8

Fly Away Home

I got undressed and sat down in the tub, letting the water fall on my head as I contemplated the week that had passed.

Who was this man, now?

Not anyone I had known before.

This love was working me hard, kneading me, transforming my consciousness with a kind of merciless persistence. There is no question—love is a sculptor that molds you from the inside out. With your heart as its clay, it reaches deep inside you and reshapes your inner world. One form, then another, then another, until the earthen form you once identified as “self” has grown resplendent wings of light. Even my body felt different every day—softer, more pliable, more truly naked, more seen. Our undress rehearsals were revealing more and more.

The Museum-mobile

I spent the next few days overcome by a deep desire to marry Sarah. On one level, I recognized that it made no sense. We had only known one another for a few months, and we were becoming increasingly combative. Yet, on a level beneath that, it made all the sense in the world. Though we had only known each other for a few months, we had known each other forever. After too many lifetimes apart, I wanted to carve our union in stone. This was no love affair. This was a life affair—one lifetime after another, after another.

Validating my certainty were a myriad of soulendipitous moments. A brown female cardinal seemed to have become permanently affixed to my backyard apple tree, as if waiting for her mate. Feathers landed at my feet on city streets. A neighborhood child kept chalking the word “L O V E” on the sidewalk in front of my house. Nowhere else, only my house. And not just any child, but a young girl that looked remarkably similar to Sarah as a youngster. The universe was busy with us.

I flew to Colorado two weekends later to be with her. We considered going camping in the Flatirons but decided to make it real by bringing me into the house she shared with her parents. She had been folded into my daily life—now it was time for me to join hers.

Even before I landed in Denver, I could feel her near. When I entered the baggage area, Sarah raced to me with tears in her eyes. She was wearing the same skirt she had worn for one of our first meetings—but now I knew what treasures lay below it. I lifted her high in the sky, as she playfully spread her arms like wings in flight, smiling eyes abright. What an eyesoar! After she landed, we stared into each other’s eyes until there was only one suitcase left on the baggage carousel—mine. As we left the airport, all I could think about was the treasure hunt I wanted to go on when we got back to her house.

For the first time in my life, I felt absolutely sure why I was here. I was here to love and marry this woman. And when the time was right, our love would spill over into the creation of new life. Little souls would be born. It just had to be.

We drove to her mountain home in her dirty, fascinating car. Her car was a kind of museum of her life, replete with artifacts from her childhood, keepsakes from her nature digs and walks, along with a wardrobe of clothes for quick changes. I called it the museum-mobile. A tiny childhood doll hung from the rear-view mirror, with the letters LF written on it. “LF?” I asked.

“Lightnin’ Foot—Dad’s nickname for me. Because I would vanish so quickly.” The car smelled like cedar, no doubt from the strips of cedar bark strewn all over the front dash with poems written on them. She was a true eco-poet, driving a filthy VW Beetle into eternity.

From the moment we arrived at her family home, I knew that I was actualizing a soul-scripture written before I was born. Absolutely everything was familiar. The old gray country house, those two retrievers, that long winding, snake-like drive up the dirt road—they were all part of the karmic blueprint. As if I needed any more evidence that love is an encoded path, I had seen this coming from a lifetime away.

As we stepped foot on the big ole porch, out stepped Jessie—Sarah’s mother—a tall, heavy-set woman with a wonderfully kind smile. Her face told me two things in an instant—that she had known tremendous suffering, and that she had chosen to keep smiling anyway. She was like a warm billowing cloud of kindness. She hugged me like she had known me forever, kissing my cheeks and thanking me profusely for coming all the way from Canada. Then she sat me down on an oak rocking chair on the porch and told me to not move until she returned. A few moments later, she came out the front door with a plate of cinnamon bread big enough to feed a small troop of boy scouts. A mama after my own heart. I tuned out the rest of the world and ate to my belly’s content.

After being licked profusely by both dogs, Smoky and Bear, an old black pickup rolled up the driveway, sputtering to a stop right before the porch. Out came a bald, edgy man, wearing worn-out overalls, with a bright white goatee and combat scars all over his neck and arms. One of his hands was missing two fingers. This guy had been to hell and back. I instantly knew who he was: Sarah’s father norman, a decorated WWII combat veteran. He was about twenty years older than Jessie, a seventy-five-year-old man with the vitality of a youngster.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, he jumped up on the porch heading my way. I chuckled to myself as I imagined him coming through the incarnation portal with his guns blazing. Not sure the gate-keepers would have had the courage to take them from him on the pass through. When he reached me, he picked me up from my chair like a twig and gave me the biggest bear hug I ever did see. It was both welcoming and terrifying at the same time.

