The season changes once more, and I descend from fragrant hills and mountain footholds toward valleys and plains. On occasion now I can hear the din of villages below, and find fields ready to unfold their harvest. The people of this land have had, it seems, a good growing year.

When summer slips into fall's embrace, I often contemplate entering the service of a lord or king for the difficult winter months. Spring and summer brings quiet and solitude, with my wanderings from place to place, and I enjoy these days when I am not conflicted with what I do.

Yet there is an appeal to spending the cooler seasons among the relative warmth of the common-folk and those who believe are their leaders. For, often kings and lords are filled with boredom and frivolity, and suddenly perceive they are God. For all their wealth and conceived power, they are still men.

God has often sent me in pursuit of such men, and one in particular I owe a visit. I've been asked to right a wrong through his sacrifice, and it will be a rare personal pleasure to do so. For at one time I worked for this king, and it is he who started me upon this path, though this was not his intention.

I shall speak of this more, but for now it is nice to descend from the now musty cave I have spent many weeks in. To enter a small village, where fresh bread cools in doorways, and the sounds of laughter and toil echo distantly from the low hills.

Yes, there has been much loss this summer, and I am suddenly struck by being alone all this time. A church bell reverberates at the edge of the village. Though I speak with God daily, I realize it is long since I have visited his house.

God calls me to home and community and service. Walking now in this direction, I obey.

The soul is too big to be contained by one life, and so it seeks experience through manifestation of many lives across the vast ages and distance places. Yet, all these individual lives exist at the same "time" in a state of ever-becoming.

The veil that separates these lives is opaque, so one cannot easily see them, yet they are as soft and malleable as the finest silk. Sometimes events from a single life ripple out and shift the veil, allowing many lives to be affected, to be interpreted by their own space and time.

I had occasion, one month past, to find some moments of such distinct peacefulness and calm that I have never known. In a great bustling city, one never expects calm. Yet, I found a brief cessation from all the activity in the birth of a child.

Before I became the man I am now - righteous servant of God, I had a wife and children, who were slain in civil violence in my village. My wife's sister, Alena, escaped this fate by moving with her new husband to this city.

I arrived a few days before the birth of her child, and was shocked to hear the news, and to find this event nearing. I am nervous around children, preferring the quiet language of weapons and armor, and the obedience of my horse, and the screams of unjust men witnessing their judgment.

And yet, I was there for this birth - a new child in this harsh world. I heard the lustful cries of life as he emerged into the world, and later saw his blue eyes stare wisely into my own. He knows more than I do. Such deep blue eyes, filled with trust and acceptance. I lost myself in them a moment, and realized I was not alone in this event.

Across time and location, blue eyes stared into another man's soul, and went out, ending an eleven-year life of comfort and joy, with mercifully only a few days of unpleasantness. A cat named Hattie reconfigured her energy into a new expression, leaving behind those who loved her.

I realized then, the ease of life and death, and how they are the same thing. While now, a month later, I still recall the joy of birth, I know another still feels the tears of loss. And yet, across time, we all walk our paths, and share our place. Nothing is lost. It only changes.

Sometimes, I feel the crush of distance and time between us - how different the world views are, when the veil softly flutters. But I think the passages are easier to see now, and will be thrown open one day. I see Michael has need for the warrior spirit as he fights to slay a land-owner's hold over him. I shall lend my energy.

As always it is time to move on - to other areas. God reminded me this morning that justice is always needed. And so I go. Off to the beyond, where my path leads.

The burdens of truth

"To thine own self be true"... so say the priests and scholars. And yet, I find my own truths are like the edge of a sword. One side is sharp and the other, blunt.

I strive in my every day to be true, a paladin, one who is almost as holy as God. Yet also I am mortal, and crave the things my corporeal body desires. The scent of trees and fields, the companionship of my faithful horse, and the company of the few travelers I call friends. And too, the more lusty things: a strong ale, the taut bodies of bar-maids, good food, and respite from God-given duties.

Constantly is the struggle for my soul in the following of what I want and what I want to be. Why are some pleasures deemed less holy than others? There is beauty in the lowliest blacksmith's daughter's gasp, in the good cheer of a tavern as it's inhabitants sing and drink off the tiredness of a day's labor, the languid rest found when sleeping until half-way to noon after many days' hard travel.

I will never know why, Lord, you sought to make things this way. Why all things seem filled with both sharpness and bluntness. A duplicity in nature that makes one be both born and deceased, that berates certain pleasures and not others.

Yet it is not my place to question, for I am to be both a Voice... and to be mute. And so on I travel, in blessed misery.