Plunged into darkness, cold and wet.  My eyes were open, but I couldn’t make sense of anything.  I needed to breath.  As I fought  to grasp what was happening I recognized  I was under water.  A few air bubbles escaped my lips in fright and danced up my cheeks.  I kicked my legs and used my arms to climb the water.  It was painful to hold my breath, but what was even more painful was the anxiety of failure that washed over me.  I clutched to the idea of life and endured the pain.  I broke the surface of the water and gasped and coughed for air.  I wanted to cry, I was so happy, I was so terrified, I was so lonely.  As the burning in my lungs subsided and my breathing began to find some regularity my mind once again turned to my surroundings.  I was moving, I could feel waves lift and drop me with the rhythmic caress of an ocean.  I struggled to reorient myself and to open my eyes.  I brushed the water away from my eyes and opened them to the sting of salt and a glimpse of, nothing, more blackness.  It was as black as a raven lost in the depths of a coal mine, and just as lonely.  All I could see was the  static that my brain painted, like looking at the inside of my eyelids.  With imaginary glimpses of what might be lights or shapes dancing.
It was cold, but not unbearable.   In fact it was a welcome sensation, one of the only senses that helped to tether me to reality.  The waves calmed me, and my breath fell into harmony with the movement of the water all around.  I realized that searching for answers here was a fruitless endeavor, and so I turned inward.
“How did I get here?”  I asked myself in a weak unrecognizable voice.  I couldn’t recall what had happened before.  I closed my eyes to recall a familiar face.  My mother?  A friend?  Anyone?  Still the canvas in front of me remained black.  What about a place, My home? Anyplace?   My mind shot to where I was right now, this place, I imagined the rise and fall of the waves, and the blackness of uncertainty.  I opened my eyes only to be transported immediately there.  
Time passed, how much time is impossible to tell.  The only measure of time was the count of waves, or count of breaths, and an uncountable number of each passed.  The only power I had was the power to remain afloat, and the power to control my breath.  I had the power to shorten my breath and feel a panic, or to slow my breath and feel peace.  I also had the power to explore, as little I could.  Several times my curiosity turned courage and I allowed myself to slip under the surface of the ocean.  I would sink and push myself down as far as I could before being gripped by pain and fear, and resurfacing as quick as possible.  Each time I slipped a little deeper, a little colder before reemerging.  Each time I returned with no answers and no light to shed upon the situation.

“Who am I?” I asked myself timidly, in a strangers voice.  I couldn’t recall a name.  I couldn’t recall a home, nor a family, nor an event.  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my face and like a dam breaking a saw a face, and another, and another, millions of faces all passed before my minds eye.  Women, men, and children, each one as real as the last each one adding to the last overlaying and becoming brighter.  Elderly and young, colors and cultures, clothing and tatoos, jewelry and mutilations.  I saw them as they were physical beings, and I saw who they were through the actions which defined them. In an instant I had seen and known every face throughout history, but the flood continued.  I saw the fabric of life, the roots of the plants connected to the the energy of a sun overhead.  I saw animals and the rocks and solid which supported them and humankind alike.  I saw a sapphire green sphere and I saw waves of emotion, waves of conflict, waves of rebirth and waves of growth washing over it as it ever spun.  Everything passed before me and imprinted onto what I had seen before, until all that appeared was unified in the mightiest star of all stars.  

“Who are you?” a voice from within asked.  This voice was different.  This voice was strong, clear and purposeful.  It was a new voice, the unrecognized voice of a stranger, but it inspired trust and respect immediately.  I opened my eyes and was back in the blackness.
My mind raced to try and respond, who was I?  What was I?  I couldn’t get my bearing in the frigid world around, neither could I orient myself as to myself.  I had no memories to draw on except for my recent escape from the deep.  The pictures I had seen seemed gray, faded and distant, and even the bits and pieces I could still somewhat recall from the chaos of the whole, I knew were not mine to begin with.  I had no identity, no frame of reference.  I simply was.
“Who am I?” I shouted in response.
Out of the darkness appeared a point of light above me.  A star, which brought the water around to life.  It shone with every color and vibration of light.  The light of the star danced across the infinite ripples in each wave and washed over me as a new emotion.  Joy.  
“You are born, you are life, you are part of me.  But now you must learn to be YOU.” the voice replied.
“Who am you!?”  I shouted in response to this unknown concept.
The light above was continuing to grow in intensity.  I could now see my hands moving through the surface of the waves.
“You are a being just like me.  A powerful force in the ocean of life, a controller of your universe.  But unlike me you have been blessed with the gift of YOU.  You are free from the infinite, you are free from the limitations of all-knowing.  You have the chance to discover, a chance to choose and try anew.  You have the chance to learn.  And despite when, and what you do, I hope you will return here, to me, and share with me what you have learned.”
The light above now shone with the strength of 100 Suns, and I could feel its warmth penetrating the water and warming me.  As a wave lapped over me I saw the rays of light extending for hundreds of meters below, still disappearing into the unknown.  I climbed to the surface.  
I had so many question.  I was still overwhelmed with confusion.  I didn’t understand what I was, or what YOU was.  
The star was now not so much above me, but around me.  It filled the entire horizon.  It was approaching me.  It was not blinding, nor hot.  It resonated with the same light I had seen in my minds eye. 
The voice spoke to me one more time.
“I will always be with YOU, and YOU with I.  Whenever you clear your mind of distraction, I will speak through YOU.  Good luck and good journeys below.  
As the words echoed through me I reached out towards the surface of the star which was now just above my head.  My hand passed through the layer of plasma which danced like the waves underneath.  I saw the gaseous light eddy and move around my hand.  I saw the faces and the roots of the plants I had seen before growing, changing and fading.  Always changing, but always connected.  And in an instant the star exploded and expanded to the heavens above.  It divided all around me.  Supernovas of every scale and magnitude from the size of a pea, to the size of galaxies, pushed and compartmentalized the stars to the galaxies of the universe.   There was order born out of the chaos.  The stars arranged themselves into constellations stretching overhead.  The nothing that had left me not knowing before, was replaced with an infinite which left me not knowing still. 
In another instant I was pulled under the water.  This time I was not afraid.  I was pulled into the darkness.  I was not afraid.  I was pulled through the abyss.  I could breath.  When I opened my eyes I was greeted by bright light.  Color and shapes all around which painted an unfamiliar world of new abstract unknowns.