Category: Short Stories (Page 10 of 46)

The bed, all set, yet I cannot sleep. The strings that bind my heart to truth have filled me, and in that magical union a bow is placed upon those strings to create such beautiful music.

My love, my sweet beautiful love, I hear you. Through the union of the stars above I hear your call in the evening air. I know of no other way in this moment but to write the words I hear, the prayer of our Angels who have so inspired us to these things, the music of God that unites us in our common cause.

I know where you are. I see you walking in the morning Sun toward me, that smile spread beautifully upon you lips. Our life, begun long ago in subtle words planted like seeds on our fertile ground, now sprouts in ways we could never have imagined. Such sweet fruit has been born in our kiss, and that sweet nectar fills our senses as you settle in beside me. We have reached our promised destiny, and we are ready.

Two lovers such as we are not meant to see the gifts of life without our hands touching. This life, in all its beauty and grandeur, provides our souls with nourishment complete, made delicious to a lover’s palette in the sharing. We both taste the honey and bite into the fruit in one sitting, sharing the table we’ve made, sipping from the same cup, licking the same spoon. We peer into the brightly lit rows of reflections on the water, shout ecstatically in the games we share a joy of, and gaze silently at still ponds graced by purple mountains with two sets of eyes and two hearts made one in the touching of our hands, our lips, and our promised love. There is nothing our minds can do to stop the rolling thunder of our destiny. I was meant to be by your side, and you were meant to be by mine.

There, I see you walking with that smile, knowing what that moment means. Sharing life, sharing love, sharing the promise God has extended to us both. There is nothing to fear here, for this moment was written in the book of our lives long before we knew how to read. We are what was always meant to be, and as such cannot be stopped.

Your man, this well-traveled heart whose been created to love you, honors you with his truth, with his life, and with the visions he has been so blessed to have. Forsaking you would be the death of him, he has no choice but to live in the love of your heart, the glow of your smile, and the truth of his promise to you. The depth of this, the absolute vastness of this uncharted sea he finds himself in, are made safe for him by the mere memory of your touch. He, I, give a testament to God before the altar of my life of the pureness of this love. I humbly kneel before you and beg your indulgence for the truth of all I feel.

Goodnight, my sweet and cherished love. Know I embark to dream of you in the most beautiful of places, in the most beautiful of ways. Know I settle in to find my peace with the darkness so that I may awaken in this life knowing your touch, tasting your kiss, and hearing your voice as the morning Sun rises. We both know our destiny is written before us in those moments, and I will patiently wait for you to awaken with me almost each and every day.

Love. It’s always love. <3

Feel this. Feel me right here, right now, in this moment of truth.

Love is a drink of life. It is the essence of open hearts, the truth of souls born to create universes from its golden waters. It knows no fear, it understands no time. It exists in both our minds and our hearts, enjoying the battles necessary to form granite works of art that will dot the landscapes of our journey. Those sculptures, the ones both tested by time and ego, will last far beyond the seasons. They will see the flowers wilt and the snows come, and they will see the Summer sun rises after the Spring renews the promise that love exists beneath the snow, waiting for its moment to explode to life.

Two loves bathing in this truth know its power. Two souls swimming together know its power. They both may fear its depth at first, but together they rise to the surface knowing they are fully supported. They find trust, both in the water and in each other, that uncovers the Universal trust born in the rising Sun. Their fear unites them, but soon that falls away into a new unison, one where the magic becomes evident everywhere.

We know this love. It is the hammer that shatters the dark doors we’ve closed against it. It is the window we’ve used to peer deep into a world we’ve wished to explore. Now, it is the truth of our being, that one thread that takes us beyond our own mortality. The one lesson we have yet to fully grasp. The one we have been waiting for, the one we were promised in each moment of torment and in every crash of thunder.

“The distractions of the ego my seem to interfere with your learning, but the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so.

How can you have what you give up?

You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in total disagreement about everything.” ~ excerpts from A Course in Miracles, Chapter 8, The Journey Back

This journey of ours, one singular in its method, has brought us together in purpose and love. Awakened Ones are we, those who know the truth despite the lies we’ve been told, the lies we often tell ourselves. In this journey, we’ve found power in the single set of footprints we’ve left in the sand. Now, we are offered the chance to find that power in two sets, dedicated to both each other and the path they are on. We are absolutely so blessed in this possibility.

