Crowns for Kara

It’s been raining for almost two days now.  I often go wandering in the rain, to feel storms against my skin.  Like forgotten kisses, older than the stars.  I sometimes think about the revelation of hindsight.  Or foresight.  Waters old and new.  The distance between who we are and who we might be, and the way we sometimes circle round to meet ourselves again.  Angels, and wolves.  Those who are both, or neither.  I think about those barrows beneath and beyond. How Earth's fecundity is matched only by creation's infinite black, allowing the birth of every star.  My brave ones, I hope you never know as the febrile know.  There is a certain madness at the very centre of a star.

   A glorious, unsettling madness.

   The fall of Ishkara still haunts me in ways I cannot explain.  Sickened branches rising to roots like the devil's hand.  Dreaming's Ashes, amidst every broken sun. The eventual theft of that memory of horror was my choice.  Mine alone.  But it felt like a mercy, not a choice.  I stole that suffering and chaos from each of you, whether you wanted me to or not.  But I believed there were some things from which a human soul could never truly heal.

   Some things too dark for mortal cognition.

   I still believe that, in a way.

   None of us would have emotionally survived the alternative.  A world without a future.  I know how much it hurts, my sweet ones.  Believe me.  But better this than nothing at all, I think.  Better to treasure every offered kindness.  Enthrone love's majesty.  At least among these ruins there is still hope.  The romance of finding each other again, like something from a fairytale.  Finally realizing you were always part of the plan.  It's the world that once was.  The world our Father forged for us, from purity and prosper.  I will do everything in my power to protect that world.

   Kasi knows the price of seeing things before they happen, and the agony of taking each untaken road.  Who in their right mind would want to live like that?

   Wandering, alone.

  Seemingly forever, until the glorious madness of stars is finally burnt out.  Every light extinguished in creation's infinite black.  Every beggar, king or god.  The end these wraiths would wish for us, but not our true destiny.  Witnessing this false end, I gazed into the eyes of the people I loved and thought maybe it was enough to see the forest, if not the trees.  A potential revelation, not blinded by the hideous dreaming of hell.  

   But let me tell you, my sweet ones, it's a frightening thing to carry this alone.  To fever like a star.   I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemies, let alone my dearest friends.  I love you all so much.  I still see the best in each of you.  If I can spare my family from the experience of true horror, then I will.     

   I say this because I want you all to understand something. 

   This is not the worst of all possible worlds, even when it seems like it could be.  It's not even close.  We all have a hand in the kind of world it is, or the world it could be.  But there is also something else here, present in each of our lives.  Something so much greater than any of us.  It cares more about our fates than we will ever know.  
   I call this presence my Father.  You’ve felt him too, I think.  At least once in your lives, though you might use different language to describe him.  He too knows something about agony and love.  He is far from distant, or indifferent.  He carries more trauma and pain than I could ever bear.  He has more compassion than I can even comprehend.  Knowing this, I have to find ways to make peace with my wounds.  To walk alone in the rain, even though I miss you terribly.  Even though I'll suffer.  I'll lose everything, and everyone.  But so many do.  I'm not the only soul paying the price of cognition since the Fall. I’m just one of the oldest.  I remember all of this, at times.  So, I can't afford to yearn for a right mind.  It has to be enough for me to truly care about others, to play my small part in this vast unfolding revelation.  Whatever it takes, for love.  Circling back like a wolf, or an angel.