Small bird-being. Naked. Sprawled in my palm. Unmoving. Dark red-brown. Like old blood.
I sensed life waiting. Breathed once into tiny beak.
Like a kiss. Accepted.
It grew. Changed form. From being in the palm of my hand it now filled my arms. A gentle cat.
Then the colours came. Awesomely bright. Crystal rainbows. One colour at a time.
Each one filled the room, spilled into - rather than over - others around me. They shone. Some prayed. Some just smiled as if for the first time ever. Many just seemed to step out of age-old misery, shook it off like a mummified skin and were happy.
All the while colours blossomed, every transformation more expansive than the last.
I wondered if it was the way of it or was it like a mood ring. Affected by what it found and touched.
It wasn’t necessary to understand, though. I just knew that each marvel came at the right moment.
The creature in my arms seemed like a bird again. Its texture rippled fur to feather, then became a strange mixture of both. And I knew it didn’t have a preferred or predetermined form at all. It could be anything. It adapted and responded to whatever was happening within itself and around. Perfectly.
I found that I had no preference either. I didn't mind that it was no longer identifiable.
Labels slipped away as smoothly as the colours.
There was nothing messianic about what I had done. If there was any of “that” going on it came from this presence. I hadn’t thought about breathing into it; had no expectations, will or hope for anything.
I just did it. Nor was it thinking to be a bird, a cat or anything else. It just changed and was. Beauty.
I said that it could stay with me, no matter what my other animal companions felt about another guest. Then I knew that it didn’t need a specific home at all. It had become formless. Even the gorgeous colours were now invisible. I wasn’t sad, felt no loss, doubt or fear. Knew that it was purely as it was. In the air. Free of form.
Outside, a man was in charge of rebuilding where we all lived. He was transforming an old village into a new complex. Normally I decry how developers remove the heart of a place, kill history and create a nightmare. But this was different. He was replacing stagnant old with new life.
Everything was breathing. Equally.
Here was paradise - in the making.
It didn’t even matter what the village was going to look like, its essence was already beautiful.
And isn't it cool that Evanescence is singing "wake me up inside" - right now on the radio - while my horoscope says "put your energy to good use today" ...
Today feels very .... Special ...
*images: alchemy.com and baseheart.org
