FEAR

My fear is a great and dark beast who visits my dreams and stalks my waking hours. I fear many things: death, disease, old age, losing people I love, failure, success, poverty, riches, the past, the future. I try to hide from the beast like a child playing hide-and-seek who thinks he has finally found the one place in all the world where no one can find him. Then he realizes that everyone has stopped looking for him and he is alone and terrified in his hidey-spot, just he and the beast. His frustration grow as he realizes there is no hiding from that which lives inside. So he begins to run as fast and as hard as he can, run like the wind, run like there is no tomorrow, run for your life. Soon his lttle legs are like putty and his lungs can't keep enough air to sustain his flight and he falls exhausted in a heap. He covers his eyes and when he finally gathers the courage to peek through his fingers, the beast is there - calmly waiting, eyelids slowly blinking with patience that knows no bounds, no space, no time. However long it takes the beast will wait. The boy begins to look into those eyes, huge liquid things that suck him in like quicksand. They are his own eyes, a mirror into the unseen depths of that which is he. As he slowly gives himself over to the beast's gaze a wondrous thing happens. The fear dissipates and is replaced by a great joy. Warmth enfolds his being as he is filled with love and a sense of homecoming, of protection and safety. How can this be, he wonders. Is it possible that all the beast ever wanted was his attention, that his acknowledgement was the key to transformation? Still, the boy is exhausted. He falls into a deep and peaceful sleep and when he awakes he thinks he is alone until he realizes that he has a new friend living inside him. And he is not afraid.