by Tall Woman
I'm wrestling with a complication of friendship with passion. My body and
spirit are responding to a siren call. My heart leads in opposite directions
at the same time. The intellect says one way is right. Hmm, how best can
these thrilling and treacherous waters be navigated?
Tonight the mountain offered help in charting a course. We're near the new
moon. There's a storm headed this way. All is in that quivery, dark mood
that precedes new moons and storms. It's a great time to turn down into the
darkness in search of support. It's one of those nights that metaphysical
gravity is at its strongest.
I walked out to a remote ridge back through the darkness. Getting there
helped synchronize me with the mountain. The calls of owls and close
encounters with bats initiated the rhythm for the trance. Small, bright
lights danced along the ridges. They're an occasional dark night happening
here on the San Andreas Fault. They forecast powerful reveries.
When I slipped through the material veil, the mountain drew me down between
the plates. They were keeping the rhythm for the lights above. The decent
was smooth. Soon I found myself buoyant in cold, briny waters. I floated
there alone in the darkness until it seemed my bones would be crushed by the
cold. I surrendered to the water.
Time passed. A distinctive rhythm of clicks and beeps entered my
consciousness. My spirit pirouetted as a dolphin appeared. She was sounding
me. Each beep and click infused my soul. I felt her body brush up against
my sensibilities. She nudged and bumped me. I could feel the compassion and
humor inherent in her spirit. I wanted to play but didn't know how. Then I
realized that I was in a dolphin's body too.
I followed her and found my own set of clicks and beeps encoded in the form.
When I turned them to her, they entered her deepest recesses. The sound
echoed back her essence in all its beauty and complexity. I knew her as she
knew me. I was entranced by her grace and our mutual vulnerability. Here,
complete knowing held no threats. It was embedded in the trust that only
full disclosure can give.
We came upon the pod. We were engulfed in a chorus of sounds. Each rhythm
and tone was unique. They blended, forming a web of knowing and being that
embraced us fully. For a moment I felt embarrassed to be so exposed. An
elder nudged me. His lightness and humor reflected back in the sounds I sent
to him. He laughed at my discomfort as he bumped me into the paths of a
pair of cavorting youngsters. I was swept into their play. All was
innocence and fun. Tag was our game. When one was touched, we all rolled
into each other. We relished the softness of contact even as we scampered
off on another race. Our elders held us in the safety of their web of
understanding. We were practicing being the best we could be.
The game subsided. The dolphin who led me there returned. Our bodies
touched as we broke the surface for a breath. She wanted to know what I had
absorbed from the game. It was a test.
Truth works. It's the only applicable morality. We are all imperfect. We
can compensate for our respective inadequacies when they're freely shared and
compassionately received. The answers are embedded in the joining of open
hearts. The proper course emerges through the act of knowing and being
known. Anything that veils the heart will interfere with emergence. Any
failure to sound or be sounded will affect the outcome. Passion's place is
in the bed of compassion. Without the latter, the former has no place.
Properly embedded, passions can be channeled into all manners of creation.
The dolphin passed me. She led me back to where we had first encountered one
another. She prepared me for her departure. My job was to take the lesson
back to the material. The dolphin took her leave with affection. I thanked
her.
I became aware of a pair of owls calling to one another across the canyon.
Consciousness arose of shoulders, back and legs pressed into the cool ridge
back. My human body felt energized by the chill. The walk home across the
dark mountainside warmed my bones. I had received no preplanned course. The
gift was better than that. It was the formula by which a course can always
be discovered while moving through life's currents. It's simple. It's the
truth.