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Dawn

From a sleepless dream within the immense sea of silence, love's grace gathered dust and dew for a dwelling place in another body. The towers of yesteryears faded into a sealed memory and were forgotten in the resurrection of my innocence.

I was reborn in the twilight shadows of a world at war with itself. I knew not that the stage was set for the awakening of a new dawn after a dark night of human drama, for I was one with the world where life is forever young and the day is immaculate and new. My heart was a joy wanting to sing and a river ready to flood.

My parents in their love said, though I was born of their fl esh, my soul was conceived from life's eternal longing.

There were many who loved me, who spoke of a light they beheld in my eyes. But being merely half awake, my innocence became entangled in a labyrinth of fears and desires. As the hours, days, and weeks burned through my youth, I wrestled with my shadow.

I struggled inwardly to fi nd peace amid the harsh realities of the world. My soul echoed the incessant cry I felt in the soul of humanity.

From poor, aggrieved multitudes suffering under the heavy foot of the stonehearted;

From countless dispossessed children lost and forgotten on crowded roads to nowhere;

From the hollow babble of hypocritical warlords who assault with pious vengeance, maiming the innocent, leaving the war-torn wailing with terror;

Nightmares reared their hooves in blackened skies over my cowering fears of worse times to come.

In distrust of unjust authority fi gures, I closed my heart to a Higher Power. The negation in my soul stood as a dark ghost obscuring my inner light, and I suffered in silent knowledge of my lost joy.

I hungered for love and thirsted for wisdom. I yearned for freedom and the power to stand in the glory of a higher destiny. Like the force trapped within a seedstone, I needed to break through the dark encasement of my unconsciousness.

As my youth drew to a close, my heartache grew more immediate.

From birth I basked in the warmth of my older brother's love. On the tragic day he died, I fell deep into a dark abyss.

In a reservoir of repressed tears, damned by fears, I spiraled down into a dark underworld --

Undone --

Unsung.

Without hope, I choked against the weight of sorrow in my writhing belly of imploded emotions. The muted agony within me fought violently against tormenting trumpets of rage, terror, and anguish.

I wore my pain like a dirty trench cloak through dungeons of denial. No window to beauty in that hellhole, only a drain to a sewer in the center of the floor through which I descended. I plummeted down a dour abyss of misery, with nowhere to turn but around.

Unable to bear this grief, the fi nal threads of my fragile strength severed, and the floodgates opened.

Drowning in a tsunami of emotion, I cried out in prayer to the guardian of my soul:

"Help me, please. Wrap your comfort around me, lift me from this misery, and carry me in your embrace. Bathe me in your light, and let me rest in your love."

Through my tear-blurred vision, a brilliant radiance permeated the room and enveloped me in warmth. Mesmerized, I turned toward the light and heard the gentle whisper of an angel's voice:

The well of love that waters your garden is at times filled with your tears.

And it is good that it is so, for no waters are purer than those precious droplets released in your moments of surrender.

Tears are seed drops of joy shed by your soul's physician.

You may curse the physician's medicine, but the cure for your suffering is in your tears.

Weep until seeds of joy take root in the womb of your soul.

Bless grief, as it softens the sinew that shields your deprived heart. Yield to pain, for armor must be torn from you to expose your innocent strength.

I would have you find innocence with joy rather than pain. But what joy is there that knows not pain? Verily, pain is your necessity. As your needs subside, joy will lift you with pure delight to your home in love.

Be patient, for time has a way of putting wings on tears.

Your pain is your need for love. I am the love you need.

Drink the vital elixir from my well-spring that one day your heart may become a fountain where all whose dreams of love have died may drink.

Wiping my eyes with astonishment and squinting into the blinding light, I saw a dreamy figure of a man standing before me. Startled, I spoke defensively:

"My heart is torn, and I am drowning in sorrow. Who are you to speak of love in my time of grief?"

The messenger of love answered:

Though I am called by many names, I am nameless and formless, yet I appear to you always in a form that draws you to me.

I am the spirit pulsing in the heart of all beings.

Like the seed of the fruit, I hold the secrets of life from before the dawn of creation.

Your pain is the cracking of the seed that contains your larger self.

In conflict you stretch the limits of your being.

Just as a butterfly writhes to free itself from the confines of its chrysalis that it may fly free, your journey is a metamorphosis of the soul.

From the survival instincts of primal man, you are reborn again and again, that at last you may soar on enlightened wings of love.

I am with you through aeons of rebirth just as you are with the seasons of your sentience.

As the blurred apparition became more defined, I sensed the presence of my brother but in the shape of an older man I knew only in my dreams. He continued:

I have come to guide you through this night of anguish that you might glimpse beyond the haze of your clouded mind and troubled heart.

Though your brother has vanished, his spirit lives on, forever bonded with the timeless.

The love you share with him is safe from the shifting tides of time and form.

You and he abide together in an unseen realm where you both know what it is not yours to know here.

And just as you were reborn from that limitless sphere of exalted light, so shall he.

The gaping wound in your heart is the doorway to your higher destiny, yet your anguish overshadows the grandeur of the legacy bestowed upon you.

You are here to imbue the light of compassion into this world mired in matter.

Through this painful passage you will come to regard all humanity as you do your brother.

Your love for him is a small portion of the vast love that lies dormant within you.

And in this, your darkest hour, you are closest to love's entry.

When all seems lost, you are most apt to find the inconceivable treasure.

And how would you realize your brilliance but in a world that offers you less than it needs you to be?

Your light is revealed by the darkness it dispels.