Illusionary Reality

I speak.

The world around me exists on the very wind I breathe. The way of life is only as I desire; no strand out of place, no atom without perfection, no mood unwarranted. The world turns as I believe it, the universe grows as I know it, the societies permit as I acknowledge. The way of justice is ruled by me, acceptance is at my arm, purity is purchased through my eyes.

These things are true. These things are real. These things are --

For I am merely man.

She turned her head slightly, lifting her ear to the wind as its fingers brushed through her hair. Black sprinkled with white lifted listlessly into the air, contrasting the green leaves rustling against the azure sky of high noon. Her hair embodied every color, regardless of the stark juxtaposition of rainbows and night, of waving and quivering, of reality and imagination. This woman was, as she sat cross-legged on the hillside overlooking the forests around her which bordered the metropolitan of the so-called living. With little regard for that maze of steel several miles away, she sat listening to the wind and earth.

To her, all was as it should be. The proximity of civilization was within arms reach, while the barbarism of the contemporary world lay in ruins beyond her sight. Existence remained as she wanted, and solidarity reigned in the completeness of her universe. For that's all it ever was: illusions of perspective given permission to invade the outlook for which she saw. That moment was for the forest: a whole lifetime shared with the trees swaying in the breath of the Sky as the Ground hummed effortlessly below audibility and the streams downhill trickled their crisp giggles. The Sun above left her with warmth enough to live for years.

Peace: the serenity of contemplation and love avowed eminence within the mind entrusted from nature. That sense, which divorces the necessity for accelerated living and acquisition of fictitious anomalies, embraced her willingly with arms of possession. Welcoming the symbiotic embrace, she looked around her to see what her life had become in such short times.

Alive.

Constant movement of the living Earth lived within her self; the growing hands reaching ever upward swaying in the delicate breeze, the rushing of animals fidgeting in the undergrowth as they search for sustenance, the subtle changes of pressure between the below and the above catching her mind... Reality.

A sudden desire to feel that reality shift, ever so slightly, overwhelmed her being. She stretched out her hand so it hovered inches above the ground and closed her eyes. She saw a hand full of seeds resting in her open palm. Weight suddenly pushed her hand down, and she tightened a few muscles slightly to compensate for the new pressure. Within moments, each one bringing new emotions and senses from the immediate world, a small squirrel reached into the offering and took out a small seed to start eating.

The woman opened her eyes and looked down at the brown critter sitting on his haunches holding the elliptical seed in his skinny hands. Soon another cautiously scampered towards her outstretched hand. The two sat there, obligingly ignorant of the other and of her had resting between them. A sense of jubilation crept through her; first slinking up her arm like a gentle tarantula, then cascading like waterfalls from gigantic cliff-sides at the end of a fastest river. All she, all she knew all she comprehended; what she allowed herself to experience seemed nothing less than a miracle. The wonder of the world's interconnectedness with the perspective conceived through immediate perception and lack of understanding. She continued to sit there in awe as she extended her awareness to the surrounding glade and hill for which she sat atop.

She wanted flowers; reds, purples, blues, whites, golds, and pinks. All of them, growing wildly like a carpet swaying in the wind.

And they appeared: roses and lilacs and daisies and irises and lilies and marigolds. The floral scent of the air permeated her skin and made her fell like flowers herself. The beautiful rainbow spread out before her and soon butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees arrived to buzz and hum and tickle her senses even more. The acute laughter of pleasure escaped her lips, matching the delicate picturesque scenery she was creating moment to moment. All thoughts of her life before and what was to come escaped her attention without a thought to the contrary.

Yet, after a while, she felt lonely and wanted her love so dearly. The distances between which were certainly far; as far as the metropolis and its greying existence. But that didn't stop her imagining and seeing and knowing him with her. Knowing the world as but a plain of now; suddenly coherently perceiving a truth substantial and yet insignificant. She heard his soft footsteps walking between the petals, felt his smile break between the air and her eyes, knew his touch on her shoulder.

There he was, sitting beside her and the two squirrels still eating their seeds from her hand.

Throwing away the seeds, making the critters scamper off after their treasures, she pulled her love into a kiss of appreciation, and soon they lay back on the bed of flowers. Looking deep into the sky, she thanked whatever source she might have come in contact with: the God, a Goddess, an Essence beyond knowing. Something responded, something so vast and light and dark and small touched her thoughts. For that moment, that mere instance, she knew what she needed to know, and it stayed with her beyond that unforgettable afternoon in the woods on a hill looking out over the world she thought she knew.

It was all an nothing and her, for her world was only hers and could never be anyone else's. The tiniest spec of reality she fostered was but a resemblance of that greater acknowledgment; and acknowledging its power she accepted its being into her own and could change her life. She knew it would never be this easy again, the mere thought conjuring the reality for which she needed and desired beyond what was given and taken from her. And the Essence told her that the gift would never leave, the God told her she had always owned it, and the Goddess told her with practice and love she would know it again.

The sky opened up and revealed the day with a new light she never saw before: her life. They lay there for hours, soaking up the miracle of knowing life for its illusions and the power of change which could give that special power to anyone who sought it.