Raymond L. Burton - The Happy Soul

His blurry eyes began to focus and he animal in front of him became familiar yet slightly disheartening. Two massive paws weighted down on his crossed legs as he stared into the mixed colored eyes of a beast called Rector. At first he felt cross eyed looking at one green and the other blue and thought for sure he just needed another shake of his head to clear things up but making a sudden move didn’t seem like the best of ideas at this point. Rector was the form of a wolf or a dog, it didn’t really matter to Lumen at this point. It was big, hairy and had enough teeth that the species wasn’t his foremost thought. To clarify, Lumen knew WHO this was and this was the form he took when he was to do high magic or simply wanted to be alone in his work.

The villagers knew the wolf was the druid in his power state and respected his wish to be undisturbed. Rector’s lips curled back and his warm, moist breath started to elevate the already present twitch in Lumens sword hand. “Good afternoon great knight. It appears you have some questions that need answering?” Lumens shoulders relaxed towards his hips as the intensity of the shared gaze increased. His sword hand however remained ready. Rector looked up and pulled Lumens focus to follow as a hawk took flight from the tree above.

“It’s a small world and though travels fast” said Rector. “By early placing the intention of harvesting life’s secrets, you have set the wheels in motion for the manifestation of its fruition. At this point, your intuition and heart will be yours guides; if you let them. If you listen and act, the veil of doubt, darkness and fear will be torn from top to bottom and the secrets of the source will come to your conscious mind. When this happens, life will burst with possibilities and those things that will unleash your happiness will present themselves and your talents will be fully used. Compile a record of what transpires in your waking and sleeping life, for both are high and low pitches of the same universal voice. This record will cross another questers path someday when they are ready to release their false obligation to illusion.”

“You have a choice now to release your status of an active knight in this town and learn from a point of without labels in the man experiences to come. You may also choose to stay here comfortable in your given role you have established and die an old man with questions. You may not however do both as the source does not allow the imbalance of giving something for nothing. I must be clear; I do not offer happiness or a path full of treasure, as you would describe it. I only offer to show you how to light the lamp of revelation and destiny will take care of the rest if you can subdue your attachments to who you think you are.”

“Think on this until you have a solid intention. Time matters not as it is only an illusion anyway. If I do not work with you now, I will wait until we are in the same time again. If you do wish to go ahead, put your affairs I order. Your outward reality is a reflection of inner conditioning. You must be free to walk if the path is to be journeyed.”

With that, Rector spit a smooth amethyst stone into Lumens lap and trotted away.

Bookmark It

On second though, training could wait. A flashing smile had caught him in his tracks. A tilt of the head and a subtle hair flip had the usually sure-footed Lumen stumbling over himself. It was Venustas that had him in such a mess. She was the physical manifestation of Gods thoughts on beauty. Now instead of tripping over himself he looked like a buck, startled from an afternoon nap. “Good morning Lumen”, sang a melodious song from a heavenly creation. Nothing was the reply, but a sheepish grin and a convulsion of his head he did manage. Forgetting his hand was encased in a chain mail glove, he slapped his forehead as she disappeared around the corner. He didn’t know what he should have done, but he knew THAT wasn’t it.

He loved training but uphill wind sprints in half armor was a bear of a drill. It followed close behind a pushup, squat, jump combo they did as a friendly competition for drinks at the pub after training. Unfortunately if you played hard enough to win, you were usually too busy getting rid of stomach contents to be interested in filling it up with ale.

As intense as the training of a knight was, he loved the total focus and oblivion like trance that such a single pointed activity brought him. No matter what troubled him, Lumen could always attain a peacefully focused state when under extreme exertion. When the energy ran low however, the waking monkey of a mind would return. If only he could be at peace while still. Maybe like training, peaceful stillness was something that needed to be practiced until it could be done as easily as battle. With that thought, Lumen took a break from training and sat in the shade of an old massive oak. He leaned back and let the bark scratch an itch. Wit a couple of shifts back and forth like an old bear, he got comfortable, closed his eyes and the clang of heavy armor faded into the distance.

He sat on the edge of a cloud, his metal shin guards reflecting the beams of sun. As far as he could see, galloping rays of blinding sun jumped from peak to peak, petal to petal of endless apple blossom sky. He looked on in amazement at the surface of a sea above land. In the depths, below the surface of where he sat so much was happening. Up here, when taken in as a whole, it was all but an exhalation of a massive leviathan living in a time much slower than ours

The trees looked as hairs on its back, moving in the ocean currant. The hills and ravines as features of an entity that has experienced time since it started. Looking on this world from such a view brought deeps questions up.

“What is important? If I know what is important to me, what makes me happy, then I can plan to conquer the foes that keep my treasure guarded”. The breeze of a hawks wings swept past and the sensation brought him to waking.

Bookmark It

At first he bellowed, smiled, and then let out a sigh as he pulled the steel away from his partners neck. Lately he doesn’t want what he has always chased.

Today being a knight holds no joy. Hoping no one will notice his sensitive state, Lumen heads to the one place he likes to think, the Veritas.

Lumen has the perfect place for the flower seeds he picked out on the edge of the training fields. He ponders as he plants.

“I wish to do something great, something worth while. I understand the importance of what I do, and I am the best there is. Yet, I want more of something I know not.”

So he kept planting and moving the soil, for here was the one place his mind found peace. Lumen went home that day thinking deep thought and looking for something he has never seen. Impatient without direction, defeated despite hundreds of victories.

The next morning, slow in thought from a night of racing mind, Lumen skipped breakfast and went to sit at the Veritas early before the crowds were thick and busy. The swallows were getting ready for the day and Lumen watched from the log bench he himself had built one day after sword play and unarmed combat.

Momma swallow was rubbing a fluffing and the baby swallows were singing and bumping around inside their house. The sun was coming up over the glowing golden thatches of the towns’ old but sturdy shops. As the drops of heaven sprinkled across the square the flowers Lumen planted radiated with colors at the highest edge of the rainbows spectrum. He cried.

The beauty was unspeakable and his air was caught in a swelling throat. Wiping a chain mail glove across tear soaked cheeks; he set out to do what he was good at. Battle.

In his mind he heard the voice of another ancient warrior. A peaceful warrior and a warrior of light:
“Where your tears fall, your treasure lies.”

Bookmark It