The Lovers

Many years ago, when I was first really struggling to enter my full vocation, I had a vision. It’s been recounted before but, briefly, I was shown armies and then two individual soldiers fighting–who then they resolved into lovers, coupling. The Wheel was placed before me as a clock-face, with the numbers representing a soul’s journey from departure from the All to return–from amnesia to anamnesis. At the point of return, the soul and the home-love it was longing for are reunited, but even such bliss becomes stale after a while. Story-telling becomes their way of keeping each other in joy. Thus, no matter how terrible parts of the story, a satisfying ending is assured. So I was shown!

Last night as I lay awake, I thought of the vision, and how different everything is now than when it first came. I always trusted it, or tried to; now I understand it in a way I don’t have to think about. Work never required much effort, except for that needed to quell my own self-doubt. Once that was out of the way–I’ve always described the sensation as flying, or skating, or dancing, with word-flow. There’s no making anything happen; there’s only the letting it come through.

The resulting work has usually been met with a respectful but confused response from readers, so I don’t give much thought to anyone reading a piece after the fact. It is all addressed to the soul-home, and when it reaches its aim, I can feel it. Sending and receiving, to and from a place beyond clock-time–learning how to do this has been a story in itself.

There is one thing I can gesture toward as a sort of starting-point for readers, but it is controversial with me because that point is Rumi and I am not an admirer. He comes across to me as someone who learned the patterns intellectually first and then practiced using metaphors until he sounded credible, but mysticism as he represents it is similar enough to our source-garden to help with orientation here. The soul feels lost in the world, missing something–someone–and searches, crying out, until whispers in return finally get through: I’ve been here all along!

Be thoughtful of the simple dynamic that what you are searching for is searching for you, and so much falls into place. The kingdom of heaven is within, and here are some maps of the way you need not go because you are there. But have fun on the journey, because we know you’re going to do it anyway. Be sure to bring back some good stories! And remember–everything always means more than one thing. And retrieving true lore–every bit of understanding that is real and useful in more than one world–appears to be our ultimate purpose.

Here is today’s work:

Their Tales to Each Other

Sometimes, when they spiral around in the dance, they get lost in their thoughts for a moment, but soon–

alone on a platform, the coil of the rope like a crown that has fallen–no shadow at noon

when the signal is given and presto, she’s down, at the end of her rope, twitching out the last beat

of a heart so enamored of music, it’s waiting to greet her–in waltz time, and rose-honey sweet.

.Bees gathered over their honeymoon flowers and ferried them forth to the sea beyond shore.

This was a lyrical flight, exegesis not needed; they knew what they’d been sending for

when they opened their mouths, either side of the bee-loud divide between stations and serial lives

they had patiently prized from their earthly foundations and built into beautiful library-hives,

and they knew where they’d be when they’d reached it, the dreamt destination of all of those lives and their sleep.

Little by little tears falling from eyes become signals to follow upstream, where they keep

their best inspirations recorded forever in hope of the visitor each used to be.

Into the source of the fountain that warded off drought and maintained the arcane inland sea

where the sailors who venture are hardier spirits than these airy lovers, who float in mid-air–

down by the waterline, reach in a hand; if a sea-monster bites it–they won’t really care;

they’re infected already with far worse contagion; they’re bound to sail on till the lovers onboard

have been tossed off the side as a pair of dead bodies. Now pearls that were eyes line a sea-monster’s hoard.

They only remembered that passage themselves after feeling their own eyes roll back a bit far.

Rubbing a slow thoughtful hand on the scars of her sore rope-burned neck, she sighs, how fine you are,

and how blistered with infinite sunlight and rage and the flames of the pyre when my blood would not burn

my poor carcass would be, but for one healing salve brought from far overseas in a white marble urn.

There’s always a bit of residual magic that lingers where ashes have changed into dust,

the pain they once knew so entirely forgotten, the spirits they danced with can generate lust

with their most graceful motions and send it off flying with ribbons and pennants like petals and leaves.

They never look back–but sometimes when they have, they’ve been sad for a while for the lover who grieves,

having somehow forgotten he’s not in a memory now. She’s not absent; she’s not in her grave;

she’s not in the flames of a pyre nor the depths of a tearstorm at sea in her own drowning wave;

she’s advanced in the treacherous zone of red roses toward the broad orchards and gardens he’ll find

in a moment–the moment he’s slipped off the traces of rope-burn and salt from the pit of the mind

that’s been lining its library shelves night and day, making ready for such a strong spirit to light

that he’s finally sweeping the floor, throwing open the windows, and airing his clothes in the bright

new moonlight and making–arcane preparations for her, who is certainly present in more

than any one room–when at length from their bed they tell tales to each other–more love is more lore.