I asked Creation’s Bible, “What is the path to union with another?”
The Russian olive tree propagated back with determined branches sprouting out in particular directions as if needing to reach a destination; while the Cottonwood’s fun-loving leaves replied,
“Dance here in the breeze.”
“But, is there a best way,” I asked?
The Russian olive suggested that I be about the deliberate driving toward while the Cottonwood sang in answer,
“Be free and move with what is.”
With those few words, the Russian olive and Cottonwood went back to doing what they do, with nothing more to say. And so, I stared out at the dry land and waited.
As I pondered, the sensual mountain range emerged showing her swelling womb. Before I could go to seed on what I might birth of God into this world, I noticed a shape, much like the head of a woman and she said,
“Look at my face.”
I studied every agonizing crease imagining her wailing anguished cries of pain. The woman, more indigenous to the harsh land than I, was obviously in grief over what had been done to her or maybe from the high cost of birthing something so rich, for those coming behind.
Her weeping was too overwhelming to even begin wrapping up in a few guiding words, but better to let be and speak on their own. Frightened, I turned from the painful encounter while asking again, but a bit more gently,
“How do I best join with another?”
“Be present, welcoming even the hard and painful things, for they may have come to provide a way to something better.”
The rainbow chimed in with a vibrant array of colors, bleeding from red to violet, one into the other. I could not tell where yellow ended and green began and my heart bounded with joy at the possibilities within myself and with my other. Relieved to be further from the high cost of the expectant land, I went into my heart with a newfound and happier answer. Bravely, I shouted,
“Give of yourself fully.”
But as I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, the rose bush whispered,
“Not yet”.
She spoke of her red blossoms and green leaves, and I knew that the best way to union could not be put in one simple string of words. The red would never be redder than when she sat beside her complimentary color, green. And the green could never be so green as when he buttressed the red. With complementary colors, a compromise ends in a mucky mess. These two must remain distinct or lose their greatest gift to the world, individually and collectively. And so, I questioned,
“If I am to be one with, how shall I remain separate from? What makes a perfect union?”
Everything was quiet and as I thought about what Creation’s Bible had said that morning, I wrote in my journal,
There is determined work and dancing in the breeze.
There are gifts too rich for words that come at a sacrificial cost.
There is oneness with which nothing else can compare.
And there is being yourself so that in some strange way you invite the other to be all that the complimentary can be.