more meaningful, or richer than that of an ordinary man.

This is not to say that what's kept are always family ties, spiritual experiences, or qualities and experiences seen as pure in the eyes of the predominant religions of our time. Generally, though, it seems that what people hold onto for the coming phase are the memories of what brought them to most true joy in the one passing.

To genuinely understand what I'm attempting to describe here you will have to experience it for yourself.

I spent a great deal of time in this field of flowers as a teenager. I could have easily lost myself completely, and not known or cared how it happened, or perhaps even that it happened. So you may need to be a little careful, and mindful of your existence in the physical if you visit this region.

If you have an interest in the human condition the stories are very intriguing, and incredibly enlightening if you have the ability to learn from the experience of others, not all of us do. The stories may teach you how to live so that you have a lot worth keeping when you pass through. They may also soften your heart to the nature of men, even men that you would normally view as wicked.