Part 4

4/1: Steve Burrows

Monday, December 19th, 3am.

John Eldrich is swooping over London and his joy and sheer delight is so noisy, we cannot ignore it any longer.

There are three fledglings here – me, Xiao Hong and John. We have been made new very recently, and I am frankly amazed and appalled yet again when I realise that only Gaius Levinius has ever taken wing in that fashion – neither Mark nor Alexandra have ever flown! Honestly.

I can’t believe their society.

It is preposterous in its stiffness, slowness, seriousness.

Here they are – well, here WE are.

We are all of this, and only God alone knows what else we can do, what else we are, and they’ve sat around for a hundred thousand years and what? What did they do with any of it? Quote rules and regulations at each other until they fell into dust? Where is the fun in that? And here is John. A real stiff upper lipped English gentleman, of the old school. Of the very old school, at that, the man was well beyond retirement age already and struggling to keep breathing, and here he is now, flying and literally screaming with delight and excitement through the levels and the layers.

I can sense the community waking up, all around the globe, and I bet a million people in old London town will have some very strange dreams tonight, as well.

That’s it.

That is it.

I’m not sitting here for another minute.

I will myself straight into the garden, out into the night that is misty, diffuse. A Jack The Ripper night and absolutely perfect for us vampires to do a spot of real vampire flying. I note that behind me, Xiao has arrived, full of giggles she is again, that is a girl after my own heart. Alexandra is there and Gaius too, and finally, even straight laced Mark makes his appearance.

Well, whatever.

I put my head back and wonder how you do this thing. Even as I wonder, I can already feel myself rising; now that is some experience! I put my hand up, Superman fashion and think up and forward and really that is all it takes – at the speed of thought, I fly and travel perfectly high above the rooftops, high above the aerials and wires, and it is fantastic, absolutely amazing.

I send John my delight across the sleepy lights of London, then I feel the others are right behind me.

What a night! What an existence! And how beautiful does all of this appear from so high up, you can’t see the dirt and the mess of tarmac, concrete, all those ugly buildings. Here, there are diamonds scattered into an ocean dark; here are strings of pearls, and silky black, reflecting smooth, the long slow worm that is the Thames out on her way to sea.

When the original excitement has abated, and has turned into a kind of reverence and gratitude, a freeing feeling and a lightness, even a compassion for all those who never know what this is like, who never will, the others once again come closer to my consciousness, to my awareness.

They too are enjoying themselves, finally having some fun with these extraordinary gifts that we all hold, and for a time, we all exchange our feelings, our experiences of this night, and I am satisfied; I look around me and there’s no way I can know where our house would be from here, but I don’t need to.

I simply will myself right back into the garden and there I am.

God, this is so simple. So profoundly amazing. I bet there isn’t a place on Earth I cannot go, and then I start to wonder if I could travel to the moon like this – I have no body and no need for oxygen, is this possible? I bet it is. Morning is now not long away. There is already a hint of light in the sky, and a fine, cool breeze has sprung up. I can see the stars. I can see the stars and I wonder if I can go there too, just the same. Are we really that free? Free to go wherever we want? And if we are, why haven’t they? Something nudges me, something old, strange, far away – perhaps something that once belonged to Gaius, or something older still? There is so much to learn, so much to explore – and there is still a lot to do before the festival.

That is only now two days away.

It doesn’t make much difference, of that I’m sure, and I am sure as well that time is not as it may seem for us, and that these ultra-slow procedures of brainwashing they’ve employed here since the dawn of time are a device to stop us from discovering more about that, just the same as all their other set ups seem so custom made to keep their wings clipped, literally, at that.

I straighten myself and feel the others circling in.

They are flying here and they are using me for a beacon to make their way back.

Fair enough.

I am not their Docem, even though especially Mark and Alexandra like to treat me as if I was, but the fact is that these guys have no idea of what to do. Now that their rules are all gone, they wander around like prisoners who’ve been inside far too long, and don’t remember anymore that you need an umbrella on the outside if you don’t want to get wet when it starts to rain.

