We know of the love of the sun, of brightness and warmth and power. We feel it around us every day, and we see its fruit not only in the plants and trees around us but in the blossoming of our own hearts and the warmth we have toward others. We also know of the love of the sea, of depth and tides and mesmerizing waves. We feel it around us when we visit any body of water, and we see how the waves hug the shore but also emanate from our own hearts as they wash upon our loved ones. We know, too, of the love of the Earth, of stability and comfort and nurture. We feel it around us constantly with every step we take, and we see how gravity pulls us toward the Earth as it hugs us and also as we hold our loved ones closely in rock-hard protection. And we know of the love of the wind, of soft caresses and change and new hopes. We feel it around us daily, and we acknowledge its feeling of touch and scent in the material world but also in invisible energy softly kissing our loved ones as they gently return the kisses.
But there is another love.
It is not a love of the sun or the sea or the Earth or the wind,
although it can use any of those vehicles as it chooses. Late at night when the sense of sight dulls
and leaves us, when hearing tricks us, when scents become confused, when tastes
become unwelcome, and when touch becomes frightened, there is another energy
afoot. When the creatures of the light
flee to their places to hide out of fear of the unknown, and the unknown itself
threatens to tear down all the known beauty of the world, and the darkness
reaches its cold hands toward the ebbing warmth of the living, there is a
binding, gentle, yet powerful force of love.
 |
| Quickly receding, the mist returns to nothing. |
When the abyss opens and threatens to swallow us and an
eternity of darkness and nothingness reaches for us, the silent love rises and
shields us. A great mist weaves its way
throughout the land, claiming everything it encircles as its own. “You are mine, you are mine,” it whispers. It lies close to the Earth, to the sea and
the rivers and lakes. It forms from
nothing and returns to nothing.
Everything it touches becomes lost within it. It hugs us and pulls us to the ground and
keeps us shrouded and safe from the abyss.
“Stay here. I will
shield you. Nothing can penetrate my
embrace. I will hold you safe until the
light returns.” And it does return, with
no knowledge of what its creatures have fearfully endured in the inky blackness. We wake from our dream, shaking a confused
head, the feeling and knowledge of the other love already disappearing and
seeming like a faraway dream. It recedes
quickly, gone within moments with the arrival of the brilliant sun, a gray
shadow that slips back into the nothing from whence it came, waiting for the
next embrace.
