Here, I stand and do not falter, and sing with a voice that does not crack.

Here, I dream the perfect sunrise, the cool crisp air in yet another morning that I’ve survived to see. I sit, content in my solitude as I have a thousand morns before, staring into the desire as my heart does gift upon my face the smile this moment has created. Slowly, majestically, the pink-hued orange sky announces her arrival. As the dark-hued lines of the nighttime realm give way to the power of the light, I feel her fingers snake between my own. Suddenly, as the winged angels of Earth’s dear breast sing the praise of yet another day, her bare skin greets my own in an embrace so familiar to my dreams that it is strange in my reality.

In the natural-flowing currents of life’s dear sea we have found each other laying on the beach. There are no rules here.  There are no sworn vows, no eternal promises or promises of anything eternal. We live in the moment’s vow of nothing beyond what is, and we swear to each other nothing but the promise of a lock-free and open sky in which we rest. Here the tree provides the shade without need of compensation and the lover is free to roam where the lover wants to go, without promise of return and without need of words to swear an oath for that which the human cannot provide.

Imagine a love so pure that it holds no vows, no expectation, no need promise beyond the obvious truth of the moment’s view. There are no great orations promising the valley-dweller will see the summit, no great promises that one on the summit will reach the land of milk and honey beyond the peak-filled horizon of someone else’s ideals. Here, in this land of Eden created by true love, the lovers dance to music they have written together with no promise of harmony once the music has ended. Here, in this land of plenty there are no cries for more because both beloveds find they need no more than what the moment brings.

There is great love here, yet none greater or lesser than the love of self that allows the it all to flow to others. The hands held are grasped for the sheer pleasure of the union, and the lips that touch do so for the simple taste of the lover’s tongue. There are no obligations outside of what the self desires, and there are no needs beyond those to which the heart allows.

That is in my dream, and you are there. I hear the sweet tone of the voice I have never heard before. I see the pure love in eyes I have never set upon in this dimension. Finally, I feel the skin I have felt only in my dreams or in the zillion lifetimes we have shared before. The sun rises, and the birds sing, and the new day dawns as the lover’s dance begins. Yes, my friend, my lover, my dream, my nothing, you are hear and I am there and we are everything there ever was or will be in a single moment. We are…

Here, I am my brother’s keeper, but I am not his Master. This love does not enslave, or demand, or conquer, or demean. This love frees, so as I nurture my brother to his highest place he owes me nothing. I am my lover’s keeper, but I am not her Master. This love does not require a vow, or a ring, or a demand of a faithfulness that is not natural beyond any moment my lover lives. She is free, without adorning any chains that I have placed upon her. No, she stands as a beautiful-winged butterfly free to roam the great fields of this life. If in this love we are to never dance with another so be it, but it will not be a demand we force upon each other because it never need be made. It simply is, or is not, without a cause created in our minds to chain our hearts or sever those wings that allow our souls to fly.

Can the man live within the highest form of a soul’s pure love? Can a dreamer awaken to reality not born of his mind but rather of his heart? Can the loving warrior within me withstand the onslaught of the wretched voices instilled within me from birth?

Within those questions comes a fateful prayer. Within those storms comes a need for utter stillness. As the hands of time have pried my fingers lose, one by one, from the handhold I have grasped so firmly I have no choice but to let go. The old way, their way, has created utter failure. That old way, my way, has never served me well. In the twisted remnants of an eternal stumble comes the will to never fall again. In the cluttered field of debris I have left behind comes an oath to never crash to Earth again from shackles I have placed upon my Self. There comes a time to stand upon the wall and dare to try something new to break the siege of suffering that plagues me. Perhaps it is time to write a new book, and to create a new direction not set by those who have come before me, but by me.

I’d say here that the journey begins, but that would not be true. This journey began the very moment I began to breathe. I’d say that the paradigm has begun to shift, but that too would be inaccurate. The paradigm has been shifting long before this body was conceived. Today, now, I simply bring the paradigm shift to my journey, and my journey to the paradigm shift. Here, now, I don’t try to control the wave on which I’m riding. Instead, I simply ride it while working to maintain the balance I need to reach the shore. Each stumble improves my balance. Each fall through the foamy surf gives me hope to feel the distant sands. When my body hits the bottom of the sea it is not the water that I feel, but sands that give me promise of the shore. When my body breaks the surface of the sea it is not the depth that I fear, but the air that fills my lungs that gives me hope. Each breath, each moment of survival, is a single prayer of hope that the shore is just one more ride away.

Wanderers, or those like me, are not strangers to fear. It is the sea that prevents us from drawing breath, but it is also the sea that shows us promise of the air above the surface. The ocean’s depth could cause us to drown, but it also gives birth to the wave on which we ride toward the promise of the shore. One does not live without the other, and in the desert it is the thirst that drives the wanderer onward toward the next oasis to quench a thirst only he can describe.

I look forward to the journey, and I look forward to the sharing. I look forward to the experience well outside anything I have ever known. I no longer cater to the fear that once held me firm to old beliefs, and I no longer fear the falling. I no longer listen to the Great Liar, the fears I’ve been taught and have felt since the moment I fell from my enlightened place. Now, I dream of the ascension as I mutter the only vow I will ever utter again in my life.

“There will be no promises.  Ever.” Now, onward I go.