Aadi

I wonder why some days there is no inspiration and others it bubbles over. 

Where do ideas come from anyway? ~  ~ ~

"You have been looking for me"

My first, my only thought upon waking was 'shimmering' and then a wide eyed 'Oh My!'.

The being who was before me (saying standing just wouldn't make any sense for there was no place to stand there) defied description. Dickens had said it best, writing "... - like a child; yet not so like a child as like an old man through some supernatural medium..." when describing the ghost of Christmas past. To this spirit, not a man or boy - not a girl or woman but all at the same time, I asked or maybe just thought "Who are you?"

"I'm Aadi" she said, settling down to appear to be a woman about my daughter's age, "and you have been thinking about me a lot lately, so it was time for us to meet." 

The landscape gathering itself around us seemed to be a forest and we were (or seemed to be) sitting on that old beach blanket at the base of a huge tree. "And you are..." she looked up into the tree and pointed at one leaf suddenly glowing enough to stand out among the rest "that one" and smiled gently at what had to be an astonished look on my face. "Are you saying that I got it right about the tree and all being one?" She tilted her head side to side, as if deciding; "You did a pretty good job creating a metaphor that works for you, so we will take it as far as we can; ok?" I nodded at that because it almost seemed to be a condescending remark but had been said with so much love that I couldn't possibly feel offended. "So, every decision we make does create a new branch?" 
"Yes, as I said, you have a good model here, but you do know it is more than that don't you?"

Before I could answer, she looked up and I followed her gaze and saw the branches of my tree suddenly shrink in thickness into hairs. Where the branches could have been counted, the threads were infinite in number and the branching of those threadlike paths was so dense I couldn't follow it any more. Where there had been leaves there were dots at the tips of the threads, more numerous and as bright as stars.

"In what you wrote the other day it was all about your choices." She shook her head. " There is so much more than personal choice." "Well, yes, I left out all of the sub-atomic particle stuff." There was that gentle smile again. "You left out a few other things too, so here is an important question. Did you choose to be transsexual?" I tried not to look offended. "I am not crazy! Nobody would choose that!" Almost laughing at my reaction, Aadi carried right on. "You already know from meeting Beth that not all of you are male-born, let alone transsexual, so tell me, what explains these sort of things if not choice?" 

I nodded and then shook my head too realizing the implications of my oversimplification. "Yes, I see. There are important factors that make our paths diverge that aren't under our control." She was nodding at me to carry on. "Like whether we were male or female born, or whether we got measles with the rest of the neighbourhood kids, or... " Aadi reached over and stroked my hair and beamed at me as though I was a toddler who had finally started to stand on my own. "This streak of curiosity your branch has is endearing. Keep at it." She got up and smoothed the gown that had been spread around her legs. "Stop by and visit again if you get stuck, ok?"

"Please, wait, I have so many questions!" 

Looking over as she began strolling away and disappearing like the Cheshire Cat, 

"I know. 

Like I just said,

an endearing quality."