Even Gaius has a big streak of that remaining in him and I find it amusing that he takes me for a role model, how he watches me and my reactions with such interest but behind that, he is quite in awe of me and what I do.

I’ll have to be their leader for a while, at least until they find their feet … We shall rest.

We shall go and take a room each, no more unions for tonight, and simply rest in each other’s presence, dream together for a time and when that time is done, we all have things that need to be arranged before we can move on and take the next step.

I communicate this idea to the others even as they circle and then land around me in the garden. Everyone agrees, of course, they just love it when someone tells them what to do and they don’t have to figure out all by themselves just which state they should be occupying, where, and when – well granted, there’s a lot of that, and I guess it can be confusing, even overwhelming, if you don’t have a grand plan in mind that holds it all together.

Let’s go sleep. 

 Dreamtime.

4/2: Mark Edwards

Lights in the darkness.

My house, our house.

Each one of us, a light.

More than a light, we are fires that burn with many colours, spiralling and rising up, and stars are carried high aloft and radiance surrounds us.

It is a comfort to be here and have the faint sensation of the others near; and yet to be alone is pleasant too, relaxing.

I am not quite ready to let go and let myself drift away into unconsciousness; these times have held too much and would like to think upon this for a while.

For all these years, I never really wanted to be Docem. I never really did. I tried to make myself look forward to it, but in truth, there can only ever be one Docem – and that is my Lady Adela.

I am more relieved than I would have guessed by the strange turn of events that ended all the many futures and the certainties that I had held for all this time.

And the flight of this night was a grand affirmation of all of this, both ways.

Yes, my service to the rigid rules of the lower Covenant is truly over.

And yes, the new ways are exciting, more than that, they feel right in a way that other than my lady, nothing ever had.

I shift down a stage with the relief of this acknowledgement, and spread a little wider, become a little more diffused, a little movement into dream.

My thoughts are slowing.

At the same time as they slow, my clarity increases, my range, and now there is a wide open space before me where I could dream of anything, of anywhere, in any way, the choice is mine.

What shall I dream? In answer, there arises far ahead and straight ahead, a swirling that at once I recognise. It is my lady dancing, wearing finest silk, bridal silks are streaming from her hips, from her shoulders.

It is my lady, my one true love and there is nothing else, and nothing that could take my fascination, hold my interest, draw me heart and mind and soul all just the same; my longing for her crests and rushes from me like a fiery fountain, like a shaft of brightest light, blinding in its power, in its absolute conviction.

Yet my lady is dancing.

Her eyes are closed, and she is weaving and swaying, tall grasses rippling under gusty winds that come and go, and she is too enmeshed within her dance to see the light.

So I call to her.

I call her name, I call her being, call her louder, then I scream and my voice bursts forward from my deepest wells and cascades out, and far and wide; it falls upon, it rains upon her and at last, she slows her dance, looks up and then her eyes begin to open wide, her emerald eyes, my lady’s eyes and now, she sees me, she awakens to me; there is resonance, and there is memory, and there inside her is that longing too for me that is as clear and bright upon this day as I have seen it, and she knows me then.

Without a moment’s hesitation, without another thing that is not pure delight, she rises, rushes forward, banners flying as she comes to me in radiance and in delight – my lady, I await you open armed, and never shall we part again.

4/3: Adela Bach

Not until I felt him once again did I begin to realise just how forsaken I had been without him, how immeasurable my loneliness and my bereavement.

Not until I saw him, heard him, knew him to be there did I begin to realise that not a hundred thousand years spend as a tree, a river or a lake could just begin to heal my devastation at his absence, at his lack of being by my side.

But I did see, and feel and realise; and when I did, it was as though a million chains and bonds of torture shattered in an instant, and I could only follow then with what is the only one eternal law, not just the first; there’s only one, and so I flew and it was the Covenant itself that gave me wings and took me straight to him and into what I had been dying for the lack of for so long – our union, one to one, the king to the queen, two equals, equally in love, and equal in their power of devotion.

