Janel's Place

I am certainly in love with my llama. Last night Allen (my landlord,veterinarian) came down to the barn where I was staying with my sleeping bag so I could gaze at my llama, and we discovered that "he" is a female. As"he" was thought to be penned with an uncastrated male, I have marvelous hopes that I could maybe be a llama grandmother as well.

The noises llamas make are absolutely fascinating. After watching her interact with horses and goats for a couple of hours this morning, I have decided that one of my goals in this life is to be just like a llama. She is a bit aloof but never rude, she will let others push her away without much fuss, but if she desires a treat she will shatter their dominance complexes with a simple, fearless unhalting stride towards the treat that completely freaks the other animals out. If she senses danger she will tell everyone but she will not come unglued. She'll simply watch carefully and decide what to do. She is not like the pony who gets his confidence from the behavior of the goats. She is not like the young horses who will switch between groups of friends depending on where the food is. She is not like my horse, who can only approach the llama if surrounded by others. She is simply herself, happy to eat when it's time to eat, guard when it's time to guard, back away when it's not worth the argument, and be lovely and graceful through it all.

I simply love llamas. But now I must go shop and clean and cope with the world.
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(Portions of an email written to my dad)
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Things aren't always as they seem. It ISN'T fair in this broken world, and your anger about it doesn't change the reality. A cute little worm may give you half of the information you need to take the next step, and may even intend to protect you, but without knowing you may run off and believe what you thought you needed to hear and find out later that you went the opposite way of your goal. No fault of the worm, because you didn't tell the worm what you were really looking for.

Sometimes you get help from people who want to help you but are so caged themselves that they may leave you when you need them the most. Their heart is good but it is full of fear. When you are hungry and go to them they will give you poison and you won't know what it is until you have swallowed.

You can always be tripped up by the superficial desires of your heart. In the midst of it you won't even remember what you were looking for in the first place. When you are given your teddy bear and told that THAT is what you were looking for, you are going to believe it for a while. But in time, deep down, something will stir and tell you that there was more. What was it? It is only after you break down the walls around your "safe place" that you see the frantic goblins for who they are, the desperation with which they throw everything they can think of to distract you from your awakening memory, and with your new vision you tear away into more hardship because you have to find Toby.

Even when you think you are almost there, and you see Toby close to you, you still have another battle. You have to face the orchestrator and his pleading song that gives you one more temptation to believe he will give you more fulfillment than Toby. That your dreams were all he had in mind. That all of this hardship was simply him turning the world upside down to give you all you wanted. As he quotes your own words and wishes back at you, you can see that it makes sense. Toby really was too much trouble... you remember the truth in your heart when you begged the goblins to take Toby away....

But if you remember your lines, you will see through it all. When you remember that your power IS as great as his, that his words are no match for the words in the book, his lies are no comparison to the truth you finally remember. Even though you didn't know why they were important when you memorized them. You had no idea. You had no knowledge that you would need them NOW, when the choice means life or death for Toby. Life or death for the good that was deep in your heart but covered by frustrations and unhappiness.

Along the Labyrinth you learn to forgive the fear-filled "friends" who needed to be set free before they could be your true friends. They then needed your forgiveness to truly step out of the shame and fear. They didn't demand it, they came to you still entrapped. But to see them again filled you with joy. After all, you were all still in the Labyrinth and you all needed to get out. You realize that even though they betrayed you, you did need to enter that dream and face the choice of your heart in preparation to make the right choice in reality. You didn't know it of course, even as you met your "friend" again you didn't know why it all happened that way, but it made sense in the end.

When did the end finally come? When did you finally get Toby back? When you jumped. You finally realized that your misperception of reality WAS reality, and it was okay to jump. The most important truth was that you didn't know what was next. But wandering around in the staircases that always kept you under the happy control of the tempter was wasting your time, so you jumped. Not knowing where you would land. Hoping it would land you right next to Toby, but not sure.

Well the jump didn't land you next to Toby. It landed you face to face with the tempter. Face to face with his last, best attempt to win you with his lies.

The thing that surprised you is that because of the Labyrinth you were finally ready to face him. As the words from the book came out of your mouth you finally understood them. You stared in awe, almost stepping outside of yourself as the words gave you understanding and filled you with power. Finally spoken at the right time, with the right experiences behind you, spoken straight in the face of the Temptor. You won.

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I'm still in the Labyrinth. I know I'm looking for Toby, but I feel that to find him I've had to give up my dreams. They skipped the pain of giving up the dream in that movie. And it is still just a movie.
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