Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Reveries
1.2003
Ours was ostensibly a marriage, an association that entangled two strangers, as we were, myself and her, who society no doubt would have a'judged to be the least likely to associate at all, and delivered us through an arduous course, to a cordial relationship with devotion to our own.
Perhaps the affinity we experienced for each other had more to do with being refugees from our separate environments of oppression, than genuine mutual sense and sensibility. My oppressive environment however, was weaker, much weaker than hers. Certainly, the revelation I had at thirteen, that I can think anything I want, that I had absolute 'freedom of mind,' enabled me, with the need to maintain that freedom, to transcend the transgressions and impressions associated with the oppressive environment in which I was raised.
Through the course of our association, I would ask a question, and often she would respond with "Why?" The questions were innocent. Instead of getting to know me by my questions, and learn of my personal interest in her, she regarded them with suspicion and me with ulterior motives. The dint of her oppressive past was the pressure and source of my self'enlightenment.
The degrees of separation between me and her are many and profound. It was, as it still is, apparent that she was not the person with the sensibilities and spiritual aspirations to see me. It was incumbent on me to see me. My method was my composition work, my art.
My love was my mantra through which I saw her. I was relating to her through it. I fashioned it in youth, which became fully emblazoned by the time I met her. Most certainly a psychosis, however ever much a romantic one, and however ever much such psychosis rules the world. In my work over the years to dispel it, I have had to undergo many revelations about myself, what my nature was, what it was not. Each light cast new where there was darkness before created a little death and birth..successively, evolving over the years until now, when I look back, I see someone who is nearly a stranger. A wholly reconstructed mind, a radically re'configured heart, and a portion of soul awakened that would otherwise have remained asleep; rather that, infinitely, than to repeatedly undergo the same experience with another with the same heart and mind. My love mantra must be soul'born, for as my heart and mind changed, my love mantra remained the same. Though with less youthful expectation, it is still the same.
That I chased a rainbow since early life and did not find the treasure at its end, did not leave me with grave disappointment. I gained precious wisdom about myself. I gained precious children. The wisdom, such as it were, is useful in guiding them.
The marriage has been my soul's aspiration. My reach did exceed my grasp, but in reaching, many treasures were at hand.
More than worthwhile, our marriage was my soul's destiny, and I was fortunate indeed, to have had such a wife. She is secure in herself, in her conception of herself and the world. I have evolved to be secure, more or less, with the revelations of myself that I have always needed.