Points Of Light - Maybe Write Your Life Differently, Tell Your Story In A New And Better Way!

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Frank, a very old and extremely wise eagle-owl flew toward the city of Eldorado because the golden glow of this ancient city was presenting itself very brightly these days, and Frank was determined to find out why. He'd been flying for several days, and as he finally reached the outskirts of the famed city, it seemed to Frank that he'd finally found the origin to Eldorado's brighter radiance in the form of the biggest Moriche Palm tree Frank had ever seen luminescing with the light of a thousand lightning bolts. He wondered both at how this happened and why any one could not only bare to look at it, but to be uncontrollably drawn to it as you couldn't nor did you want to take your eyes off it. As he adjusted his flight to become a gentle downward glide toward the Moriche Palm so he could explore the meaning of these questions, Frank began to notice more and more animals gathered around the palm. He saw Capybara, Giant Anteaters, Green Iguanas, Golden Lion Tamarins, Glass Frogs, and Kinkajous gathering around the tree in large numbers all according to their tribe.

Every assembled animal looked in one direction – Toward a husband and wife Macaw nesting in the hollow of the great Moriche Palm. Frank lighted on a nearby branch next to a Green Iguana, “Hi, I’m Frank, nice to meet you.” “Hi Frank, I'm Kan. Are you here for the great spectacle?” “Well,” Frank said, “it does appear to be a spectacle that is indeed great, and well, I’m here, so YES!” Frank bust out, being caught up with something that felt like the excitement of the moment. Kan looked at Frank, and in unison with every gathered animal, “Shhh’d” Frank.

Just then a giant, shrill shriek was heard coming from the female Macaw (Frank would later learn her name was Elizabeth and her husband's name as being Adalhard). Silence filled the air as all noise completely vanished, even the noise of the gentle swallow from Siyaj Kʼakʼ, the nearby Glass Frog. Suddenly, the sound of a chick breaking free of the womb of an egg he’d lived in these last several days could be heard. The heartbeat of everyone assembled began to pound in excitement, Frank’s heart was no different as lub-a-dub, lub-a-dub became a love song to mark the moment. Even a stranger, Frank recognized the love that permeated the air, plants, insects, and animals surrounding the Moriche Palm, the Macaw couple and the hatching, baby Macaw.

Then just barely over the pounding hearts, everyone heard it, a tiny delicate “caw”. The crowd erupted in shouts of triumphant praise! “Hooray!” Everyone gleefully yelled and screamed. After some time had passed and the shouting faded, Frank asked Kan what just happened. Kan looked surprised and said, “You really don’t know do you?” “Well,” Frank said “I just flew in from very far away so I could learn about the new intensity in Eldorado's magnificent gleam. So no, I really have no idea what’s going on. I have a sense it’s so very real, lovely, extremely good and needful. Kan, I simple have to know everything you can teach me about this! Please tell me everything.” Kan told Frank everything and everything lead to how it had always been foretold the most beautifullest and most wonderfullest Macaw there ever was would one day be born in the biggest Moriche Palm that ever grew near the city of Eldorado. “This Moriche Palm is definitely the biggest I’ve ever seen in my lifetime!” Frank said. “Thus our great joy for the parents in this tree’s hollow!” Kan said in return.

Just then a Giant Anteater barked out an order, "Now be silent as we hear the babe's name being announced." All the animals became silent again and everyone heard Adalhard clear his throat as he stepped out onto the threshold of the hollow. “Ch’amak” was all he said as he stepped back inside and stooped down beside Elizabeth, herself brooding over the tiny Ch’amak, the most beautifullest and most wonderfullest Macaw ever born.

The years passed, Ch’amak grew as did his beauty and wonder. He was a good friend to everyone and you couldn’t find anyone that didn’t love Ch’amak. From time to time Adeline, a beautiful young kinkajou would ask him to come over to eat delicate flowers, sweet hibiscus honey, mangoes, and passion fruit. A time or two Ch’amak acquiesced to the fair Adeline’s requests and dropped by. Their interactions were things of beauty. They both gave, and they both took in kind, friendly, and wordy tit for tats. Adeline’s heart was moved by everything Ch’amak brought with him to their dinner engagements, she hoped for there continuance. But Ch’amak didn’t see in himself what Adeline saw in him. He always thought to himself that the prophecies were wrong. He’d often say to himself, “I, Ch’amak am neither the most beautifullest or most wonderfullest Macaw. I never have been, I never will be” After only three visits, Ch’amak left off seeing Adeline forever. She never knew why or what it was she’d done to him. The smile Ch’amak had put on her heart turned into a tear as she struggled to figure everything out.

