It is time for the Aspects to go away. Or, not to go away, to be fully realized. They each are facets of my personality that I am too afraid to show, or be, for lots of different reasons. But maintaining them as qualities and goals and dreams seperate from myself isn’t helping me to grow. I need the energy that is keeping them apart.

But the point of having made these pieces of myself into people is so that I can interact with them. Find out what they want. (I might not have known that at the time, but I know it now.) And so over the next few weeks I will interview each one, and find out why I have never let them exist, what their dreams are, how they were hurt, how they came to be, and step by step, who I really am.

I storm into the Jungle.

“Front and center,” I call out. “Now.”

The Aspects arrive: Jade, Anne, Harley, Tabitha, Demi, Night, Esther. They all watch me silently. They’ve formed a half circle in front of me, and they all look uncomfortable, and some of them look scared.

I’m so angry and frustrated that I shift from being myself to being the white Huntress. But I leave the white glass hunting knife in the sheath on my thigh.

I am pacing and I can’t take their silence. I shift and close and Esther, and smack her across the face. Then I take her shoulders and shake her hard.

“This is your fault!” I yell. “Stop it. Just stop it now.” I let her go and she drops to her knees in the dust in tears.

Esther is sobbing, and has one hand over her cheek and the other over the rest of her face. The others keep watching me. I am crying. I take my knife from its sheath and spin to throw it behind me, out into the thick jungle.

Night begins to sing.

Her voice is low and the song is wordless, but it is beautiful. Her song is heartache. It is misery so sweet and sacred that it reminds me that emotion is not bad or good. Just an indicator of what you want and don’t want.

I want to take Night in my arms and cuddle her. But she is not the one that needs love right now. I go over to Esther and sit cross-legged next to her. Her sobs are muffled to not interfere with the music, but each one still shakes her delicate frame. I pull her into my lap and hold her close. She leans into me with more trust than I deserve.

“Help,” I say to the others. “I don’t know what to do or what I want anymore.”

Night stops singing. They all move and shift now. Esther isn’t crying anymore.

“Screw everyone else,” Anne advises. “Do whatever you want. Perfection only looks good on statues.”

Harley raises an eyebrow. “She has a point. A crude one, but…well. You never did like the idea of making something ugly to make something beautiful. You have to throw a bunch of really ugly pots before you learn the skill to make pretty ones.”

“If I know what’s best for me,” I say tiredly, “then why does everyone all seek to tell me that my way isn’t the way that’s best for me?”

“What if they aren’t?” Jade asks.

“You mean,” –each word is become more and more of an effort to say–”what if they are just expressing their points of view to be helpful but not trying to change my mind?”

Jade nodded. “What if.”

“Then why express them at all? Who is that helping?”

“To be fair,” Tabitha points out, “you did mention it to them. Inviting their input.”

“If I don’t mention and share things, then I am being closed and apparently hurting people with my aloofness,” I growl. “When will people be f*ing satified?”

“Never,” Harley says with crisp precision.

“When will I be satisfied?”

The silence is hurtful, and full of things I know and can’t deal with. I will be satisfied when I choose to be. I am painfully weary of self-examination, of struggling with issues, of learning so many important things about life and not even being able to see happy. Wisdom has not made me wiser.

I am out near the Bonfire, but further up the stream. There is a short little waterfall there, the run of water over a shelf of rocks as the streambed sinks a few feet.

I haven’t been to the Oasis in a while. I have missed it. And there have been times when I have been lost and needed help. I kept turning to human agencies, and while that is good, sometimes it is good to get an insider’s point of view.

“Am I falling up or down?” I ask the waterfall. It does not reply, and keeps crashing down over the rocks.

“What do you think?” Ishmael asks.

I scowl at him. “Don’t be unhelpful.”

“Why am I dragging my feet on this? On the letter and on the ticket.”

“I don’t know,” Ishmael says. “Why are you?”

Oh. I shouldn’t check with him. I should check with myself. I kiss his cheek to apologize for my temper, and blink to the Jungle.

The house in the Jungle has a turret. I’ve always loved turrets. And it’s now surrounded by a wooded landscape, verdant with tall trees. I walk in, because this is my house.

