Black Rock

In August of 2021, I started to write a story. I got disrupted and even though I thought about finishing it many times, I couldn't quite "get there." Following the first day of Project SuperStar, whilst doing the homework exercise for Part 1, all of a sudden, the story jumped into my mind. I went back there and completed it today. Here's "Black Rock."

Black Rock

by Silvia Hartmann

Perhaps today's a misty day to tell a story - far away it stands, it calls; perhaps today's the day this story will be told ...

Another time than here and now, another place, another plane, where things are different and yet, there are things there just the same.

We find a land, and it is fair, rich with life and flowers, shining waters lie in ribbons, pools and lakes, and there are mountains here, majestic, rising from the plains, bright topped in white against a glorious sky in hues of blues you've never seen before, perhaps in dreams, we travel far and travel wide ...

But here, we are amid the grasses and the many flowers in the foothills of the mountains, and of course, we came for a reason to this very place amid infinities of places; there is some thing to be discovered waiting for us here.

Let's look around, what can we see?

Big boulders, black and grey, spawned from the mountain strewn across the grassy green of herbs and flowers; and to our left, a greater face of rock, vertical, towering, high.

What can we hear?

We hear the wind, fine rushing, brushing across the stones and flowers with a gentle whisper, but that's not all, there is another sound - sounds like a song, a high voice singing slowly, lonely, a bird that calls but knows there is no answer, but still, they call, they cannot be alone in silence.

Let's close our eyes and turn our heads to find the right direction; yes, there it is, it comes from forward, to the left, and when we open now our eyes once more, we look directly at the sheer black cliff in front of us.

There is no opening; there is no door; no doorway to be seen at all, and yet the sound, the singing, tells us there is something there for us to find.

We move to stand before the wall and place our hands upon it; cold it is, and smooth, shiny; we can see ourselves reflected in the deep black surface as a mirror, yet the land, the sky does not reflect at all, makes us appear as if we were alone and floating in a deep dark void.

The song is clearer here and once again, we close our eyes and as we do, we sense vibrations in the polished rock of ages underneath our hands; there are vibrations from the song but there are others, too, slower, older, deep below, that is the song the rock itself is singing, not a harmony, a counter song to capture, hold and mute the other, and it is clear as clear can be there's someone trapped behind, inside this rock, and they have given up all hope that they should ever be allowed to leave there, they've been there forever, and forever is too long by far ...

There is a joy, a light and power that rushes through us.

This is why we came, this is our purpose; and in this realm, no rock can bar our way, no matter how old, or how polished by the tears of time.

In the reflection, the rising light is clear and bright; intensely white right in its centre, there is power here and heat, pure passion, fuelled by joy and laughter, then, by love itself - it cracks the rock, it cracks the mirror, beautiful lightning streaks across, beyond ...

In slowest motion, the black rock shards begin to tumble, leaves on a gentle summer's breeze, and they slow more and more until they stop.

Fascinated we are by these many shiny black triangular pieces before us.

They are reflecting ... what?

Many things, so many worlds, each one now angled to a different kind of light, and none of that is here, or now.

We raise a gloved hand and move some shards most gently to the side, as one would hold a beaded crystal curtain to gain access to another space, and so we enter ...

A circular doorway becomes revealed, quite beautiful it is, carved with the greatest care by expert hands with many shapes and symbols, but our eyes are drawn to a soft light that eminates from deep within this ancient building, air of ages, sense of oh! so long ago it must have been when workmen bustled, hurried feet and voices urgent, loud, were happening in this same space, time travel, travelling through space ...

That was long ago. That was not now, and now we step and stride towards the light, and now we hear the song more clearly, and its many softly wondrous echoes from the polished chamber walls.

In the shine of the light, before a rounded light, a girl kneels with her back to us. She is singing to the light and it flickers gently in return.

That is her soul, we must conclude, imprisoned here with ancient magic, dimmed to this gentle shine but she, the girl, she keeps it living with her gentle song, she feeds it with her love as she herself is fading, trapped in this chamber, behind the black mirror rocks, with no way to replenish her own structure - yet she sings, will sing, will never, ever cease for she is love, and love is all she knows.

Her focus is complete; she doesn't know we're here, she doesn't know she is already free and that the old spell has been broken.

We stand a while and marvel at their being, and then we walk around the circular space, high vaulted ceiling, filled with patterns and the shapes of many stars, we wonder if the artists here would ever know what their great work had now become, a prison for a soul which stood for ages beyond comprehension, but was now breached, and soon, would be no more at all.

We walk around the light and girl, look up; it takes our fancy to remove the ancient stone from a star, a thought suffices, and so it seems as if a bright light in the ceiling had appeared, a shaft of light, a ray of hope shines down upon the gentle soul, the ancient dust enlightened in its path, dancing sparks awakened, and there it enters straight into the softly glowing orb, it shudders - it becomes brighter, expands a little, and the girl takes in a fast breath, she has noticed that there is a change, a difference, after all this time, impossible, impossible ...

We look to the ceiling and open another star. Outside this place, it must be so bright, so light ... A second beam rushes in, with wild delight, brings life, more brightness, more expansion.

The girl stops singing.

In response, the entire structure, the entire mountain that surrounds it shudders beneath our feet and also ... stops.

Now, it is silent.

This is a silence like we've never known before; it is a holding of the breath, it is a moment just before the worlds will change; when fate itself must pivot on its axis and a space of miracles becomes revealed.

We open the third star portal.

The third beam of light reaches the shining soul and connects - there is a far away rushing, and even though we cannot see this, we know these are the black mirror shards outside, they have fallen like so many autumn leaves, they're being rushed away now by the winds of time, they are no more, no nevermore.

The shine of the soul has increased in brightness, now fully illuminating the girl who has raised her hands from her knees, is slowly opening her arms in a gesture of welcome, and here, the soul itself expands, creates its own beams of light that touch the stars on the ceiling, one after the other opens to the bright outside ...

The soul is filling all the space now with its light.

The girl has risen to her feet, steps forward and is now right at the centre of the soul, no longer can we see now a distinction as they are one, and all is light ...

All is light.

For a heartbeat, a blink of an eye or for millennia, who is to know, we stay immersed in radiance, we drink, we see, we sense, we learn; in gratitude receive reward for our being and our doing.

And so it is, as so it was.

Silvia Hartmann

11.06.2021 - 03.08.22