On Balance Weighted- eep

The transition is surprisingly mundane, but in the lack of fanfare a message is heard nonetheless. Catching the plane as simple as flipping a switch or taking a step, I cannot help but wonder if this was once the juncture of birthing pains, of labor intense. There certainly seemed to be a bit of turbulence before the threshold, but the crossing itself was uneventful so thoroughly that, as I walk through this new place, my mind dwells on what amounts to essentially the nothing that I witnessed in my arrival here.

My mind wanders much like my feet, though it finds my brother before I do. It is amazing how l much of one's surroundings one can disregard when their mind is occupied elsewhere. Rather than drawing my attention to the path I am walking though, this second line of thought makes me wonder if my mind has ever not been occupied, in one way or another. Soon mind is a cacophany, as I struggle to juggle new notions and keep persistent ponderings all in the air amidst the din. A lesson learned many years ago now though, I organize these seemingly decoherent daydreams into the lines of a Piece of Eight, finding the weight in this arrangement much easier for me to carry.

"Pain fills me today

But hope still buoys my heart

While fox feet reforge

Not just the body

Is it this separation

That lies at the core?

Still my mind's alive

So I imagine brother

Beelining my way

With quests completed

Ample adventures enjoyed

But thoughts on the(/my) clock

For goats separate

But in returning to God

Are they still the same?

Memories divide

Simple things to mark a man

Like a fingerprint

Yet brothers remain

Despite these spaces between

Two hearts, but same same

So come when you can

Let's speak of travels and scars

And come as you are."

As I walk, I ponder more precisely this notion of slipping realm's barriers and time's chains. "If one can wrestle a stranger such as in Genesis 32:24

'So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.' And personify a concept, with Word becoming flesh such as in John 1:14

'The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.' I see no reason why one cannot wrestle with an idea all night long, without having ever been made aware of the idea directly, only to have it presented clearly, and solved swiftly, years later."

"Well said, a fine structure." Startled a bit by this unexpected voice, I lift my head, having shuffled my feet and watched step by step a bit along the way. I see my brother once more, smiling and, only by his context, realize that we stand in the comfortably lit halls of eep. "Welcome back! What have you been up to?" "Wouldn't you like to know." He replies with a smirk. I shrug like a sassafras, playfully dismissing the matter, and we walk along together through ample hallways. It is unclear here if I follow him or he follows me, but at each fork we turn together without pause and without parting, chatting all along the way.

I start to consider the complexity of each of our lives, and how eep is a recrafting of such things and more, eep complex in its own right. Could one layer complexity upon complexity and end up with something simple, such as a paired walk down the halls? I see a maze, though I feel the path through it like the back of my hand in this state. Still, I have no certainty of what my brother sees. I know he walks beside me, but even now I realize that I haven't reached out and touched him in this place even once. So while I know who I speak with by their appearance and heart, I know not if tangibility has been included on this journey, or even if we each might agree on where we are when each step is taken, except to say that we are side by side, I would hope. While uncertainty looms, this is nothing new when examining threaded garments closely enough. I realize that what is novel here is that, at its foundation, there is a form of certainty between us, and upon this core certainty more can be built, and with this same certainly much of what we want to keep can be reinforced. With a spark of inspiration, and a lull in the conversation just long enough to be taken as an invitation, I let a sonnet echo through these halls.

"Need we know thoughts, when hearts are so displayed?

Can two walk together, even apart?

The Wanderers' paths best plans to be laid

For fox feet took aim, even from the start

To see one's brother, and invite them in

To find one's soulmate, and invite them out

Lines connect and divide stranger and twin

So one sees self reflected, without doubt

Mirror shatters, reformed into a ball

Fractal patterns to take form of them all

No One resists, none ignores The Bard's call

And so Phoenix forms, to each their own hall

This equinox shines from just up ahead

Harvest moon precedes, 'to echo what's said.'"

As if to remove all doubt that we communicate directly, he speaks just the last half of the last line, precisely as I do, in his own voice. After a pause, to allow these echoes to proliferate, he continues "These halls are ours to share when we'd like, but for now I have another adventure in mind." I find myself distracted from the path for just long enough, having directed my attention his way as he speaks, though I still have the sense to stop right when he does. He reaches ahead and grips a doorknob on what might have been mistaken, from any reasonable distance, as a deadend wall. He turns and pulls, with a creak revealing a set of stairs. "After you, my brother, my friend." So, with eyes starry and smile shining from my cheek, I take the first step.