We rushed, we sparked; we burned up and exchanged each other, took each other whole and we rejected nothing, took it all and gave it all in equal measure. When we were complete, we were complete, and different, and right, and right as we had always meant to be, as it was always meant to be.

Such joy.

Such joy.

Such joy.

4/4: Margaret Crawley

I am sitting on a garden bench beneath a gazebo of wild roses in full bloom.

I am wearing a white cotton dress with lace, and a white hat of elegant starched muslin, with a round, sweeping brim.

In my hands, I hold a posy of garden flowers – daisies, pinks, and blue lobelia.

The weather is perfect, all is beautiful and I am a little sad, for of course, I know I’m dreaming.

I’m a little sad that even in a dream, I can’t just be here and accept this; that I should be so torn apart inside that I can’t even here allow the parts of me who want such childish fantasies of gardens, dresses, flowers to have a moment where they are allowed to speak, or to enjoy themselves.

This is the perfect fantasy of an English country garden. Green carpet grass, and round informal looking flower borders filled to the brim with the traditional mix of lupines, hollyhocks; old fashioned pinks, monbretia and bluebells, fire lilies, all together flowering here all the same time.

Across the grass comes a man, striding towards me.

I feel now tears welling up in this my own dream, for of course I recognise Steve right away. He is wearing a tuxedo, but he’s taken the jacket off and has carelessly slung it over his shoulder, rolled up the shirt sleeves, taken off the bow tie and unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt.

He walks easily and he is smiling, waving at me.

Oh, my, but why would my own dreams torture me so? Why show me this which I can never have, which I don’t even want, this is a childish fantasy, the kind I have rejected even when I was a child for stupid, for naïve, and just the worst kind of make belief that makes you into nothing but a fool.

This is not for me!

This was never for me. I accepted that, I thought I had, and here it is, and I am crying and I cannot stop. I drop the posy at my feet and put my hands before my eyes so I don’t have to see this torturous illusion any longer, and I cry as though I could create a flood of biblical proportions, and wash all of this away, drown it, and all there would be left would be an alien, tranquil sea, without desires, grey and stately, never ending … Let me wake up.

I want to wake up.

Please …

But the sunshine is warm on my arms and on my shoulders, and I can hear his footsteps on the grass, the swish of his clothes as he walks.

I can hear his voice, so ultra-real, as he says, “Margaret, Margaret, why are you crying?” and sits down next to me, I can feel the bench move to his weight, his arm and shoulder brushing me as he sits down close by my side and then he puts his arm around my shoulder.

Go away. Disappear. Make this end, this isn’t fair.

This is all I ever wanted.

No, it isn’t!

Yes, it is!

Oh god …

He pulls me closer to him, pulls my head towards him, takes my hat off and lays his head into my hair, kisses my hair.

I pull away from him sharply, push him away and sit back as far as I can.

“Stop this,” I tell him angrily, my voice is rough and hysterical and my face is dripping, my nose is running and I don’t care anymore.

“Just stop it, go away,” I say again but he remains, as real as ever, and he sighs and reaches, tries to take my hand. I pull it away sharply and move my leg as well to make the point.

“Why are you so angry at me?” he asks.

I am past caring. I’m in a nightmare, I’m desperate, and what does it matter, anyway?

“You should have loved me,” I tell him.

He looks surprised. “But I always have?” he asks, uncertain.

I shake my head. The hair that flies upon that movement isn’t grey, but dark blonde, slightly curly, long. That isn’t my hair. Not anymore.

“You have always made fun of me,” I say, and now I’m getting a sense of relief. Perhaps this is not such a bad thing. Perhaps its good, therapeutic, to tell him the truth.

“You knew that I loved you, and you used me as it suited you. That’s the truth. It was cruel of you. It was more than cruel.” He looks sincerely shocked.

“I had no idea … you felt this way,” he says, struggling with the words.

“How you can you not have?” I nearly shout it at him. “Don’t lie to me. Not anymore, not here. Not here.”