“Love knows no bodies, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit is its meaning. It is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. In your tiny kingdom you have so little! Should it not, then, be there that you would call on love to enter? Look at the desert – dry and unproductive, scorched and joyless – that makes up your little kingdom. And realize the life and joy that love would bring to it from where it comes, and where it would return with you.” ~A Course in Miracles, Chapter 18, Verse 8.

You have not been lied to. You have not been deceived. Love has been presented to you in its pureness, offered to you in its glory. You have been given the words, and you have been offered the open heart of pure love. Step into its light, though fearful you may be, and touch the hand, the heart, of the soul born to love you. No tricks, no pretense, just love in its light and passion in its glory.

I am so grateful in this conversation, and in the truth planted in my heart. I am blessed by the strength of love and destiny, and the very purpose of my survival. This made evident as your hand flows perfectly in mine.

<3

Now, right now, I just wish to say something to you.

Somewhere, right now, on this day, it is Spring. You know what I mean. Now, I can move on to the topic bleeding from my fingers.

---

Outside of our ideas, there are craftily tailored versions of something we believe. Beyond those, there is a reality often swirling in the mist that exists between the truth of our heart and the voices in our mind. Lately, I’ve been jumping from the mind to the heart and back again, leaping over the divide that often exists between the two, into the mist, and beyond my own reason.

What is that reason? It’s love. Painful, awesome, beautifully torturous love or, to be more concise, beautifully awesome love mixed with painful, torturous absence.

I don’t have much, but I have this heart. I can’t lavish her with gold, but I have love unfettered in my soul that will blanket her always. I am not the most talented, or the best looking, or the funniest but I will anchor her in any storm, bear the brunt of the strongest wind, absorb the blows of this life with a smile on my face simply to have the chance to whisper in her ear, “I love you.”

She has never met anyone like me. Ever. Of course I’m sure she’s met certain versions of me along the path but I’m equally sure that she has not met anyone like me. No one has.

Today, I sit quietly wishing I was just hours away from going home to her to start a weekend of whatever-the-hell-we-wanted-it-to-be. Maybe she’d go out with friends, maybe I’d find a hill somewhere to climb. Whatever. There’d always be that moment where she’d crawl into that space with me, surrender in my arms, and…

The fantasy I have. The dream of a heart who knows its space, its pace, and its destination. The intention of a man who suddenly is willing to jump into the mist from a place that once seemed so secure just to hold the hand of a woman who is absolutely a part of his entirety. Such a man who jumps from safety into the unknown realizing he’s safer there with her than he was on his solid perch without her.

What does such a man do? He suffers, often in silent reverie for the woman he loves. He endures the pulsing pit in his gut in her absence just for that moment when she is near. He writes his words and speaks his truth in moments granted him. He loves her, purely and simply despite the complexity of his own emotions and his own fear. He withstands, he endures, always in the stoic promise of his heart which bears testament to the truth of who he’s become. He will never forsake her. He will never deny her. He will never stop loving her.

We can’t pretend there is no suffering involved in such an absence. Of course there is. Yet, those of us who want nothing more than to love her in our way see the value of this suffering. It is like the harmony to love’s great song, a dynamic where the melody makes the lyrics more magical. She is the harmony to the words that pour from my soul, and she is the reason for the magic. Her absence, that very thing that causes the Sun to set way before the day is over, also bears witness to the value of her presence. If you don’t believe me, hold your breath for weeks at a time and you will when you take that next breath again.

Because such a love is wonderful. It is the breath of fresh air after an extended dive. You realize so much about your life, and who you are, when you fall in such a love. You realize that the missing her is an honest truth made so by having found her. You rise to occasions you once thought untenable even as you scream to the ether, “please hurry, I need you here!” just like your chest screams for that breath of air when it needs it most.

Tomorrow, I will sit quietly again, talking with the throb in my gut and making friends with another day without her. Soon, I will have her hand in mine and she will know the return of her own breath, though I will try my best to steal it from her. That’s my way I guess…

There was a room, nestled between the expanse of everywhere and the confines of nowhere. It was our meeting place, that place where love’s great search ended, and where eternity’s flower began to bloom.  When the earth would shake and the storm clouds gathered, we would meet there and find shelter from our torments. There, we could enjoy the fragrance of love, those sweet golden marigolds in bloom beside a soft fire burning in the hearth. Such a scene, played out in the  forever notes of two lovers born to be here, light the world on fire.

