new manuscript: a book of short stories:
A Circle of Swift Songs... A Circlet of Inner-Life Stories
A New Song
IT SEEMS THAT OUR DAYS roll on one after another, all
predictable, but if we knew how to listen to the things in them, we would find
treasure in each one, and our lives would be filled with abundance.
This particular
day for me was one I know I will never forget, for though ordinary on the
outside it was filled with shining meaning on the inside. The day’s joyful
discoveries made all the more astounding by its surface plain ordinariness. It
was like a geode. A plain grey stone on the outside but split in half found to
contain a host of minuscule mountain ranges of sparkling amethyst crystals, and
a wonderland of beauty in miniature.
For on that simple day I awoke to a
transformed landscape, magical and awe inspiring. I was staying for a time in a
house high up on a mountain, and I had risen early and gone to look out the
window. There was a low mist, and all the hills below were piercing through it.
They had become islands, and the rolling mist between them, the sea. The view
was beautiful, but so different now from how it normally looked I was
entranced. I opened the window and looked out waiting and watching for the gift
this day might bring. A day which I had thought would render only an inner
dryness; and be same like any other. Then while dreamily beholding this new
land, the first rays of the dawn began to break through the clouds above the
sea of mist, filling the sky with colours that took away my breath and clothed
all the world in a delicate pearl shell glory.
I gazed transfixed, seeing with new eyes
hearing with new ears. For as I waited by the window, looking out on a
different kind of sea, waves of another awareness came flowing through me,
passing right through as though I were not there; and they were like ribbons
flying of light in many colours, and I was filled with new things which I could
not understand. Sleepiness overtook me, or was it some new peace, and I left
the window and returned to my bed.
Whether awake or asleep I don’t know, but I
became aware of being in a tower, an ivory tower like a lighthouse, where you
could see for miles and miles and perceive the things which were invisible. As
I looked from its heights I saw music as a flowing veil permeating all things;
and I saw that the world we live in has a song and that it lives inside its own
melody which played continuously. After a moment’s pause, I saw all the
elements of the song become tangible and I understood the invisible things of
it.
The song of the world had to its sound not
only all its own elements, the things that are in a song as we know a song – a
certain mood, and a feeling, a taste, a flavour, and a fragrance – it had more.
It had to it a certain depth of vision or sight beyond which it could not go,
speaking in us a certain underlying message as the song went in and through everyone
and everything. Through all it moved, and in all it travelled, and unknowingly
it enveloped all the world conditioning all our thoughts and our responses to
life.
I saw the song the World has been playing to
us had become so ingrained in us that no one knew another; or that there could
even be another; for it was as a colour that coloured everything. It was as an
essence that flavoured everything. It was as a strong wine that turned true
things into fables and mysteries, clouding and confusing them; although that
was so well hidden no one knew. I saw that the song had its own beauty, and it
was astonishing, and I admired it greatly when first I saw it. But as I
continued to watch I perceived that it lulled us into conformity with its
melody, and that men slept not knowing they slept unable to see further.
The view from the tower faded and it grew
dark and a depth of night came, and I could see nothing. The darkness was
fearsome and I was afraid. But that I could see nothing, that was good; and
what I was meant to see; for that way
what I perceived was not of myself and so I saw truly. I waited and watched,
and with a knowing that something would change. But it was me that was changed;
and being changed I could see with new eyes, and hear with new ears.
A great light appeared upon the horizon
rising from between the hills. As the fingerlings of the dawn arose from out of
the womb of the morning a new song was born in ribbons of light and in waves of
a different kind of awareness. A second time they were passing through me, as
though I were not there, but now I was given to understand things not possible
for me to understand.
The new song was so different to the old
that in its light everything seemed to be turned back-to-front, and upside
down, and inside out, and went in the opposite direction. Yet, from there, you
could travel in all directions at the same time, for in it nothing was bound by
the strings and circumspection of the old; for its nature was completely
different; and everyone who lived inside its melody wherever it played
continuously was set at liberty to love and to live freely. Where the new song
flowed, things which once were hard, were found easy; things unfair, just; and
difficulties were experienced as treasured gifts. For though its colour, when
seen through the eyes of the old song, was as sackcloth and ashes, seen through
the new song there was a whole new spectrum of colour and joy all unspeakable,
full of great glory.
Beauty was its inner fragrance; faith and long-suffering
its inner work. Gentleness was its mood, and feeling, and kindness its flavour
and taste. But it was unfailing love which was its entire nature, through
patience its shape turning all paths to pleasantness making each one peace.
Inner gold was its treasure from unveilings of truth; revealing life’s true
wealth in the secrets of its prophecies; which mysteries have confounded the
wise for thousands of years. Ever-fresh was its diversity through its boundless
dimensions, bringing new understandings beautiful as crystals of snow; every
one different no two the same. Touching places within you, you were once never
aware of; rending and piercing you turning you over and over. Brave the bright
joy amidst its first hurting delight. Beautiful beyond all description the
bittersweet loveliness of its fresh fragrant sound.
As I watched this new song, it swept across
all the land and it seemed as if I was taken further, and higher, aloft inside
the tower; which place of utter surrender was my refuge and strength, my
fortress and my hiding place; and I saw more. The new song, when it was all
through you, made you all new; and alive took you further inside, to lead you
further out into a broad place, a wide place; oh, it was huge. Greater by far
the open landscapes in you, through the new song; greater were its inner
freedoms, a million miles more than any we had ever known by the dimensions of
the old. This one took you beyond every confine, opening windows you never saw
before, taking you through gates you did not know existed, transporting you to
Everland right there where you were, making heaven your home, and freedom your
birthright.
As the sun arose the sea of mist rolled
away, and returning to the way things were the unfolding faded. Yet, still held
in the everlasting arms it was as if I were cradled there, and the air became
full of a white fluttering and the tower became as a flight of doves and I
found myself laid to rest upon my bed, and I awoke there later, refreshed, and
all things new. My once sorrowful time in this mountain retreat to recover
something of my health, no more a trial to be born in days of inactivity; the
rest of my stay in that beautiful house was full of adventure. Like the geode,
it was all plain and ordinary, on the outside; but, oh, most marvellously
filled, on the inside with…joy!
Dulled by long conformity to the song of the
world, we think not to look again upon the everyday things around about us, and
see them a second time. But in every single thing there is so much more, when
once you are fashioned anew and a new song sings its own calling song through
you. Its fragrance bidding all come and partake of abundance, and drink of its
airy wine in you. Then were no two days the same and nothing was dully
predictable; each day holding some treasure, unique to you, something waiting
to be discovered. Then was life filled to overflowing, and every trying thing
became a piece of gold. The inner gold within... the shining glory there of
hidden wealth in secret places, won!
*
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