UNION

Long ago, there was a flash in the forest.  I was immobilized at the vision.  I was drawn to it, and pursued it with all my modest skills, but it disappeared into the mist of unavailability.

For an entire cycle of seasons it never appeared again.

Suddenly the following spring, seemingly out of the midst of everywhere and nowhere, there it was.  Again.  I was stunned.  The vision beckoned to me with an invisible force of nature.  I approached it gingerly, panicked and anxious.  It smiled at me and calmed me.  We both turned together and walked slowly off into the forest of nowhere and everywhere, and the sun followed us wherever we went.

Soon there was a communion, replete with all the things that define communion:  affinity, fellowship, kinship, friendship, togetherness, closeness, harmony, understanding, rapport, connection, communication, empathy, accord, and unity.

That communion gave fuel along with a heat that built a fire which blazed with all the light and intensity of the Sun.  There could be no dream for any man of more perfection.  Life was full and grand.

Then came the night late one winter when the stars aligned in an arrangement of perfection.  It was the night of the union, and it came with overwhelming passion, lasting well into exhaustion and beyond.

That union bore a fruit, and a creation of beauty that fruit was.  It was yet another perfection.

Suddenly, I was filled with fear.  What does one do with perfection except appreciate it?

Voices told me that I was not worthy of such perfection; and in my clumsy attempts to be its caretaker, I would destroy it.  And, the voices told me, any man who destroys perfection is doomed to live the life of the damned.  I was truly afraid, which I will not easily admit to anyone.  I fled.  All my life, and to this day, I have never backed down from an unsolicited confrontation with anything in nature, even armed human beings.  With or without a badge.  Barehanded.  But this… this was my ultimate unknown: myself faced with myself.  I truly retreated in total confusion.

Like a coward, I fled back to lose myself in the anonymity of the forest of nowhere and everywhere.  God, how I detest the word “coward.”

For many cycles of seasons I wandered aimlessly, looking and not seeing, searching and not finding, asking the question, “What is perfection and what does one do with it?” and never really finding the answer.  Or any answers.

On a dreary day late in the winter of the fourteenth cycle of seasons, I wandered into a sunlit clearing and froze at the sight of my perfection, standing motionless and smiling at me to come closer.  I closed the remoteness between us, and we began a preliminary and exploratory dialogue that rapidly eased into a cordial lengthy discourse, finally revealing that we had both been seeking this reunion since our last parting.

Yet another fire began.  It was not the intense, blazing inferno of youth, but rather an even bed of embers punctuated by blazes of excitement and joy.  That fire grew into a self-sustaining source of energy; and yes, another communion complete with all the elements expected of a well-formed communion.  It grew, and became a union in every sense of any well-formed fusion.  It was a union that lasted through a myriad of both trials of tears and jamborees of joy, and became a play of acts that lasted for many, many cycles of seasons.

Then came the change.  Imperceptibly at first, but resolute in its insidiousness.  The blazes of joy and excitement slowly gave way to sputters and pops of a dying fire.  The air became thick with smoke and ash where once there had been the blaze of a perfect union.  The communion began to fragment and dissolve, threatening the very existence of that perfect union and the fire upon which it was built.

The embers of the union were still burning strong, but not as brightly now.  Even the actors in the play could see the last act on the horizon, and they became afraid the embers would die into cold, lifeless ash.

A council was called and it lasted many moons.  Negotiations were intense and varied from and to every extreme.  The objective, at first, was what price was to be paid to preserve the union.  As options were explored and weighed, the focus shifted to heal and preserve the communion which had given birth to the union.  After sifting through all available and imaginable options, an acceptable solution could not be conjured in any shape or form.

Eventually, after stripping away all the obvious layers of logic, reason, and emotion, a design of action revealed itself that was in accordance with some unwritten law of the cosmos: Preserve the embers. At any and all cost.

In order to prevent the embers from dying into cold inhumanity and all communion rent asunder, the union must be divided while there was still life-giving heat from the coals.

With the union dissolved and the embers divided in two, they would continue to burn and persist in giving warmth to the world.  The communion, however diminished, would continue.  Through tears of loss and regret, the union was disintegrated.

The communion, although diminished, continues.  The embers still burn, giving heat in the world in places where it is needed.

As I look down on my finger and see my wedding ring, I wonder why it is still there.  That symbol of the perfection of a perfect union.  Then I remember.  When I take it off and look through it as a portal, I can catch a glimpse through the mist a sunlit clearing, and perfection standing there, beckoning me on.

Then, unthinkingly, I slip it back on my finger and go about my business spreading warmth in the world where I can see it is in demand.