As the mid day sun rose higher in the sky, the man below, on a journey up the mountain side, bent lower to the ground. The horse he carried on his back grew heavier than he had ever imagined a horse would, or could be. Drops of sweat ran down his face, and his shirt stuck to his flesh like wet tar. Beyond all reason he let his mind speak to him to breathe, take the next step, and breathe again.

This was when another traveler, seeking the top of the mountain, passed this man carrying his horse. The traveler stopped, watched for a minute, for this was not something you saw every day. I mean a man carrying his horse. Finally confused, he suggested the man might be better off, or more comfortable if he let the horse walk beside him.

The man carrying his horse stopped, caught his breath, and struggled to reply, he said, “But stranger, I choose which burdens to carry, which burdens to walk beside, and which ones to face. In our lives we are not the victims, and often our power to choose seems the heaviest burden, or greatest blessing of all.”

The two travelers set up camp there in the heat of the noon day sun. The sky turned a bright blue. Birds sang for rain, and a creek held mud, not water on this day.

Higher up the mountain path a man piled rocks until he had odd looking ant hill shapes all around him. Then he would, rock by rock move these man made rock hills a few feet, and begin again. Year after year he stayed in this place doing this work day after day. He spoke to no one, but in his journal he had written, { What we enter into our heart space, we will reflect around us. What we love will teach us more about our selves than we might imagine we would some day know.}

On top of the mountain sat a wise man. He grew less wise with each passing year because he became stagnate in his journey. Not wanting to return to the valley he lost the balances that once offered him the very wisdoms he knew. On the top of the mountain in new fallen snow he marked out these words. {When one chooses the consequences of their actions, their steps will follow the journey desired. When one flutters, with emotions leading the way, from choice to choice, they sometime loose sight of the how the consequences, or path they once desired came to be what it is. One can not live in what once was, because all things change. One can not go home again for home out grew the moments once lived in. We are here for the journey, the growing, the stretching of all that is.}

Down in the valley a child’s song was sometimes heard on the wind. The words were, {Oh beautiful mountain standing tall, touching the sky, show me the way to grow so big.
Oh beautiful mountain take my mothers, this valleys hand, and show me who I am. Teach me love. Balance my hearts space with equal joys, and sorrows so I might understand this journey that calls out from inside me. Oh beautiful mountain
standing tall, touching the sky, help me to learn as I too grow so tall.}

The mountain knew at each sun set, and sun rise that until we each faced our deepest inner places we would live out the lies we tell our self. The mountain knew much like the weather, our truths would change as we awoke to these deeper heart spaces inside us. The mountain knew each step, and journey that was etched upon its side.

The mountain spoke these words, {All things embrace a vibration that leaves an imprint behind like smoke trails from a airplane in the sky. When one limit’s the love they are capable of expressing, and becoming, they get lost in shallow places that leave scars like stretch marks across the flesh. Until vulnerability becomes our greatest strength we will live in prisons of our own making. When we choose not to touch the greater whole of the all within us, we will sometimes live in frozen wisdoms that once seemed wise. When each becomes one with the whole of the water fall, the seasons, and the changes they face with each choice they make, they will not fear to be open to the wondrous embrace of knowing, and living the life they so choose. In this place a sacred love manifest a deeper fragrance that offers us a place of rebirth, so we might as the butterfly does, grow new wings so we too can fly without staying tethered to the selfishness within us.

Within the heart space there is a sun that chooses sometimes to dip behind a darkness, much like the sun in the heavens dips behind a rain cloud. These places are not to be feared but embraced as only a promise of what we are capable of on our journey while we are here. With the eyes we see with, our minds, and hearts will show us, and tell us many things. What our spirit, and soul does is balance us like the four directions, and as above so below, we know choice is the power we give away, or weld as a tool where ever we go. }

As the mountain stood like a still life painting, with the sky as the back drop, I wondered at this dream before me. Reminders of the valley, remembrances of the steps my path had taken, and then seeing myself clearly, I found myself singing as the child above. With humbled gratitude for the ends, and beginning to all things. My heart opened like a lotus flower, and I knew what, and who I was. The greater joy in this place as my heart space continued to stretch open was the deeper I saw, and understood myself, I saw, and understood your journey as well. Much like crystals in a cave dancing with rainbow lights, and calling out with echoes, I found , like notes within a child’s song, we are all one, and as one, we are all many. Namaste.

(From The Uncrucified)

Yes, you capture the double edged sword the honey on the razor blade dilemmas and quandaries of our existence, it's really like the old old idea of the Fortunate Fall that medieval theologians liked to ponder - no Fall - no crucifixion and redemption etc. I constantly swing really in my attitude depending on my mood and how aligned I am in any moment whether I feel human beingness really is a wondrous expoloration and blessing and how amazing and miraculous that the God/Goddess bequeathed us such grace of choice or also at other times I quake a little how dangerous how risky this venture into the darkness is, we can seem to lose our souls in the 'external' world we made I suppose because we don't even realize that we made it! - you can gain the whole world yet lose your soul. And many many in this age seem to be lost, have little or no awareness of themselves as anything other than bodies playing the body game. And ironically for the game to take place at all that forgetting has to be there, that rather ruthless brutal exclusive focus on the physical. "Our birth is a sleep and a forgetting" as Wordsworth put it. We become objectified in our objectifications as one modern philosopher writes. I guess in the end it's up to us whether and when it's a fortunate Fall or not! Perhaps it could have been much more gentle and our forgetting just the lightness of a rather pleasant dream of a grosser garden to play in, but human never do things by halves always go to extremes and so here we are, just after the 20th century probably the darkest century in our known history and skirting apocalypse now. But in the end I guess everyone in their own time will awaken which is no time at all! I found like notes in a chid's song we are all one,

Thanks again Aireal,
Alan R.

Until vulnerability becomes our greatest strength we will live in prisons of our own making.

Thank you aireal