They Kindled A Fire In Her

As most of you know, I haven't written a fairy tale in a long time. I guess it is time once more.

Long ago, in the mysts of time, she walked. Her steps were slow, her body tired and she wanted only to stop until she heard the song. At first it was almost inaudible, it was so far away. Over time, though, it became louder and sweeter and called to her as nothing in this world ever had. She listened and moved slowly towards whatever created it until one day she found herself standing at the gate.

It took great courage to place her fingers upon the latch and step inside that garden, but it was an action that could not be denied. Before her lay a pool of the clearest cerulean blue and deep within it, lying in the mud, was the most beautiful flower she had ever seen. As the sun began to peek over the wall and touch the water, the flower began to stir. Raising its lovely head, it rose into the light and gently broke through the water's veil just at sunrise. Stunned by its glancing song, she stood there with tears rolling down her cheeks. It seemed she had finally found him. After all these eons they were once more together and the blessing seemed beyond bearing. She stayed there beside the pool, meditating in the Silence, living only for him to sing, to be, to turn his face into the light and carry her with him into the beauty that straddled the edges of all eternity. And time passed. She barely noticed, but still it passed.

One morning she heard a stirring outside the gate. Others came to hear the flower sing, to sit in the Silence with him, to be with him in the light and share his beautiful presence. For her the Silence was broken. The song was hard to hear over the voices whispering all around her and she knew it was time to leave, because now she knew the Silence, knew the blessing of peace and the glancing of the light as few people ever do, she could not deny her own truth, or her own way no matter how difficult it might seem.

Stepping out of the gate, pulling the latch behind her, she left the most precious part of her behind and walked away.

She thought she was strong and knew she was wiser and believed that she was awake and being in every sense, but she was not. She was asleep. Just as surely as Sleeping Beauty slept for all those years in her fairy tale, she too was asleep. Walking, but unaware. It was mercy in action, a step by the universe to help her survive the grief that threatened to consume her, but she did not know.

Instead her strength carried her, one step at a time, through the mysts of time, into towns and villages where she found some bit of good to do, some work for her weary hands, some food for her starving soul, some way to place time between now and then. And after a while this became her way of living, a sleep walker among the living, pretending to be alive and waiting only for the time when, once more, there could be another chance. Nothing else was conceivable.

Finally finding herself on a mountain top, surrounded by the silence of butterflies and clear clean light, she met a teacher. Small, sweet, innocent beyond belief he reached out and touched her soul with his tiny finger and her heart began to flutter. It was only a start, but as she began to search, thinking only to satisfy her own mortal desires, she found other teachers in the most unlikely places and they kindled a fire in her that she had thought gone.

Other souls, walking in the light, working like demons in the earth for a living, began to creep into her world and she found herself once more rising into the light. Eager to hear their stories, listening with a softening heart to their tales, she began to know their names and their faces, admire the way they cared for each other until she realized they were taking her in. They called her from her daze with their beauty and youth, lifted her up into the light with their need and allowed her to find her way back.

There is no latch on this gate, no key, not even a pool, but there are flowers. It is a symbiotic garden, one where she waters another to slake her thirst. There is no taking, only giving and it is the giving that provides. The souls here struggle like souls everywhere and the ground is rocky, but the light is bright, the hands reach out from all sides and hers is one of them.

In return they keep her awake, give her purpose, open the way for the living on this side once more.