I wake up lying diagonally across my bed, arms and legs akimbo, smiling. Space around me, space in my brain, room in my heart, emptied of things I don’t need, don’t use. I imagine my heart-brain is furnished with a big garnet-red couch, velvet, soft, lived in. Under it, an emerald green area rug, woven with strands of saffron, gentle to my bare feet, welcoming to my toes. Books that make me laugh, poems that break my heart open. The scents of cardamom and cinnamon.
//
I had a nightmare that turned into a dream. My home was being torn down while I was inside. Big scooping steel jaws like dinosaur mouths tearing open the roof, destroying the walls around me. I ran outside, not to stop the wreckers, but to shame them, berate them, for destroying without regard. For their careless, thoughtless destruction of my sanctuary. I was not afraid or weak, I was enraged. This fresh feeling, righteous outrage on my own behalf, delights me like a ripe peach, filling my mouth with juice, indulgent, satisfying.
//
//
Between sleeping and waking, another place appears. I am walking in a forest. Tall pine and fir trees crowd the night sky, which has no moon, but is clear, and full of stars. There are no mosquitos, just cool clear air. The stars are bright points of light, ricocheting through the branches, lighting my way. I am walking, steadily, slowly, toward something. The pull is insistent, as if the North Star, or gravity, or the Milky Way itself wants me to keep pressing, though I don’t know toward what. For once, I don’t stumble on roots, I don’t get whacked in the face with twigs. I am on the right path.
I see a clearing up ahead, and as I walk between two white birch trunks, it opens to me. Starlight and firelight mix to reveal grasses, matted leaves, and scattered rocks. The smells of pine, fresh dirt and burning wood fill my lungs. There is a large fire at the center of the clearing and next to the fire there is a seated woman. She does not look up. Calm washes over me. I feel her presence like safety. She is old but ageless, and she is so very wise. She sits on the ground, cross legged, her hands in her lap, her eyes gently closed. This is her fire. I understand that her quiet attention is what is keeping the fire burning. Logs burn and crash into each other and sparks fly into the night above it, but the fire never weakens.
Slowly, other figures come into focus, they are young and old and in between. They are girls and women, dancing and playing and sitting around the fire. Some have built their own small fires and some sit quietly in the darker reaches of the clearing. They all have some type of communion with the woman, a touch, a whisper, a word, a glance, a nod, but they all flow freely in the space. As my eyes adjust, I realize that they are all her, that she is me, we are one, bound by our past and our present. I sit beside her and feel my body rooted to the ground, peaceful, at home. I lean my head on her shoulder.
I have made a solemn promise to honor and tend my fire. Others may come to it, they may warm and nourish themselves by it, add to it, even. But no one may diminish it, no torch may be taken away from it.
We must all do this. This does not isolate us, does not make us miserly. We each bring our fire with us, to the ones we love, to our lives, our passions, our struggles. We add to others’ fires with our love and compassion. The only way we do harm is to abandon it, to leave it to another to tend for us. The responsibility is ours, heavy, rewarding, necessary.
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