Shadow

You're caught in the rain. It is a soft rain, but enough to drench your outsides. Inside, you stay clear and cloudless. Surprisingly, the sogginess of your sandals and the faint shivering of your skin don't affect you. Like a flower or a tree, you know you need both rain and sunshine to grow. You will blossom no other way. For only in the warmth and clamminess of light and shadow may you break through this muddy earth. You have just competed. You won a victory, but it doesn't really matter to you; after all, your goodness is only relative. What matters now is the rain, which is both sad and beautiful. It falls onto the contours of your silhouette; it forms you. You become. You look up and let it fall into your eyes. Even with the splash of tears, it is a cleansing rain.

Tan

You're in a desert. The blazing sun bakes your skin and dries your throat. Your cranium tightens around your brain. You feel as though you are being digested, swallowed by the stomach of the sand. When you look to the East, you see signs of an oasis in the distance. You cannot surely tell if you are imagining it, but you carry on regardless. It is your only way out. Once in a while, the faint jingle of an ice cream truck plays with your mind and trails off, leaving only the sound of the curling wind and your plodding footsteps. You remember what it was like to be a kid in the summertime. Whenever you got too hot from playing, there was the ice cream truck coming around to cool your tongue. You almost wish you could go back home, where abounds the luxury of air conditioning. But then you remember why you left in the first place. You wanted this. You were sick of getting everything you asked for, so you left comfort and stability, knowing that pain would set in. You told yourself to take the tough road because it would be worth it in the end. After all, there are some who have no choice but to live and die in oppressive heat. And this is where it has led you: to relentless sun and wind and sand. What else could ever survive here? You look down at your hands, so rough and calloused from the wood. Only a few weeks ago, they were so white and delicate. Now, splintered, they hurt every day...yet every day, they grow stronger. You look off to the place where the possibility of water exists, of life exists. You step in faith towards the East, and step again. You hope that your feet will become strong like your hands. They would have stayed so weak back home. You wonder if it was ever truly your home at all. Shifting your eyes from faraway to close, you make firm your every footstep. You have gained confidence. Resting beyond the desert plain, your destination. Resting in your arms, a cross in hands that are no longer yours.

Red and Gold

You're in a forest, sitting on a pile of leaves that have just fallen. All around you, trees of red and gold grow high above your head. When you look up, it seems like they grow towards each other in the sky. A few ripe maple leaves wave, but all is calm. You have been on a long walk. It's taken you days to get here, fighting through thick brush and twisting thorns. You can still recall the feeling in your gut. But although there is no one around now, you are at peace. The trees become your friends. In this moment, you do not care where you go next or if you ever leave this place of rest. Hunger may come and the sun may go down, but this feeling transcends all hardships. In fact, it embraces them. The warmth inside your chest is one that cannot be quelled. When the last leaf falls and blows away, you will get up and walk on. But for now, you sink deeper into the lovely pile. All the warm colors bring out the flavors of your mood. Yes, it will all pass away soon. You accept this, and whisper goodbye to the trees. Their peace becomes your peace.

Ash

You’re standing at the mouth of a volcano. The ground bulges and you see signs that tell you it’s going to erupt. You feel frustration and stress. You imagine being swallowed and charred by the liquid hot magma. What rivers will flow from the fire below? Standing on the cracking molten rock, you feel tremors from within. Suddenly, gigantic smokestacks shoot into clouds as from a burning building. They expand until you are lost and blinded by the poisonous grey. You shut your eyes and hold your breath as much as possible, awaiting the hellish avalanche. But it never comes. You open your eyes to the smoke as it dilutes and clears. Once it does, you finally notice the blue sky above and the open pasture beyond the volcanic rocks. And you see other people, too, waking up to the illusion of imminent death. You feel drawn to them and lose focus of everything but the people: Asian monks, European laymen, African priests and priestesses. They are all your brothers and sisters. They, too, remain unburned by the magma you so feared. You forget your wants and needs in fascination with your fellow human beings. You care for them, and the pressure of your hollow eruption fades away.

Blue and White

You're on a beach. The tide breathes in and out, and you breathe with it. Air wells up deep inside you and blows back into the salty atmosphere. You look out at the ocean, so vast that it covers the whole world. The ocean reminds you that we are the small ones here, and that our land is not as big at the sea. You walk down to where the sand feels more like clay and let the water pass over your ankles. The sensation it brings connects you to everyone else in the world with their feet in this water, on the edge of the infinite. The sky does this too. You feel closer to people you have never met. The clouds above make for a great theater for which the whole world has a ticket. You take in the drama of bulby cumulus and cirrus wisps. They stay up high, out of your reach until they darken and fall. You know they all do. And you think right now, that ocean you are in is being taken back up again, invisibly rising to join the blue and white play. What has fallen returns to the sun, to fall again, to rise again.  The ebb and flow of the natural world  synchronizes with your own breathing. You close your eyes. Without them, you see that these two great worlds are controlled by that single ball of light. Though it seems to rise and fall itself, you know it is only the world that spins and turns away. It will turn tonight, just as the sea will recede and the clouds will pass away; just as you, too, will leave this place. You open your eyes, and the beauty of these huge and wondrous forces overcomes you. A dolphin jumps on the horizon. One cloud looks like a sailboat on a higher, shoreless sea. You come to realize that your little strip of beach has been caught between two heavens. You smile as a fresh breeze blows across your face. The sandy wind on your bare skin makes you feel real, dirty, imperfect. But so are skies and seas when they get angry. Everything falls except the brilliant sun. But they are all good. Yes, you think as you close your eyes to see again. It is good.