Desert Wedding

Desert Wedding
by Lynda Allen

It looked like braiding. She was completely rapt in what she was doing. I watched her, equally rapt. Eventually I realized that her eyes were closed, that she couldn’t see the colors or the pattern, only feel them. And in that thought I knew it was true, knew she could feel the colors she chose, knew the pattern she wove, the strands of herself so familiar to her.

Her fingers moved rapidly without pause as if she had been waiting for this moment and so wanted to lose no time in capturing it. And so she had been waiting, waiting so long for this time of creation, of union. On the high desert, under the stars she deftly wove all the colors of herself into one beautiful design. It was a design she couldn’t see until that particular moment under those particular stars and under those particularly watchful eyes.

For there were many other eyes there watching her weave that night. Many eyes that opened to watch the joining of all that she was, to watch the wedding of all that she is. The light of the stars reflected gently off her skin, the night air caressing and guiding her. The animals of the night had gathered too, in celebration. Caught up in her work she didn’t notice all her observers. Possibly she felt their presence on some level, but the weaving that had begun could not be interrupted.

There was a collective holding of breath. She paused only once, whether at a sound or a knowing that someone neared, no one knows. Then her hands took up again her work. Then her heart took up again her work. Then her soul took up again her work. All the parts joined, she closed her eyes again and the faintest of sighs escaped her lips. It was the sound of bliss, it was the sound of culmination, it was the sound of her heart complete.

She stretched out her fingers, cramped from the weaving and rubbed her eyes clean of the desert’s dust. Then she threw her head back and sang. Where that sound came from or from how long ago, I don’t think even she knew, but the desert sang with her all through the night.

At dawn she raised her face to the new day, feeling its life giving power, absorbing it, allowing its energy to fill her. Then she threw her head back and laughed and the desert laughed with her. This time she knew where the sound came from. It came from joy, joy of the soul.

Her soul laughed as the sun rose. She had become, and the desert celebrated with her.