The Story of a Path

This is a story about a path.

This path is the most marvelous of ways that lead along the far western edges of a great ocean. it is not a roadway where noisome automobiles and trucks with their noxious fumes buzz and roar by like monsters outside their nightmare origins. There are no motorcycles or bicycles nor very much indication of man's technology at all. It is a place where there is neither sound nor silence.

It is a wondrous path that winds its way along the sundown edge of a continent sharing conversation with the sea, frequently with great gusto, sometimes in quiet appreciation. The rolling breakers tell a tale of the many moods of wind and storm at the sea's far corners. The ocean is a mighty force and knows how to wear away the rocks and pound them into sand and the land knows that while the sea is mighty it is really the land which holds the sea like a favored jewel away from the consuming fires of the center of the planet. Not that this is any ordinary planet of course, because this path, this planet is the place where liveliness meets eternity and the circles of the world and the encircling sea are riven from the immortal and the linear indefinite.

This way does not hang orphan-like in the fundament of space.

This is the Path, the way of testing. Its frontiers and increments filled with the excitement of crisis and observation. It winds hither and thither on cliffs above the sea, raising and lowering its stretches from wide beaches and tide-pool strewn moraine to dizzying heights towering thousands of feet above the waves. Some of its borderlands are arid, empty of life and stretch seconds into days and fear is palpable, but the crossing reward is a cool drink at a crystalline fountain and the remembrance treasured experience.

There are other intervals of the way where the days and years flash as a strobe, where sun and moon and even the shape of the land itself can be seen to shift under the pressures of joy and beauty. These are the places where the green and growing things bloom and prosper by the roadside and never seem touched by time or disease. Multi-hued flowers and trees shaped exotically by the wind remembering once upon a time. The narrowing and widening path, sometimes paved and stepped from the memory of people gone before fades to stone and clay and dust and sand where that memory fails. Sun glistens brightly and rain strikes gently. Fog and mist are comforters for the seekers, but the Traveler winds his way alone in this remnant of Eden for this is where tranquility reigns and the only reward is a memory of longing.

For each seeker on the way a key is left. That key is remarkable for its placement, its presence in unexpected places and every key is shaped according to need. Every seeker is startled by the timing of the appearance of the key, but each seeker is left to decide its value. Not every traveler perceives the unusual timing and presence of the key, thinking perhaps it is merely detritus dropped by some other, its utility missing and long past, but for myself, I will retain this key even though I am shocked by its persistent voice and alien appearance, not for the human hand is this key for it is weightless and spaceless.

Sooner or later along the way most wayfinders encounter a great test. It frequently takes the shape of a tree although this shape is deceptive. In some ways this tree is the path because it is the path which inculcates its shape and nature when first encountered, and the response to the test generates futures and the coursing of the path. For those wayfarers who do not see it, it remains "alive" in a manner completely unsuspected and hidden. It motivates and drives the undisciplined and buffets the simple with a terrible urgency. Some will wish to strike it down, some find it ugly beyond bearing. Some find it difficult to leave, some with great ease. Many travelers see it as a great tree, some as a nightmarish thorned shrub. For some it blocks the path completely, but for those who learn an appreciation of its fierce beauty, a new test and an unexpected gift is found.

The gift is a vessel and for those who find the vessel in the perfection of their desire a kind of equilibrium is reached and the weighing and carriage of the vessel becomes another kind of converse along the way. It may appear as a simple cup, old or new, chipped or perfection itself. Some travelers experience it as a kylix, an amphora, some a great vase and some a simple mug. For the unwary it becomes an illusive siren appearing at many times in many forms at one time seducing the seeker with false promise and another time betraying him with a mask of the ideal only to later reveal its true nature. It may be that this is the greatest of all gifts and the test is to see and accept the vessel for its true nature and perhaps in the fullness of time the traveler will see the path strewn with vessels, each with its own beauty.

The finality of the path arrives when the seeker reaches what to many becomes the most terrifying of barriers, and the greatest test. This barrier is as infinite as the seeker understands. For all it is a known, a given, but many have pushed its presence from their minds or tried to condense it to an understandable form. For those, the barrier is insurmountable and impenetrable, they will curse and scratch at it and throw themselves time and time again at its surface. They will attempt a climb or an excavation but such efforts will be futile. The traveler will again be startled by when this barrier appears and where and each will ask himself how this came to be. The unprepared will find no answer.

For myself the barrier seems the greatest of opportunities and if I learn wisdom I can discover the permeable nature of its vastness. It is a possibility that my response to the gifts and tests of the path will prove this to be true.