This is the fifth and final chapter of this short foray into fiction. Here is a link to the first for those who may wish to start at the beginning. We’ll return to our normally scheduled programming shortly, which as you may well have surmised, means I have no idea what comes next. Thank you so much for reading…
* * * * *
Thinking there was a distinction between what was Love and what was not Love was the greatest handicap I ever faced… thinking there was a distance between who I was and who I might become. These enticing distinctions held me under their perpetual sway, threatening me with assorted castigations lest I provide the satisfaction they so desired. The judgment. The righteous choice. The verdict. They strung me out on their sweet promises, then blackmailed me into refereeing their silly games.
They forced me to call the balls and strikes of my own heart.
– – – – – – – – – –
When I yanked out the wire and tore through the web, I was freed of this thinking. I was no longer hoping to fulfill the promise of a better nature—no longer hoping to get my shot at setting things right. I was no longer hoping to be one who would be remembered, nor one who wished to be happily forgotten. I was no longer questioning my ability to find the wire, or capable of doubting my courage should the wire be found.
Screw the wire.
I was simply moving into the heat of the furnace with the full power of my being. I would find her, no matter where she was.
I stepped through the doorframe into a meadow of dried grass– a land of knee-high husks. The sky was clear, the light low and golden. The air was crisp and cool. It was the plainest it could be. The simplest. It was Occam’s razor at its sharpest. I followed a short trail of her blood, moving like a summoned power until I found her lying on her side. Blood was slowly bubbling from a gash along her ribs as I knelt down beside her in the grass.
She tried to raise her head in greeting, but she hadn’t the strength. It only fell back down into the straw. Her eyes were bulging and her breath coming in furtive lunges. I placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her, and I saw Jesus’ eyes again, in mine– those dancing flames. The entire glade was full of such light. Feeling the whole of her struggle pass through me, the urgency of her every inhalation dispersed into the sky of my own being. Little by little, she relaxed beneath my touch. Her breath deepened. Her pulse slowed. I ran my hand along the bridge of her nose, and when I rounded her nose she licked my hand, as if finding nourishment there.
She was my heart.
She had come for me.
I had come for her.
Such knowing, when it finally comes, is plain. It arises without contest. The light of the glade was clear on many such points. The wound at my side, for instance. Gone. As if it had never been. The light spoke of such things simply. The light carried the story of how she had stepped forward, and walked through my pain to carry me out. The light spoke of rejoining, and as we breathed together her own wound naturally came clean. When mystery is all you know, there can be no mysteries.
You think a pain is your own, your burden to carry, your puzzle to work out. You think you must master it. Be the one to set things right. The light was clear on this point: you must only be willing. Willing to let it come. Everything. That you might discover what never was, and what has always been.
The juncos began to arrive as she scrambled to her feet. They came one by one and perched on stalks of grass throughout the field, some near and some farther away, waving easily beneath the sky. Jesus and Hafiz were crossing the field to meet us. They were chatting. Hafiz wrapped a blanket around me. He welcomed me back with a long embrace, saying little. What could be said? The waters we each navigate are unique, the miasmas bizarre and isolating, but the journeys identical. Notes of such things cannot be meaningfully compared. We are each a secret meant to be shared the way bread is broken and passed around the table.
Something had passed from me, had vanished forever, but I couldn’t quite say what it was. No one could. The light was suggesting it really didn’t matter.
We put a blanket over her shoulders, too. She was leaning into me as we stood there, keeping close, pressing her weight into mine. We were relaxed. Emptied out.
Clean.
Hafiz passed me a cup of hot tea and milk.
As we walked towards the road, I knew we would find shelter a little ways away. That’s what the light was mentioning. There’d be a family, and a meal. Children chasing each other around the table. Smiles and shrieks. Pony tails and elbows flying. There’d be little things that mattered more than I could ever explain, like the place settings. The rug by the door. The placement of the windows.
Jesus and I would slip out the door late in the night, and behold the stars. How could one story matter? How could it matter at all?
Yet how could it not? For everything had arisen, just so. Each star in its place.
By the time we hit the road and turned to face its length, she was gone—back where she had always been.
She was home. Inside of me. Where I could never lose her again.