“The man who conquered Lightnin’ Foot... that ain’t no easy feat. Glad to finally meet you, Lowen,” he said with pointed intensity and a big smile on his face.

“Good to meet you too, sir,” I politely replied.

“Don’t sir me, kid. Just call me norman. We’re family now. Ma, when’s supper? I worked up a serious appetite fixin’ Pete Shepherd’s barn door.”

I’m always more comfortable with people who call it supper.

Sarah called out from inside the house, “It’s now, Dad. Outside, or in?”

“IN!” he shouted back, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside the house.

Before we ate, Sarah took me on a quick tour. We began with the upstairs, which could only be reached by walking through the kitchen. On the way up the stairs, I paused to look at a series of old family photos. Like me, Sarah was an only child. She was adopted by Jessie and norman when she was six days old, because they were unable to have children. Most of the pictures were of her growing up, and almost always, there was an animal with her. Dogs, cats, horses and—in one unforgettable picture—a small brown bear.

“A bear?”

“Dad liked to bear-wrestle.”

“I bet he did,” I replied with a chuckle.

At the top of the stairs, we stepped right into Sarah’s bedroom. Above the bed was the same Albert Bierstadt picture that I had on my bedroom wall, along with a series of beautiful photos Sarah had taken on her nature walks. Beside the bed, there was only a small armoire and a rocker near the window. It was like a simple Amish room.

“Is this where we’re sleeping?” I asked.

“This is where I’m sleeping. You’re sleeping in the living room. Ma and Pa are old-fashioned,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. I could tell she had great respect for her parents’ values, even if she didn’t share them.

I sat down to one of the finest home-cooked meals I have ever eaten: pork chili, elk burgers, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and something dangerously fantastic called buttermilk pie for dessert. I probably gained fifteen pounds, and it was entirely worth it.

While eating, I listened to effusive stories about Sarah’s childhood from both parents—her brilliant academic achievements, her tendency to sneakily return the fish to the lake on family boating trips, the pig she saved from a neighbor’s barn fire when she was only six years old. Every story they told, they gushed with pride. She was clearly the apple of their eyes. At the same time, something else hung in the air. I couldn’t quite identify it, but there was a Pandora’s box in this family, one their intense positivity couldn’t quite disguise. This little house had seen plenty of pain. I could almost hear its silent screams.

After dinner I went for a walk with norman down the mountain road. He seemed determined to let me in on a few of the family’s secrets. After minimal small talk, he cut to the chase. “I called her Lightnin’ Foot because she was feisty and fast as a little one. At any sign of trouble, she would sprint away, faster than lightnin’. You met her feisty side yet, Lowen?”

“Yes, a little,” I laughed, nervously.

“Well, you gonna meet more of it. She love you a lot. That means it’s gonna be a war.”

Oh God, not this advice again.

“The key is staying on the battlefield till she knows she can trust you, however long that takes,” he said with warrior conviction.

I felt like I should salute. “Does it have to be a battleground, sir?”

“Stop with the sir, boy, and yes, it do. Real love is ferocious.”

“It can’t be kind and gentle?”

“Sure it can, but only some of the time. We Hardings are spitfires. We don’t go down without a fight.”

How fascinating was this as a matter of karma. I had fallen in love with the daughter of a warrior. Try as I might to shed my own, a warrior consciousness was never too far from my path.

The Tree Fort

That night, Sarah and I went for a drive in the country. On the way back, she pulled over the museum-mobile and kissed me. She smiled softly and said, “IU, Ogdo, IU,” with her heart shining through her face. Then she opened the car door and got out, calling to me, “Come on, I have something to show you.”

I got out of the car and followed her as she entered the pathless forest. God forbid she should use a trailhead!

After a few minutes, she stopped in front of a tall limber pine tree that was partially pushed up against a cliff edge. It had a stout trunk that must have been twelve to fifteen feet in circumference. Taking my hand, she brought me around to the back of the tree. I could make out a tiny opening at the base of the trunk, just large enough for a small person to fit into.

“This is where I would live when they were fighting,” she said softly.

“Live? You would live in here?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“Yep, I would bring my blankets, pillow and food, and hide here until it was safe. Sometimes I would stay out here near a week.”

I felt heartbroken imagining her out here, cold and alone, as a little one.

“How bad was the fighting?”

