The Man of the Delta
A wide plain, a river delta, low hills on all sides, sandy, dry grasses, warm and humid; gentle breeze. There at the edge of the sea is a terra cotta tower, straight on one side and sloping on the other. I walk through the sand, avoiding the thousands of rivulets. The sky is heavy, waiting to unload its rain.
I am welcomed into the tower by a wizened old man, an earth spirit; his room here on the bottom floor has rugs, incense, woven hangings. It is an earth-toned palatial hut. He is a fantastic artist in cloth and pottery. Another old man, nearly toothless, sits in a corner, grinning and grinning, and playing a stringed instrument with unearthly beauty.
My host leads me up stairs to the second level — a huge, dark empty space. I am unlear on why this is empty. Then we go up a rope ladder to the top of the tower, where we sit and have a smoke and look over the sea.
We talk: he has been incarnated physically many times, he says, and has enjoyed it, but is taking a break for a while. His talk is filled with long, comfortable silences.
As I leave, there is much thanking and your-welcoming; as a token of gratitude I give him a Pearl from my heart, and he kisses it and it bursts into a hundred tiny white ghostly butterflies that fly round my head.
June 19th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Jeff, beautiful. A friend and I were talking yesterday about the Summer Soltice coming up and she expressed that it would be wonderful if children were taught more about ceremonies and significance of the Soltices. I told her that I knew 2 friends online who did teach their children these things. You were one of those friends that I was talking about.