He turns away and plays with his jacket, moves it on the bench beside him, hangs his head. He doesn’t look at me when he says, “I didn’t know you were so angry about it.” I believe that. I believe that he sincerely thought he was doing me a favour by letting me be his chauffer, his maid, his aunt, his confessor, his bodyguard, his slave.

It doesn’t make me any less angry, though.

“You used me. I hate you for that. And I wasn’t strong enough to get away from you. I hate me for that, more than I hate you. You were an addiction that I could never beat.” I take a deep, shuddering breath and wish I had a handkerchief.

Steve looks up, then he extends his hand. It is just a hand, palm up; but I hear a rushing, see a fluttering and a white dove comes down from the stately trees that are behind the bench, lands on his hand, then it melts and turns into a white handkerchief with a lace border.

Some dream this is.

I take it from him without a word and blow my nose, repeatedly.

Steve looks beaten, crestfallen. He is sitting on the bench with his elbows on his knees and hanging his head, rubbing his hair as though he was trying to wash it.

I sigh and say, “Look, it’s alright. You’re a selfish son of a bitch, and I let you take advantage of me. Happens all the time. I guess there’s a flaw in my character, I’m just a masochist who met their sadist. It’s just … this dream, it’s … it’s doing my head in.”

He looks up then and sits back on the bench. He sighs as well.

“This isn’t a dream, you know,” he says.

I look around the garden, get up and take a couple of steps on the grass. It feels inviting, soft, and giving. I’d like to take my shoes off. As I think it, they disappear and I’m barefoot, sinking into the grass, cool, moist.

This isn’t a dream.

Then what is it?

Steve laughs tiredly and answers my unspoken thought. “I think we might call it an alternate reality.”

I sit down on the grass and touch it, comb it with my fingers.

“What have you done to me this time?” Steve sighs and says, “I’ve turned you into a vampire.”

I shrug. “I thought there was something wrong with you. You just don’t wear tuxedos.”

He laughs at that and comes over to me, stands above me and looks down. Seriously, he says, “I think I did it to repay … everything, you know.” I don’t answer. Birds are tweeting, a sweet breeze makes the foliage applaud softly all around us.

Steve continues hesitantly, “No-one has ever loved me the way you have. I never felt that I deserved it.”

I’m sure you didn’t, my fair friend. I’m sure no-one does. Love isn’t really about deserving.

“No,” he says in response to my thoughts, “No, it isn’t. That’s what I’ve learned, what I am learning. Love is about evolution, and about preciousness.” I can’t help but look up at him in pure astonishment.

I’ve known this man for more than ten years and I would never have believed that he would actually get to a point where he might start to understand something about himself, about people, about the world.

“So was it love that made you – do to me whatever it was you did to me?” I enquire.

He sighs again. “I’m not sure,” he says, “I just hope it was love, and not guilt.” He walks around and sits down beside me, facing in the same direction, towards the bench, the wild roses and the trees. “All I can say is that when I knew where I was going, I wanted you to have that too, I wanted you to come, and share this with me. Only you of all the people I’ve ever known. Only you, and that’s the truth.” I don’t know what to do with that.

I don’t know what to do with him, or me, for that matter.

I am a vampire?

What does that mean?

Steve looks at me and says, “I would like to show you, if you would let me. I would like to show you the union. Then you know everything I know.” I look into his fair blue eyes and I give a small snort of laughter, then a long sigh. As though I ever had a choice, since first I laid eyes on you. You captivated me, you conquered me, good and true. I might as well submit to it, give myself up to it. There’s nothing else that I could ever do, no matter how hard I tried.

Steve holds out his hand to again and this time, I simply take it.

His hand is cool and dry, and it is as though it is vibrating minutely, oscillating fast. This sets up a tremor that pulses all through my body, and as that is happening, the country garden finally begins to fade away, becomes less and less realistic, then it melts around us, from beneath us into swirls of liquid colour which all drain away in all directions until we are alone in nowhere, him and me, and I then need to hold onto him with both hands, for I am disorientated and afraid of falling into that void that has no end, falling up, or down, or to the sides, it’s falling all the way.

