That morning I drove through a dawn sky so glorious I thought the world had come to a spectacular end.

I drove as a vehicular robot while tears forced their way out on a bore tide.

My route is a weekly occurrence, same time, same speed, same stops and starts, but today I was certain I would die before I arrived.

The massive sun pulses like an orange human, pulling me further out on my own river with each beat. I am molten, formless, in a silence shroud.  A synapse pops and I suddenly feel exactly why I learned to drive: to flow out I need automated speed at this moment.   But am I really moving?  The gold leaf samovar of sky is running and we are part of it.

I pass a few vehicles and look across to search for other tears and glory on drivers, but they chew gum, drink from hot tins of coffee, talk illegally on their phones. No-one seems moved, so this dawn must be for me. It must be my turn to die today.

Flowing forward on my tears I notice another hidden orb reflecting through silver and bronze clouds. Can it be the moon? My river turns to silver now, cool, wise. How privileged to be served up with wisdom and passion in one splash. This sky silence has spoiled me forever I smile, and the close-guarded secret of the illusions of time and space are out of the bag.

Now I know the sky is not too high, the earth is not too still, and our edges are not real at all. I am inside-out, wielding an acetylene torch to cut through the thunderous blue between the two orbs to reveal a vertical scratch of white light. Aboriginal desert dwellers call this the Djang, the final moment when the human spirit climbs out of its human chrysalis to travel on.  They long for it from the moment the oxygen is connected to them.

That morning my robot delivered me to my usual destination. I sat on the temple boards, palms together in gassho, serious on the first day of winter austerities.  The Djang dawn was my robe and hood drawing all the Buddhas in close. And then I opened my physical eyes on an etching of my Djang sky in gold. The sky was the sky.