The Mediator (Part 3)

Metanoia - Chapter 1 - Life Path 2

Table of Contents

Character Chart: A Map to the Nine Lives

Then there was Luna. Luna was a gift with no mystery or clouded purpose floating around her introduction. She came to the school I worked at as a Language Mentor, and her experience gained from living in other places was an asset to the children. Her influence allowed me to see the advantage of having new people come to Elpis. She broadened their knowledge and opened them up to our world in ways that our village couldn’t provide on its own. But she was so much more to me than someone unveiling the good in the bad. She saw me without words, as Mentor Esme had once taught me all those years ago. She saw me without words, but in a way I didn’t quite understand. It went like this.

Luna introduced herself to me. It was casual and polite, nothing out of the ordinary. She had dark brown hair and eyes that were misty, possessing a dream-like quality while still being attentive to surroundings. She was dainty and warm. I was comfortable around her. We began to spend time with one another outside of work. 

   “I’d like to tell you something my village believed in, Áurea.” she began one day while we were sharing a meal.

“It’s of a spiritual nature, I hope you’re comfortable with that… Some of it pertains to what I’ve noticed about you.”

“I’d love to hear anything you have to share.” I assured her.

“Then what I have to say will interest you.” She made herself a little more comfortable, settling deeper into her posture. “My origins speak of a system of souls.” I looked at her with surprise. This was new to me. 

“It’s a complex system really, something that our people like to investigate.”

“Explain it to me” I said while she took a bite. 

“There is what we call the soul collective, where most of us reside. It has a few different categories within it. Then, above it, there is what we call the angelic realm. It is apart of the spiritual evolution.” 

She had my attention.

“There are rogue souls who exist between the two, wandering in this space. We call those Iridescents.” 

“Why Iridescents?” I asked.

“Because they exhibit so many different colors, so many different attributes depending on what angle you look at them, or what situation they encounter. They have a shapeless form, so they wander.”

“An interesting concept.” I said. I was open to most things but I didn’t know what to think about that. 

There was a pause before she continued. 

“Do you remember when we learned about different states of matter in science class? Where we were shown how heating water would cause the molecules to become excited and expand to form a gas?  That’s what they remind me of.”

The poetry of this transformation excited me. I should create it in some way, I thought.

“So you believe in this?” I asked

“I do. Not just because it was instilled in me, but because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” She trailed off momentarily before continuing. “That’s actually the main reason why I wanted to share this with you. Áurea, I have a good feeling that you are one of these iridescents I speak of. A wanderer of sorts.” 

  “How do you know?” I was hearing what she was saying but didn’t know what it meant.

“You’ve got an adaptable presence. And you’re not like the rest of us.” I had food in my mouth when she said this. I paused as my face pouted with the bulge, in a pathetic manner.

  “This is such a beautiful way of knowing ourselves” said the artist within, not taking full consideration of what someone was trying to reveal about myself. It’s not that I wasn’t interested. I was interested in so many different things.

“It is beautiful, and it’s real to me.” she said. 

“Thank you. You are a joy. I’m lucky to have found you.” I told her in the most sincere way I could. Luna had a gift, and her belief and sharing of souls and their characteristics made her beautiful to me.  

---

    I woke up lazily one morning, gazing out at our sun coming up over the horizon of plants and water that I could see from my window. A soft breeze drifted in through the canopy bringing the salt of the sea with it. I laid there still for several minutes taking it in. I saw Caelum the night before while I was with Rahn. The encounter had an entirely different feeling than the first.

“Hello pretty girl.” He said.

   The words came out in a way that I could believe for a moment. Words should be used more carefully around an open heart. 

Pretty Girl. I heard his voice in my head. It traveled down my bones in a way my heart knew and sang along in correspondence to the beams of light shooting rays of misty luminescence into the purple, into the rocky outlines, and into my garden, reflecting off the ocean that sparkled and shimmered. 

    I thought about that night. Rahn was no longer with us somehow. We shared a silence in the dark, the night sky looming above us as we stared up and basked in the distant light of the galaxy. It told us of other worlds and other existences. 

      Back in my cottage, I stared into the sun rise, starry eyed and entranced. I retrieved a can of water, a paint brush, and a canvas, my paint already waiting for me. 