“Bad enough that they didn’t always notice I was missing. And bad enough that the police had a special jail cell with Dad’s name on it. Dad has a soft heart, but he has PTSD from his time in the war. Nobody understood that back then. They would let him out in the day to weld, and then Ma would have to drive him back to his cell at night.”

And I thought I had it hard.

She turned to kiss me, and then took out her penknife and flashlight and climbed on in. She actually still fit.

“Gonna slay a dragon with that penknife?” I asked, in an avoidant attempt at lightening the mood. Why do we always have to lighten up uncomfortable truths?

“No silly, something much sweeter. I loved it here. The trees were my friends. They shaded me from the madness of the world. Come, look inside...”

I went around and stuck my head into the hole. Sarah turned on her flashlight. Inside there was a small space with a flat area to lie on. I could imagine a little Sarah sleeping in here, undisturbed by humanity.

“Look, Lowen, “she said as she pointed at one of the inner trunk walls. Carved into the wood were the letters…

S.H.
+

“I carved those there when I was eight years old, my very first nature writing. I knew that one day I would meet my soulmate... and finish it.” With that, she reached for her pen knife and carved my initials:

S.H.
+
L.C.

“There, finished,” she said, before reaching over and kissing me tenderly. I had never been kissed inside a tree before. Well, I wasn’t entirely in a tree, but my lips were. We kissed like that for some time, before the darkness slowly crept in. It was time to go back.

On the walk back to the car, I couldn’t get her story off my mind. “You really were hiding in the woods at eight years old, sweetness?”

“Earlier, actually, it began around five.”

“Wow, you saw so much madness so early.”

“Yah, but think of the benefits...” she said pointedly.

“The benefits?”

“Yah. I learned how to find the light in the strangest of places.”

Her smiling eyes lit up, and she turned to face me. “Loving Ogdo is evidence of that.” It took me a moment to realize she was ribbing me. By the time I caught on, she was already sprinting towards the car. I tried to chase her through the woods, but my little tree nymph had lightnin’ in her feet.

When we got back to the house, her parents were sitting in their matching recliners watching an old musical on their rabbit-eared television. Sarah and I went into the kitchen and played checkers for hours. Now and then, Ma would get up and pass me nibbles of buttermilk pie. I don’t remember ever feeling more comfortably at home anywhere.

Fifty Million Shades of God

Sarah and I set out for a day hike the next morning. Little did I know, she had a picnic planned. Little did she know, I had something planned, too.

About a half-hour in, we heard the sound of barking dogs coming our way. Turning around, I saw Smoky and Bear racing up the hill like they had just seen a ghost.

“They always wait till I am long gone, before they race after me,” Sarah said as she crouched down on one knee to greet them.

“Can’t say I blame them. Your absence does leave a mighty big hole,” I said while fending off Bear’s face licks.

We continued our hike, now as a family of four.

As we stepped into the forest at the end of the road, our souls deepened in intimate conversation. They had been talking for months, but we had only scratched the surface of our lexicon of soul-speak. Something about the forest always called us deeper.

We moved crisply among the blue spruce and cedar, hiking to the beat of our own unique drummer. As we walked, there was this unforgettable moment when I felt myself die to everything inside me that was not love. I just died to it. I was watching Sarah walking ahead of me when my love for her exploded into eternity, fervently consuming all that was unlike itself. Leaving a tranquil sea of love, everywhere.

In a heartbeat, I entered an experience of vulnerability so star-tlingly naked, so absolutely present, that I knew I would never be the same. I had never before felt so transparent, so fully open. My heart was so wide open that the whole world fit inside it. The whole bloody world. I felt the love, the joy, the sorrow of humanity pouring through the gateway. No filters—I felt it all.

There was no question in my mind. This state of complete and utter love is our collective birthright, the state we are born to inhabit, the way of being that is eagerly awaiting humanity at the end of a long, perilous journey. We either walk toward love as a way of being, or we walk away from it. There are only two directions. This decision shapes our life and our world.

After about an hour, we stopped near a small creek to rest. Sarah stepped in gingerly, leaning down to splash water on her face and upper body. “Freezing!” she cried, while motioning me to come in and join her. I hated cold water, but how could I resist those warm, inviting eyes?

I stepped into the rocky creek, working my way over to her cautiously. Smoky and Bear soon followed, splashing and drinking like mad monkeys. When I reached her, I leaned in for a kiss. Not just any kiss, but a kiss of particular tenderness. If my soul had lips, this is how it would kiss.

