A Cord of Many Colours...

    A bit like beachcombing my evening walk. Sometimes I picked up ‘telling-things;’ the tellers of treasure; and though only the flotsam and jetsam of a seaside community, I often found a little gift, that life had left lying around...   Passing by the old saw mill, on a quiet day, walking with my head down, I saw this thin length of rope on the ground. It was about a metre long. It looked pretty to me, so I picked it up; it was because of its many colours. I counted them. There were only four. But, whichever way I turned the cord, it looked as though it had all the colours of the rainbow. It delighted me. When I rolled it up tight, it was small enough to fit into my near closed hand; and I took it home with me as the treasure of the day.
   That it had a story in it, in Everland I sensed straight away; but what it was, I had no idea. I loved that I did not know the story of anything until I began to write it down. Only then did it start to unravel for me; and I was always surprised by it. When I saw something that whispered it could ‘speak,’ I would write down what it was called, then its very name would bring the story of it. A name contains a character.
   Though it was all too easy to just breeze on by, and go on to the next treasure, I had learned that it was only in knowing the thing via the written word that its full light would come. So, when I reached home I sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of water, opening my notebook, which lived there, and played with my treasure, twisting into different shapes in my hands. After awhile I wrote: ‘‘A Cord of Many Colours.’ Four! Blue. Yellow. Red. Black. And one not more prominent than the other. They are the primary colours. Perhaps that is why when they are woven together, they look like all of the colours of the light, and why I find the cord so beautiful.
   Looking at the black strand in it . . . it seems to give a greater definition to the other colours, and even enhance them; brightening them, so that they stand out more beautifully. …Oh. I see the truth: darkness or difficulty, are always bound up somewhere with the lighter, happier things in my life. I need not be afraid of them! They lend a greater perspective to my life, which frames my good times and makes them even better. By contrast, dark makes light more beautiful!
   After sipping my water, I stop and pick up the cord again. Now I see that though in colour each strand of the cord is very different, in all other aspects, they are identical. They bear the same weight; they pull together as one.        This makes me think of my old ‘shoebox letters.’ Immediately the parallel becomes clear to me. Though my story-letters, (the ‘picture-stories of the light’) are all different, by a certain synthesis they are all saying, basically the same thing! Some, were obviously similar; others more vaguely so. Why..? Because they are all parts of one whole; and so, of course, they will have a striking core similarity, because they originally come from one and the same thing: i.e. a complete picture! Now, suddenly it further strengthens in me the truth that there really is a whole picture, a whole vision that I was born into this world with, and was destined to write of; and that even if I wrote a hundred more story-letters they would only confirm this reality: all different aspects of the same thing! So they would all bind together as one! …Like this multicoloured cord! …and new and old, all seamlessly knitting together as a whole! …Oh! No ‘random-ness,’ at all! There it is again!   As I play with the cord in my hands there is music playing softly behind me in the lounge; somebody must have turned the stereo on. I am singing along with the melody as I rest, and as I listen to my heart. …The cord I am holding is so firm, and so tightly twisted together, that it is extremely strong. …Oh. Now I see another closely linked truth. By themselves the strands of a cord, are thin and weak. They can ‘speak’ only a small sound. But, put together, their ‘voice,’ their ‘song,’ is louder. In their being bound together, as one, came the possibility of a more certain sound, for it was stronger! One by itself says one thing; but that could be incomplete, or even be misinterpreted? It was only one small part of many. But in their being put together, they say a greater thing! Then more complete, they can shed more light! Until the noon day! When all things open! …and all shines bright, and clear!  

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