    The scene played over and over in my mind. Caelum looked at me occasionally with a perplexed expression. I couldn’t figure out why. It was serious, critical even. I was insecure about it and felt embarrassed. I suspect he was simply trying to figure me out, as was I with him.

   He eventually positioned himself with great care so that he was holding me, but not constricting me enough to be unable to walk and move on my own. Caelum’s spirit was a guide to the night sky. We stayed there like that for a while. 

  Looking back on it, I do believe I was a confused girl. Confused with her identity, and confused with how others saw her. However, when you find what looks to be something as foreign and  angelic as this new friend, you stop caring about defining yourself. Whatever I was, I knew I could be it with him.

   Watery light green bled into the virgin white background. I covered the entire canvas with it. Within the light green emerged abstract shapes and patterns that I colored in with varying shades, some a dull gray, some a bright gold. A dash of yellow was placed on the right. I blurred the edges, giving the illusion that it was moving, pulsating, breathing, and drifting somewhere. It was many things. It was what Luna described to me on that fateful day. It was love.

   Caelum disappeared from time to time due to his job. I didn’t get the chance to feel the depth of his absence too intensely from the persistence of his return and the wake of his presence.  

   It turned out that his bold subtleness was not just apart of his physical appearance. It was also in his actions. I think what caused me to fall in love with him the most was the way he invaded the first thought I had each day. Every morning was greeted by him. If it wasn’t him in the flesh, I discovered bits and pieces of him in the kitchen.  He left me things, snuck into the cottage and carried out the task without me even noticing. They were simple items, but simply beautiful, typically having some deeper meaning. I always understood these hidden meanings, that is what I’ve always done and he took advantage of that opportunity. Perhaps that is what he loved about me, and kept him returning with these small gifts. I was capable of answering his calls. 

   To wake up and instantly feel love unintentionally cultivates an attachment like no other. Love becomes the sunrise, making the day more than a checklist, but something to live for. It causes you to wake up in the middle of the night happy, not knowing why. No one would, or could, know me better. He knew when I was tired. He knew when I was frustrated, or feeling low. He just knew. I never took it for granted, because deep down there was a little girl who needed to be known in this way, the only way she could be.

   We all write the book on love, so I don’t necessarily believe his was a mastered form of it. But it was undeniably different. I tried explaining it to him one day.

“Your love is unusual” I exclaimed very plainly one random afternoon. He didn’t ask further questions because he could see I was already dwelling on how to express this thought further. 

  It was otherworldly.

“You’ve introduced something that is completely beyond me. That’s why I’m having such a difficult time finding words. How do you find words for something alien? That’s like… that’s like trying to explain a tapia root to someone who has never seen anything related to the concept of one before. The only way of knowing is to perceive it, you know?” 

He chuckled to himself. I was like a child stumbling on a new language. 

“Try.” He finally said. 

“It feels like knowing with the heart.”

  I could hear Aunt Trenia’s response to a thought like that: “One doesn’t know with the heart dear, the heart feels, your mind knows.” 

   I reviled in this divine love. It filled the room and altered the atmosphere. With enough power to define my perception, you’d think I would be intimidated, fearful even. That is a lot of power in one place, in hands that weren’t my own. His light was too bright to see anything else. It casted shadows on everything it touched, but it was too important, too lovely for me to do anything other than be in the moment. The flood gates were open whether I liked it or not, and with a dissipating horizon behind me that I could no longer see, I had no choice but to move forward into the space that was visible, shadows and all. It is here where life began to feel like a dream.

Then, at some point during this pilgrimage, it happened. 

“Come here love, I’m trying to do something.”

Wisps of hair jutted out in every direction on my head into some strange symmetrical arrangement of a bun. I had given up on the braids for a while. 

“What? What are you working on?”

“Help me paint a picture from what I feel” 

“What is it that you feel?”

“Everything. That’s the problem.” His eyebrows furrowed in response.

“No. That’s not the problem. That’s what is right about you. If you treat it that way, something will come to you.”

  I let my mind and heart wander through different avenues with Caelum’s permission. Several minutes passed, until I had something else to say to him. 

