She opens her eyes; now to starlight, now to sunshine. Her depth of feeling knows no limit, finds no end, overflows even in emptiness. Her beauty is regal, and powerful, and subtle, and strange. She is the one thing that is the one thing if there will be one thing.
She laughs like music, like rain, like thunder, like spring born bird’s song. She smiles like winter and like summer – the one with her eyes is warmer than the other. She speaks now with intellect, now with soul, now with spirit. Her feet now dance, now stand, now step forward, now step back as her cue is taken – perhaps not always when it is given. And when she does not know for certain, her being shifts one foot to the other, until she knows which course is best.
She feels like wind and sometimes like a forest fire and sometimes like an arctic waste land. Tears wash burdens and sighs express ache. Here a little, there a little; now happy, now sad. But tempered by her understanding and something stronger than yesterday, she is somehow an ever constant. Whatever her heart says in this moment, she knows that it will change tomorrow. Her knowledge of herself is her wisdom.
Sometimes she sees a queen in her mirror on the wall. Sometimes she is the fairest of them all. Sometimes, she is the morning and the evening and the daylight in between. She sees clear and as far as humanity permits. She knows a truth unspoken and deep. It is the very nature of who she was meant to be; royalty. Queen. Empress. Princess. Lady. She sees herself so. Sometimes.
And sometimes the farthest from that truth is all she knows. When the world crashes down, and experience and fact take sides against reality, and when echoes of wrong fade so faint to the ear as to seem right – sometimes these are the only voices she can hear speaking to her.
Her being, so deeply pure in its incandescent holiness, is its own frailty. Her strength of soul and mind and spirit are meant to be spoken. Her depth begs for an invitation to be accepted to be shared. However wild this independence, so wild this need.
To be fully known. To be fully loved.
And the most dangerous bridge of all is crossed to get there; vulnerability.
It is not only dangerous in that you might open your heart to be hurt. It is not only dangerous because you may permit evil spirits to dine at the table with your spirit. It is not only dangerous because you may weaken your mind’s acceptance of truth with your experience.
It is dangerous because you may think that being vulnerable is being loved.
That is a greater problem.
Because love is all about how the other person responds to who you are.
And being vulnerable is all about you.
It doesn’t matter how that person responds – if they ignore you, or hurt you, or take advantage, or treat you in any way other than the royalty that you are – you will not care. Because you have confused love with the feeling you get from being vulnerable. And you will have to keep being vulnerable to get that feeling… until the castle that kept your heart and your soul and your spirit safe is useless and its walls are all fallen. Until what was unique is now common.
And what is a princess without a castle?
A princess.
The truth of who she is remains. And those who really love her still remain. And the truth of what love is, still remains.
So guard the gates that keep who you are safe. Keep them. You are a gift to you. Don’t confuse the fresh air feeling you get from opening a door with love. Love could be slamming that door shut, locking it, and throwing away the key.
But how do you know then, who to let in? You are already at a disadvantage, because you have to become vulnerable. I will give you two guides. You can remember the second if you remember the first.
Do not let anybody in who does not know your Father.
Do not let anybody in who does not know your father.
And so, dear princess, in the mean time, let your eyes shine with starlight or sunshine, smile like spring time, hum with ocean’s tide, and be at peace like a sunrise sky; all brilliance and hope. Because you will, one day, be somebody’s one. And they will be yours.
The one thing that is the one thing if there will be one thing; it will be.