Spiritual Stories for the New World
Silveera’s Heart (pdf format)
The lady, tall and proud, stood perfectly poised at the edge of the silent water. Dressed in white and blue, golden hair brushing her waist, she breathed ever so slightly. The sigh of a new breeze caused a moist spider’s web to quiver, yet all remained as quiet as a candle flame in an empty room. Soon the moon would rise again to wash the world around her with white. “Ah,” she thought from the heart, “if only he had not left so quickly.” But Nomar could no longer be seen nor felt. As the space beside the lady grew large and dark, she turned abruptly from the dampening shoreline to return home.
Silveera and Nomar had lived together in joyful companionship for many years. They had shared dreams and sweet cakes, creations and ideas. There had been excursions to the mountains and the meadowlands and even timid visits to the sacred forest of Mareithia. Their relationship was comfortably nestled between wisdom and liberty, each allowing the other time for personal reflection.
Softly, Silveera slipped back into the largest room of their dwelling. As she looked around her, a comfortable peace exuded from the walls. “It is a fine place,” she murmured and sat down in front of a large fern which grew liberally in the shadow of an oval window.
Nomar had left earlier than usual, with an impatient step. Lately a dry moment had come between them, a little like the first leaf of autumn falling before its time. The inability to find a cause for the discomfort irritated Silveera. She got up and sat back down. “It is a fine place,” she repeated to herself, all the time knowing that something was not right.
Some years ago when Nomar was a lad, he had had a very strange vision. Lying against a flat rock, warmed by a day of sun, he had half closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander far away to the clouds above the earth. Suddenly wondrous images flew towards him, colours and forms, faces and space craft, bird and castles, all merrily moving towards him spinning and spiralling making him ecstatic and dizzy. And from the middle of this delicious feast of images radiated a tremendous light. Then, just as he shifted his gaze to absorb the light, it disappeared from him. Everything ceased, every image, form and colour.
Nomar had opened his eyes, pushed himself off forcefully from the rock and had whispered frantically, “Where is my light?” There were no answer and no more vision. All had become as before, but Nomar had not. This brilliant light had mesmerized him and the urge to find it again had become stronger with each passing day.
Silveera was unaware of what Nomar had experienced for instead of sharing such an adventure and his increasing attraction to it, he had begun to withdraw from her. And so it was that over time this dry spell had descended upon their friendship. Nomar spent more time alone and Silveera spent more time in sadness.
And now off went her friend and her love, with his impatient step poised somewhere on a mysterious path. Just before leaving Silveera he had said quietly with torn eyes, “I love you, but I must find something very great.” Expecting no answer, for indeed none could be given, this tall man of troubled mind moved away from Silveera, clumsily and quickly.
For three days the tall lady in blue and white walked to the shoreline and returned home without comfort. The nights felt crumpled and nervous for Silveera slept poorly, knowing more and more that he stayed away longer and longer.
It was in the early morning of the seventh day that Silveera awoke with an unusually fresh heart. As she expectantly sat up, the room filled with the spring fragrance of violet blossoms and an ocean blue light began to shimmer at the foot of her bed. From this light poured forth the humming of voices so exquisitely sweet that tears filled Silveera’s light green eyes. The gentle love, delicate light, melodic sound and sweet wondrous perfume so overwhelmed her that she burst into tears. “I am so alone,” she sobbed over and over. “Why has Nomar abandoned me?” The more she wept the greater the radiance of light, music and scent. She turned her head to the wall, eyes swollen and mouth turned down. And there on the wall, in front of her appeared words of gold sprinkled with emerald dust. She froze in astonishment, hiccupping her tears away. With larger and larger eyes, Silveera read, “Love is wider and deeper than the mind. Let love go from you and it will fill a hundred hearts. Let it come back to you and it will fill a thousand more.”
Dawn’s light shone with particular splendour that morning, but not as majestically as the light that shimmered from Silveera’s eyes. The space around her and within her had been filled with patience and understanding.
With joyful purpose Silveera got out of her bed, brushed her hair and watered the fern. She knew that Nomar would be home soon and she had just enough time to prepare a celebration of renewed friendship.
Regiena Heringa
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