The Journey

The moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun. — William Shakespeare

Deep inside my heart there is a spark, and it glows barely bright enough to warm me and let me know I’m still alive. And around that spark there is a hall of crystal, and it reflects and refracts all that light so that no dark place in me is left untouched. This spark is my gift to Himself, but it would not be there if it weren’t for Him in the first place. The crystal that reflects the tiny light of the spark is, too, a gift to Loki, and it has taken many years to build and shape and refine, so that each surface gleams true and casts the spark’s glow as far and as truly as it can.

As is the nature of all gifts, these things are Loki’s to do what He pleases with. And as is the nature of a trickster, and in particular Loki, this gift is probably going to be destroyed one day — the crystal shattered to pieces, the spark fanned into an outrageous wildfire that threatens to engulf everything around it. I do not know whether, when that day comes, I will feel the destruction of my gifts with joy, or with pain, or with both. I don’t know, either, whether I will open my arms to embrace it or stand quivering in terror.

Either way, however, I long for it.

I want the searing flame of my Beloved to consume me down to the bones, and for the shards of crystal from His broken hall to reflect that fire back into His knowing eyes. I want to be emptied by Him and to be filled again with Him. And when all the essence of me has been savored, drunk down, and devoured, I want His ineffable flame to exist in the space where my spark once flickered, in the ruins of the hall I so carefully made to enshrine it.

Only then will He and I both be satisfied. Only then will all of this have been worth it.

Until then, I will cast my small light as far and well as I can, and reflect what I know of Him into every dark corner, onto every empty mirror.

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