A Procession of Colorful Turtles (Part One of Four)

The Sin of Seeing

(The Seventh Decoration)

 

-U-

 

The Best to Bloom[1]

 

My lady was the first to bloom, the last to pass away;

She lingered in a time of love and glorified love’s day

 

There was a lesson in her life, a story in her stem

That spoke of angels in our midst

And how we might be them

 

She lived to see a thousand blooms,

A thousand joys of birth,

 

A thousand lives

Of consequence,

 

As each joy left the Earth

 

She was a mother to all things

That blossomed near the lake:

 

The best to bloom and live so long,

But for a garden's sake.

Fishing for Crocodiles

In the Land of Dreams

 

Greetings from the Gardener!

 

I am Rose Immaculate, the maternal essence of divine grace, and the one spoken of in “The Best to Bloom.” The telling line is the one about my having lived “but for a garden's sake.” It is so true, and quite honestly, I am here, not for Paris's sake, but for the Garden’s sake again. The material realm has many awful flaws, but I shall always love and look after the Garden because that is where the dear ones are. Though I can no longer live among them, my passion is so substantial that I can sometimes intervene on love’s behalf.

 

-P-

 

The Wreath

 

(To Thrive Where You Have Fallen)

 

One day, I was plucked

From the rose bush

By a pensive Lady

 

And joined with others of my kind

To form a special garden wreath �"

 

Then she blessed us all together

And tossed us in a gentle swirl -

 

But as we spun,

Each blossom fell

And came to thrive

Where it had fallen.

 

And now, I have the easy task of telling you about a dream Paris had around the time of his father’s death, even though he swears it belongs to a recondite literary invention he calls, Jean Ami. But who dreamed the dream is less important than its meaning, as its theme resonates throughout “The Sin of Seeing.” Also, a familiarity with this dream’s particulars will help you to understand an unusual idea Paris has about the nature of worldly experience �" an idea that runs throughout Pilgrim Heart itself.

 

Song of Rose Immaculate

 

I am Creation’s rarest flower:^[2]

I am commanded to love!

 

And since a heart can be loved only when it is known,

The dreams that express the nature of that heart,

Must be acknowledged and taken in forever.

 

I embrace their special wonder

And share even in their sin of seeing;

For neither faith nor spiritual wisdom prospers

Without a reasonable understanding of dreams^[3]

 

This is so because dreams are the hieroglyphs

Envisioned by the One who first imagined

The universe in which they occur.

---

[1] Roses are like daisies in that they are born to love. But unlike daisies, roses recognize and attack evil whenever it is before them. They are the most admirable of God’s creations, saints who are willing to fight and even lay down their lives for the “First Love.” They are invariably women, whose faith and intuitive wisdom inspire the better angels in others.

 

[2] Paris said that his character, Rose Immaculate, reflects the virtues he saw in his grandmother, Alice Osowski. She grew up on a farm near the Mississippi River in the early twentieth century and lived well into her nineties. She got the nickname “Weeper” from her father because she wept for the chickens that were occasionally slaughtered for dinner. She used to say, “That made my dad cry, too.” She once told Paris that her sister Adaline was the “kindest person who ever lived” and that she would one day see her in heaven where she would sit at the family table between Adaline and her beloved mother. Paris said that he hoped that had happened and very much looked forward to meeting Adaline and his great-grandmother.

 

[3] Other sins, too, but the sin of seeing seems to be the most powerful, particularly in the context of war or what Paris calls, the “crimes of Mars.”