So many things had happened within the space of a week that his head was spinning. He had been wrestling with the devastating realization that at the core of his being he did not ever expect to be chosen by the heart of another. He had seen a remarkable vision of a pale, beautiful woman, framed in coal black feathers and revealed to him in the flight of a great flock of crows. He had met the family of the Moon’s little sister for the first time, and had read to them from his writings. And today, he and his daughter had helped his oldest son and daughter-in-law to move all their worldly possessions to San Luis Obispo, nearly three hours drive south of Gilroy.
James had been married earlier in the Summer, in love with his bride, and in love with Angie, the tiny daughter they had brought into the world a year earlier. It had been a tough year, with James in his freshman year at Cal Poly and Erika finishing high school. They had spent the school year apart, focusing on their studies and the baby, and making the best of a monumentally difficult situation. They were firm in their intention and had worked out their plan before they ever spoke to any of their parents about the untimely pregnancy. They had remained focused and diligent throughout the long hard year apart, and now, after a Summer of working and planning and marrying and honeymooning, they were starting their first home out in the big wide world.
He had driven a rental truck for them, and now its contents were all inside the apartment. Boxes were everywhere, and the bed and couches were all set up. The table legs had been left in Gilroy and would have to come later. Erika had more or less finished setting up her kitchen, and they had found the pilots in the gas stove and lit them all, eliminating a faint but significant odor in the process. Their tiny apartment was not lavish, but decent and reasonably well located. They had done a thorough inspection, documenting all the pre-existing minor imperfections that property managers like to deduct from damage deposits. When there was nothing left to do but unpack and organize the contents of the boxes, Erika and James had urged them to get on the road back to Gilroy while there was still light.
Kate had driven his car to help her brother with the move, and to provide her dad with wheels and companionship for the return trip. As he and Kate left, James and Erika sat in a pile of boxes behind the sliding glass door waving and laughing. His heart turned somersaults to see them so excited and nervous and happy and scared and eager—so ready, and so unprepared. He drove away knowing that they were making their own life now. He knew that this was their calling. He knew that it was his calling to agonize from the depth of his own experience over all their frightening and exciting possibilities, and to stand back and let them live for themselves. They had just completed the primary task of their adolescence—they were stepping, green and new and fresh scrubbed, out into the great wide world. Driving away was one of the most traumatic things he had ever done as a father.
They played Shawn Mullens over and over again on the stereo as they ran up Highway 101 toward home. His music was all about inspiration and enlightenment and love and possibilities and hope. As they bathed in the music, they hardly spoke, each lost in their own reflections. Now and then they checked in on each other, but both knew that this drive was best spent in solitude.
As he pushed on up the road with Kate and Shawn and his solitary thoughts, all the events of the week began to bubble up and simmer together in the cauldron of his heart. The vision of Black Feathers came to him. She was so hauntingly beautiful. So powerful. So gentle. And She had chosen him! As he contemplated Black Feathers, he began to realize that he had misidentified her as the Moon’s little sister. While the two were remarkably similar, they were actually the same person only by projection. Black Feathers resided in his heart. It was there that she lived and breathed and moved. It was there that she spoke to him softly. It was there that he knew who she was and it was there that her image and form lived. Moon’s little sister was so stunning and alluring and radiant because he saw Black Feathers so clearly reflected in her.
Uncovering his core belief that he would not be chosen had allowed him to disengage his infatuation with the little sister of the Moon enough to see that she and Black Feathers were not the same being. Suddenly he could see that he had done a great disservice to the moon’s sister. He had made her an icon of the great hidden goddess within his own heart. Black Feathers had first revealed herself to him in his quiet little Annie. Now he saw her in grace and power and dignity, and though she had not as yet ever uttered a sound, she was by no means quiet or little.
The Moon’s little sister had caught his heart because she so remarkably foreshadowed his vision of Black Feathers. Even as he began to discern the division of the two, he was struck by their similarities. And yet, he knew that The Moon’s little sister could not actually be Black Feathers. Black Feathers was a part of him. No person apart from him could express her being. This new realization was overwhelmingly simple and joyful and reassuring. The little sister of the Moon was now free to be her own remarkable self! He could begin to engage Black Feathers directly to wrestle with the issues of his broken heart. He could let the little sister of the Moon come to rest and be his best friend—the one who had in so may instances, in so many ways, already chosen him. He could let her come to rest and simply be who she was—Lara.
And now, the possibilities were boundless and rich and open and radiant—Black Feathers, the Moon’s little sister, Annie, Lara— none had rejected his heart! None had harmed him. All were free to venture wherever they chose to go with him. He was exhausted by the drive and the strenuous day of moving and the surge of insight that had boiled up for him today. But He was also too tired to write more, and so he stopped.
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