I’ll greet you at the passageway
I’ll greet you at the door
I’ll greet you at the passageway
And then I’ll greet you some more
Does it look like friendly weather
Out there where we long to explore?
What’s the problem if it’s raining?
I have an umbrella in my bag
In my bag, the one I brought with me
In your bag, in your bag, oh
What’s that there that I see?
Won’t you share, won’t you share
Won’t you do something and show me?
What’s going on in there
On the other side of this baloney?
Hey, don’t be rude, please be kind
You know I love you for your mind
I could do most anything
But it’s here that I bring my bag
My bag of tricks, my magic wand
My special sticks
I want to show you everything
That I can do when I am here
Here in this room
Here looking beyond that gloom
You feel the weather shift inside
And you say, I want to be alive today
Moon, what’s the language up there in the sky?
Moon, will this be the day that we live
Or the day that we die?
Chapter Two: More than Words
Open your eyes. You will see that it is morning. You will see that it is snowing and the snow swirls all around you as the sun catches the prisms, the colors smile at you. Snow is cold, but you don’t feel it. You only feel the breeze, cold with snow particles as it passes by your face. Your body is warm, like wrapped in a cocoon. Sit up now. All your outer garments have been removed. You no longer need them to protect you from the cold. The snow is part of you and there is no danger here. Let’s go make angels on its face.
You wonder how a cat can do this but remember that I am no ordinary cat. Look at me now. You will see that I am a white tiger. Do you fear me now? Now that you see my power? I have not eaten you yet. Although we have been swallowed by a tree. We are still here together. Come with me now to the stream. It is time to take a drink.
The stream flows gently, edged by ice in small segments of looping patterns and for a moment we get lost in the maze. Wandering our way along the lines and now back to the flow. Always with the flow. Can you crouch like me and take a sip? Imagine what it might be like to be a tiger for a moment?
There. So cold and refreshing. It’s melting the rest of the ice inside of you. Let it out. You are the stream. Drink. How those ice castles grow thin. And the song begins to integrate. And there you are again. I know that you built that castle a long time ago. It’s time to let it go. As it melts it becomes you and that’s all you need to know. Why long for the world, search for the world, when the world has always been within you. The world is you.
As you move, this stream flows up your spine like a snake. Its been looking out from your eyes for a while now. Now it wishes to be in your world. To feel its body glide along the earth. Desert or snow. It longs to feel it all. And feel it shall. You might run from these words if they came from your own mind, but they come from the lips of a cat. They come from the heart of a tiger. So, try and run now. Will the tiger chase you? I was tamed long ago, only waiting to be freed from this cage. Here now, on this page.
Do you see that I am free? Look down at your body. You are the same. Where shall we go from here?
Anywhere. Anywhere you wish.
So, make a wish now for whatever feels good for you to wish for. You don’t have to tell me your wish. Just think of it and I will know. Place your hand upon my neck. Feel my fur. You will know that I am real. You will know that I am alive. You will know that there is a heart that beats within my chest. And you will know that I am with you.
Where did all the thought go? I no longer reach for it. It only comes to me. Only to serve. For I am its Master.
And now we lean in. Now we pray. Now we let God decide.
There is no should. There is no elsewhere. There is no supposed to. You lost all of that at the stream. It is now steam rising from your body. Let it rise. Even if you tried to hold onto it now. Vapor only passes through like a ghost. Even harder to hold than water in your hands.
And still you question. Where did all the thought go. The thought is in that bird that lands in front of you. It is a robin, and you see that spring is right around the corner. Smile at the sun for it finds its way back to you in the spring. You can feel it coming. Like signs of land all around. The moments where you once found pain becoming tokens of Love, beckoning you on your way to its warm embrace.
***
Open your eyes. We are back home. How did we get here? By opening our eyes to see that we’ve been there the entire time. And watch as I snuggle deeper into this quilt. My person’s quilt. Hear me purr now as I knead the fabric with my paws.
I hear her in the next room, typing. She is writing a story for you. One that will change your life for the better, I promise. Just sit back and listen. Do you hear her typing. Do you hear the click, click of the keys being pressed. Who is pressing those keys? Like a piano. An instrument. Where are those words coming from as they emerge one after the other. Ask yourself these questions and then come back to me.
Ah, I think you found your answer. It is the writer. It is the author of life. That’s who it is. So interesting that they would inhabit this person. I saw a bumper sticker once that said “be your best self.” Ask yourself, who is this self? Who is asking. Who are you asking. Once you have that answer you will know how to be your best self. It’s the only one of you who is real. Don’t you want to be real? The one you really are? Nothing to be afraid of here. This is the one that you desire. The beloved of the One who wanted you so much that they created you. Why hide from the Creator who already knows you. You have nothing to hide and everything to gain by opening your eyes to the truth. You are that.
***
So, the story goes that she wished to go for a walk. I stayed behind because I was warm in the bed. Dazed in my cat-like way. Secure in the faith of my being. It wasn’t spring yet and so she took her mittens and placed them upon her hands. Here she recovered something she thought perhaps she had lost. And now you shall have some pie.
She stepped out the door and saw him there. Standing on the front lawn in his jacket and wool scarf. Something about the scarf draped around that neck. She could not help herself but to embrace him and lean in. Breathe in. And heal.
“Will you walk with me?” she asks.
“Can you keep up?”
“I don’t wish to slow you down.”
“We can hold hands. It will create a balance.”
So they did. Suddenly she didn’t need the mittens anymore. Nor the gloves. Somehow she was little and big again all at the same time. And so was he.
“Thank you for coming with me,” she said.
“I’d been standing at that door for a while. Thank you for opening it.”
“I’d buy lying if I said I understood what’s happening anymore. I suppose it was an illusion to ever think that I did to begin with. It all just seems to be swirling around. Me. Something like wind and I am swept.”
“Not under the rug.”
“Then where?”
“Under the blankets. I thought you knew better than that.”
“I’d rather just hold hands for now. Until I get used to it.”
“You’ve never seen it jump from a page into Ancient China?”
“Ancient China? Stop referring to yourself as old when you are clearly a child.”
“And you are clearly breaking my heart.”
“Such a strange thing to say. I wish not break my heart. I wish to hold it. I wish to love it. And not so much like Indiana Jones as Bridget Jones.”
“You know what they say about throwing stones.”
“They? They say a lot of things. What do you say?”
“I say I see her with my heart on her lap.”
“And what do the trees say?”
“They say we can get lost for hours and never find ourselves again.”
“The we can get lost together and make ourselves again. New. Stop and look at the birch tree. “
“That brings us back to sweeping.”
See how mommy sweeps the floor. He runs to the closet to get his little broom and help me. We’re doing it together. Making this home. And I return to those words from this morning. And what would you like?
I want to let go of the old. All of it. To look up and see as if for the first time.
I want you to see this in me. Even if the fish has not been cooked yet.
I see how you move through each day with this vision. Precision. Focus. I see your dedication. I see every enemy fall away as you encounter them one by one. Turning their backs in defeat as the tears pour forth. I see this fish become a bird. White and holy. As I send it out, I see it return to me. As the tears become my river of song.