Requiem
Dreams of journey and shedding skin, of the tingling sensation of my heart radiating as if it truly were a prism of light, coloring the world both before me, after me, inside of me and long, long ago. This prism is the portal I step through to travel between worlds and it is the portal through which I must return, every time…
Once up on a time, long, long ago there was an old woman who spent her time arranging the bones of the dead into art – she lived in the catacombs where she did her work and rarely came into the light. Her vision faded but her sight never failed her and if you asked her if she could see her response was always, ‘better than ever especially with my eyes closed’. Though she was as old as some of the bones in the catacombs, she was agile and her hands fluid extensions of her visions as she worked with the bones. She rarely had company as the living did not want to face their own mortality which was reflected back to them through her work. Some described her as a witch, others as macabre, and still others left her offerings of thanks for honoring the dead with her thoughtful placement of the bones of their departed beloveds.
She was often aware of a small boy who hovered around. He became her companion and though they never talked and she never saw him with any kind of clear focus she knew he was there, just on the other side of the doors to the catacombs, waiting for her. And so her days passed in silence, in communion with the dead, and in her work as an artist. Few recognized it as such for her art was shrouded in the secrets of the dead bones, speaking to her of light and dark, of unfinished business and the confusion in the dismantling of a life. She listened, humming, as she went about placing the bones to honor the words of the dead and bringing peace to any that were unsettled and hanging around.
A day came when she was moving the bones of a small family, a mother and child, into shapes to honor their ending. It was so long ago but she could still hear the grief of the village as they mourned these two for they brought great beauty and blessings to the village simply with their goodness and love. She remembered how each day they would place flowers at her door and whisper a prayer of blessing for her and the safe return of the men of the village from war. Their prayer was for less work for her, less bones. She was just placing the last bone onto the altar when a commotion erupted behind her, she turned and a huge man ravaged with grief stood before her. His grief turned into rage when he saw her and what she was doing – those bones belonged to his wife and child, he did not know they had even died until, returning to the village after years of being at war, he saw the empty house. His rage and grief knew no bounds and when he saw the bones creating an altar, all he saw was consecration. In his rage he threw the woman against the wall of the catacomb, away from the bones. Her head hit first, cracking open, and she slid to the ground, motionless.
The little boy, always hovering around, waiting for her, reached down to help her up and holding her hand he led her from that place of old bones and incomplete dreams to a place of fulfilled dreams, of hidden treasures, of wisdom and such beauty that a Requiem of Compassion and Wisdom flowed from her soul and filled the heavens. She had no thought or remembrance at all of what she was leaving behind. It simply dissolved into the moment the boy reached down and took her hand. Flooded with love, grace, awe, wonder, and the understanding of herself as a creator spirit she walked into this world between worlds and never wanted to leave. The boy held her hand as they jumped from lotus flower portal to lotus flower portal. With each leap, the lotus flower would close up to enclose her and flood her system with color, beauty, wisdom, joy and knowledge, each portal filling her with the dreams of that color of light. And throughout this time the sounds of the Requiem filled the space all around her, changing and echoing each new portal she stepped though. Though she knew this was not her final destination it was where she left a part of her soul and her longing to be back in that space in-between, and be filled again in just that way, robbed her of being present in this moment. She would, for a very long time and many lifetimes, be longing for that moment of grace in the past or racing towards the future to find it again, confused into thinking that that was the best moment in her life and that there could never be anything better.
Once upon a time, in the present moment, there lived an old woman, this same old woman though many, many lifetimes later. She lived alone, in the light this time, surrounded by the beauty that came from her hands, her heart, her soul, and the sounds of nature, and the sounds of silence. When she painted or danced or had her hands in the earth she heard the faint strains of a Requiem that sounded so familiar yet so far away. She somehow knew that Requiem was of a time long past and that there was a new song asking to be birthed that was more joyful, more full of wisdom, more full of connection and nourishing love, more filled with all the colors of light passing through a prism, more filled with the trust and wisdom she had tasted in her dreams than anything that had come before.
This was her faith walk today – to trust that love, nourishing and tending to her soul, was indeed flowing towards her. That today, in this moment, in this time she was loved in ways that would feed her, nourish her, and touch her. Love that could transform her grief into grace, penetrate her protective shell to reveal her soft underbelly and her open hand. Love that she could open to, trust and receive. Stepping through, fully, into this life, this present moment, both feet on this side of the portal, head, heart and hands engaged and in service to her creator spirit.
Pregnant with possibilities, birthing many worlds, she begins to paint what she sees with her eyes closed and it is named Requiem of Souls.
