I go to the Wellspring full of glee. I can’t stop telling her of all the wonderful things I’ve seen and done and heard. She laughs and listens. We eat with our fingers from a shared bowl. All the while I am being dressed, my old ragged clothes removed, my hair combed and braided. I find myself in tight dark yielding clothes, nothing to impede my movement. It’s going to be a crowded, busy day, I don’t want to catch on anything.

The Sisters of the Light Hands gather around a small fire. I am gnawing the bones of something I have just devoured. I hadn’t realized how ravenous I was. I come out of my feeding frenzy feeling sheepish. I think to apologize for my appetites but looking around I realize that all the Sisters have been feasting. We are all equally greasy cheeked and grinning. We sigh and fall back onto the ground, sated and happy, with our arms spread as if lying flat on your back required balance. We maybe sleep a bit. As we are sleeping, we let go of what we have been carrying that no longer serves. The weight of it all sinks down into the earth. Our bodies grow looser and looser until our spirits slip out through our sleeping mouths.

Our spirits have big feet and broad hips. However we move it is called dance.

Giddy with grace, we race up the hill to meet the day. As we run we merge until we are all one, laughing.

Bear tackles me outside the cave of days, knocks me flat and steps on me. “This is serious,” he reminds me. He doesn’t approve of my speed and giggles. He draws a claw down my chest, opening me to the heart. “Don’t forget this.” My heart is molten. He pours honey over it to soothe it. It becomes the golden bowl. “Remember this,” he says again. “Remember this.”

More soberly, and breathing easy, I rise and go through the bright fissure into a tumbled rock field. There is living ground under the rubble. In some places I can reach through and touch it. There is nourishment in the touch of it. I squat on the rocks and consider. There was a magnificent structure here once, fallen now. There are trees farther out and the promise of a road, but here where I am requires excavating.

I begin to move the rocks. I know they are meant for building and I long to build, but I don’t know how. As I continue to work, picking up rocks and moving them where they want to go, I discover that the building evolves of its own accord. I am making it happen, I am the engine, but I am not the engineer.

I continue my devotions. Without going anywhere, where I am going comes to me. Through a beautiful arched gateway I see the splashing of the fountain.

OOO