The Essences

We are sitting around a fire, at night, a number of us.  The priestess-teacher uses my black hat to capture essences escaping from the fire to show the group.  The first essences cling to the outside of my hat, colored dewdrops in brilliant rainbow hues, sparkling in the darkness.  The second essences are tiny butterflies that take wing from inside my hat.  They fly through us, as if we were ghosts and not human and solid, and as they enter us, we light up, glowing in rainbow colors.  We feel like rainbows, full of light, color and joy.  Then they fly upward into the darkness, rising like smoke, twisting through the faint silhouettes of trees.  But essences of the rainbow butterflies remain in our hearts.  And rainbow dewdrops still sparkle on my hat, reminding us.

We sometimes need to be reminded.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
From a dream
For Keith and Robert Moss