by Jann Burner
"Well!" she laughed as she drew close to the edge. "Looks like you've reached the edge of a rather large idea, luv, haven't you?"
Harry stared at her. She, too, had the habit, like Asher, of speaking without moving her lips. She appeared quite young, younger than he and she seemed to float, rather than ride, a couple of inches immediately above the beast's broad back. And whenever she would look directly at him there seemed to be a diffused beam of multicolored light that poured from her eyes. She was continually moving, but not so much from nervousness or restlessness; it was more, it was as if she were weaving some sort of pattern or invisible web with her apparently random motions.
"Shame, shame!" she directed at Harry as if she were enjoying some sport at his expense. "Whatever will you think of now, luv," she laughed as she moved along, atop her beautiful palomino, continuing her intricate dance of unknown significance. "But," she continued, shooting him a meaningful sidelong glance, "don't stop to drop upon a once-remembered time. Travel through your thoughts rapidly and your compass will not waver."
Harry stood at the edge. He wanted to cross; he told her so. She told him there was no problem. He said that it was obviously too far to jump. She advised him to build a bridge. He looked around desperately, fearing approaching noises from the rear and told her that his search had proved fruitless; He had found nothing with which to construct a bridge. What could he use?
She laughed again, sounding somehow like a vain angel engrossed in the act of brushing her hair. "Use your mind, luv! That's what got you here and I dare say, in the end, that's what will have to get you out, one way or the other." And then her mood became more serious. "You are not what you have been told, luv," she said looking directly at him with her great fly's eyes pouring out light. "When thought and experience become one, reality is changed. Fill the gap in your expanding consciousness with faith, luv, and not doubt! Allow awareness to find you! Link up with the Dreamer and find the harmony bridge! Let your thought become the experience."
He watched her seated high on her horse, on the far side of the abyss. He had never encountered such a strange creature in all of his travels. "I just don't understand," he said. "I guess I'm just dumb as well as ignorant."
"No!" she said swirling around in a tight circle, throwing off sparks of light. "You're not ignorant, you're just forgetful, luv, that's all. With harmony will come the vision."
" But," he said, "what's there?"
"What's where?" she replied, all silvery and cool, like a mountain stream.
"What's down there?" he said, pushing over another small stone into the abyss. "Down there, at the very bottom?"
"Oh," she replied casually, "just stray thoughts, third-rate passions and prejudices.
"It's like peeling an onion in reverse," she continued. "You must think it through, layer at a time. When you have conceived of enough layers, then merely witness the reality. Let your rescue ropes be woven of synchronicity."
Harry looked at her. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Plain and simple, luv, you have to create a bridge with your imagination, within your mind! It's all a matter of symbolism. Even we are but mere symbols for our very active minds."
Harry just looked at her and then down into the primeval darkness and shook his head.
"Any external aide like wood or rope would be merely metaphorical substitutes for your internal doubt. After all, luv, the greatest physical monuments in the entire world are merely testimony to man's basic doubt. Why build a towering structure to your lack of faith; skip it! Literally!"
"But what do I do, specifically?" he asked. "What can I do? I can't help it if my mind doubts?"
She looked directly at him and the light from her eyes seemed to pour over the edge of the abyss like small round luminous balls of fire that exploded seconds later in the depths. "Time to move beyond, luv. Mind does not doubt, brain is the doubt! Go beyond your brain. It is not needed, now."
As Harry watched, she stood up on her mount's back, with her long yellow hair trailing down like a fine suit of silken gold and began to turn in a circle. Faster and tighter she began to spin, until she became as a pinwheel of brilliant light, sending off a shower of sparks, some of which flew completely over the abyss.
"You see," she said with an almost human smile. "All matter is merely trapped light, light is life! Look upon your brain, luv, as merely a focusing device, so that you might be better able to focus, and thus construct specific events within...time. This will enable you to access your larger Mind."
Harry glanced down at the tiny sparks from her Being that clung to his rough clothes like droplets of water on oil cloth. As he watched, the individual drops would cling for a second or two, and then abruptly dart off as living things, lightning bugs, and fire flies. It was a sight to behold and he felt, if not transformed, at least uplifted.
"What are these events in time called?" he inquired.
"Well," she replied, resuming a more natural position upon the back of her palomino and hunching forward in his direction. "If the intent is pure and if the event inspires the quiet place that lies within...then it is often called, art."
"Art, is it?" he responded, turning the concept over within his mind's frame. "And, if the intent is not so pure and the event created somehow fails to inspire? What is it called then?"