Source Me walks into the parlor, soft and beautiful and smiling. I still have no idea how I will ever look like that. Source Me frowns.

“What brings you?” She asks. I snort.

“Everything.”

“Come now,” She says. “I know you aren’t really worried about the letter.”

“True. But why is this trip eating at me?”

She reaches over and takes my hand. “Send the letter and it won’t,” She advises.

“And the money?”

She shrugs. “There’s always more money. You’ll have more soon. Will you ever seriously let money stop you? That’d be a bad habit to break, my dear.”

he Memory Garden is a labyrinth; the paths are circular and wind ever-inward, separated by riotous beds of flowers. Great gnarled fig trees mark the cardinal directions and provide some shade, while thin, spindly evergreen trees, so common in the Mediterranean, poke up at intervals in the paths. In the center of the garden is a huge tiered fountain made from warm red sandstone.

Each flower in the Garden holds a memory of mine. Some beds are wild, tangled messes of exploding flowers, as some days are thick with things to remember. Some beds hold a week’s work of memories or more, as sometimes our lives are on a steady keel. And some beds are choked with heavy oleander, blooms brown and spotted with decay yet still hanging onto the vine. They are the memories I wish I could forget.

One of the paths in the Oasis leads to a small canvas tent in a tiny clearing. If you pull the flap back and step into it, you will find yourself not in a tent at all, but in a Jungle.

The path begins on a high ridge, and it is only a few steps to see the Jungle floor below you. The vegetation is beautiful and not too thick due to the stone ridge, letting tracts of light in through the canopy. The Jungle is nearly untouched and teeming with life, and the sounds of all that life living echoes through the Jungle floor: monkeys howling and birds shrieking, big cats roaring and the steady drone of insects.

The path leads down to the Jungle floor, and to a small clearing. A beautiful house stands there, one that looks like a California lakeside cabin, with holes in the deck for trees to pass though and wide doors everywhere that let all the sun and breeze in. It is quaint but finely appointed.

The Jungle is not an area of my own making; at least, not directly. It was given to me by one who decided that I needed it. Shortly thereafter, the house appeared, and the Aspects began living in it.

The Hacienda is a single-level manse. It is Moorish in feel, with thick butter-yellow adobe walls and intricate decoration filled with bright colors. Inside it looks like the Alhambra, with vivid silks and rugs lain all over.

The Hacienda is comprised mostly of three apartments. One is mine; one I gave to Darzee and Balthazar; and the last houses the angels Quintazel and Anpiel, and I have not seen the third suite since I gave it over to them.

My apartments are dark and cool; the room is cavernously large and taken up mostly by a long reflecting pool tiled with rust red tiles. The walls and ceiling are covered in fiery-red silks. At the far end of the pool away from the entrance there is a red-gold divan and endless pillows colored in deep jewel tones, amber and amethyst and garnet, for sitting and talking. I rest here, and think, doubtless too much. I have a lap desk that I use to try to capture and remember ideas when I am away from a real pen and paper.

Darzee and Balthazar’s apartment, is painted a light robin’s egg blue, and white netting and gauzy cream-colored hangings are arrayed across the walls. The furniture is dripping-blood red, and the bed is huge and sits in a dark, shadowy corner. Their rooms are dark as well, and a magnificent fireplace is across from the bed, with furs piled on the floor in front of it. The entire fireplace, from the hearth to the firebox to the mantle is carved from buttercream-colored marble shot through with dark sable veining.

The only other room in the Hacienda is the Library. Unlike the apartments, the Library is quite small. The ceilings are high, and the bookshelves run the length of the walls. There is barely room for the three simple wooden worktables. Each have the customary green-and-brass library lamps, and that is all the light that is ever in the room. The far end is so deep in shadow you can barely see it. The close confines are comforting and help me to focus. I often picture myself reading in the Library when I am reading study material in the outside world as well; it can improve my recall and help me make connections.

The river cuts through the middle of the Oasis, smooth as silk. Of course it does; the river comes first, as without it, the Oasis would not exist. The Oasis cradles the river, and the river gives it life.

The river is not more than twenty feet wide, and its current is sure but not overwhelmingly strong. Its waters are crystalline blue, and cold as the runoff from a glacier. There is no comfort to be found in its waters, only Truth.

