ONCE UPON A TIME...

 ....... a traveling philosopher and seer reached the top of a mountain after a hard day's travel. Laboriously, he inched around the last, giant boulder and stepped onto a large flat plateau with a beautiful, iridescent fire, burning at its center. Marveling, he walked slowly around its borders, admiring the beauty and intricacy with which it had been constructed. A limitless array of colors danced within the flames. He couldn't get too close because at irregular but continuous intervals, the fire would draw in on itself and then shoot outward and upward,spewing out deep, black-purple and dark indigo flames into the air, before subsiding back down and resuming its rainbow dance of color. 

He was entranced. He put down his willow staff, took off his orange cloak and sat, leaning back against the boulder. Staring into the flames.

Time passed. He could hear a fountain of water on the far side of the plateau, shooting out of the mountainside, straight and true. Down to the river,in the valley below. He was of the water and it drew him mightily, but he stayed, leaning up against the boulder, watching the fire from a safe distance. His brilliant orange robe dulled, laying dusty and discarded on the ground beside him. His willow staff of the river grew brittle and dry. 

He yearned for the water and where it might lead him, but the fire demanded to be watched though it was intertwined on itself. It could not go through its myriad changes without an audience. The fountainhead beckoned for him to come to no avail. The spray of its tears coating the rocks all way to the valley floor and the river flowing strong and true below.

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Myth and legend are the fate for certain truths in the land of belief that can bear only so much pain. How does one know of ancient stories of realities where hearts were broken unless they have a memory to remind them?
 

A memory stirs. a call is put out.

For what?

Unknown. except that, for some yet to be determined reason, it is right time.

So they awoke. this fire and this water. And they knew. They're sisters! A blessing and a curse to each of them.

But it explained a lot that had been so mysterious to the wanderer. That had been so lost to him. For he had been sleeping too. For soooo long. Called, driven, he picked up his cloak, dusted it off, and put it back on. And then he reached for his withering staff. Steadied by it, he arose to reach for the majestic essence of BOTH the fire AND the water stirring all around him. Engulfing him. awaking him. Reaching for and connecting to his very core.

Shaken! Reeling! Undone! He wavered, staggered, almost falling into the abyss. Many times. But the staff held true on the firm earth and the air began to smell sweet again as his cloak began to reclaim its shine.

A shock to the system I tell ya!! This stuff that calls to him. That leaves him standing in awe in its magnificent presence. Stuff that's real. Stuff that holds up. The kinda stuff you don't hang on the wall.

And then he knew too. They'd called to him when they'd called to each other midst their seeking which knows no other way and thank our Mother for it. Which comes to life when there's nothing left to loose. And he could see and feel how it could have been no other way. And he rested easier in his broken heart. for it gave him life.

What now, he said. 

And then, driven by an inspiration and intuition that could be of and by no other, he looked to the sky and it winked at him. And then he turned and looked into hell and it was if he'd looked into a mirror. Cuz he had. Which stirred an ancient memory in him. So he put out his own call... 

  Nothing can mend these broken hearts 

until you mend the splits that drove you apart. 

And then he turned back again. Toward the winkers. And with eyes and heart lifted he fell to his knees....

Mother, Father, God, Heart... guide us, he said. 

Hold us close and protect us in a cocoon of Your Loving, Living, Healing Light.

For it feels to Me that we and You are one and same...

And then, he arose. And with a knowing and resolve the likes of which could be reckoned to the aging Miss Rose in the final scene in Titanic, he jumped into the abyss. For it is there where the splits exist... 

The beginning.....