STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Six                                                                                                               Part Six


                               I am at the foot of a mountain.  I sit in the cool of a forest.  I am enclosed and safe in deep coniferous green.  I sit here blind to the rest of France, its cities and landscapes I have roamed, its wide, regal rivers and dusty summer roads.  I sit here to revisit them inwardly in my mind's clear visions and I sit here to write.
                             France's fields are once again sown with life and growing with tall, proud maize, yellow wheat and golden corn.  There are vineyards of succulent vines in neat ordered lines, there are crops of dark green tobacco and there are miles of sunflowers , giddy headed and laughing in the breeze.   
                            I remember walking down a lane.  It was long and winding and it rose over ridges, then fell again to rise over the next.  And as I climbed and reached the crest of each ridge, I could see another stretch of land before me, like a painting of colours growing from the ground.  Each painting was different and each one was beautiful.  Sometimes there were sleepy farmsteads, as old and timeless as the land, their ancient walls quietly tumbling while their rafters showed like ribs through the red tiled rooves.
                          I climbed a steep slope through a field of stubbled straw.  At first I did not see the grazing cows because they were straw coloured too.  Then I saw the lazy shake of the head and some large brown eyes.  I looked around at the hidden herd.  They were silent, unhurried and chewing.  They barely moved from their painting.  Sometimes an ear would flick or a slow, single step was taken towards another mouthful of straw.  Then the sun began to sink and the straw cows with their straw field were tinged with the palest pink.  I felt like a small boy in a world of enchantment where God is not a wrathful Lord but a kind magician.
                          I crossed other terrains that were dry and hostile, their land blistered by the sun.  I crossed the marshes of wild horses and there I had feelings of madness and death.  I tried to cross quickly to avoid them but my heart was nervous and oppressed, heavy and burning, like white hot lead, molten and running with fire.  I felt panic.  I felt there was an assailant behind me driving me forward too fast so that I would fall and drown in foul mud.  There was no escape.  Capture was imminent.  Running was futile and the more futile it became the more I ran.  These moods were feverish and tangled.  They wove darkness and unhappiness around me like a black shroud that kept out light.  There were no reasons.  The suffering was suffered but unexplained.
                        At last I came to a town.  The strength of the sun turned its pale stone to white so that its beauty stood clear and sharp beneath the sapphire sky.
                             I found the market place.  I stood amidst its bustle.  I felt the touch of humanity as its crowds brushed past me and I heard its voices, its shouts and its whispers close to my ears. My dark pain was eased and my loneliness withdrew.  I stayed all day and watched the colours. Canopied stalls and barrows of peppers, tomatoes and aubergines, ripe and shining.  Pale pinks and greys of shellfish.  Yellow cheese and dark red hams.  Chickens and hens scratched and flapped in their cages.  Pigs squealed.  There were rolls of bright cloth, rows of leather shoes, piles of pots and pans and pyramids of brown and white eggs.  It was a place of plenty.  It was a place of sweat and haste, frowning brows, and lips moving fast with the fury of barter and business.
                           At midday the church bells rang out.  A young woman came to me with wine, bread and cheese.  She was small and elfin, dark eyed and olive skinned.  She wore a cotton dress of red flowers on pale green, her arms were bare to the summer heat and her hair was in long black braids.  In the evening when the market disbanded and drifted away, leaving me alone in an empty square, she was still there.  She took my hand and led me to her home.  She nursed my weariness and she gave me her warm, unashamed love.  Her dark, lithe body was gentle and wild, silent and alive.  Her young girl's breasts, the sweet dew between her slender legs, she gave and I took.  I stayed with her too long.  I stayed with her until one day I saw her pretty eyes were seeing me forever, then I knew I had to go.
                         As I left the town I saw its broken bridge.  Half a bridge spanning half a river, as though its heart had broken half way across and it was never able to reach out and touch the other side.  She yearned so to give.  I could not give myself just so that I might take.  I left her with a child growing inside.  I hope she will not always be sad.
                       There is only one I search for.  Her eyes were filled with the fear of giving.  She stood before me in the woods knowing that her fate was to give herself and lose herself without knowing where or why.  And all I could do was give her an apricot stone.
                       Now that I sit in the quiet of this forest I realise that the apricot seed is my heart.  It is my heart that I put in the palm of her hand.  I am still compelled to search for her even though I do not know her name.  So I know that she has kept my heart and I will search until I have found her.
                      First I must sleep.  Then I must leave this verdant womb and climb the mountain.  I must climb high so that I can fall and climb again.
                      There is so much more to understand.