Ground

She could feel the earth stinging her feet every time she took a step.  It’s why she kept running, running, running.

She heard some distant call beckoning her away from the place of the present.  And she lifted her feet off the stinging ground and let the wind carry her away.

What she left behind her wouldn’t be realized until later, some far off moment where clarity could be found.  She would climb a mountain and reach the peak and in the beauty of the clear blue sky, amongst the clouds and sunshine there it all was.  Amongst the beautiful things, there was the truth.

She saw them, the broken particles carried from place to place because they no longer fit inside of her… but they had nowhere else to go.

Echoes of well-intended advice floated between her ears, sounding jumbled to her mind.  No, it was clear now.  The sadness, the heartache, the death of lovely things… the former lives were all contained in her one life.

It was all very clear and sudden on that mountain top.  The choice to live many lives in one life means there will also be many deaths.

Death and birth, often drawn out processes; both bring pain.  Oh, what sublime beauty can be witnessed between the two points in time…but as beautiful as they are, they cannot live on immortally.

She could have chosen to live one life instead.  She could have chosen one long happier life, one simpler way of existence. Far less tragedy awaited her on that path.  Far less mourning awaited her there.

The choice to live many lives results in many deaths.  Where there is death, mourning lives.

The earth stung less when she accepted her place there.  The more she settled into it, the more she trusted it would hold her.  She didn’t need to run anymore, she didn’t need to escape the very earth she walked upon.  She no longer felt the need to chase the voice of the wind that called her.