Asamee Blog

The young Indian boy is sitting at the edge of the river, huddling himself. His thin body is shuddering with a grief that is beyond measure. He can feel the weight of the past few months pressing down on him, threatening to shatter his soul. Desperately, he stares into the water, trying to remember how to calm himself with the water’s flow, but to no avail. Memories spear into his consciousness like a jagged mirror. The screaming, the smell of burning flesh, the gazeless stare of empty eyes.

How could these last few months of battling the winter be all in vain? Had he not tried his utmost to keep the last promise to his mother, to keep his sister safe? Had all the sacrifices in the mountain, the prayers to the ancestors, the cold nights without fire been for nothing? He knows that they will be looking for him, that he will receive a lashing and spend another night without food for trying to run away. His body is blue and bruised, and aching from the previous beating. ‘I don’t even care, ‘ he thinks to himself. His sister being taking away was like somebody bleeding the last drop of blood left in his body.

He remembers a happier time. Bouncing on his father’s shoulder, shouting with laughter instead of pain. ‘You lied to me!’ he shouts at the river. ‘You told me I will always be safe, that I can even walk on water if I wished…’ tears start rolling down his cheeks. ‘…if I so believed…Well, I don’t, so there you have it.’ With his last bit of strength, fuelled by anger, he rips the stone hanging from a leather chain off his neck, and throws it into the water.

To his amazement, the stone doesn’t sink. It starts bouncing off the water, bouncing higher with every jump. On the fourth bounce, the stone transforms and turns into a black eagle, with a white crescent head. It was the largest eagle the boy has ever seen. The span of the wings was as long as the span on the arms of a grown man.

The eagle went flying directly at the boy, sweeping him up with one graceful stroke of wing.

A few hours later the soldiers searched by the river looking for the boy. They found his lifeless body at the water’s edge. ‘He’s a gonner,’ the soldier said, kicking the body to make sure. However, when he looked at the boy he felt strangely disturbed. The boy, despite being dead, had the most angelic smile, and in his hand he was holding a single feather.

* * *
Anger did not leave the boy. He spent several miserable lifetimes in Europe, drowned in decadence and sorrow. Finally, after much misery, he was able to face his Higher Council. He didn’t know if he would have the strength for the task he undertook. When he was born into that chosen lifetime, it was literally kicking and screaming.

* * *
The girl that he incarnated to reminded him so much of his younger sister. He only realized that later in the lifetime. She was able to talk to fairies, and she knew how to make contact with animal spirits and beings of light, such as angels. He did not accept these gifts readily, however. Stuck like thorns in the remnants of his memories, he still angrily remembered that these gifts did not save them from being separated.

She would be the feminine energy that would ebb away the anger. Slowly and gracefully, like water moving over rocks, delicately smoothing away the rougher edges.

He would, however, not be free until he faced his darkest demon. The father he chose for that lifetime was the same soldier who led the army against his tribe, the first to rape his mother. The man’s spirit was still filled with hatred, and the boy suffered a severe childhood under his hand with drunkenness and abuse.

The boy was never able to feel any human love for the man. But, when he stood on the earth, his feet solidly planted, he could feel the love and compassion that the earth has for every living soul, permeating his body and his mind. With full knowledge of his past, including all the injustices of this life and the previous life-times, he was able to look at the man, and not only forgive, but flow with earthly and divine love. Only then was he finally set free. Light enough to walk on water.

* * *
Without thinking much, the boy walked back to the river from where he came. The eagle was still there, waiting for him. He climbed on the eagle’s back, and when they flew over the mountain, the seasons moved backwards. Winter turned to autumn, warmed into summer, and melted into spring.

It was a fragrant spring night that the eagle landed with the boy, putting him down close to the tribal village. He could see the home-fires blazing, and smell the wonderful aromas of dinner. He knew that the women of the village would have been conspiring, trying out all kinds of new roots and berries to make sauces to go with the evening meal.

He knows that when he reaches the village, one of the women will ask: ‘Where have you been, lazing around down by river? Tut, tut, time to do your chores around here.’ And then his hair will be ruffled affectionately.

Most of all, he was looking forward to after supper, when there would be singing and dancing around the fire, and when everyone will gather with their stories to be told. There will be happy stories and sad stories, stories of wisdom and stories of teaching.

He clutches the feather he is still holding in his hand. ‘That is so you could find your way home,’ the Eagle told him.

His heart swells with warmth. Tonight, he also will have a story to tell.

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