The Sacrifice

The aloewood is burning.  The woman at the Chinese supermarket told me it was amazing.  “There’s only one box left and they don’t get more in for like... six months”.  She doesn’t look like the ordinary person on the street I would believe.  It wasn’t necessarily her broad stature, or her forceful interjection in my otherwise fluid thought; nor was it the unwieldily black hair that nevertheless was glistening under the market’s fluorescent lighting.  But under the circumstances, at that very moment, everything she said was a truth.

And so the aloewood is burning.  It’s amazing.  It sits on the altar along side the confused tapered candles.  They love being so tall, reaching for the heavens, and yet cry out to be burned.  “Make me beautiful!  So I can one day burn for the gods”.  Through their burning comes their own recognition and understanding, and with each light, they in fact, become more grounded and peaceful.  Then the day comes when their beauty is but a remnant on their own altar, and it is only their light that continues to be embraced and remembered. 

But for now, they are enjoying their contribution to the greater altar with the aloewood, which is still burning.  The smoke is dancing across perhaps the most important piece, the sacrifice.  I’m not sure what people mean when they say it was “meant to be”, but sometimes Tiger tells me it is so.  They could be speaking directly to their spirits who are letting them know of the truths, or maybe they are just trusting that whatever happens, happens for a reason.  More often then not, I think people are referring to the fact that that one action, has lead to something else that is better and so it was meant to be.  I’d hate to think that Tiger was a sacrifice “meant to be” for that reason, but perhaps I’m wrong.  I like to believe that it was meant to be, because everything was meant to be.

And so Tiger sits, adorned, loved, and comfortable on his altar.  After a long conversation on the bed (where he used to rest) with the Dog, he ran into a brutal accident that left his beautiful maine (Tiger is a Lion) cut short, and the back of his neck slightly torn open.  Some of his stuffing still remains missing, but we try not to hold onto the past and materialistic things like that.  So now Tiger gets the honor of resting in a safe and sacred spot.  Sometimes he likes to flicker his tail in happiness, other times he rather enjoys the light and views from the altar. He never really took himself as one for introspection or long and silent thought, like some of his other friends; but now that the time and space has come to him, he is taking it into consideration.  And just perhaps, it was meant to be.

And so the aloewood burns, alongside the glowing candles, as Tiger sits and thinks about nothing.