Welcome to the Kingdom of Opposite –

Soul is on a path, rocky and barren, dry, desert wind blowing.  This part of the path has been five months and a little more, it reckons. Sweat- laden, Soul turns its head and glances around the landscape, plodding, plodding. Step at a time, day at a time, one tear at a time. A side way glance, grasping, grabbing arms, tentacle-like flail from a stream going the opposite direction. Soul sees flashes behind, flashes of fascinating things, muddied and unclear. It stops, staring and mesmerized. Shaking its head, it turns, glancing at the path that it’s been on…almost half of this new year. The same old, same sharp stones, same small way.  Soul’s head turns once more to the brilliant flow on either side of him. It thinks to itself, “I have none of those accomplishments, what is that newness, I need that, I’m different, I’m wasting, withering in obscurity, I’m desperate for easy, restful things.” Something sticky and hard is on its arm. Soul looks down. A black, stinking, ugly tentacle is grasping its arm. The stream gleams, it glitters, it accomplishes great, measurable things. There are accolades and praise in the sweet-smelling stream. Soul trembles. What has Soul done compared to the this alluring flash surrounding it? How can Soul measure up? Another tentacle joins its companion. Soul thinks, “I have nothing, I am nothing, all I have is this journey of rocks, painful and jarring.” Closing eyes, deep breath, Soul hears something. It can’t compete with the glamorous beauty flowing all around it. It is so faint, so gentle, yet has a musical, lyrical bell-like quality to it. Soul bends. Soul rests in the wind of it. Reaching and stretching its ear to it, Soul finally yields to its draw. Listen. Can you hear it with Soul? “Be still and know.” Soul realizes that its cheeks are wet like the dew of the morning and its parched, patched heart is refreshed. The tentacles are gone, bloody traces of their grip slashed across Soul’s wrists. Soul turns once again to the path winding in the opposite direction of the teeming stream. Something brilliant on the path jumps out at Soul. It stoops to touch it, warm on its finger. It’s gruesome, it’s dark red, it’s sticky, it’s messy, it’s a blood trail. Soul never noticed this before. Soul’s blood drip, drips, down mingling with the blood on the ground. Soul crests the next rocky ridge, plod, plod, step, step, and upon looking down into the valley below, through a heavy, dank, fog, it catches a glimpse of Something. Soul can’t name it. Yet, it takes a step down and toward, into the unknown, refusing a glimpse to the side and the beautiful, teeming, mass flowing beside it, instead filled with an unexplained, incredible Love that fills the lonely, confused, and weary crevices of Soul. Soul scrambles, tripping, stumbling over the rocks, relationships rocks, Soul-wrenching rocks, just to catch one glimpse. It never does, but it follows the brilliant Light that surrounds the Something, sending out a pulsing promise of “You are loved.” Soul catches its breath, places its scarred feet one step lower into the Kingdom of Opposite. Soul falls, but looks up, faintly seeing this Beauty ahead, on the same path, together with Soul. The Light beckoning with love and acceptance, Soul seeing the path of blood flowing from the One, that blood mixing with its own on this journey, and nothing, no ease, no prize can complete with the brilliance of this dusty, love-soaked path. Step, step, plod, plod. One moment at a time.

~