I opened my eyes to look at her as we kissed. Her eyes were open, too. Eye-to-Eye, and I-to-I, one universe after another rose into view, each one more vivid and expansive than the last. What felt like unity consciousness at one stage of opening was revealed as a mere fragment of possibility in another. Then to my wonderment, I had the distinct sense that our love was not simply revealing a new cosmos—it was actually helping create one. Our love was more than a portal into, it was also a weaver of new galaxies, a crafter of new possibilities, a brilliant artist with an expansive and limitless imagination. Fifty million shades of God.

Whether we chose or were chosen, Sarah and I were clearly blessed to walk this path. We were carriers of a divine seedling of possibility, two adventurers who had been granted a glimpse of the new earth that awaits humanity. Not a planet riddled with affectless detachers—masters of self-avoidance masquerading as realized masters—but one characterized by heartfelt connection as the path home. This was a relational dance, not the solo performance perfected by the isolation-ist masculine. Not one limited to the vertical Kingdom of God, but also the horizontal Queendom of Goddess, a receptive and heartfelt temple of delight that only opens its gates to us when our minds are asleep and our hearts wide open.

In just a few moments with Sarah, I encountered a much more relational, inclusive God than I had ever experienced in isolation. Clearly, there can be no God without Goddess. Can’t have one, without the (M)other. God meets Goddess meets Human Being.

I had to wonder, what if LOVE—not mindfulness, not detachment, not disciplined focus, not perfected asanas—is truly the great door opener? What if relationship is the primary mode of transport on the royal road to divinity? What if our experience of God is actually more complete when we co-create her together, when She arises alight and enheartened on the wings of our love? What if we are here together not only to keep each other company, but to show each other God? And even more startling, what if God actually IS relationship, in all its myriad forms? Such imaginings!

At the same time, I also glimpsed the weight of the challenge. As I looked deeply into Sarah’s eyes, I saw both the power and the fragility of this degree of vulnerability. The consciousness I accessed alone may not open as many gateways, but it felt easier to sustain than a relational weave. It was already so challenging to navigate my own consciousness, so how to navigate the vaster co-creative consciousness generated by our love?

I couldn’t help but wonder whether relational ascension has to be mirrored by cultural ascension before it can be sustained as a way of being. If the world around us is still egocentric and toxic, can this kind of relationship survive? Where’s the model for how to move through the torrent of triggers and arrive safely on the other side? The state we were co-creating was so subtle, so tenuous, and so entirely out of step with the more pragmatic vibration of the world. Did we need training in vulnerability before we could plumb its depths? If so, had we met too early in our individual development? Or was this happening exactly as it was supposed to?

With great intensity, Smoky and Bear busted through my thoughtful reflections with a flurry of barks. A hare had caught their attention on the opposite shore, and they ran at it full throttle. They jumped out of the river and into the forest at almost the same moment, hunting bunny like we hunted love. We quickly lost sight of them, though their barks continued to echo through the valley. Sarah began walking her way back to the river’s edge.

“Shouldn’t we wait for them, baby?” I asked, concerned they would get lost in the wild.

Laughing heartily at my urban naivete, she replied, “No need for that, sweetness. They can smell us just as well as they can smell bunny. Let’s get back on the trail. I want to take you somewhere.”

A Picnic with a View

We walked for some time. Sarah stayed just a little ahead, giving me the perfect view of her perfect backside. Once an ass man, always an ass man. I admired her from every angle, but this one was particularly luscious.

Every now and then, Smoky and Bear darted onto the trail at breakneck speed, crisscrossing back and forth in front of us before sprinting back into the woods. They felt like our dogged guardians, touching base to be sure we were okay before racing back to scout the periphery.

As we worked our way to the top of a mountain, the trail grew steeper. Sarah moved up it with skillful ease—she obviously had been here many times before. After a particularly rocky ledge, we arrived at the summit. I longed to lie down and catch my breath, but Sarah motioned me to follow her down a small rock face.

“We’re almost there, city boy,” she said with a teasing smile, “just a few more steps.”

I carefully followed my mountain goat beloved down a steep path between the rocks until we landed at a spacious clearing on the mountain’s edge. I turned to look out over the most beautiful valley I had ever seen. Magnificent Colorado! When I turned back around, Sarah had disappeared. I looked up. Nothing. I looked down. Nothing. Mountain goat nowhere to be found.

Then I heard a giggle from the rock face. Moving toward it, I found her lying on the ground in the shadow of a giant boulder. The boulder leaned against the cliff face in such a way there was a space beneath it. Clearly Sarah had been here—the underside was covered in her writings, including a few sentences with my name in them. She noticed me noticing them.

“I come up here to visit with you.”

“I’m honored.”