“Falling in love,” he says and smiles, draws me to him and kisses me lightly. It is a vibrant, resonant sensation and when he draws back, I can see misty lights play about his lips, colours streaming from his mouth, and I can’t help myself, I must lean forward, I must taste them, want to drink them, want to drink of him, and even as I am entirely overwhelmed by the sensations, by the flavours and the feelings there’s the thought right at the back, the far back of my mind that everything has changed, that I am new, and that he did the right thing, after all.

4/5: Gaius Levinius

Unfoldments are happening all around. I can sense a great deal of activity in this house to which I have aligned myself, to which I have come home, it could be said.

To observe Steve Burrows and his behaviours is fascinating, sometimes perplexing. I was entirely taken by surprise when he took that woman there in front of us, and in such a preposterous way. I did not understand this at all until Alexandra explained to me that in recent times, humans had depicted theatre plays of our kind which involved neck biting and blood draining in a very formalised fashion. Steve Burrows had performed a satire on his society’s understanding of our transformational processes, at the same time he had initiated just such a process.

I might have been more shocked than I was if it hadn’t been for the reaction of the young Docem, Edwards. Being in the presence of his intense outrage at Burrows mocking all that he had considered to be right and holy, watching and feeling him struggle to regain any form of perspective was so intriguing that I quite forgot about my own reservations; by the time Edwards had worked it through and out and had likewise been informed of Burrow’s reworking of the vampire metaphor from his day, I began to see the amusement in all of it myself.

It is true that our kind had shrouded ourselves in ritual to such a degree that aspects of the original task and purpose had become forgotten or distorted in the process.

We made transformations happen that took seconds in essence, no time at all; and in the case of the former house assay John Eldrich, it was fascinating to observe that there seemed to be no ill effects from such a rapid transition.

Indeed, there was a delight about Eldrich that was intoxicating. His enthusiasm and sheer joy at his new state of being spread through the entire house and it touched me, too.

When he discovered flight all by himself, entirely spontaneously and outside of any form of supervised or regulated situation, his emanations were such that they lit up aspects of my own being that had been so long forgotten, I would not have included these in a inventory of my own states and experiences.

Yet, on that night, I flew as well; we all did, old and young alike, and I felt something – happiness, perhaps? Gratitude? I am unsure; it has been too long. There is another aspect of this new form of my being that is both puzzling and delightful.

These unions, richer, wilder and infinitely more passionate and more intense, these unions, they enrich me.

They make me more, for every one brings to me that which was the other; they add to me, expand my understanding of myself to a new level, or it may be more precise to say that they expand me in reality.

Eldrich is so close in all his ways to being absolutely human still, it brings my own long lost humanity back into range, back into my awareness.

I had forgotten what it was to be that way.

I had forgotten who I was, and how I used to think and feel.

I had forgotten all of that, but now, I can remember.

It is extraordinary.

My life as a man was hard, but it was also majestic in the sheer brutality of every sensory impression, in the raging events that possessed me or which caught me inside themselves. Life had me by the throat; it shook me violently, tore into my flesh, ripped my intestines, chewed my testicles in iron jaws.

Blood red and fire; burning, grating reality, overwhelming, terrifying.

How could I have forgotten all of that? Oh, of course I know how. On that level, it is obvious – it is the Arada dream that sands all of that away over time, makes it recede into a mist, further and further away until it is nothing but a far away echo, a remnant of whispers, and even then, you cannot make out any longer if there had been any words, or screams, or bugles calling then, and by then, it doesn’t matter any longer.

The truth? Not one of us ever returns from the Arada dream.

We are all still fast asleep and our existence is a dream, nothing more; we think it is perfection for we are inside the dream.

We live within a cage, a beautiful, luxurious harem in which each one of us becomes both inmate and the guards who will prevent escape; and we will sit and tell each other tales of just how good it is to be right where we are, and shudder at the outside, which is nothing, a darkness nothing and the only place that’s right and bright, is here.

Burrows tore our sleep asunder.

He woke us up.

