29

At four a.m. the rooster begins to cry.

The line of sky to the east brightens, a soft light that is first blue before deepening to orange.

Study the nature of fire, she says.

We are sitting by the back fence, watching chickens scratch the grass.

I cannot find that which does not make her happy and this too is her teaching.

The passions rise in conflagration but always descend into ash, she says.

And ashes are born always by the wind toward the sea.

We are quiet then.

Later, I bring her tea sweetened with honey and raisins dusted with nutmeg.

There is a time when one is called only to seek that which is eternal and unchanging.

There is a time when one is called to make contact with the Divine Will.

To do this is to set aside names and status, including "the Divine Will."

To set aside ideas, including those about "the Divine Will."

One perceives the light of morning everywhere.

One perceives the company of those who are here only to help the ones who yet perceive themselves as lost and forsaken.

Fire pushes itself, she says at last, as if discovering this fact for the first time.

Fire is the reminder that all forms are but the One Form - which is God - endlessly folding and unfolding.

Her hands open and close like a heron settling in its nest, like a bluet opening at dawn, like the doors to an old chapel that nobody attends anymore.

I sit without questioning, giving attention not to what rises and falls, what folds and unfolds, but to the action of enfoldment, which is beyond enfoldment.

And the day passes, and night comes.