The sun sinks down to the edge of the western horizon, and an ancient traveler pauses near the end of the long road to take his reckoning. He summons the gift given to him so very long ago and a small globe appears in his hands. He raises it above, holds it facing into the fading light, turns it with his fingers.

It is nearly all in shadow now; only a slight crescent of light gleams on its edge. He turns it around in his fingers and always it is the same. He knows it is a globe, the turning and the feel of it in his fingers tells him that. Yet his eyes have never seen more than half of it.

“Near the end, it seems,” he thinks, “yet still a bit of light to follow until darkness comes.” He slowly lowers his hands, and as the globe fades and returns to its place in him, he remembers.

He was wrapped in soft swaddling and knew little more than light and dark then, and comfort and discomfort, and what was above and what was below. Yet that day his mother and his father appeared above him and spoke in a language he understood.

His mother spoke first: “My clan is the Earth clan. We are mountain and rock, water and clay, forest and charcoal, sinew and gut and muscle. We are strong and neither disease nor enemy can conquer us. When war comes we either win or die, there is no other way. We are warriors and builders and farmers. We fight, we create, we transform, we plant. We are determined and stubborn, and we endure. We are wise and our memory is long and we know many things. We seek in all weathers the One, and do not rest until we find Him.”

Then his father spoke: “My clan is the Sun clan. We are air and light, sun and sky, ocean and stars, wings and cloud and thought and passion. We are restless, fearless, free, and fly through thunder and lightning. We soar and no enemy can trap us. We ride the high currents on the edge of the atmosphere and observe the whole world below from a distance. We see things others cannot. We are philosophers and prophets and adventurers and poets. We make visible the threads which tie all things together. We seek in all weathers the One, and do not rest until we find Her.”

His father laid a leaf beside him; its veins were to remind him of his mother when he flew above the earth and saw the veins of earth’s rivers below. His mother placed a feather next to it; its veins were to remind him of his father when he soared above the mountain top in moonlight and beheld the veins of light streaking through the endless sky above.

Then they placed the world in his hands, a globe of gleaming light and brilliant, nameless colors, saying; “This is yours now. It has come down through every clan from the first One, from the first Father and Mother, and will be with you every day on the long path ahead.

“Your eyes will ever see only half of it, yet when you turn it with your hands they will tell you what it is. This is the first lesson. To know anything you must both see and feel it.”

“See how it gleams for you now in the rising sun behind you? See how there is only a mere sliver of darkness at its edge? This is when you begin, the shining morning of your life. This is where you are; wrapped in light. No matter what point you are upon the world you see, no matter how you turn it, you will find yourself there, surrounded by light.

“It will not always be so. As you travel onward the sun will rise, and by mid morning a quarter of the world will have shadow upon it. At mid-day the shadow will cover half; and so it will go until you reach the sunset, when the days of your life have filled with shadow and only a sliver of light remains shining on the edge of a vast darkness which covers the globe.

“The darkness is filled with many things; dead warriors, burned crops, broken wings and smoke-darkened skies; shattered hearts and regretted acts and all things ever said which were ever lies. There too may lie the crater of your deepest bereavement; the grave of your beloved, with whom you found the One. The one you cleaved to in the light remaining, now lost, dying first; a grieved ghost lingering in your loneliness.  

There, at the end of day, you will know the beauty which ever is, and the ache which will ever be. There you will join with all the gathered joys and sorrows of all your days, and you will remember what was there: 

There was the open road, which holds freedom and loneliness; vast vistas of spirit-filling grandeur which inform the self of its uniqueness in time and its intrinsic insignificance in the universe at large. There was the road less often taken, that crossroad where fulfillment and realization are ahead and yet many regrets lie behind. There were the craters of bereavement, where memory collides with loss and the afflicted find themselves stunned and insensate wanderers. There was the beauty of the last adventure, and the knowledge of death waiting at its end. There was the beauty of goodness and compassion and wisdom and love and community, and the ache of knowing they can be absent in this world. There was the peace and privation of the solitary life. There was every beauty and every ache, woven through it all.

“So thus, dear son, this we say to you now: look to the light. The One is there. Seek there, and you will find. Do this, and though you find yourself alone you will not lose the One of Her and Him. When the last day is done and the journey finished, stand in the last splinter of light.

“Stand there, and looking back you will see all the days behind glowing in soft light. Turn then, and look forward, and follow the light to the other side of this globe. There you will discover your beloved One waiting, gleaming in a boundless field of light, and together you will follow the sun down below the horizon and into the stars beyond.”