The Desert Where Serpents Dream

The Desert Where Serpents Dream

A Past Life Recovery from the Path of the Black Magician

By Trace Burke

They told me I was not chosen.

Not with words like knives, but with the silence of gates that would not open. The temple stood white and shining, sunlit and cold. I came barefoot, robed in linen, hands stained with blue lotus and wine. I spoke of visions. Of dreams. Of Ra’s voice singing down the Nile. Of a serpent I had seen in the place between sleep and ash. They laughed. Sent me away. Said the gods choose their servants.

I wasn’t meant to serve.

I was meant to remember.

--

I met him at the edge of a storm, wrapped in robes the color of moonless water, lined in blood. His face was not a face, just a hood and two eyes that saw through bone. He smelled of iron, frankincense, and something old. Older than the Pharaoh. Older than Egypt.

“You want to be chosen,” he said. “Why not choose yourself?”

“I want to be initiated,” I answered.

“You will be,” he said. “But not here.”

--

He sent me into the desert. No map. No blade. Only a flask of water and a bottle of elixir that hummed when I held it.

“Walk,” he said. “Until the desert speaks.”

So I walked.

The sun flayed me bare. The dunes whispered in tongues not meant for breath. My feet bled. My skin cracked. I wept once, then forgot how. I dreamed while walking. Saw golden eyes beneath sand. Heard drums echo in my marrow.

And then, I found the bones of a village, half-buried in wind. Three stone houses. Silence wrapped in silence.

I fell inside one and slept.

I did not know I had entered a den of serpents.

--

I awoke with vipers on my chest.

Still. Watching.

I did not move.

One rested above my heart. Its eyes like obsidian suns. It raised its head, and I swear I heard it say, “Now.”

It bit me.

Right here, lip to lip. As if to kiss.

Pain turned to light. Light turned to dream.

I drank the elixir.

And the desert began to remember me.

--

I saw him again, the Magician, his staff striking fire into the sand. He walked circles around me as my body lifted into forms not taught by men: ribcage rising, spine coiling, tongue singing in unknown vowels. My arms stretched like wings. My neck bent back like a bowstring.

Then: darkness.

Then: stars.

Then: water.

--

I lay in the temple of my own body, submerged in a pool that did not exist. He washed me. In silence. Then touched my chest, my throat, my crown. He reached into the heat between my legs and drew the serpent forth, not a metaphor, not a dream, but a living god shaped like fire and breath.

“Name him,” he said.

“Uraeus,” I whispered.

The snake slithered into my mouth, down my throat, and coiled at the base of my spine.

I became his altar.

--

When I returned, the Magician said nothing. He handed me a black robe.

“You’ve found what the desert was hiding,” he said. “Now the temple will no longer refuse you.”

--

Twenty-five years passed.

I healed. I taught. I watched the serpent grow, curled behind my ear, draped over my shoulder, whispering names I had forgotten were mine. Uraeus was not a pet. He was the memory of what I was before I was born.

Then one day, I returned to the temple.

--

The priestess met me at the gate, draped in white and gold, adorned like purity given form.

“You cannot enter in those robes,” she said.

Uraeus heard her before I did. He slid down my arm, coiled around hers. She gasped, paralyzed.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

She wasn’t. No one was.

--

I walked in. Alone.

The temple groaned like something ancient stirred.

I lay upon the marble slab in the center, arms open, serpent poised.

The sun shaft struck my chest.

I felt my ribs break open.

Light poured from my mouth.

--

That day, the temple did not initiate me.

I initiated it.

And when the Pharaoh came to take it back, I met him at the steps.

He called himself the voice of Ptah.

I spoke the language I learned in the sand.

He bled from eyes and ears.

And when I whispered into his skull the name of the true god,

He fell like a puppet cut loose.

--

I healed him later.

I told him, “You go through me to commune with the gods now.”

And he did. --

I am Terek, Son of Ra.

The temple lives in me now.

And the serpent?

He dreams through my tongue.

So beware what doors you close.

The desert is watching.

And the Black Magician does not knock.

--- Actual Transcript from the Past Life Hypnosis

On laying on the temple altar:

I laid on the marble platform and waited for the sun to align with the shaft. When it did, it hit my chest. I could feel it's warmth radiate through my core, and my body contorted. My ribs opened and once in position, the light came out of my mouth. That’s when the temple knew me. On naming the serpent:

The Black Magician asked, 'What is its name?' And I said, 'Uraeus.' And he placed the Spitting Cobra on my chest, directing it to slither up and into my mouth. I stopped fighting. I allowed it to go inward. It curled downward, back to where to it came from, coiling around in my stomach. Then he guided it back upward, through my body, and it wrapped around my head, poised and ready to strike.

On rejection by the temple:

The Priestess said, 'You’re not fit.' And I said, 'Tell me what makes me unfit so I can fix this error?' She spoke loudly, drawing attention to me so that I could be mocked, 'The gods have not chosen you.' I stood in silence for a moment and then responded, 'I am chosen. I was told to come here.' They all laughed at me and she sent me away, denying my Initiation.