“I feel that the best way to explain our lives here is to compare it to a dream.” 

There were long moments of silence in between my words as I tried to decipher the rhythm of emotions I had experienced my entire life.

“When you dream, it is not considered real, in a sense. But it is in another. On one hand, it doesn’t affect your waking life, who you really are. Therefore, it would seem as though the events that take place aren’t necessarily important or relevant. However, it is real because it happened. You experienced it in your mind through action of thought. Your dream eventually ends and you are plucked out of its world abruptly with some emotional attachment or confusion as to what was going on in that brief time.”

Another pause ensued. Caelum never interrupted. He waited patiently for me to reach my thought’s destination.

“I would imagine that that’s what dying is like. You exist somewhere else too, and the information that is you is taken out somewhere. Our people go home to a collective consciousness that is eternally gathering, condensing, and precipitating its droplets down on the cosmos. I would imagine that those little droplets have us inside them.”

Caelum then had a relaxed smile, as if he already knew what I had only just stumbled upon. He gave me a kiss on the forehead, and then I painted.  

---

It took several weeks for me to finish the piece even though I did the bulk of the work that day. The details that were demanded out of something like this could not be overlooked or rushed. It was large, spanning a length farther than the distance between the tips of my two arms, and standing at the same height as mine. It required constant breaks so that I could get a good view of the entire canvas before continuing on the small slice of the whole. A few strands of hair fell victim to the close proximity, and even my students began to notice that I was coming into work with paint in my hair and a tired posture. 

   I ran out constantly to get more paint, and Caelum was kind enough to get some for me occasionally, leaving it on the desk of my quaint studio where I could see them upon entering the room. The weeks went by in a blur, and by the end of it, I was standing in awe of my own work. It was the first time I was impressed with what I had done, and I could barely believe that I was the one who created it. I stared at it for hours. 

  The illustration portrayed precisely what I told Caelum. Vibrant clouds resembling the heavens took up the top half, with a glimpse of the sun sending beams of light shining through the puffy gaps. Raindrops that glistened fell out of them, eventually reaching a stark contrast of the jet black void of outer space, and then into the multitude of galaxies below. It felt both familiar and alien to me, something I couldn’t describe.

I fell asleep in front of it once, and woke up to Caelum and Rahn standing over me. Caelum looked happy, and Rahn laughed at me. Dazed and confused, I took a minute to asses the situation. I must have looked mad. Hair was stuck to the side of my face, which was probably a strange color from being pushed up against the hard floor for hours. My eyes felt heavy from barely sleeping during all that time I became obsessed with my project. Also, a blanket had found a way to my napping place. 

“Good morning love.” Caelum said. I blinked and smiled a little. 

“We have someone here who would like to see your work” Rahn said as he ushered me to get my act together. They helped me get up and fix some of the clutter that was strewn about. Still half asleep, I cooperated with their demands without question. 

   It turned out that Caelum had a contact he met a long time ago whom he knew would be interested in the painting, and he reached out to him without my knowing. Rahn eventually became involved as well. 

His name was Ambassador Citor. His line of work dealt with resolving issues between villages and societies, or any conflict that would arise out of the changing circumstances around the world. He was on the hunt for an inspiring theme to unify efforts, empty spaces waiting to be filled in the capitol building with this new chapter. 

The ambassador was intimidatingly tall, but had soft, kind facial features that counteracted his towering stature. With a calm smile on his face, he walked into my cottage ready to introduce himself. 

We walked to where the painting was, Caelum leading the way, Rahn and I following from behind. Rahn gave me a quick wink when Citor turned his back to us. I looked apprehensive. There was anticipation in the air. I didn’t know what I was eager for, just that something was either about to happen or not happen. What happened was that the ambassador wanted it immediately.

“This is it.” Was all he said. 

“What do you like about it?” I asked  

“What’s not to like about it?” My face had a stern expression.

“If you don’t mind, could be a little more specific? I would like to know.” 

He took a moment. “It’s a unifying image of hope that the capitol needs. You’ve got it.” 

“That’s a bold statement… I’m not sure I’m willing to to give it up just yet.”