He woke me up. I have been dreaming for two thousand years. I am stunned by this, perplexed.

I don’t know how I should respond to this understanding, whether I should be dismayed at the loss of life this represents or if I should seek to think of it in a different way altogether.

What is this Arada dream that we enter into and then not ever leave again? What is its purpose? I let myself fall backwards and I drift and try to shift my point of view.

I try to formulate a question to which the only answer that can be is to make sure that my kind should go to sleep and dream and never be quite present, never be in contact with the unbelievable excitement of the wild that is the truth of not just all the universe, but of our kind just the same.

We are born here, we are the children of the wild, we belong right here and not locked up in dreams.

I seek the question, but I cannot find it; I don’t understand.

All around me are unfoldments, unions taking place, explorations being conducted just the same as I am seeking to find home and hearth in all this that has never been and where there are no paths, no guidelines and no masters who would tell us what to do.

It is there, but it is unknowable. The wild is not to be mastered, it is not to be kept at bay. We are here, and we must learn its ways, must learn to tread with care and follow where the wind will take us, where the streams of time and tides of deeper, older movements guide our paths.

I look ahead and to the future.

Infinite complexity.

Patterns beyond patterns.

Shifting, drifting, swirling unfoldments.

Great spheres rising, touching, receding.

And in the midst, there is a star fire, a bright place of inordinate power and divergence that draws me irresistibly towards it.

The Festival.

It is there.

And we are drifting ever closer.

4/6: Xiao Hong

The unbelievable event that was Mark and Adela in union pulled me out of my own sphere, out of my own center and swept me up like a leaf in a hurricane.

Round and round, upside down, inside out, back to front, I was tossed and buffeted, completely disorientated and at the same time, I knew that this was an opportunity for me.

I slowed myself, I slowed right down until the rushing, crazy movements inside and out became a dance, and then a soft and silent forward drifting, and then I simply stopped and everything was still.

Now, I could move in freedom, and I went outside of it so I could get an overview.

There they were, two galaxies colliding; indescribable, unspeakable.

But there were we, all of us, and others too, drawn to this event, swept up in the event, many others, some closer, some further away but all were touched by this and by the swirling streams and powerful tides the event created across the levels, across the layers.

And there was I.

Not a leaf but a star in my own right, a star made up of many lights and many fires, and I was beautiful.

There was a starry trail that showed my passage, showed my path as it had been, and I could see how it would then continue; there was a pattern there prescribed and as I traced it I did know it, and I recognised it for my own.

And so, I went back and inside myself, and I stepped right inside myself, extended me as though a hand was slipping right into a glove made in perfection into every part of that, flowed smoothly and luxuriously all the way, through all the rivers and the tributaries, the capillaries and out, a web, a breath of starlight; and when I had thus inhabited me in my entirety, I was connected and I knew not just the path, but also how it came to be, how my own being was directed and directing in conjunction with all else, in harmony.

Lovingly, I released my hold on time and let it move again, let my awareness come into the same movement, find the rhythm, find the rhyme and when it meshed so perfectly, I then was free to be a dancer, be a sail, be as a bird and fly the storm, be part of it, and take the storm and make it carry me to where I want to go, to where I need to be.

Ah, but this is exquisite! The fantastic shooting stars of energies displaced, the incredible powerful discharges and waves upon waves that ripple and rush from the center of their union create bridges to places I have never been; they make connections, updrafts upon which I can ride to touch new planes, new times and new existences.

High up above and in a sphere I could never have reached without the lifting power of their union I recognise Gaius, and I make my way to him, a complex spiral path with many loops and many angles but I navigate with ease and draw alongside him in delight.

He is amazed at this contact, doesn’t recognise me at first, for how could a one such as me be here? How could anyone reach him on this level? He is used to being so alone.

Delightful, deliciously attractive – he is an undiscovered country, an unconquered territory that is awaiting my footfall and what riches might I find here? Gaius.

I have come for you.

4/7: Alexandra Zyskowska

There was a time when rest meant drifting quietly, in peace and deep reflection.

