Most saw it as a the remains of a tree covered in moss and simply passed it by without a second thought or glance. Others saw it as something more, and those were the ones it watched. Two faces, one above and one below, with a breadth of life in between. Those that linger the longest hold the most memories, and the Way-stone had been there for centuries, cataloging each movement of the grass and the many feet that had pressed down the green to feel the touch of Earth’s body. The Way-stone had seen trees come and go; an entire forest felled for man before roots pushed their way to light once again, as all life will do. Those men had seen the stone and thought it curious. There was one, though, who stopped each day and lingered with his axe in hand, waiting for the others to pass by unaware.
The Way-stone watched him. Noticing his pause of understanding. The way his eyes saw through the green to the life it hid, and how his heart fluttered through memories of a forgotten time. Each day the two faces in the stone watched and wondered if the man would pause just long enough in his daily routine of felling the trees around him. If he would sit, perhaps, or stand near enough to be beckoned.
There are two directions one can go, and an infinity of possibilities in between. So it’s written on the Way-stone’s visage. The man with the axe sometimes looked to the sky and saw the blue expanse and wondered what was above the reach of his eyes. More often, though, he looked below. He seemed to see those penetrating eyes that watched him and studied each action and reaction. He seemed to know he was a guardian to the path held deep inside where most dare not venture, thinking the surface was all there was or could possibly be.
Then, one day, the man with the axe stopped. The others had gone home and the blue above had deepened to indigo. The first stars had broken the veil of darkness and the man with the axe, who had no one to wait for him, drew close to the tree-like stone covered in moss. He laid the axe nearby and sat upon the cool ground. His back was turned toward the well-traveled path into town, his eyes level with the the green eyes before him.
“Show me the way,” he whispered as he reached his left hand to gently touch its soft side where it broke through the ground below.
Waves of heat pulsed through his skin and the lids lowered upon his eyes. The man felt a drawing inward, experiencing a complete absence of light before the entire universe held inside opened before him and he surrendered into its embrace.
They said it was a sacrifice,
but isn’t all life?
The tree pulled down to make paper to record our words
The hay threshed to fill bellies
Some say even water is alive
The clouds spilling it to the ground only to be swallowed
by some body that will eventually die
Only the bones linger
Hardened by structure
Fused to bear weight
Once stripped of the vulnerable layers they expose the effort
of resistance as a catalogue of time
We like to date our years lived
We like to think about lifetimes
in terms of expansion
The vulnerable layers we shroud
with creams and clothing designed to hide
and deny this thing we call age
But, when we strip ourselves down to what is left
Beyond the hardened bones that remind us of death
as a loss and that thing called density,
we are left with the essence itself
That bit of life that lingers over and over again
The cycle repeating itself to rebirth
in another form. Experience depends
upon this essence, as does growth and death
It is said that when the body dies,
the weight of the eternal essence can be recorded
after it leaves the form which held it close to call it a life
by itself. We can look at the dry bones and see the loss
of what once was, or we can follow the essence
back into the dance of life. Imagine
a breath of memories swirling into another form,
or perhaps dancing in eternity’s ocean
The individual heart eventually stops
That’s simply the law of nature of life in form
An idea that might make a single beating heart
skip into the throat to hide for want of eternity
of the individual. We don’t like to think
about nonexistence as we define our existence
but what of that pulse that beats through all life?
Can you feel it?
No one can say they cannot,
or have not, because
it is that essence that lingers
The before form and the after form
So you can study the bones and marvel
at the loss, or you can study the essence
that beats the eternal heart and recognize it
as your own too.
The structure was created by a more modern hand, but the transport was real. A hallway to the Hypogeum opened within his mind as his feet traveled the corridor. Each pillar marking a lifetime passed or yet to come, covered by shadows broken by light. Not the false light ensconced above. No, they had turned that off before they pushed him inside. He could feel the warmth of the womb closing in around him, but also its darkness. The pulse of the Mother-heart pumping memories through his blood. Her cord feeding, but also recording life before it is taken away. The circle felt endless, the space within infinite. Fear pushed the shroud further over his forehead, closing the eye. They had warned him this might happen in some form. The fist of the ego-mind closing the light of the heart is something he knew all must face. He let the darkness cover him. He felt its gnashing teeth. He felt its sour breath. He heard the cry of its want ring through his ears. And, he felt its lack of pulse. The pulse! Yes, he felt it now, again, deep within. It had never stopped its beat. He had only forgotten temporarily that it was there, always. How foolish I have been, he thought, for neglecting the life within.
My contribution to this week’s #writephoto prompt by Sue Vincent. To participate, click here.
The giant had been stuck in the hillside for so long, everyone else had forgotten him. Tufts of red hair now curled a bald crown turned white from age and the hundreds of footsteps that scaled his summit to gaze upon the beauty beyond. The beauty that he could not see because she had decided he was no longer worthy of her perfect form. It was his anger that had gotten him stuck in the body of Earth. His pounding rage as he left her, sinking his form until only his head rose, forever turned away. Oh, but he could feel her behind him, lying in wait, ready, open, but not for him.
For Sue Vincent’s weekly #writephoto prompt challenge. To participate, please click here.
I have been thinking about your presence held fast to the land. Your spirit woven into time, pressing against mine in a longing to be remembered, not for yourself, but for the body you cannot leave behind. In the moors, not yet turned purple, we walked the scars to feel the blade of separation. Parting the veil where the wound never healed. How can a spirit linger for five thousand years, if not for love?
You, the keeper of memories holding the gate to the heart wide open, yet how many have walked past as you watched unseen? The rocks, pressing their heads above Her body to mark time with you, waiting to be felt. You will not leave them. Not yet. Your hands have pressed more than mine, but not enough. Eyes refusing to be opened. Hearts refusing to feel the beat below to match Her rhythm once again.
And so you walk the moors obscured by mist, traveling a broken land. You, who remember the Light to show us where the darkness seeks to be cleared.
For Bratha, who knew Earth before she was broken. And for Sue, who introduced us. To participate in Sue’s weekly #writephoto prompt, please click here.
The raven watched out of sight in the trees above while she walked three times the perimeter. Stopping at the gateway stone, she waited for the portal to open. Access could easily be denied in these places, yet she knew she had been beckoned here for a reason. There had been others before her. Countless feet had walked the perimeter of the womb circled by stones. They had left their imprinted energy behind, sinking the earth into a moat, separating the real from the unreal. Most, mistaken by the belief that the eyes distinguish Truth.
She rested her hands on the ridge, feeling the rough layers cataloged by time, reading a braille much older than language.
“Caaaawww!”
One drawn out call from the raven broke down silence, and she bent to her knees and kissed the face before her.
“There is no name for what is lost.”
She nodded.
“For loss is an illusion.”
She nodded again.
“Speak what you read on the stone.”
It was not a language taught in classrooms that poured from her lips, but the raven understood, as did the presence before her. Slowly the stone lowered back down into the body of Earth, and as she stepped through, the circle closed around her.
It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompts. Life has been busy and has included a trip to this land that feels like home.
Photo Credit: Sue Vincent
Crossings
I looked at the bridge framed in green
To that faraway place where I felt I belonged
Wanting to step through an image that looked like home
“But you are already home, my child”
The voice inside felt like comfort
Soundless to the ear, but not to the heart
I knew it to be mine,
but not wholly mine
So, I went inward to walk beneath the bridge
I painted the water with my toe
and watched circles
spreading rings outward
like the voice inside
I knew to be home
If you would like to participate in Sue’s weekly #writephoto prompt, please click here.
The Light Behind the Story 