No matter what time of day it is in the Oasis (which can hang for hours on the start of twilight, or the break of dawn), in the clearing of the Bonfire it is night. It is not the ancient heavy darkness of early morning hours, no. The clearing is always freshly dark, that hour after the sun goes down, when night is pulled well and truly across the sky save for the small pink shine of light in the west. The stars are all out like beacons of hope, and the Bonfire crackles with good cheer. The sound of the flames mix with the murmuring of the river, and the hypnotic spell is cast. Sitting down at the Bonfire, we are all ready to hear a good tale.

The Gate is the only entrance to the Oasis. Travelers find that if they try to leave the road to search for another way in, after a few yards they find themselves right back in front of the Gate again.

The Gate is huge. It is at least ten stories high and gleams. The silver metal latticework is never dusty. The adobe walls that protect the Oasis are unscalable. And the Gates themselves never open.

To enter the Oasis is a matter of permission, not ability. Permission must be sought from the gatekeeper, as he is the only authority on who may enter and who may not. Even I do not have the power to gainsay him.

Seph is a gryphon: a being with the body of a lion, the head and wings of an eagle, and his tail is a snake. He is a fierce warrior and dispatches unwanted visitors with no trouble at all. Though he can make himself properly lion-sized if he chooses, when he is guarding the gate he lounges on the wall above it and presents himself as twenty feet tall. The wall groans when he shifts to get a better look at a petitioner.

I have left him explicit instructions. No one with ill-intent is allowed within the Oasis. Anyone else is welcome. Seph obeys my instruction with the rigid loyalty that only a gryphon can have. Once Seph has deemed a visitor acceptable, they are allowed in. They find themselves on the other side of the Gate without having any idea at all of how they passed through it.

The Cave is one of my favorite places in the Oasis.

There is a path to the left before the river. It is wildly overgrown, and blocked in places by fallen palms. Clamor over them to find yourself suddenly upon a small canvas tent. Nothing here is cleared, and the tent is nestled under a tree. Lift the flap and enter the portal…

…to find yourself on a set of stone steps, leading down to flickering torch light below. The Cave is made of stone, and the steps go down to a wide stone path set between pools of inky-black water. More torches line the way, and a draft slithers down the stairs to make the flames flicker.

Walk on the earth by the water, led by fire and followed by air. At the end of the stone path is a wide, high stone wall broken only by an archway barely the height of a woman.

On the other side of the arch is a perfectly round chamber, blazing bright with torchlight. In the center of the chamber is a dark pool, and surrounding it are two tiers of wide stone steps. The steps are seating, and rich silk-covered pillows line their surfaces. The front of the steps are inlaid with shimmery mosaics.

This is the home of Oracle, and from here this knowing part of me gives me sage, if often sarcastic, advice.

The ceiling of the chamber of the Cave is stunning. When Oracle dims the torches, the ceiling is fraught with lines of bright light, of energy. The lines look like rivulets of water, splitting again and again, sometimes meeting around a node to together shine as bright as a star. Single lines meet others and part and meet again. Some end in a lonely patch of dark ceiling. At my behest, Oracle has been known to shift some of those lines.

There is one last curiosity in the chamber of the Cave. Tucked in a corner, behind the stone seating (slightly defying the physics of the room) is a hole in the floor. The hole is large enough to crawl through, and there is a ladder hanging down from it, inviting exploration. The ladder leads to an ocean. This ocean made up of tiny golden lights, and the waves are gentle swells. It hangs in the blackness of space, but it is surrounded by vast starfields. Both are endless, and there is no shore. The ladder simply ends in midair.

If you jump into the ocean of golden light, you will not sink.

It is night here in the Oasis, and that is rare. The Oasis usually hangs in the inbetween times of sunset or sunrise, because I dwell far too often in possibilities.

But tonight is not one of those times. And so stars burn fiercely above, each one a beacon to the next step towards desire. With a thought the roof above my quarters in the Hacienda is gone, and the light shines down on me with cool, cool clarity.

From Wikipedia:

James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book Epic of America:

“The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.

Winds sweep in over the Oasis, winds from the East that blow through the lush greenery, making it sound like the ocean rushing in. The stars look close enough to touch, and so I do…