The Queen of Peace Room

Epilogue

99 EPILOGUE Stillness allows us to think whatever we dare to think. It waits as we sort through all the circumstances that make up what yesterday was. It rests in containers piled high like canned pears on a shelf. There is no electricity, wind is the only music. The moon and stars, a source of light. All things may look like blood. But they aren’t. They’re red stars. And petals from a rose. Stillness involves waiting. For the fog to lift. And it will. In time, everything becomes a memory. In time, everything is washed away, including the blood of John the Baptist. Stillness waits as we decide what we’ll think about. What we’ll do with our time, who will be our friends. We wait in the stillness until we realize we must face the present. The future is far. The past is gone. There is only this present, to cherish. To cherish the eyes of night. Eyes, too numerous to count. Stillness exists in the space around things, if things are given enough space. It exists in a candle glowing in a glass holder, a bird on a branch, people’s eyes, in the beauty of nature. I willed to believe in the power and stillness of a meadow to work me through half a century of madness. I willed to believe; and in so doing, whether ley lines were present or not, I willed it and the surrounding complex to be an unending source of strength and permission. Permission to be brave, to hope, to be strong. Permission to write what I didn’t want to speak. To honour my own words. To move without question, without boundaries, without apologies, to live without stigma. Permission to create, to be happy, to live in peace. Permission to look at trees and see companions. Permission to honour complexity. To shatter darkness. Conclusion. Without judgment. 100 The Queen of Peace Room ...