"If it is sincerely honored by an awkward spirit, then it is still art, and if not, well, the..." she insinuated with a flick of her finger and a shrug of her shoulders, "it is just more dust upon the wheel, another crowded place upon the road. You see, luv, entities are very transitory, they're forever changing and transforming themselves into one thing or another. Life is a butterfly on the wind of creation. We are born, we stretch our color beneath the sun, and flutter about for a day and we are gone. POOF! Off to become other things in other places. Whereas, art, created by these same entities, lingers about and long outlives the temporal form of its creator and forms of itself a silent chain down through the corridors of time that parodies the stiff and formal antics of mere politicians, generals and other would-be shapers of this three-dimensional world. These events in time, luv, are dream drops and spirit spoor. They attest to the fact that the Dreamer has wandered this road."
Harry was agitated. He was afraid and he admitted it. "I find myself chased to the very edge and forced to create a bridge. I find myself doubting that such a thing can even be done. I don't see why you even bothered to bring up the matter..."
She laughed good naturedly, as her steed moved restlessly sideways along the edge of the abyss. "I see you not only for who you are, Harry, but also for who you have been and who you are to become. You are an artist, whose task it is to create events in time, and though you may not be able to fathom the awesome depth of the Big Sea, you certainly can create your own rainbow!" And as she spoke, she made a grand gesture with her left arm, creating a brilliant seven-color rainbow, spanning the gorge of fear that Harry chose to look upon as his abyss.
"Or," she uttered with another grand sweep of her delicate hand, "you may choose to condense it down to a more solid form suitable for walking upon." And as the ground trembled, the diffuse red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet of the rainbow began to condense down, down, down until the very idea became a most substantial, though ethereal looking sparkling bridge, suitable perhaps for walking upon. "As you can see," she gestured with a smile, "there are many ways to bring up the matter, as you say."
"But," he inquired once again. "What is down there?"
"Nothing but the thinking brain," replied the lady and without a moment's hesitation, she stepped out over the edge of the abyss, riding high upon the back of her pale yellow horse. "There is the world of doing and the world of being," she said, "if running become the running and not the runner. I am the bridge!"
As Harry watched open-mouthed and transfixed, she rode her horse over the edge and across the pastel purple and pearlescent bri
dge, like a grand idea whose time had come
"All life is light, Harry!" she said at mid-span, "All consciousness manifests itself as light; light chasing itself in a divine dance. Matter is merely gravitationally-trapped light. The 'jump' must occur at a speed faster than that of light. It is that simple!"
As she approached his side of the abyss, she said, "Remember, luv, a blind man does not live in darkness...think of your mind as a rope spanning an abyss between body and soul and walk across that rope with perfect confidence, because that's what you are here for."
But, as her horse's hooves touched the near side of the fathomless abyss, the pastel-colored bridgeness lingered for only a moment, before it began to evaporate like a string of bubbles in a glass of carbonated water. As the bridge disappeared, his vision slid once again into the abyss.
"Your brain is merely a lens, Harry, a focusing device used by your Mind. Now focus on your bridge as having been and then merely slide it into the present." she said. "It's all a matter of focus, I can assure you."
"But what is really down there?" he exclaimed pointing down into the blackness. "I must know!"
"Broken hearts and shattered dreams," she replied without a moment's hesitation.
"Oh, I just don't know," he cried, looking up at the young woman. "I just don't know. I can't do that!" He said referring to the bridge that he had just observed. "And besides, why do I have to go across? After all, Paradise is not such a bad place to be and I'm sure that those who pursue me really intend me no harm. Is it not true that all is Paradise?"
"This is true. This is, after all, your story, luv. You can create or change whatever it is that you might want to create or change. You are the author of your own reality. There is no one over you, Harry. But now, you must cross. No matter what happens, you must go and grow and increase your conscious awareness by fulfilling those certain specific values which you hold to be important. So you believe, and so it will be done, behind the doors of your perception, if necessary. This may be paradise, luv, but it is not your Paradise. True Paradise is created, not merely discovered."
"But what is down there--DEATH?" He pleaded.
"Slow down, luv. You are going too fast." she said in soothing tones. "Become like the earth. Stay in sync. Allow your thinking brain to simply fall away and link your being with the real Dreamer of this moment."
Harry looked at her seated beside him on her high horse and together they imagined and so it was that they were eventually able to establish a certain harmony between the general and the specific; between the "might be--could be" and the "should be-has to be." And when she had energized him to the point where he, too, could see the very reason for being, then and only then did she lean slowly over her pale horse's shoulder and touch him gently upon his head with her right hand. At that very instant, it suddenly became very clear for Harry. It became as clear as the finest glass, mind-blown across a gorge of seemingly infinite fear and forgetfulness. High arching strands of emerald green and substantial ridges of the deepest purple, held together with diamond screws and bound and wrapped with golden rope.
