Gifts of the heart and mind

Things have been appearing on Master's platform steps again. I suppose with all the trading and the merchants so handy, it is no wonder. I assume they are gifts, things that capture a person's eye and either remind them of Master, or simply appeal to the giver, sometimes with a bit of wry humor.

As I set them atop the chest against the one side of the wagon, the little altar of sorts of things left over the days, I played a fanciful game of imagining where they came from and why they ended up here. A paper pouch of dates, the brown wrapping crinkly under my fingertips and the succulent fruit inside plump and purple brown, was surely from a woman. A woman who worried naturally about eating properly and making sure Master enjoyed a little something special in His diet.

There was a carved chunk of wood, the picture a series of angles and swirls that could have been anything from a map to a stylized rendition of bosk and the Central Fire. Beside it was a raw length of light brown wood, bark still clinging around it, as if taken right off the tree and trimmed of extra foliage. I pegged this offering from a man, an older one that had found peaceful moments in the shaping of wood and was passing that along to a younger man.

The was a copper colored square of thin metal, a design punched clear through in tiny circles. A woman, definitely a woman, I decided, for it was one of those things that ...while intriguing in the possibilities of use was definitely for decoration.

And then there was this horn. It was large, and I figured it had to come from a bosk. Streaked with brown and cream in natural coloring, the tip and base were both decorated. A thick layer of gold, pebbly and rough, clutched the horn and a handful of gems. Red and green, blue and amber winked from the grip of golden mud. It was..gawdy...almost. At least to me. My first thought was the Vaci and their arrogant usage of everything glittering and sparkling. It was heavy, though couldn't tell if it was the weight of the horn itself or the decorations. I was stumped on it's usage - now - or originally. Finally, I came up with a friend of Master's. One that snuck in on the Vaci and raided their prize bosk together with Him, and was now sharing the booty. That made it easier to place on the chest to await Him.

The drums had been sounding throughout the day, and I used my stop and ask method of learning the heartbeats of the message. Tomorrow would be the day of the wars. That time when Warriors faced each other and fought for pride, honor, and a spirited woman to toss to their feet. I held not one iota of thought that anything other than the return of Master would occur. When I looked into the future, I always saw Him returning. Always. I fingered the amulet of blessings around my neck and asked that His victory be swift, and as painless as possible.
When I let the amulet fall back to rest against my chest, it rocked lightly with my breath and heartbeat. It struck me then, that this was no longer mine. The last vestige of my life as Genesee felt odd and out of place. That night I arranged the amulet on the pillow of fur that I set up for His rest in the wagon. My thoughts were many and varied, from the realization that my blessings were solely cupped in the rough palms of His hands, to the symbolic and visible surrender of my life, heart and soul to that which my words had said aloud. The desire to be His slave.

I think Master Fonce is a man of words and actions. The content of spoken things are held at arm's length until the meanings reveal themselves. When actions do not meld in harmony with the words, faith and belief are tested. We all do such in our lives, weighing what we are given against the scale of our experiences. But not all of us have had our dreams taken away. I left my amulet, for Him to accept as He wished.

“Love's gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted.”
Rabindranath Tagore