Creativity, My Dove.
By Vrinda Aguilera.
I feel the stiffness in your wings and the coarseness of your feathers.
Your once fine and snowy white plumage is now dirty grayish, feathers bent and broken from being in this cramped and darkened basket for too long. Feeble and hesitant are your movements, your eyes rheumy and film-covered.
I murmur your name and it takes you some time to respond, you are not quite sure if you can trust that it can be true. “Is someone really speaking your name and beckoning you from your fitful slumber?” you wonder incredulously. Like a forgotten seed lying dormant in the hardened and winter-frozen ground, you have been waiting, so patiently waiting, for my spring season to come.
Again I give voice to your name, this time, though still with measured caution, louder, more forcefully, ‘Creativity, my dove!’
You crane your feather-mantled neck this way and that, side to side – your beady, obsidian black eyes clearing, shining. With a quick shake, as if clearing years of inertia from your being, you awaken. Your feathers become whiter, pearly, and incandescent.
Alternately stretching first one fan-like wing, then the next, out from your sides, you rise on your claw-footed feet and look at me questioningly. ‘Yes, you called?’
I am filled with joy and wonder as we gaze into each other’s eyes, the distance between us shrinking. Our hearts connect on the beam of love’s path and we meet in the middle. I swell with joy, encased in golden love and light. I cradle you in a nest formed by my interlaced fingers and gently rock you back and forth, holding you lovingly in my embrace.
‘Oh, my dove, I am so sorry. I have ignored you for so long. I have kept you locked in this small and airless enclosure, held you imprisoned in captivity. Suffocated and cut off from your life source, enfeebled and alone, you have patiently laid in wait in close quarters, barely holding on to consciousness. With a hardened heart, I blindly turned my eyes away and deafened my ears, ignoring your plaintive cries. Dove, my creativity, I am awash with regret and sorrow.’
We spend timeless moments together and you allow me to tenderly stroke and smooth your ruffled feathers. I gently hold you to my chest and enfold you in my arms. Pressing you close, we sway to the rhythms of the drumbeat staccato of my full heart. Warm and salty tears seep out of the corners of my closed eyes, roll down the planes of my cheeks and drop upon your feathers. I place tiny kisses on your downy, pearl-shaped head.
Slowly, when I am ready, I open my hands and allow you to feel the afternoon breezes whisper secrets into your ears. I am inviting you to fly away, be free, express yourself against the clear and infinite backdrop of the deep blue sky.
‘Go, go my dove! Fly free!’ I shout as I release you into the air with a flourish.
You take flight, majestically stretching your wings, riding on the buoyant air currents. You circle overhead a few times before swooping off into the distance, now just a receding speck of white, barely discernible to my vision.
You are free.
*****
Vrinda Aguilera is a Montessori-trained primary school teacher, an intuitive energy healer, a closet poet, and practitioner of Bhakti Yoga. She is a professionally trained life coach who is passionate about supporting women on their spiritual journeys. She lives in rural Florida with her husband and three children, where she blossoms in the experience of her own mothering. You may connect with her by e-mail.