The Garden's Lullaby

Dear Beautiful Reader,

Are there times when you know the right path, and you feel like you could follow it, but all the baggage you've gathered to yourself where you are and where you've been is tying you down? Do you grasp for the ground, clawing the earth towards that clear, green pathway, enshrouded with archways of trees and flowering leaves, seeking only respite and refuge from this dark, colourless place in your life? Do you see that path as direction, a way to finally make sense of life?

I do. I note each tree in this garden, in this path that has suddenly opened itself to me. I note each fruit it bears, each tree trunk, strong with age... some are twisted halfway up, bearing scars and gnarled, but from the wounded struggle, the tree grew on, determined, growing, until finally it met with the tree on the other side of the pathway, entwining with it in a sensual dance, perfectly woven and bound until it became a beautiful arch, and the fruit it bears exudes a tantalizing odor, one which I cannot resist. I claw towards it, knowing my hands are dirty, stained with the labours of the short journey i've made, and I know not how I can pay my toll to cross this path, but somehow, I feel that it doesn't matter.

When I look at the arch, I feel the peace, echoing to me like the song I hear now. I can hear the voice, breathy and gentle, almost like whispers in the leaves as the garden softly sings to me, welcoming me, though I come unworthy. Calmly, tempered with experience, the garden beckons, but I know it is only a short time before it will stop and let me lie there if I choose not to go...but oh, how I want to!!!

I grab the ground, digging into the dirt as my shadows cling to my legs. These shadows are mixtures of different things. I can see guilt, its teeth sunk into my calves as it looks up at me with accusing eyes. I see the pains of my past experiences, clinging to my ankles like small children, begging me not to go, telling me that, for certain, the same things will happen again. I see fear, its arms wrapped  around one thigh and drawing a long, cold tongue up it and straight towards my heart, its eyes telling me with confidence that I am not going to that path. I feel more than I see doubt, its hands clamped firmly around my other thigh, whispering when it can against the music of the garden that I'm better where I am, that I will never to better, that the grey and charred pathway I traverse is the best I will know, and that I should be thankful to have what I do... the garden smells so good because it's a temptation, seeking to take me away from where i'm supposed to be.

I try to break free of my shadows, but as I claw the ground, cold hands reach up from the earth and hold my wrists firmly in place as a face rises and looks me directly in the eye. I know that face. He looks at me and says in a cold voice, "You think you're going to something better, but you're only going back. The face sneers at me, his eyes cold and a smirk playing at his lips as he fades back into the ground, leaving my wrists bruised and sore. I don't know if I can reach the garden in time. I feel suffocated.

Beautiful Reader.... what do you do when you can't break free?

Sing Me a Hymn of Courage, of Battle, of Defense, of Hope.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live like the wind. Have no purpose. Have no care. Have no rhyme or reason, and be capable of striking every emotion possible... a gentle, calming breeze, a strong, terrifying gust, a cooling breath, a warming pulse, a chilling draft... everything, you can be as wind.

My grateful eyes shut, and finally my mind releases into the loving arms of my mind, of my captor, of my love and lover. Of my Ukala.

My world has become to thrive. It has seen the face of adversity, and it has seen the proof that one can survive the destruction of old and live once more with purpose. It has seen what comes after, and what comes after is so beautifully incredible that it gives my world hope, meaning... purpose.

My world is not a child. My world is not innocent. My world has taken the pain and the bad and the evil and the mistakes and turned them into building stones. I sit in a barely covered field of the palest green. The world has begun to bus in tiny spurts of colour, but I can tell that i'm afraid. That i'm still in need of something. I look up at the dusked sky, at the constant swirling energy that lives forever in my mind, the pulsing purples and blues and greens all intertwining, pulsing and entangling themselves. The colours form the shapes of people... a man and a woman, caught in each other's embrace. The woman's leg traces the form of the man's leg as they stare into each others' eyes, their irises a pulsing, glowing orange. They love each other... somewhere, somehow, I do too. Maybe. Not in a literal sense, but somewhere there's a part of me I must like. Something that makes it all worth it.

I turn, walking to the empty bed of the river that once flowed. No water flows from it, and no water is scented nearby, so I slide to the bottom of the gently grown riverbed, to the green grass at the bottom. I lean on the river wall, looking at the ground. I can see glowing bits of energy flowing from the ground, softly rising through the air like embers in slow motion. They rise and spin with each other, each it's own little life within my own, and they dance over my skin before I tilt my fingers upward slightly, letting the lights go and disappear into the now night sky, up to join the energy up there, after all. To be with their maker, their mother, father both, their heaven. I wish I had that, but no... I am okay with not having it. I  can save myself... I can save it, can't I?

My fingers lightly trace the bud of a small purple plant, and I lean down to breathe gently on it, knowing that my breath gives it hope to survive...

Survive..

I want to be a survivor, to nurse my wounds on the fly and fight the good fight. To be uninjured, to be determined. To have heart and soul and mind and body in sync with one another. To stand, unafraid, in front of my worst fear, this shadow that infects everything that I have tried to save, and to tell it, FUCK YOU, you are not my master. You are not my fate. You are neither my ruler nor my peer. You are no part of me that I will accept. You are fear. You are cowardice. You are betrayal. You are pain, and I don't need you anymore.

I let it in before. It left me scarred, scared, and weak. Never again. I will build this world and I will change it for the better....gently. Peacefully. Without backing down... and I will have the courage to do what needs to be done. It is spoken. It is now true.

Beautiful Reader... do you think I can do this?

Life Rises, Unprotected

It's been a bit, hasn't it...?

Interesting.

I guess I couldn't stay away for long, could I? It's too delicious, an addicting evanescence within.

My eyes flutter shut as exhaustion combines with that insatiable thirst for knowledge of self...

The world is gentle... i'm standing on a soft mountain... seems weird, right? Soft, grey ash lies along a quiet landscape, and I see the ocean. The sun in setting in flashes of slow orange. I can see the photons moving slowly across the sky. . . gentle pulses and swirling orange wisps drift towards me happily, reflecting on the deep ocean as the sun sinks slowing into the world I never have seen, and suddenly, with a final flash of intense light, the world is dark, and I can feel the white light of the moon cool my skin from behind.

I turn around and look up at the soft light, and I sigh as I walk through the calm, peaceful death. I kneel, my white dress brushing against the light grey, and as the moon gently caresses the land, I see it. A single, innocent bud of green, rising from the ashes. Softly, I sink to my stomach, lying with my head resting on the flat tops of my hands, my eyes level with the new life in front of me, and I feel myself smile slightly. I don't know if this new bud will survive, but I know that not all is destroyed, and not all is dead.

I have hurt the thing I love, yes. I have destroyed the monuments and intricacies I built and fashioned within myself, but I know.. I KNOW.... I know they were diseased, dying from the inside out. I needed to purify myself. I needed to reset. This is new. This is the new me. It's scary..downright terrifying. It's vulnerable, weak, and might not survive the harsh environment, but I think I might just have a chance.

I plant a gentle kiss on the top of the green bud and stand, looking back up at the moon. I see myself stand there, grey smeared dress, a world covered in drifts of grey ash, and the single green but at my feet as the barest breath of wind stirs my hair.

A new adventure can only begin when the journey has been built, Beautiful Reader.