EA#28:
Read From the Beginning or the start of Trial Two or Three or Four
The Mountain in the Clouds, Part Thirty-One
“
Hate.
The feeling of the word overwhelmed me all of a sudden.
I recalled the hate that I had felt all those years ago, back in my hometown of Ham. The hate from my then wife and her family when they had learned of my love affair with Maniea.
But it was such love! That was the whole crook of the problem, the love I felt for Maniea… what I felt for my wife was not that. We had come together under different circumstances, when I didn’t fully know or trust myself. I was in many ways fearful of never finding another, and my wife had become that solution to the problem we all face in life: how do I get someone to stick around with me, so I am not so alone? Sure, we had had similarities in ways. But I never felt for her what I found with Maniea. I never felt that level of comfort and connection and ease and bliss. In contrast, my wife had presented daily nuisance and grief that I simply put up with, thinking that was just the way of it. Until I learned that it did not have to be that way, a relationship did not have to be like that.
Why does the institution of marriage have to bind people so powerfully when their hearts may choose otherwise? At what point can you change your mind without the condemnation from the world? The judgement, the punishment, the hate…
The hate that that family, my ex wife’s, cast upon me and my love, Maniea… it was the most intense hate I have ever felt in my life. Even thinking on it makes me cringe to this day. It makes my blood boil, not in rage but in the receipt of such levels of animosity coming at me. It makes me wish I had never known such people or lived through such experiences. It has ever since tainted my life and the knowing of who I am. It has dampened my own sense of self-worth.
There was a long period of time in which I took efforts to overcome those repercussions to my soul. I worked hard, especially with the tutelage of Jaran, to cast that hate and scorn aside. To realize myself as who I am and to know that I am worthy of my life and the choices that I make. Even if they are unpopular choices with some, even many, even most of those around me. It is not others who determine my worth, but me. And the gods.
Back then my community certainly did not understand what I was doing. They thought I was mad to leave my wife. They thought it insane that some other woman had, as they put it, stolen my heart and ruined my marriage. And they were all so concerned about the children.
But if any one of them could see in my heart and know who I am and know my intentions, they would not doubt what I am about. I knew how I felt in my marriage and I knew how I felt in my love for Maniea. And it was not she who stole me away and broke up my family. It was I who fell in love in the biggest way ever known to me, maybe the only true time in my life.
And it was my ex and her family who in their hatred cast me aside from my children, never to see them again. That was not my choice. I knew how I felt about my children and I knew that all I wanted was for them to have the best in life, and that included having me around.
It was a challenging situation with no easy answer. But the community chose for me and threw me out, locked away Maniea.
How could they judge so harshly? They didn’t really know my life or what was going on. How could they?
After all, who are they to determine the feelings in my own breast, the feelings of my own heart? Who are they to decide my life, my choices? Who are they to know what’s best for me?
I knew that I could not stay in the marriage, but I knew also that leaving would present many challenges. But I had never expected the level of hate that I received. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I was too hopeful that things could all work out. Maybe I was simply lost in love, blinded to the nature of those around me who would respond in prepared ways, given to them by society and history.
Love sort of makes you do crazy things in pursuit of it sometimes. And I just went all in.
With a jolt I came out of my reverie.
Is this the trial? I thought to myself. Am I to sit in this barren land and ponder the memories of love and hate in my life?
No, was the resounding answer I received.
And it was answered in kind by a change in my landscape. A rumbling erupted below my feet. The ground shook. I found myself dropping to hands and knees to brace myself, else be knocked over if I tried to remain on my feet.
Thunderous uproaring lurched from the earth below and a crack opened wide in a vast swath before me.
Then a spray of some liquid struck my face and I realized that it was emanating from that crack. It was followed by a plume of water shooting out of the cavernous slit in the earth. The sound of some rushing flood crashed in on me and I watched the split overflow with thick streams of water in mere moments. It spilled over the edge into the land around for a few breaths, then seemed to settle into its own flow and come to rest at its maximum height, trickling just over the edges of the crack from which it had sprung.
I inched myself closer to get a better look at what had happened, a bit cautious that there still might be more to come that could carry me off. But it remained calm, and the overspilt water quickly dried up in that barren landscape, barely parching the thirst of that cracked rock.
As I neared the edge of the now healthy river, I could begin to perceive what it is I was contending with. And when I say healthy I mean only in size and girth. What had looked a mere crack in the land was now wide enough to need a bridge to cross. But the river itself, the water before me, looked anything but healthy. In fact, it looked miserable, if that could be said of water. It looked hot and murky and filled with debris. I wasn’t sure, but it almost seemed as though courses of blood were spilling and mixing amidst the flow, subtly interwoven with the mud and dirt and grime and trash.
