The New Life Stage Six Part Two For Marie

HIS HOPES My friend courted a silent muse. He saw her wide-eyed beauty as she bent low to bless his hidden heart. She appeared... there, in those empty places where he had sought her presence. She turned and smiled into the sun. Her robe shimmered between white and yellow. It was an emblem of inner seasons passing into love. Did he kneel as he offered her a sign promising tomorrows? After writing his first poem in four months, Daniel considered tossing it. Then reconsidered on re-reading, and left it on his small table, when he lay down on his cot, exhausted from Spirit Flight. When he awoke in the night, there was Monica, her back to him, sitting in his chair, reading his poem... 'Are you very mad at me? she said softly. 'I'm not mad at you. I haven't seen you for months. I've been preoccupied.' Daniel said loftily, 'I'm wrestling either with myself, or with the Universe. I can't tell which one.' Monica laughed, turning to face him with her smiling summer face. 'Daniel, I'm here to tell you you graduated with honors, or you've been promoted to the Head Office, or the war is over and you can go home. Take your pick. But I want you back in the Twin Cities, back to writing poetry in your favorite coffee shops, and especially back in sync with The Community. Do you think you can handle that? in a week or two? ' Daniel ran his fingers vigorously through his hair. 'Well, the only problem I can see - and it's huge - is I'm out of touch being with people. Because of my Spirit Flights. It takes hours to recover my Earth bearings. When people visit, they never stay long enough. And that causes misunderstandings.' 'The Community contacted me, all of them alarmed.' Daniel was fully composed. 'Monica, these past four months have been my NIGHT SEA VOYAGE! I accelerated my efforts to master. Spirit Flight. That meant a bitter bargain: I had to shut down my poetic activity to heighten my shamanic ability. But you know with the small things clustered inside of me, no harm can happen, and I believe they function like a reverse magnet, repelling the inherent evil stalking us.' Monica's closed her eyes briefly in relief. 'And I thought you were angry at me, and the The Community, and the whole enterprise we serve... ' 'Monica, what I am doing, these austerities, this time of AGON, is to serve better... You can listen to the small things. They know: I have walked calmly and swiftly through the larger world you forecast for me. I have swum in lakes of warm yellow liquids, crossed mighty rivers at floodtide as if by magic. Hills and mountains posed no obstacles for me, and I lavished my new eyes on vistas as dizzying as anything in outer space. Water-falls and fire-falls crashed in my path, clouds thick enough to roll in, and grassy meadows that intoxicated me as I wandered, huge storms of lightning in dry deserts - all these things I witnessed. And I was never fatigued or fearful or depressed. My mind was washed clear, my soul polished to its native brightness. I communed with strange beasts, whose howls, bellows, whines, whose whistles, cries and songs were eloquent past imagining. I responded by reciting Shakespeare and Yeats, and we bonded! ' Daniel was rapt, revealing finally his dazzling life. Monica became increasingly excited with his telling. She embraced him for only a moment, but to him it was sweetness past imagining. 'Daniel, I am, and always will be your Anima.... '