It starts like this: The white page sprawled before me on a winter night, with candles lit in my little room. I sit with the pen (always black, never blue) in my hand, and begin—start to swirl and swish the letters across as I open to The Voices, and to the many words that come tumbling through my mind and down my arm. I can hear them before I write them, and I call upon the ancient ones who have sat before me conjuring wisdom and song.
Tonight is a simple night. No wild passions or sorrows to work through, just the feeling that I needed to get out of bed, and go into my little room to listen to the sounds of my thoughts before I push off to dreams.
Nearly everything in my world right now is internal. I don’t go out into the city much, barely remember the rumbles of riding the subway beast through the underworlds. It’s mostly just me and my dreaming now, so nights like this come easy, and are welcome, welcome, welcome.
So many years of wild action have lead me to utter stillness, as I become hollow as a bone to let the light through. My spine is a river, a sacred causeway of information linking me to the heartbeat of the earth, and the breathing of the stars.
I am empty.
I am waiting.
And then it comes…
First only a trickle of feeling, but the words are whispering along the edges again, and I thank the lineage of lives that have brought me to this one. The caves, and the temples, and the stories of my soul that remember the ways to remember.
Come walkers of the night.
Come star children.
Come watchers in the wings, and guardians of the gates.
Come gather round me, and tell me your tales, and I will speak for you.
Inside the lily, and past the laws of time there is a doorway.
Follow it down, down, down, until you find the seeds of memory, and the wings of faith.
There they wait for you, there they are ever ready, ever vigilant, and strong.
They are your allies of light and dark, they are your power,
and they are living, living, living.
They know, and they gather, and they speak at the turning of the tides of time:
Persimmons, jackfruit, pomegranates, and apples of golden hue.
All for the asking, all for the taking, all on the morning dew.
Just like a dream in the morning light, just like a memory found,
They are slippery, restless, and waiting, called by an ancient sound.
Open the gate to The Voices, stand on the edge of a knife.
Whisper the rhyme, and your choices, and speak for The Voices of Life.