Once, I met her there. I was staring at a wall, wondering what scenes we could paint on it that day.  I could sense her presence there as I always could. I so love those moments when she is near, when the Universe seems natural and everything makes perfect sense.

I could feel her hand on my arm, taking me from my moment of thought. I turned to look at her, and it began.

I could feel her, but I could not find her. I kept turning to try to look for her, but I simply could not see her despite by best efforts. I was turning, trying to see her, and getting dizzy in the process.

“Baby, I’m going to fall,” I said to her.

“Fall. Go ahead. I’ll catch you.”

“Please, no.”

Fear began to take over, as I felt control leaving my spinning body. The more I stayed standing, the dizzier I became. The room was soon spinning and I felt I was losing my balance. I wasn’t sure if I was moving or the room was. What I did know was that I felt desperate to see her.

“Baby,” I said, “please don’t let me fall.”

“You’re scared. I know. We both are. Please trust me. Let go, I will catch you.”

In the swoon came haunting memories. The ghosts of a past long forgiven began laughing. Yet I knew they were but tempting me without much in the way of real power. I had left them behind long ago.

“Baby, please. I am here. You can trust me,” she said.

I remembered her heart, her smile, and the passionate love she inspired in me. I closed my eyes and, in my dizzy state, felt myself falling in a way I had never fallen before.

A lot can happen in a dream. Most will tell you there is some subconscious influence on the scenes we live through in our sleep. I say, on this night, it was something else for me. I recognize something about this dream. While the subconscious forces of insecurity and fear rained down on me in my slumber, something else spoken even louder.

See, I let go. I could feel my entirety falling fast through the darkness. I feared the landing, and the damage done there. I waited for impact, for pain, and for the unbearable infliction of gravity on my soul.

Yet then something remarkable happened.

She caught me.

There was once a hare who liked to run. He would run from other hares, from noises in the weeds, even from his own shadow. The hare had learned to run from an early age, and the faster he could run, the more comfortable he would feel. Soon, he found happiness in his running. It kept everything else away, just how he liked it.

There was also a tortoise. She had a strong shell, and loved to move slow and cautious. While it was easy for other creatures to catch up to her, her shell kept them at bay and they would often tire of her gait and move on. She had learned to crawl from an early age, and the slower she could go the more safe she would feel. Soon, she had found safety in her slowness and her shell. It kept everything else away.

One day, they spotted each other from a distance on a winding trail. Neither could explain it, but each had wanted to know the other. The hare, in his exuberance, would run to the tortoise, who would hide in her shell.

“Come out and talk to me,” he would say to her.

“No,” replied the tortoise muffled through her shell. “You scare me.”

The hare would leave, running from her and everything else around him. Soon, however, he could not help himself, and he’d return to the tortoise, who would dart into her shell each and every time.

“Please talk to me,” the hare would say. “I really just want to talk to you.”

“I can’t,” replied the tortoise. “Please leave me be.”

The hare would not give up. He would run and hide, then come back. While everything else scared him, he found the tortoise comforting. There was something strangely familiar about her.

One day, the hare was running around the tortoise, who had camped within her shell. As usual, his mind was everywhere, always making sure there was enough distance between him and everything else. Suddenly, the tortoise peeked her head from the shell.

The hare stopped dead in his tracks.

“There you are,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

“Please don’t,” the tortoise replied. “I’m nervous. I’m not sure what to do.”

“OK. Well, would you mind if I just stayed here and talked to you?”

“No. As long as you stay over there.”

The hare and the tortoise began to talk. The hare, comfortable in their distance, enjoyed their conversation. The tortoise liked their talks too, but would hide in her shell from time to time. Soon, however, the times she would hide would get shorter and shorter.

One day, the hare sat next to the tortoise at their agreed distance. He noticed that not only had her head come out of the shell, but all of her legs and come out too.

“You know,” said the hare, “you are quite a beautiful thing.”

“Stop,” she said. “Please don’t make me nervous.”

“I don’t mean to. It’s just that I find you fascinating.”

“Thank you,” she said. Incredibly, she began walking toward the hare until she stood right next to him. “You know, you are much too fast for me.”

“I never thought I was fast. Elusive, maybe, but not fast. Seems maybe we’re both elusive in our own way.”

“Maybe.”

They began to talk again. They shared stories of their youth, of their time in the forest. Soon, before either noticed, they were walking down the trail together.

Every once in a while, the hare would get the need to run. The tortoise would hide in her shell.

“Come on,” the hare would shout. “Keep up!”