There was a time when most serenely, all the members of his house would be together and we would be just like a field of stars, silent, vibrant, cool and clear.

This, here, could not be more different! Within moments of our withdrawal and relaxation, all manner of explosions ensued, all manner of the most amazing unions, creating force fields and fountainheads, all around me, everywhere.

I was completely astonished by all of this, a chain reaction that seemed to sweep everyone somewhere and into something, no-one was left untouched by the sheer intensity of what was happening.

When my Lady Adela returned, it went through a threshold; by then, my own need for union was such that I was bouncing between levels randomly, a shooting star on an unknown trajectory, out of control and at the mercy of these energies, of these emotions, that soon enough turned into feelings, then they are like sounds; great winds that buffet me, distort my shape and try to make me into something of their choosing, a sculptor at work who is intent on making something like the world has never seen.

Far on my right, I perceive another shooting star unfoldment – it is Xiao Hong who even as I watch her, takes control and turns herself into a shape, a flying being, like an angel does she rise; she dives into these awesome tides with purpose and she soars there, swims with the currents, uses them to lift her up, and up.

As I observe her and her movements, in turn I mimic them and find that what she’s doing is exactly right. In these conditions, it is not correct to simply drift without volition and be storm tossed, here and there; it is essential that we should become an active part of these unfoldments and decide just how we want to use this time, this landscape.

It offers much opportunity, once it is understood that this is more than just a crazy chaos of disturbance, of upheaval.

I watch Xiao Hong gain speed and height, on a path, a course and as I extrapolate her trajectory, I see that she is on her way to Gaius, who exists above the rest of us; that is a good choice indeed and I wish her well on that endeavour.

I lean into the movements then and I concentrate on learning how to fly here, how to stretch and use these powerful currents to take me here, and there; and so it is that I find my potential and conversion John, fluttering helplessly in this storm and in sincere distress, about to be engulfed by great pulsating waves of forest green and midnight blue being generated by Mark and Adela as their union gathers speed and power.

Trying to fly inside these incredible fields is an amazing challenge.

There is no way I can make headway by trying to cross them or fight against them, I have to attune to their inherent ebb and flow and use these as a springboard from one occurrence to the next; and soon, I am alongside John and once again, I offer him the safety of my protection, of my existence.

I find this curiously rewarding, delightful and it makes me feel different, greater; even in these ocean storms, I am a light and I have a purpose, and I can make a difference here.

My presence is welcomed with open arms and immense relief; at first, I enfold him and lay a course for us to move up and out, higher and further away from the center of the vortex, into a clearer space where we are absolutely still a part of this and can observe and feel it all, yet there’s no danger any longer to be swept into unfoldments that are strictly not of our concern, at least not yet.

I find a stability, an oasis space and there I gently let him go and find his bearings, re-establish himself and gain perspective on it all.

He resonates in gratitude and relief and I observe him, watch him looking out at the extraordinary universe that is our house in full unfoldment, trying to understand, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.

Gently I move up behind him, lean against him, and as I do, I become aware that he is attractive, that there is a beautiful strength inside of him, an innocence and a purity which I have rarely felt like this. He is untouched, virginial; he his young and there is something about him that resonates to something within me in the strangest way. As I tune to him, more and more, the galaxies and firestorms recede; as wonderful a spectacle and an experience these things are, I am drawn to the universe that lies inside of him, inside of me.

What is this resonance, how are we the same? And then I see it, can’t believe it, can’t believe that I had no idea, that I didn’t know.

Of course. He knows my mistress, the lady of my first union. He knows the Lady Catherine.

She must have been his Cestra, chose him for potential, just as she chose me to be Arada, and both of us have her inside of us, we are her children in a way, although she never was his lady.

A deep welling of longing rises up inside of me then, a something I have carefully avoided, something I don’t think about – my lady, my first love, my only love. She came to me in hues of sunrise, gold and golden rosy purples, and she was my sunrise, my goddess, is my goddess still, oh! Lady Catherine!

