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VISIONARY TEACHINGS
by Gill Schwartz
THE CASTLE OF NOSTALGIA
There was a dance, a ball that took place in a huge, crystal spangled room. The music hung languidly in the air with the gossamer wraps the women wore. The room itself danced and spun round and round, dizzily waltzing inside itself. Though I was a stranger, I was treated as a guest of honor. Yet, I felt everyone but I was gifted and unusual.
The Master of the Castle, tall with white hair and a trim, pointed beard, led me to his ravishing daughter who stood weaving like a breath to the song. I bowed before her, awed, and went to kiss her hand. But she was gone, joined with someone else around and round in dance. I stood and waited, feeling awkward as only a stranger can. But she never returned.
Later, when only the last dancers and music remained undissolved, the Master of the Castle came to me again, a beautiful leather bound book in his hands and put it into mine.
He smiled knowingly and shrugged his apologies.
Years after, perhaps more, I recall the dance, the ravishing daughter, and that I still hold the book.
I am no longer shy or awkward, and don't hesitate to fly back to where I remember the Castle being. And there below me, in the lucid full moon's light, I find it. The Castle and its grounds are in ancient ruin, beneath centuries of dust and decay, now serving only as a nesting place for the finger winged ravens circling round it. Mist now floats where the silken music had lain. All is gone, past. There is only memory.
I circle round and round above that wistful sight. Then I give my heart over and throw the book, that had become even more beautiful with age, into the ruins below, and quickly fly on before it sinks into the waiting desolation.
Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2003 www.WisdomVisions.com
Illustration by Phyllis Schwartz
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