I could see Caelum giving me a stern, but understanding look from across the room. Citor mulled over this and looked inquisitively off into space and at the painting. 

“I can see why” he said eventually “You do know your village would benefit greatly for the commerce thanks to you, and how famous you’ll be when this makes it onto our wall.”

“It wasn’t created out of desire for fame.” I replied sharply. 

“I understand Miss Erst, please just take the offer under consideration. Caelum and I are always in contact, I can be reached at a moment’s notice whenever you make a decision.”

“Thank you for making the trip Ambassador Citor. I will try to contact you as soon as possible” 

Now get out of my home I heard the small part of me say.  

He left with the same polite charm he had upon entering. I could see Caelum and him talking outside. Rahn made himself food in my kitchen as I paced in circles and rectangles, occasionally looking out the window at them as I tore up the floor. A multitude of thoughts and emotions were churning inside, my mind not sure which one to act on. I was excited. I did something that mattered. I could reach out, feel less distant, take pride in my passion, amplify my love of art. But I had an emotional attachment like no other to my work, this one in particular, which deep down I knew was a manifestation of the love that had been brought into my life through Caelum and Luna, something once invisible to the eye and only felt, but now could be seen beyond myself. I didn’t know if I could I trust having it in the world on its own, left to be shaped into something else through the eyes of others. I needed time. 

  At the end of it all, I had a responsibility to my family to sell the painting to the capitol. There wasn’t a lot of currency within our village because it was small enough to have a barter system. But money was exchanged among other islands, so the pay that would be given to me would be placed into the account for the entire village, allowing us to purchase more goods and technology from the surrounding areas. My students would be directly affected. This alone was what solidified my decision to give it to the Capitol, and I had come to it the very next day. I decided, however, that I couldn’t completely ignore my emotional needs towards my art. I would keep it for another week before contacting Citor and arranging a time for him to get it. 

“I bet you got him waiting at the edge of his seat.” Aunt Trenia said once I told her everything that happened and what I had decided to do. We were on our way to my place. Aunt Trenia didn’t get a chance to see it yet, and now she had to before it was taken away. 

“Good.” I said laughing. 

We entered the house. Being able to accommodate those whom provided shelter for you as a child is a good feeling, one I’ve cherished with growing older. Having Aunt Trenia at my home felt as though I was returning the favor, giving back from having her place as a safe haven when I was younger. We walked through the long entry way that lead to my studio. I let her look at the painting as I fiddled with my supplies and tools and put things where they belonged. I was only ever putting a dent in the seemingly disorganized clutter. 

“I have to say, this is… impressive. More than what I had excepted, not to be rude.”

“None taken. I surprised myself.” I replied with a humorous tone. 

Then, with a bit of reluctance, knowing Aunt Trenia’s views, I told her about how the image came to me. How I thought of souls condensing and gathering like a cloud, and how its natural tendency is to precipitate back into life. I told her the feelings with Caelum, in the best way I could. I told her everything about my new life. 

It was a long time before Aunt Trenia said anything, but when she did respond, I was caught off guard. 

“Technically, you’re right.” She said matter of fact. “It reminds me of how gas clouds in nebulas condense, forming stars, and eventually planets, so that life can develop on worlds like Bellaphron. It seems you have managed not only to give beauty to spirituality, but also mediate science and faith, and in a very unique way I might add.”

I stood there stunned at how much sense this made.

“That never occurred to me. Thank you for helping me see that.” It brought new meaning to it as I looked at it again in a different light. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. 

“It’s a sneaky message.” She said. “Not so obvious, but I’m confident that a few scientists would be able to make that leap.” And then as if this weren’t enough from her, she took my hand in hers and had something else to say.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known. You’ve been beautiful since the day you were born. You’ll be beautiful until the day you die. You’ve always had a quiet charm that quietly invited people in, and Caelum has all the reason in the world to be in love with you.” 

I didn’t know whether or not I was beautiful. It just seemed that I was adamant on projecting my interpretation of it. I also didn’t know why Caelum loved me. I didn’t care nor think about it. It did however matter that I shared this moment with Aunt Trenia, someone whom I looked up to and whom I crossed an expanse to reach with my own two hands.

Art By Melissa Hui Wang