“Other than inside your heart, this is my favorite place in the world, Lowen. I come here to get away from everything.”

“How many hiding places do you have?” I asked.

“Many, but this was more than a hiding place. It was my sanctuary. This is where I would come to regain my faith when the world closed in on me. Look up...”

I looked up and saw exactly what she meant. There was a hole at the top of the boulder where the sun shone through. But it didn’t just shine through in a single linear ray. It fragmented into a beautiful colorful prism. I felt like I was looking at a crystalline reflection of our connection. One wave of ecstasy after another, each with its own distinct luminosity, like a multifaceted diamond.

When I looked back down, Sarah was again nowhere to be seen. Lightnin’ Foot had vanished. I peeked my head outside and saw where she had gone. A red flannel blanket lay on the ground at the edge of the clearing. On top of it were two cardboard plates and three open containers filled with leftovers from last night’s dinner. She had prepared the perfect picnic—a picnic with a view.

Happy Birthday

While eating, I was again overcome with the knowing that all my life struggles were intended for this reason: to live in the richness of loving her. She was the culmination of millions of steps my soul had taken to arrive at love’s door. I closed my eyes and imagined us old and gray, eating coconut ice cream and drinking sweet chai by the light of the silvery moon.

I knew it was time.

I reached into my bag, and pulled out my surprise. Then I got nervous and put it back in. Scared shitless, I began talking about trivial things before catching myself and going quiet. It’s never rude to interrupt your false self. I wanted to be genuine, but I was afraid. My toes were tapping wildly.

I closed my eyes and centered myself before reaching for the surprise yet again. While Sarah was looking out over the valley, I placed a small red box with a gold bow in front of her.

When she turned back around, her smiling eyes exploded with delight.

“What’s this, Ogdo?”

“It’s my way of saying sorry for missing your birthday,” I replied.

“My birthday?” she said, perplexed.

“Yah, all twenty-six of them.”

I reached down to pick up the box, holding it in the air between our close faces, smiling at her. Sarah looked confused, but curious. Then I opened the box slowly...

“And it’s also my way of saying that I want to be there for the rest of them—for all your birthdays to come.”

I pulled the ring out of the box. It was a simple ring, one that called to me from the back of an antique jewelry store in Kensington Market. It wasn’t large, nor pretentious, but it was truly our ring—two small diamond hearts woven together as one. It had always made sense to me: the deeper the love, the more subtle its presentation.

I leaned forward with the intention of getting down on my knees to formally propose, but my speech evaporated into nothingness. I became a gushing pool of adoration. Sarah’s eyes flooded with tears. There was nothing to say that wasn’t already said.

Then we gazed into each other’s eyes for as long as our hearts could bare. Our gaze said it all—the bridge exit was closed. There was no going back. Then her eyes smiled and she reached for the ring, seamlessly sliding it onto her ring finger. A perfect fit. When the real one comes, you don’t have to think about commitment. It just is.

Although we had only known each other for a few months in this incarnation, we had known each other forever. After too many lifetimes apart, we couldn’t wait a moment longer to seal our union.

Right after the ring went on, Smoky and Bear began to bark down at us from the summit. Were they getting nervous up there all alone, or did they know we just got engaged? Sarah and I packed up the picnic and readied to go. Just before leaving, Sarah pulled out a piece of chalk and turned to face the boulder. She began to write...

When two hearts beat in the same direction

before handing me the chalk.

I turned to face the boulder and wrote:

They become one.

We climbed down the mountain in silence. When we reached the blue spruce forest, Sarah began playing with the ring on her finger. She seemed to have something to say.

“I love the ring, Ogdo. I love it. But we don’t really need this, you know? I mean, we’re beyond the worldly idea of marriage. We already got married somewhere else. The place where it really counts.”

“Yes, but don’t we meet here, too? Can’t we span both places... ALL places?” I inquired. Then I was struck by a flicker of worry. “You’re not having second thoughts are you?” I reluctantly asked.

At that, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face me.

“Never,” she said as she reached for my hands. “I just don’t want us to forget where we meet when we bring our love into this world.”

I understood. She didn’t want the world to corrupt our love. She didn’t want us to forget the source. She didn’t want our ageless love to be confined by a social institution. She didn’t want us to forget the place where we truly meet. I shared her concerns.

“We won’t. We will always meet there,” I said with a certainty that belied my uncertainty.

We fell back into silence and walked the rest of the way hand in hand, our hearts interlaced like the two diamonds. Only the dogs spoke, celebrating our engagement with their triumphant barks.