Lily stepped out from the woods into a scene that ever
changed, shimmered, all bathed in golden light, a light coming out from it. It
was as if the world had let out a sigh and allowed her to be born anew. The air
was fresh, full of energy, with an aroma of flowers and a sound of waterfall
afar.
"Here I go!" Take a big breath and, she yelped,
she begins the way. Behind her was the unknown, a banner of what if's, and
fearless and full-of-fear Lily jumped on for the ride.
As the days and weeks to follow continued passing, Lily's
world began to transform. She came face-to-face with animals quite unseen,
shimmering moths with wings of silver, ancient white trees telling tales, and
beings of pure life as energy that pirouetted about her, leaving sparkling
trails in their feathers slight. Every interaction that it produced in her left
her wanting to be amazed whilst generating at the same time a better
understanding of the world and how one lives in it.
She came to herself at the top of mountains that could just
reach the cloud-the atmosphere thinning as she got to the summit, the world
spread out beneath her like an elaborate carpet. Swim in the calmest of
streams, she followed downstream when the bracing cold of the shivers could
cool her and provide a flow to surf on, exposing deep grottoes and forgotten
courtyards.
Once there, one day sprawled beneath a cascading waterfall
and watched some otters play-a feeling of complete peace washed over her, a
cool wave of total bliss."I can't believe this is happening!" she
exclaimed, her voice full of joy. "It's like my dreams are coming
true."
The world was her wallpaper, her symphony, her dream-a
magic. Yet, infinitely more amazing than the transformation of the world right
beneath her eyes was the transformation of her self.
She knew that the task lying before her was not only the
business of sending her eyes out into the world beyond but the adventure of
sending the darkest rooms inside her own mind out into the world beyond. She
learned to be the master of turning her inner emotional experience into state
labeling, learning her own voice of her heart and at the same time suffering
while remaining in full communion with what can't be known in a mannerly,
gracious way, ritually, and routinely, not only when the given moment demands
it.
"I'm not the same Lily," she said, and then with a
giggle, she let out a laugh. "I'm a whole new person, ready for
anything." Her eyes aglow with fresh awareness of newfound power and
purpose, she tiptoed toward the edge of a life radically changed.
Before her stretched the long road, offering her an
unimaginably far and indeterminate future, replete with chances. Smilingly,
Lily accepted it, and her heart throbbed with the yearning for what was in
store and the joy of the unknown.