Embracing Forever 
Beautiful how you pulled it all together after much wandering and mystery. I’m glad she’s back home in your heart. Thanks for the pointers along the path Michael. 🙂
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Thank you for reading and sharing here once again, Brad. The moral of the story is obviously don’t leave the gate to the sheep pen open overnight, and also don’t sneak into other people’s apartments when they’re not home. Weird things might happen and leave you momentarily discombobulated.
Michael
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LOL. Watch out for those sheep! 🙂
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🙂
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Mysterious, poetic, and masterful!! I am enchanted by the beauty and truth written into this work. Peace, Michael. ~Dennis
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Thank you very much, Dennis. I am delighted to have such feedback from such a fine distiller of truth and beauty…
Cheers! We are in the midst of a good vintage…
Michael
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sipping tea
wiping steamed tears
from my eyes
as this love story
comes full circle.
the no place like home
aimlessness of already
being what is sought
all over again.
smiles for all
attending the picnic 🙂
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Tears in the tea. Salt from the heart, falling from the sky, draining to the sea of being. The circle continues without end, but somehow, through some grace or insight, we catch on to this Love Game, and then the entire circuit takes on a whole new depth. The entire circle brightens, and you discover you are in the company of friends. Thanks for your delightful and heartfelt comments, David.
Michael
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lightly sharing my experience
of your impressive expressing
of life’s most pressing answers 🙂
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🙂
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It’s a love story! How my heart sings for a love story. I should love to sing you a tree if I could. I will someday. A nice sturdy one for climbing and swinging, with a nice view from the branches. I absolutely love how this grand finale zooms right into the dinner table, the flying pony tails and elbows. Perfect. I know this place, and it is sacred, though I often forget. Searching for the big answers and philosophical punchlines can only be helpful if you can used them at the dinner table, sharing them, as you say, like breaking bread.
This is a love story. And she is so much, and though I’d like to write about my understanding of her, I prefer not, and instead hold a little space for your her in my heart. The inspiration no doubt. Exquisite. Thank you.
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You didn’t know it was a love story!? What other kinds of stories are there? Ha! 🙂
I forget the sacred that is all around me, too. Then the old soul gets parched. And it’s time to set down the logic and the urgency, and get out the x-ray vision of witnessing the present.
The inspiration for this piece far transcends any specific person, though specific persons have served as living doorways to this place. And there is indeed one who had her hand placed upon my heart throughout the storms…
Your comments are exquisite gifts as well.
Thank you!
Michael
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Yes, I know this inspiration, and she does transcend people, and words. For me, it was a male energetic, probably because I am female. (There’s that dang logic again…) But I would say it is a love story of the soul, manifesting in and out and just the way we need it. I love the mirror here, the depth and bravery and tenderness you bring to it. There is a scene at the end of The Celestine Prophecy (kind of a new agey but sort of cool movie based on a new agey but rather cool book), wherein a young man and a child are sitting outside, cross legged on the ground, almost like they are playing marbles or something, with calm happy faces, handing a luminous orb back and forth to each other. At every reception the orb grows larger, the energy stronger. I feel like that is happening in this wonderful virtual space we’ve all created here; bloggers and commenters and passers through. Kind of like a beautiful cosmic dinner table. Could you pass me the bread please?
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Andrea, your comment here reminded me of a section in A Course of Love where Jesus talks about the way returning to our heart often involves a movement into our opposite tendency– e.g. for men who (may be) more often more rooted in logic, this can be a movement towards the feminine and a recovery of feelings/emotions; for women who (may be) more often rooted in the emotional-feeling mode of experience, this can be a movement towards the masculine and a recovery of logic and reason. I am a firm believer that we need both aspects in good measure, and of course this movement has little to do with our physical biology, but of our tendencies as experiencers and perceivers.
I read the Celestine Prophecy once, long ago. I don’t remember it much at all. I think it was one of the first “spiritual” books I ever read. That and the Dancing Wu Li Masters way back when. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the give and take in this virtual sphere is very literally weaving a new web around this world. Something beautiful and profound. In A Course of Love Jesus also speaks about our point of “access to unity”, and how one day our science-minded companions may discover it as a physically real point of connection. Virtual, but physical, is how I imagine it. Like entanglement is perhaps. A measurable, despite being immaterial in most aspects… It is the relationship I suppose that we perceive…
It is sunny here today! I am outside, in the sunshine, getting my first Vitamin D tonic of the spring…
Michael
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What to say about this beautiful tour de force? Amazing, astonishing, moving? All of the above. I was moved to tears a number of times while reading each of the five episodes, but your line near the end of Episode 5: ‘We are each a secret meant to be shared the way bread is broken and passed around the table.’ was the winner for me in the heart full of tears department, and I found myself wishing that I could write lines that. Thank you.
