Warrior Of The Light

Sometimes it takes the impeccable wisdom of others to spark something in ourselves.

Today was one of those days.

I have had a lot of things hanging on my heart lately. Actually, these things have been scratching and clawing their way up the mountainside, refusing to give up and fall. It's a lot of different things, spanning a wide variety of topics. Things as broad as fear, loneliness, uncertainty, and self-conscious; and the other things are as specific as career path and unfruitful crushes. They're silly things. Most of the time I feel silly even acknowledging them, because in reality I'm quite blessed and these things are absolutely trivial. However, they still flare up from time to time and I have to deal with them.

I had a really great conversation with Jenny today. It probably didn't seem like a very interesting conversation to her, but without her really knowing, the conversation was addressing a lot of the topics that I needed to talk about most. She is really great about that. I'm sure I am not the only person who feels incredibly blessed to have her in their life.

A little earlier today I went to Books-A-Million before I got some food. I went mainly to check out the books by Paulo Coelho. This also was Jenny's doing. I found this book by him that I knew I needed to buy. I have kind of believed in signs in my life, and this one in particular was much too big to pass up. The book is not a novel, rather it's a companion book to his novel The Alchemist. It's called Warrior Of The Light and the tagline on the book says "Short notes on accepting failure, embracing life, and rising to your destiny." I came home, sat down, and read it cover to cover. It was a really powerful experience. It was exactly the right thing I needed in my life right now. Obviously with a book like this, anybody who reads it will feel like it was written for them, but I won't let this deter me from feeling completely moved by the book. One of the pages in particular hit me really hard.

"A warrior of the light often loses heart.

He believes that nothing can stir in him the emotion he desires. he is forced to spend many nights feeling that he is one of the vanquished, and nothing seems able to restore his enthusiasm.

His friends say: "Perhaps his fight is over."

The Warrior feels pain and confusion when he hears such remarks because he knows that he has not yet reached the place he wanted to reach. But he is stubborn and refuses to relinquish his aims.

Then, when he least expects it, a new door opens."

When I finished reading the book I felt a funny rumbling in my chest near my heart. I grabbed my cup of coffee and walked outside. The sky was pink; it was sunset. The feeling in my heart intensified. Finally, when the pain was unbearable, I felt the skin on my chest begin to tear. I looked down and a tiny bird was pecking its way out. When the hole became large enough, the bird pushed its body through and flew away. I stood there, shocked, and watch the bird as it flew towards the setting sun. I watched it until I couldn't see it anymore and it disappeared into warmth of the sun. I looked down at the hole in my chest, but I no longer hurt. I reached over and pulled at the skin. The skin began to peel off me like the skin of an orange. I tugged and tugged and peeled all of the skin off my body into a pile on the porch. What was left of me after the skin had been removed was not just a skeleton, not just muscle and bone, not just a skinless man. It was something quite different.

A warrior.