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THE
HEAVENS LOOKED DOWN AND REMEMBERED
The heavens looked down remembered when the
creature was once young and beautiful, free and fresh like the early spring.
Unique in all creation and the last of
It’s kind.
They remembered how something deep within the
creature had reached out its hand to grasp the universe with a hunger that
warped the senses.
That primitive thing that had flooded the
beast with laughter, and then had cast it off again in a tempest of emotion, or
by contrast, when the creature was hurt, how he had shrieked in pain. The birds
wondered: “What was the cause of the beast’s moodiness?” “ Was it perhaps a
lack of wings?” “Or was it trouble finding enough to eat?”
And again they chirped, maybe he lacks a song to sing?
Nor could the poor beast comprehend why, but
fun rompings, anger and roarings were becoming his protectors and the woodland
spirits his guide. Alternately joy and sunshine were his friends, with
wonderment and confusion his constant companions.
Dreamlike, he ran over the mountaintops, and
rolled down hillsides, then once exhausted the beast often laid himself down in
the wild meadows only to rise again and then go further down crashing into the
mountain’s valley streams of raging icy torrents.
These became the creature’s power, ecstasy,
and pleasure. However, in time, as he began to grow older and great of stature,
he came to realize, under his hairy hide, that they had also become his pain
and a prison of loneliness.
All alone in the wilderness, peace seemed as
far off to the creature as the horizon at the end of day and stars above at
night.
Troubled by nights of fear and stupor by day,
the creature had grown to become a brutish fearful thing.
For one night by the dark of an unforgiving
moonless sky, there in the middle of the forest, he had seen something, a
horrific thing, and it had become etched upon his psyche. There in the center of a small clearing the
beast had come upon a buck, that had
been hamstrung, trapped, and butchered by a hunter standing nearby. Enraged, and tearful the thing let out a terrible
roar.
The hunter ran away screaming leaving what
was left of the buck behind. But, there was nothing to be done for the poor,
crushed, once beautiful forest runner.
Now, the beast had seen the end of things.
For the first time in his relatively brief life, his great strength and
terrifying appearance could not help the situation. He was powerless, his
idyllic vision of life and the world he had once known, lay bloodied and broken
before him.
Something inside the great terrible creature shuddered and died
that day and there was no one in all the wilderness to comfort or to help the
beast comprehend what he had encountered.
Not knowing what to do, the creature fled and
hid away climbing ever higher until he reached the mountain range’s highest
peak. There he remained for a time, numb and frozen in the misery of despair
and grief.
One night upon venturing back into the forest and valley, the
monstrous beast , in his terror and rage cried out against all creation with
these words:
“ If anything or anyone can hear me, I spit
in your eye for all the injustice, the pain and the suffering.”
And once again he roared out: “ If you are
there listening somewhere, show yourself, if you are not a coward – tell me why
it should be so and perhaps I will not rip you to shreds!”
Then great beast went around throughout the
wilderness terrorizing all the creatures with his midnight ranting, roaring,
railing and shrill screaming against the moon and the universe.
He went on this way night after night
destroying all that was in his path until one night in particular. That night
the beast had begun his usual frightening activities but, as he did so there
was a rumbling deep within the earth.
The creature stopped dead in his tracks listening in the ensuing
silence.
His cries had been heard rising up above the
mountain range and the heavens looked down and remembered….
The beast thought he heard a quiet voice call
out to him: “ beast why are you so troubled?” and the beast trembled. Again the
voice spoke: “ have I not fed you and cared for you all these years?”
The beast was so frightened that he started
running headlong downhill toward the river as he had done so many times before.
Only this time the river was swollen and flooding from the spring snow melt and
rain storms.
Once again he crashed into the torrent, but
this time he was carried far down stream, swirling in the currents until he
lost consciousness. In his sleep he heard the voice say, I who have kept you
since you were a cub will never leave you.
When he awoke the creature found himself on
the shore in a part of the mountain range that he was unfamiliar with, he
wondered out loud to himself: “Did I drown in the river?”
Suddenly, his thoughts were broken as the
quiet voice spoke again: Peace. You live. I have heard your cries in the night,
saw you in your distress, and have lifted you out of the many troubled waters.
The sound of the voice and words echoed and
vibrated within the creature’s soul creating a feeling of deep inner warmth and
comfort. For the first time in a very long while, the once terrible beast was quiet and his demeanor gentle.
The woodland birds noticed and alighted
nearby for a better look. Can this be the same horrible roaring thing that has
terrorized the forest? They chirped.
The beast’s eyes had now been opened in such
a way so that he no longer saw only the red of pain and the darkness of night.
But, now the beast began seeing and noticing the sunlight of day in a new way,
afresh, as when he had first roamed and played upon the mountains and in the
woodland valleys.
A feeling of great peacefulness had come upon
the creature and his coat shown beautifully in the sun. He had been cared for,
loved, and rescued. He now knew that he was not alone in the world but that
there was a Great Spirit who watched over all.
In his new wanderings upon the snowy
mountaintops and darkened valleys the old feelings and questions sometimes
returned, but the beast had somehow found the hand of the Great Spirit and was
now changed and at ease.
The great beast dwelled and remained in the
care of the Great Spirit all of his days until one day while standing at the
edge of a great precipice, the ground gave way beneath his tremendous weight.
But, as he began to fall instead of terror, a
calm came over the creature. Suddenly, great massive wings erupted forth, growing out of the beast’s broad shoulders until they completely covered his
hairy back. To his happy surprise and before he had a moment to think, the
mighty beast began to fly. He flew over all the mountains that he had known. He
swooped down into the valleys and up over the treetops. On he went higher and
higher, and further and further toward the sun and horizon, until he was at
last out of sight.
It was rumored by the birds that he had
gotten lost and had settled elsewhere. But this was not the case.
In reality,
the great, once terrible creature, his transformation having been made complete,
had flown until he reached all the way to the kingdom of the Great Spirit!
And
there he stayed forever and a day.
Epilogue:
It is no morbid consideration that the sky is
torn. Moreover, It is the beginning of wisdom to discover that one’s journey
begins here as a stranger, but ends in another better place. It is the dawning
of hope and peace.