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Thank you for sharing that, Don. Knowing other hearts sat around the table and broke this bread is a gift as great as any I have received. I guess, in a way, it’s the only gift there is. Feels like in these acts of expression, we give one another windows into who we truly are, and it’s both in the giving and the receiving. They’re an intertwined act. And when you feel it, it takes your breath away. You are a line like that, my friend!
Much Love
Michael
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Don’s favourite line is mine also. A wonderful story of the love that we all are. Thank you.
Alison
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My pleasure, Alison. Don’s favorite line is mine also… 🙂 I just take notes. Those are the moments for which I write, I think, when the context and the flow drop one of those out of the sky. The insight is strengthened when it is witnessed. That’s how we help each other along… Thank you so much for reading and sharing.
Blessings
Michael
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From disamourment to disarmament in five exquisitely eloquent parts. You have written masterfully throughout Michael, and although I have been lost at times in your personal metaphysics – how could I not have been? – you have resolved the whole meaningfully and satisfyingly. Many congratulations on this very fine work my friend.
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Thank you, Hariod. I greatly appreciate it. I’m so please we managed to pull ourselves out of the breach. I don’t particularly understand my personal metaphysics either, and now I feel more confident than ever I’m in good company on that point. 🙂
Much Love
Michael
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Beautiful conclusion to the series, Michael. Thank you for sharing, not just your storytelling talent, but more so, your heart within your posts.
I think there’s a consensus on the ‘favorite line’, though it is just one among so many to commend. ❤
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Thank you, Satori. For digging through the prose to the heart of the matter. I greatly appreciate it and hope in some small way your sky has been seeded with a few drops of rain…
Peace
Michael
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Ah! Michael!! I had no idea how you would wrap this present up…of course I couldn’t have known. But I Love your conclusion, and I loved the whole writing, and I can honestly say I love you!! Thank you for your beautiful mind and wonderful creativity! ❤ 🙂
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Ha! That makes two of us, Lorrie. I don’t think I ever knew much more at any given time than where I might possibly take the next piece… 🙂 Creativity seems to take on a life of it’s own. I’m not sure the Universe quite knows what lies around the corner either. The thing you do is just build on what you have, and strengthen what you’ve been given as you go. I love you, too.
Michael
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I so get it, Michael! I am always amazed (but not really…I’ve come to expect it!) when an art project just sort of makes itself 🙂 And honestly, 99 percent of my writings also happen that way. I read somewhere that everything has already been created and that we are just conduits through which the creations flow through. I don’t know for sure, but I do know that I have to “make” things…ALWAYS! Thanks, Michael…I appreciate you! ❤
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I heard that once, too, Lorrie. I think it’s an interesting way of thinking about things that gives a little tickle of an insight into how they really are. Everything exists, but it hasn’t all been revealed. We like to think there’s someone who has access to the Encyclopedia of what that “everything” consists of. I like the tickle that comes when I imagine that’s not actually true… Meaning, there’s no one who can access the everything… The paradox of knowing there is only goodness, and that none exist who can know the complete definition of what that goodness is, knocks me over… 🙂
Michael
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So the infinite supply of what is, awaits in the wings and discovery is like a birth but not to just one…but to all. And the birth is not incubated in time…it is incubated in love!
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Indeed, Lorrie! All our work is on behalf of everyone… incubated in Love…
Michael
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Thanks for solving the riddles, Michael. I enjoyed your vibrant metaphor of the spiritual journey.
After part 4, I thought maybe this was meant to be a koan which was designed to make my mind run in circles until it eventually breaks down . But now, I’ve understood most of the metaphors
and can relate to many of them.
Thanks for sharing this great piece of art with us!
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Thank you, Karin. Yes, I think it almost came off the rails around Part 4… I had to call in some favors to get Part 5 worked out! Ha! I’m grateful to you for taking the time to read them, and glad the metaphors eventually opened up for you… The feelings I tried to capture here brewed for quite some time… I think mostly I hope people comprehend the way forward to the heart is not always paved with roses every step of the way. It can be tricky, difficult, and ask for what at times seems more than we have to give, and yet despite all that, we always find we were carried every step of the way… It’s so humbling and beautiful to discover this…
Much Love
Michael
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Yes, your intent definitely gets through to the reader.
