Crooked Wings

Pia They named me Pia. It will do. My resistance to being born has become my struggle to accept that I must continue to live in this difficult body. The terrible descent that the soul makes from the celestial plane to the earthly plane—inevitable, predestined, impelled by that force against which there is no defence. The heaviness of it, the strain, the desire to pull back, hold back, go back. No, please no, not again. To be enshrouded in the womb, where growing and forming is no consolation. No longer free to fly and no space to move. The unnatural knots hobbling the flesh and bones that I was becoming. And then that frenzied compulsion of the host, my mother's body, to evict me. Inexorable, impossible to fight. Born. I was born. Crouched inside this small misshapen shell, fully aware, I hear them discuss what is “wrong” with me. They assume that I take nothing in and so they speak freely. It has a long and ugly name but no matter what they choose to call it, it means I cannot control most of the outer systems of this body. I cannot walk, speak, feed myself, or perform any of those unpleasant daily functions that whole people, normal people, manage on their own. It means that I wobble and tip, I dribble and make unintelligible sounds. And until I decide to reveal otherwise, it looks to them as if my brain is not working very well either. I have been propped against pillows, mute and apparently unconnected, as endless doctors and therapists have discussed “my case”. But unlike them, I know why it has to be like this. They call it a “congenital” birth defect, a malformation of my body while I was in utero. I did not develop properly, they say. They believe a vital part of me is missing. Although that is obviously the case, in terms of the body, I have a different way of understanding it. I know this is how I was supposed to be born. This is how it has to be done in this life. It is not a “defect” but a vehicle. I cannot say why it has to be exactly like this, why this particular form, why this type of human existence, why this dis-ease. I do not have access to the vast record of what has led to this birth, all that has taken place before. It is recorded in the great library of all knowledge to which I have not been granted access. What I am is the consequence of whatever I was before. And it does not really matter what that was. All I know, all I need to know is that my assignment for this life is that I have to learn to live in it, while making sure I do not forget where I came from and why. I am here for love. It is the one and only reason. If it were not for love, then I could not bear to keep going. If it were not for love, I would return to the adoring beings that I have left behind in that other place, that other sky, where no one needs to have a body at all, where no one has to struggle with a mind that fabricates endless and pointless thoughts. There, our only conversations are beams of divine presence. There, I was perfect. I was undifferentiated. I was whole. There, I bathed in continuous love. It is that, and only that, I have brought with me. It is both a memory and a gift. I have so much to give. There is a fire in me and its flames light my life. I am here to give that to whoever has the ability to see what I have to give. The time will soon come when I shall begin. And it must be done in this angular, undisciplined skeleton, these alien muscles, this unworkable machine through which substances pass and over which I have no control. This is the vehicle. I am Pia and I have come to give love.