"Jump!" she whispered into the right side of his head. "Leap..."
And so, like a lunatic striding across the Grand Canyon on an unseen filament of spider stuff, Harry stepped out away from the edge of one idea and onto the structural relevance of another. He strutted out across the unseen toward the unknown performing the oldest dance known to man. His goal was to grasp the light, to capture it, and release it, without getting burned. He wanted to surf the curve of binding energy and this wave was his. He wanted to ride into the flame, along the edge of the sword, and emerge reborn. This was why he had come here. This was why he had become a questor. He wanted to have a dream and live it too. This was why he had become a hu-man. Like a comedic actor in an old time silent movie, he strobed across the abyss, leaving a filmy pearlescent trail of wispy but real bridgeness.
"Remember, luv," she called after him in a whimsical tone, "you're not ignorant, just forgetful."
It was at that point, that Harry discovered that though he was, indeed, slow, and though his spiritual muscles were weak from habitual sloth and disuse and doubt, still it all began to fall rapidly into place and instincts and abilities dormant for untold lifetimes suddenly came to him without effort, as if they had been his--always! His muscles soon became an extension of his will; his body became the brush with which his mind illustrated its intent upon this earth. And as the transformation became complete Harry realized that he was not an animal trapped in the traces of habit like a beast in a field. He began to realize that he was indeed a free creative spirit! He was a direct descendant of The Dreamer. He was an orphaned heir taking yet another step on the long journey back home. He was an open-ended consciousness; there were no limitations! Thus Harry moved on the merest thread of self-generated thought, confident in the strength of this--the integrity of the moment. He felt as if he were drawing together two disparate seams of time. During these moments, his faith was strong enough to enable him to linger awhile at point balance of a sigh and witness the miraculous act of a physical body, materialized in time and space, standing atop a bridge of pure imagination, which would soon enough began to fade and finally evaporate like earthly beauty into the ethereal vapors.
As Harry crossed to the other side, he turned and with his newly charged state of consciousness, saw the young female creature with the yellow hair and her palomino horse as an incredible whirling light throwing off sparks which popped and sizzled in all directions.
"Well, now," she seemed to say, "look at this--the power and the creativity we call Harry! Look at you. Like a true son of Adam, driven from Paradise, a child at heart reliving once again the first day of creation!" She turned and wheeled her horse back up on its two legs, sending off an astounding display of color and light. "You are now part of a wave, luv..." she told him. "You are now part of the leading edge of The New Dawn, holding on the horizon about to break upon the world!"
Harry simply stood on the opposite edge of the great abyss, breathing in and breathing out.
"Off with you now, luv," she gestured with a flick of her wrists. "Run off and make all things new again. Go on now and do whatever it is that you have to do and you needn't worry, we will meet again, luv."
Harry turned to leave and then turned back again. They looked upon each other across the chasm for a long while. Finally he spoke. "It's been a real pleasure," he said.
The young lady smiled sincerely and waved and the movement of her arm somehow caused reality to pucker and shimmer, leaving a ghostly trail of after-images. "It's always a pleasure, Harry," she said.
He smiled and then after a moment of silence he felt impelled to ask. "Who are you? What do they call you?"
She laughed as her horse moved restlessly along the edge, and her melodious tones fell across the abyss like notes from a harp strung with angel hair
"Think of me merely as Faith," she called. "I am the lone rider, the one who rides along the very edge, with my wild stallion called Speculation." She laughed again. "Now fly, my little eaglet, and give my best to those in high places."
As Faith rode off into the distance, lesser lights approached over the hard rocky ground and, as they closed with the very edge of the abyss, they became less bright and their radiance transformed itself into fleshy reality--Viking reality. They stood about, suddenly happy, all smiling and shooting off grins like sparks from side to side. Like an ethereal wheel that having rolled up, suddenly separates itself into individual spokes: there was Cardamon and Cumin and Fenugreek and shy Turmeric and in the background were even a couple of the hobos that Harry had encountered by their fires at the base of Rock Candy Mountain. But, of course, it was Coriander who laughed the loudest, for he was indeed pleased that Harry had succeeded in finding his way across the big divide and could now continue his journey which would hopefully lead him eventually to his own version of Paradise.
Harry laughed, too, and said that he hoped that they weren't still there feasting when he returned one day. They all laughed again by way of parting and slowly moved back away from the edge, shouting the time-honored form of both greeting and farewell in Paradise. "Light is life!"
"Light is life!" Harry echoed.