What is this? I found myself asking.
“The river of hate,” said a voice that was not the one I’d grown used to but something much closer in my physical landscape.
I looked up and was surprised to see a familiar face. One I had not seen in some time. Not since my first trial.
“The heart of the maze,” I whispered to myself.
“I may be that,” the robed old man said, leaning heavily on his wooden staff. “I may be many things. But today I am here to greet you. And I am sorry to say that your first impulse in this land may have been a more precarious choice than you could have imagined it to be.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” I told him. “I was lost in thought…”
“And what were you thinking of, mostly?” the man asked with a knowing grin.
“Ah, I was thinking about my trial in hate and recalling a time in my life when I was most hated. How I still at times feel the clutches of their hate for me. Why is that, that I still feel that hate though they are not here?”
The land cracked some more and now the bridgeable river widened before my eyes to one that would surely need a boat to cross.
“What’s happening?” I shouted, aghast.
“You’d best be careful what you attend to in this land. It is in many ways a sponge for energy and here thoughts and manifestations occur very rapidly. You have focused your mind upon hate, and so you have called the river of hate to be. And I dare not speak more on it or continue to add to its course. I am being very guarded in how I direct my energy here and striving to be very passive and uninvolved. I am merely acting as your guide in the sense of getting your bearings. The task is still up to you.”
He paused and looked at me quizzically, then said, “To answer your question, you still feel those old feelings because you have not fully cleared them. Feelings are energies and may actually hang around if you allow them. They may cling to you, even infest your very soul with their being.”
I didn’t know what to say, or felt somehow unable to speak as the old man stood before me.
“But remember,” he continued, “things move quickly here. Even now I am sure the river is fueling creations in its fashion, flora and fauna and, yes, even cities rich with hateful people. Be warned as you travel this land. And remember, seek the remedy to this disease. Seek love. I may add that while this river has been made, you did have other thoughts during your reverie, memories of love. The seeds of that energy are present in this land, but must be fostered by you to come to fruition. We trust that you will find your way. Be well.”
I was about the ask more of my guide but couldn’t get a word out fast enough. My mouth still seemed as though it were nailed shut. The old man smiled, then turned away from me and walked a step or two before vanishing into thin air.
“Great!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, finding my voice returned. “I hate this place already!”
Another rumble in the land proved the man’s words as true, and the river expanded more.
“Damn,” I cursed. And another expansion almost shook me off my feet again.
What am I doing? I thought as I tried to stop my anger. I am only fueling it more. Pause, breathe. Wow. I feel so full of hate. Maybe this river is fueling me, too. It’s like a bad cycle of hate. Ok, stop saying hate. It’s going to keep growing.
Maybe I should leave this river, walk away, get far away from this tainted energy.
And so I did. And as I did so, as I went, step by step, I felt better and better. The feelings of anger, rage, hate and other dark thoughts began to subside. So I was inspired to run. I ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction of that river of hate.
I tried to change my thoughts. I tried to focus on love, hate’s opposite. I tried to see if my attention to that could begin to grow that energy, the river of love. But nothing was happening. In many ways I was still too distracted by what I had just seen and created. And maybe the river of hate was already overpowering this land and making it hard to focus on love. I don’t know.
Your inner guidance teaches you well, said the voice of the gods to me. You are right, it continued, to feel that the hate already present in this land is making it hard to see the love. But the love is still there, locked below the earth. There is a vast, endless river of love waiting to be found. You must draw it forth. You must cleanse this land of hate, if you are to move forward.
Ok, and how do I do that? I asked.
Crickets.
No, that was not their response. What I mean is that it was so quiet that all I could hear were crickets.
Crickets! I rejoiced. That must mean there is some life here yet!
I stopped running, realizing the sweat was getting in my eyes anyways and making it hard to see where I was going. Which felt like nowhere in that empty land. I had no direction but away from the river. And I found it to be so hot. I was dripping. So I was surprised as I wiped the sweat from my face to see a world around me. It wasn’t rich and vibrant, but it was there. Sparse grasses and small trees like a desert land. Bugs in the air. A lot of bugs. A vulture flew overhead. A fox of some kind scampered away. And in a small grove of shrubs I heard crickets.
And past the shrubs I saw a twinkling of lights. It looked like a human settlement, maybe a small town. I noticed it was getting dark. Funny how I had not noticed the sun in the sky before, but now saw it setting in a twilight glow of deep reds.
I couldn’t help but wonder what I would find if I followed those lights.
So I headed towards them.
“
Thanks so much for reading.
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Blessings to you,
Matthew