“No, I can’t. Please slow down.”

The hare felt constrained by her need for slowness, and the tortoise felt scared at his need for speed. Still, both enjoyed each other’s company on the trail.

“This is not a race,” she’d say. “We don’t need to go so fast.”

The hare would try to explain. “But you don’t understand. Being still scares me. There are predators in the forest. If I slow down, they will get me. I don’t have a shell to protect me, I only have my elusiveness.”

“But you don’t understand,” the tortoise would reply. “I can’t move that fast. I’m not built that way. I need my shell and I need my pace in order to survive. I just can’t move any faster.”

Both the hare’s need for speed, and the tortoise’s need for caution, scared them both. The hare liked to keep things moving. The tortoise liked her shell. Both saw threats all around them, and did what they had to do to survive.

“What should we do?” asked the hare.

“I’m not sure,” said the tortoise. Both fell into a moment of sadness, and they stopped walking.

Soon, a dove appeared in the sky. The hare began to run, as he always had. The tortoise darted in her shell, as she always had. The dove landed on a tree near them both. Neither the tortoise nor the hare had ever seen a dove that looked like this one.

“Relax,” said the dove. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Slowly, the tortoise poked her head out of her shell, and the hare stopped running. Both looked up at the dove.

“What are you doing?” asked the dove.

“What do you mean?” both the tortoise and the hare responded at the same time.

“You both are so busy looking at what you think keeps you safe that you aren’t looking at what really will keep you safe. You aren’t seeing what is truly important.”

The hare and the tortoise looked at each other. Both had an idea of what the dove meant, but both were unsure.

“Look,” said the dove. “What you have here is love. You both love each other, and want to be on this path together. Yet, both are afraid of each other and what it means to be in love. Each of you wants to hide in your own way. What would happen if you both tried something new?”

The tortoise spoke up first. “We could be on this path together?”

“Well, yes. If that is what you choose.”

This time, it was the hare who responded. He looked at the tortoise. “I choose to be on this with you.”

“And I with you,” said the tortoise.

“Then,” said the dove to the hare, “you need to be able to slow down and honor the pace she needs to walk. If she needs to hide, let her. Don’t run from her, but protect her until she feels comfortable to emerge again.”

The hare shook his head. He understood what the dove meant. Sometimes walking a path with someone you love requires you to face your fear. Soon you’ll learn that your fear is often only in your head, and you can’t keep running from those things in your head. When you hide in your shell, your head goes with you.

“And you,” said the dove to the tortoise. “Don’t be afraid of the hare. He isn’t going to hurt you. Sometimes, try to speed up a bit.”

The tortoise understood. She looked at the hare and smiled.

“One day,” the dove went on, “you going to find that you both are walking the same speed most of the time. You’ll also see that when you need to run, or hide, that will be okay. You’ll know you have each other’s back and you’ll never have to run from each other. The space you share will be your safest. You will both see how strong you are, both together and apart.”

From that day on, the tortoise and the hare walked, ran, hid and scrambled on the same path together. Neither feared the other again, and each understood that when one had to hide, the other could let them be and hold the space safe for them. Both always knew that the dove, that love, was always guiding them on this path.

Mostly, what the tortoise and the hare learned on this path was that the tortoise was right, this was not a race. It would not matter if either of them crossed the finish line first. What would matter is that they crossed it together.

The end.

Oh, my love. I’ve fallen hopelessly into the mist. I feel you everywhere, touching me in places never touched before, arising in me a passion long untapped. What can lovers who share a heart do but move together in that majestic rhythm? What can an inspired man do but surrender to love’s sweet pull?

I realize that here is nothing that I can do. I can only surrender as the barriers of my mind crumble before me. I can only give myself to you as the wicked, shaking ground begins to settle all around us.

Come, be with me in our nook. United with me in that place where two pieces made to fit unite in love’s purpose. Know the man who has so given himself to you, and let him know you in return. Wrap yourself in the safety of this love, forsaking all fear to the God who wishes to take it from you. Give me your forever as I give to you my eternity. Be notorious by my side, forsaking what was for what is destined, and giving what now exists the just due it demands.

Settle with me there, in that spot we find great comfort. Let me wrap my arms around you and hold you close, replacing the noise around us with the sounds of our breathing. Lay with me upon that altar made sacred by soft kisses and the awesome truth that we have found. Truth discovered as we turned our hearts into words and our words into the absolutely indescribable. Truth that exists when we touch, when we lay, and when we silence that noise and listen to what remains.

