The Cleansing
May. 19th, 2009 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shosenOne of these days, I'll learn to think things through before I do them. At least, I hope I will.
But it didn't seem like a big deal. To help the Sage, I had to go do a cleaning ritual. It's not like I haven't tried such things before. They gave my spirit needed peace, but nothing else changed.
This one was different.
He said I needed to be free of my inner turmoil.
Right.
By now, after everything, I figured that was impossible. It was too much a part of me, woven around and through, given strength and form by the shadows I called. The shadows I relied on.
And when the cleansing pulled it from me, it took those shadows with it. Wrapped them around it's mirrored form, and they would not answer me, could no longer come to my defense.
As I had once turned to them in desperation, so did I now call out to the light.
The aloof light, which had always resisted me, always slow and disdainful.
It answered now. Clear and focused, sharp and fast as it never had been before.
I could not help but pity my poor shadow.
I remember how that light burns.
It could not stand. A shadow facing that which casts it, exposed to the glaring light, it could not win its freedom.
And so it fell. Shape scattered on frigid winds, forms faded into the frozen earth.
I stared at the place it had occupied, stood waiting for the shadows to return, to flow back in answer to my call. To come, as they always have, the one thing upon which I could rely.
But I'm still waiting.
One of these days, I'll learn to think things through before I do them.
But it didn't seem like a big deal. To help the Sage, I had to go do a cleaning ritual. It's not like I haven't tried such things before. They gave my spirit needed peace, but nothing else changed.
This one was different.
He said I needed to be free of my inner turmoil.
Right.
By now, after everything, I figured that was impossible. It was too much a part of me, woven around and through, given strength and form by the shadows I called. The shadows I relied on.
And when the cleansing pulled it from me, it took those shadows with it. Wrapped them around it's mirrored form, and they would not answer me, could no longer come to my defense.
As I had once turned to them in desperation, so did I now call out to the light.
The aloof light, which had always resisted me, always slow and disdainful.
It answered now. Clear and focused, sharp and fast as it never had been before.
I could not help but pity my poor shadow.
I remember how that light burns.
It could not stand. A shadow facing that which casts it, exposed to the glaring light, it could not win its freedom.
And so it fell. Shape scattered on frigid winds, forms faded into the frozen earth.
I stared at the place it had occupied, stood waiting for the shadows to return, to flow back in answer to my call. To come, as they always have, the one thing upon which I could rely.
But I'm still waiting.
One of these days, I'll learn to think things through before I do them.