Aslan & ariel

I realize it's against the current culturual trends to speak of god, especially outside of religious circles :-) At least in the artist community...and the vegan one too . . . and to be honest

I have never liked religion much. In fact, saying I hate religion is probably more accurate. My childhood evangelical friend made sure of that. Long hours of her trying to convince me that this "god" existed would end up in a weekend full of fighting, yelling, screaming and true tears.... tears from her because she would not be able to save my soul...and tears for me, because I knew my soul was going to die...Her attempting to convince me that god existed had me convinced that there was no god.  No God could be so dark or mean... not in my youthful 7 year old eyes.   Although I could not believe in God, somehow her desire to save me sure had me believing in hell. 

I agonized that I could not believe in this intense idea that there was this "god-man" sitting in heaven watching us. The contradiction: how was it that I could not believe in god, but the devil made me shutter in fear and agony.   I was unable to rest or sleep as images revealed themselves of my eternal soul burning forever in enduring agony....but even worse was that not just I would face this horrid eternal slaughter, but my entire family....would be burned alive, like witches, forever . . . and ever . . . That was the part that made me scream... I had to find a way to believe in god, or we were all going there... eternal damnation...  I can tell you...this whole scene made me pretty damn sure I did not like Christianity, but somehow, years later it was possible to find a home in angels...

After hours of deliberating god's golden treasures and throwing the bible on the floor and yelling at the universe that no god was that cruel... My heart always knew something my mind did not, I  still walked out from the suicide scars of being forever damned and I was madly in love with some sort of a presence, a magical understanding of who I am in the world of earth, in the heart of spirit, in the forest creatures where I roamed through sacred forests and golden halo'd pathways that secret fairies and elves guided me through in darkened undercovered pine and cedar trees.  Where owls hooted and I knew they called my secret name that only the magicians of the forest understood.  Where the creeks taunted me with their whirling knocks against the rocks and when I asked who was there, there would only be giggles before the footprints ahead of me disappeared, one by one, by one, toes pink with faery snails and lavender moccasins for feet.  I skipped through the 10 acres of forest trails that our property lived upon, gliding from one large tree trunk to the next, peering out for bears that would surely hunt me down, or so I thought then.... but probably they were also my best friends. I always knew somehow that in those forests, alone, long before I was even five that there and only there would I be safe from the peering of eyes that wanted to taunt me. That was my cathedral, that was my god and my home. Nothing else could ever and would ever feel that safe again...

I never disbelieved in angels until I heard that they were actually real.  But I had never really heard of them either. It was more like I always felt the presence of angels until I heard that they actually existed...They were just a metaphor I had thought... And it's strange because once I learned about them, I understood them less and had a hard time trusting in them ever again. In my heart, before I had the capacity to ponder their reality, they just sort of were there.... a part of me.  But philosophizing about it, broke the magic and created a distance from what I felt... Yet, I always knew that I was protected by them, on my long, solo journeys through Europe, terrified as a teenage girl, somehow when I collapsed in a giant heap, my backpack feeling like a ton of trucks another miracle would occur.  A couple stopped in the streets as I was curled up outside another closed bank on Sunday in Spain.  I tried to explain and said it was okay, but they did not understand...they called a cab, and paid him to take me back to the train... I really was not ready to go back yet... but they were so kind...I had no choice..my sobbing and gasping breath and blurry eyes, were beyond grateful yet, still hesitant, for I was just still experiencing myself, lost, alone and sacrificing myself to the unknown...to the European trails that looked like streetlamps without the ghosts... these forests had no pathways, but I was guided by an inner sense of learning to trust...something, beyond me...

Meeting strangers, one after another, being dropped in the middle of nowhere, alone and lost, hitchhiking through foreign lands, living on dimes and trying to make five dollars last forever and ever....so I'd never have to return home...always something amazing happened in those lost, dreadful moments, to make me realize I was being helped... I was too terrified then to notice, but I felt it and understood it in my bones. . . . I just "knew" something larger than me was surrounding me. . .  but I had no idea at the time, that I knew anything.  Perhaps I should just thank the graces of good people everywhere for their kind hearted nature's and I surely do. I have met a million good folk on my travels. And there are wonderful people to meet when exploring the world as a single female because you are open, vulnerable and at the mercy of all who cross your path... kind of like a stray dog waiting to see who will kick you off the curb and who will let you sleep at their doorway.  But I wasn't a stray, thank goodness, only a slightly lonely wandering gypsy, seeking truth and understanding of the world I had been mercilessly born into.

Somehow one night looking up at the sky, asking this unknown and disbelieving god to please take me home, for I had already seen enough cruelty from this world... I knew in my 7 year old heart I needed to believe in something.  I needed somebody to pull me through these whispering pines and wicked times... and what kept me going was believing in a force much larger than mankind.  A type of kindness that this world has never seen. A presence of love that fills the universe from top to bottom and every dark hole and galaxy within it....this is the presence I am talking about...it's a richness that I knew even then that this world had never seen...  and it lived in the hearts of beings that here are defined as Ariel and Aslan.  Only Aslan of Narnia is able to reflect that amazingly gentle goodness that yet must reside in the hearts of men and animals.  Only Aslan, could represent the Prince of Peace and Hope for mankind...because poor old Jesus has been tainted by the blood and sacrifice of human kind. And in our cultural understanding.... god has betrayed us all, yet Aslan, he still holds hope for all that is yet unseen...