I gaze upon the Eastern way, looking for that spot where the Sun meets the Earth and a brand new day has dawned.  Slowly I inch my way forward toward my life’s horizon, looking at my empty hand and feeling awash in the empty feeling that suggests that such a place does not exist.  Not for me anyway.

The sands on which I stand are hot to my bare feet.  The sands give way to the weight I carry and the burden I have no choice but to shoulder.  Together we gazed upon the orange-crescent moon and shared the laughs of Lovers so caught up in the moment as to not know that this one could ever exist.  Yet, the barren landscape on which I know gaze has come.  A famine now exists where once stood fertile land, and the Sun’s once-loving gaze now draws the very life from all around me.  The cloudless sky allows the radiation to drive deep within the soil and burrow deep within my skin as I struggle to move onward.  I began this journey a gallant vestige of strength, able to stand tall among the trees and walk steadily through the grasslands.  Slowly a slouch became evident in my gait as the summer winds grew hotter, and the grasses dried to sharp pins that hardened my feet to thick pads of skin unable to feel much of anything.  Then came the sands as the dead grass blew away in the now brutal desert winds, and the brothel of mirages began their onslaught on my mind.  Even my feet with their thickness found a hell in the terrain they now were forced to endure.

There would be many oases in this journey, each giving me pause to believe that such a place as Eden did, in fact, exist.  I’d sheath my sword and drop my guard in each one; bathing in the springs and eating the nectar of the fruit each one had to offer.  Ultimately I’d eat the wrong apple and be cast aside. In some I had to fight my way out, others I had fought to stay in.  Invariably though in each I’d become an exiled warrior, and in each I could never return through some form of Divine curse, or promise, or a mixture of both.

Time would judge the battles waged as rarely worth the effort.  Even with this wisdom tucked safely in my mind I would always fight.  I loved the fruits; their sweet, supple nature as their flesh met my own.  I loved basking in the glow of the morning Sun as It shined through the trees, the birds singing loudly as distant bells tolled the hour’s arrival.  I loved inching my way into the crystal clear and cool waters freely provided as my body was caressed by Love’s great giving.  Such things would often wear out their welcome, either in me or in them and I would be forced to flee or escorted to the gates unwillingly.  My feet would always touch the desert sands, my brow would endure the desert Sun, my mind would battle the mirages set to ego’s great design.

In each experience, in each drop of blood and sweat, I would seek the understanding of the moment itself.  The scars would not endure, the voices would not win, the mirages would not create my reality.  No amount of false idolatry could replace the sweet caress of my Queen regardless of how many times the mirages would suggest such a caress was nothing more than a mirage itself.  It must exist, it must be real or this journey would be for naught.  Each distorted footprint left in the desert sands would be meaningless.  Each moment in the grips of pleasure would have no meaning.  I knew, if I just kept walking a moment more, that my Queen waited patiently for her King at that spot where the morning Sun kissed the Earth and conceived a new day.  The Divine conceived this new day, my mind gave birth to it, and my body would live it indeed.

A moment’s pause, a deep breath, a quick exhale and I am ready to walk some more.  The desire to be a Queen’s King so enthralled in Love with one another sets my feet in motion. Imagine being carried by a Queen who I can carry.  Imagine being held by a Lover’s embrace so intensely as to never want to part.  Imagine being the first thought of a woman who shares her victories and her defeats with her man immediately upon the determination of either.  Imagine being the only desire of a woman regardless of how many options she may have.  Imagine being so important as to be the focus despite the distance, time, or thoughts that separate you.  Imagine such designs to be mutual creations of the human love shared by two Divine Lover’s in an eternal dance created by the Universe Itself.

Those thoughts make the miles fly by and ease the discomfort of each lonely footstep.  She’s there, I know it.  I’ve tasted her kiss, felt her move beneath me, felt her passion atop of me, and I’ve seen her beauty a million times with each blink of his eye.  I will not find her by sitting still even if the stillness has helped me know her.  I must continue on.  I must not falter.  She is looking for me as surely as I am searching for her.  She is calling out my name as I echo her cries in the valleys and peaks of this path.  She, too, is looking at her empty hand wanting mine to fill it.  We both gaze upon another orange crescent moon peaking above the horizon and know we share this moment and that place.  It keeps us pressing on, it keeps us wanting, and it keeps us knowing our destiny.

So, we move onward toward that destiny.  Separated by time and space made irrelevant by the knowledge that we live within each other’s heart and soul.  We close our eyes and see each other.  We make love in each other’s nightly visions as our song is sung loudly through the mist of our slumber.  We hold each other closely with the strong embrace of what must be.  Our cells merge, our minds replaced by Something more as our hearts beat in rhythmic harmony.  We are one even as we are separated, and our search will find us together at last in the eternal promise of Love.   One day…

So, onward ho we go, each footstep a prayer, each moment defined in the narrowing of the desert between us.