Truth found in the moment when we reach for each other in our early morning haze. Truth found when we awaken, fingers intertwined and hearts ready for the day. Truth found in the silent dialog between our hearts as our flesh meets, as I kiss you on your shoulder, and as you bury yourself in my warmth.

We’ve only known the truth there, my love. No fear, no doubt, no uncertainty. Only the truth of love bestowed upon two souls who sought the destiny of being reunited once again. Brought together in our time. In our place. In our nook.

 

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” ~Rumi

That grass. That golden grass. Sweet to the skin and comforting to the soul. That is love, a magical and unexplainable sense of plush support that redirects the mind to the heart. Meet me there, and lay with me under the Spring Sun, counting butterflies when they pass as we lose ourself in the truth of our union. The fire that lit our way to each other burns brightly still. The well-lit yet sometimes twisting path is lit under that single flame as two souls lay on the same grass on the same field, contemplating the possibilities. There, the fullness of truth leaves us speechless yet full of Love’s sweet word.

“I want to see you.

Know your voice.

Recognize you when you
first come ’round the corner.

Sense your scent when I come
into a room you’ve just left.

Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.

Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.

I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
“more” ~Rumi

Oh, Love, such sweet truth! To know you in the was the Earth bends to your weight, how my soul bends to your lips. To know! To know! To know such amazing heights as to fly in love with you! To know the safety of our space, the joys of our flow stream, and the breadth of our own transcendence is the truth of our existence. Could God exist beyond a single touch of your fingers on my skin? Could heaven be anywhere but within the space we share? Sure, to know…oh to know this truth realized in the joys of our own anticipation.  I simply long for the taste…

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.” ~Rumi

Please, do not overly concern yourself with my mind. May my heart beat so loudly as you never hear my fears, or see my trembling, or feel my quakes with the rising Sun. You are the flow that sets my heart to bleed love and truth on pages strewn about my world. You are the truth I’ve been made to realize as I dance when no one is looking to music very few would understand.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~Rumi

This flow…remarkable in its intention and wonderful in its promise… has taken a hold of me. Winding through the forests and deserts birthed in a lifetime, I feel the pull of something beautiful as it awakens me. Out of the comfortable box I go, thrown about like a leaf in a storm, to enjoy the sight and scent of you. Give me time to adjust to my new surroundings, and love to remind me of why I am there. Do not change a thing, the leaf needs the wind and the ground and the spring to be itself, and I have no intention of grasping a twig when I have such a tree to embrace. Just love, reminded of what pulled you to write words of truth, to grow wings and fly, and to meet me in spaces you had never seen before. Remember that graceful pull that led you into such a sweet embrace, into such a miraculous kiss, into eternity.

“I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.”  ~Rumi

Yes.

 

I asked to be filled with what I need to know. I was instructed to write this down, and share it as it was offered.

Tears.

You are I are shrouded in white. You have a golden flower in your hair, and I see the brightness of your smile. There are no words, just you and just me, standing face to face in joy and contentment.

You take my hand. You recite to me words you’ve written, yet you need to look at nothing. I can feel your grip get tighter when you get to certain parts, but you look into my eyes and courageously say the words that love has transcribed.

You never let go of my hand. Through blurry eyes I just gaze at you, my heart both settled and excited in the moment. You have come home to me, and without question know this we belong in this space together. I recite words to you, written in my heart and shared with no one else. I can see a tear of joy flow down your cheek, for finally it has all be worth it.

We just stand there for a moment, taking in the absolute bliss of the end of one journey and the beginning of another. Our hands belong together, and our lips beg for a kiss. You lean in as I touch your face, kissing you softly with a tenderness of a man in love. I kiss the tears on your cheek, and together we both know we have been healed.

I ask you if you are happy. You say you’ve never been happier. You ask me the same, I have no words but these.

I once saw a mist in the heavens, and asked it for its name. 
I once reached out to empty air, and found emptiness the same,
I once remembered in my night, the starry sky above,
And in an instant here you stood, I had finally found true love.

No shroud could ever withstand the heat of this destiny, and soon the whiteness faded into vibrant color. We turned and walked toward the lake, and I realized we were standing on the dock. The mountains mirrored on the calm surface, and a couple of herons landed in the distance.

You put your head on my shoulder, our hands united as the Sun embraced us with its warmth. More tender, private words spoken in this moment.

“She’s coming,” said they. “Be ready…”