Not covered with roses, overwhelming at times, humbling, beautiful. I really like how your writing makes the emotions understandable for the reader. For me, that was the most important point of this story.
What do you mean that you had to call in some favors for part 5?
Divine support and Inspiration?
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Hi Karin,
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant by calling in favors! I needed some assistance from the Muse to get out of the plot-weakening jam… I had to spend a few of my chips… 🙂
I forget sometimes readers such as yourself do not always have English as a first language (or am I mistaken?) and so sometimes there are undoubtedly turns of phrase that could produce some confusion…
Peace
Michael
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Thanks for clarifying this.
Yes, English is not my first language. Sometimes that fact causes difficulty in understanding for me.
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“I was no longer questioning my ability to find the wire, or capable of doubting my courage should the wire be found.”
——-> “Screw the wire.” <———-
Love the declaration above. The moment of clarity.
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Yes, Ka! The moment of holy defiance! I think when we talk about everyone having a bit of the spiritual warrior within them, this is what is meant. Screw the falsehoods…! 🙂
Hope the studies and clinicals are progressing nicely for you!
Michael
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I am not sure what is amiss 🙂 with me, but part 4 is when I especially start nodding yes and hmming – connecting with the sub terrain of weird web weaving outgrowths. I am familiar with the growing out of errant potato eyes reaching out from unhealed wounds, like what I find when I’ve left a pomme sack too long in the dark under the sink next to the dishwashing soap and reproducing grocery sacks. Those wires at times begin hooking in to the matrix like the cinematic battery pack humans in their tall endless towers, connecting to thought systems, pseudo supports, places where authority has been given over outside of the self. This dark night of the soul journey was most gratifying, inexplicable to the wrestling mind – a working out that defies the nail and hammer like a bowl full of hot pepper jelly! Thank you, Michael. If you need me, I’m under the sink, knocking off those bizarre, sunless eyes, getting ready for the green leafy growths now possible in spring. xo!
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Oh, those reproducing grocery sacks. We’ve resigned ourselves to giving them a shelf all to their rabbit-like selves. Next to the array of crumpled snack packages with the sentimental crumbs.
These journeys always are a bit inexplicable to the mind. I only know how to navigate them safely by relinquishing the magnifying glass, and allowing my thoughts to zoom out to geological scales… Hope you are able to graft some apple and pear and pomegranate blossoms to your cleaned out eyelets!
Michael
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Michael, what a beautiful and poignant narrative. Reading it moved me from one spot slightly over to another spot. I moved with the gently rhythm of the narrative and by the way, slate juncos are one of my favourite birds. Boom! Harlon
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Nice, Harlon!
The juncos find their way to our back porch in the deep of winter and are beautiful to watch on sunny weekend mornings. My wife knows when to dot the snow banks with bird seed, and then they come in from wherever they’ve been hiding the rest of the year… Glad you took your turn and made your move across the checkered board. King this man!
Peace
Michael
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Am in totally over my head. Will venture out of my cocoon to say my reaction was an approximate recognition of the 40 days and 40 nights in the desert 🌵 and the burning of the ego till the last vestiges of person were burned. And a resurrection of sorts of the Self and love. I love where your writing takes me and I learn so much from it. Mainly to let go of the bars of the prison I am in and float among the stars of freedom. Enjoyed this trip immensely.
🎆 and love, Ellen
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That can be a good thing, Ellen, (being over one’s head). Your approximate recognition is lovely and thematically accurate. The bars can be over-whelming, but yes, best to let them go. Best, as Hafiz said, to stay near a Friend during troubled times. Thanks for seeing it through to the end. I am touched by your comments and grateful for your sharing them, but most filled by a gratitude for the sense of connection.
Love Regiven-
Michael
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Wow. How very touching and mesmerizing all the way to the end. I like how your heart writes. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
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Thank you, Sarah. I love the way you said this- “how your heart writes”. My heart picks up the house phone, calls the mind for the right words. Sometimes it takes a few tries. Like the Ten Thousand Dollar Pyramid game show that used to be on… The mind gets these really fuzzy clues called feelings, and tries to guess what is being requested! This was a fun piece to write, and I’m grateful you took the time to read through it all.
Peace
Michael
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