As I cry out, the other one is swept away with recognition, but he has different recollections, yet he knows that we are longing for the same one, to him, a distant, perfect dawn of promise, and to me, the sunrise manifest; Catherine as Cestra, and as Docem, and still, Catherine it is.

Catherine it is.

As we agree and show each other our perspectives and our knowings, there unfolds between us a creation that is dawn and sunrise both and in the same place, at the same time; and we weave around this, dance in drifting veils about it and it comes to me that what we’re doing isn’t right, that we are worshipping an illusion, an evocation, some thing that we have made and no matter what, could never be the whole truth of the matter, the whole truth of the being we once knew and held within us with such fervour and devotion.

This knowing slows my dance and I step back a little, then a little more; and here, I have now the perspective to observe just how the fascination, longing and creation makes a feedback loop that still has John entirely enthralled, keeps him locked up within itself and strengthens more and still yet more with every orbit he prescribes in flight about his non- existent star.

His focus is amazing. It is near enough complete. It has become locked on a single point that is off center and thus causes him to go in everlasting circles; it is stable and it doesn’t change, will never change until eternity.

The first law of the Covenant is love.

The second is unfoldment.

The third is preciousness.

This system ignores them all.

I understand then that I have seen the preciousness in John when he was still a man; that I can’t help but want for his unfoldments to be splendid; and that I love him.

When all these three come into line, and into my awareness, I change; I change as from my deepest center, a new star is born; it springs into existence with a brilliant force and power, is pure and so inordinately bright, it breaks the focus he has held for oh so long and so his flight becomes erratic, his dance becomes confusion, and finally, and finally, he turns away from that ghostly evocation he himself has made to give himself a reason to continue on at all, and then he sees me.

I am no dawn.

I am no sunrise.

I am your star.

4/8: John Eldrich

They call it union, but I call it making love.

Perhaps that’s wrong too.

Perhaps it should be called, becoming love? I thought I knew what love was, I thought I was in love for all these years, but I had been wrong.

There is a difference between love, and obsession.

Love heals you, whichever way you touch it.

It heals you if you give it, and just the same, if you receive it.

There is no difference.

It is beautiful, well, that word does not describe it, no word could, nothing could.

If it hurts, if it makes you sad, if it makes you tired or distraught, my friend, that isn’t love.

I would have argued fiercely, desperately, when I was still clinging on to my complete illusion, born from loneliness and total lack of knowledge or of understanding.

I would have rather died than to accept that my obsession with the Lady Catherine was that – a terrible disease, something that harms and thereby, it could never have been love.

Only now I know the difference.

Alexandra showed me, taught me, and in doing so, she set me free.

And that as well is something I could never understand before.

True love does never bind you to another; it frees you in every way, it gives you wings and never would you think that you’re beholden, or that there can only be the one, THAT one – love has no name, it has no face, it has no colour, no conviction and it asks you not a thing.

It demands nothing.

Now, that I finally know what it is, I am free to love.

I am free to love Alexandra, and all the others here, and all and everything – there is no hierarchy in love, no preference, no jealousy.

Love is a coin where both sides are the same – it is one and everything, alpha and omega, and it is eternal.

I left love and lived in an illusion of my own making.

I spoke its name in vain.

But even that is now just as it was, and I am free for love knows not of guilt, or shame; it overwhelms regret and sorrow, washes away all sins and replaces everything that went before with nothing but its own splendour, reflected in everything it touches, and that is every thing.

Over the years I knew of them, I also knew that they lived by a law they called the Covenant. I even knew the rules and regulations that were part and parcel of this law they followed with a total and unquestioning loyalty that often struck me strangely; the young ones and the old ones just the same.

Now I know why.

To have experienced the living reality of love the way I did does not leave room for doubt or argument; and further still, you cannot even serve love, or dedicate yourself to such a service or a task.

You cannot make a vow to love; all that is nothing but illusion.

The Covenant is their word for the reality of love; it is a bridge or a device so that those parts who would not ever comprehend the depth and width and full eternity of what that was might have a foothold, nothing more.

I am free.

We all are.