But Ch’amak the most beautifullest and most wonderfullest Macaw had many, many friends. One of them was Marvin, the Green Iguana. They usually just walked around the sunny spots of the forest talking, telling jokes to one another while they outrageously laughed at all the fun they had together. Occasionally they’d stop to eat the leaves of turnip greens, mustard greens, dandelion greens, flowers, fruits, and the growing shoots of various plants. Marvin always looked forward to his visits with Ch’amak, and they weren’t always about giggles and laughs. Many were the time they’d talk about the theology of a great creator, the ways and means they’d communicate with the creator and how the creator would communicate with all the other animals in the forest. Or, they’d consider what happened to them when they died. Sometimes their conversations turned very heated and they’d end up yelling and screaming at each other at the top of their lungs, but they always agreed that they would agree to disagree. So after every heated shouting match, they never forgot to shake hands and walk away from one another the same friends they were when they had greeted one other. It was a thing of beauty. But one day, Marvin had to migrate to a different place in the forest, and although Ch’amak could easily fly to anywhere Marvin settled down, Ch’amak thought he never “really” contributed anything to Marvin's life so he “couldn't have really mattered” to Marvin. So Ch’amak never flew to visit Marvin and they eventually lost contact.

There would be many other animals that would see all the beauty and wonder Ch’amak held, all of them would want to spend time with Ch’amak and bask in everything he had to offer. But the closer everyone got to him, he always managed to find a way to ask every one of them to go away and leave him alone to himself. He always told himself, “I, Ch’amak am neither the most beautifullest or most wonderfullest Macaw. I never have been, I never will be.” “Why,” he thought, “should people bear the burden of being around anyone as graceless as I.”

Then one day, Ch’amak happened upon a chance to wander by some Heliconia flowers. As he’d spent his life rejecting all the beauty he held inside, not realized by most of the people he knew, he’d always sought after the beauty that existed outside of his feathers. When he spied the beautiful Heliconia flowers he paused, he paused to see their bright colors, to smell their wonderful fragrance, to consider their shape and wonder at the way they grew. Now, he didn’t want to stop all this studying he was making, but something distracted him because somehow, it, was even more beautiful than the flowers. That’s when he noticed the most wonderful and the most beautiful Green-breasted Mango Hummingbird he’d ever laid his eyes on! She was darting in and out of the Heliconia flowers. Seemingly struck dumb at finding her, at first all he could do was stare at her beauty. Eventually, she found a way out of her busyness to come to a standstill and say, “Hi, my name is Fuga. Are you just going to stare at me, or, will you be a gentleman and introduce yourself to me?” “I beg for your apologies! My name is Ch’amak” he stuttered. “Nice to meet you Ch’amak. Let me push your beak together and close that gape you have going on. I’ll give you a minute and maybe we can talk.”

Ca’amak did get himself together, they talked and Fuga fascinated him by all the places she’d visited all over the world. When there where those times that she’d take to flying and darting around the Heliconia, Jewelweeds, or even the Bleeding Heart flowers, like a ballerina who expresses with every part of her body all you need to know about her heart, she shared with Ch’amak her knowledge about Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Debussy, and he found she moved him. They talked more and he found she knew about science, philosophy, art, and music, and without exception, each conversation ingratiated his heart.

He talked with her, but Ch’amak had always told himself, “I, Ch’amak am neither the most beautifullest or most wonderfullest Macaw. She’ll tire of me if she finds out who I really am.” In his angst, he folded his wings around himself, hoping beyond hope to become invisible to her. But Fuga walked beside him and gently taking one of his wings at a time, she properly placed each one back by the side it belonged. She calmly whispered in his ear, “Why are you hiding?”

Again they talked and everything she said spoke directly to his heart. “How dare she!!!” Ch’amak thought, “she should realize how vile I am.” Ch’amak flew to a branch on another tree in an attempt to hide like a coward behind a few leaves. In his pain, he felt bitterly cold and he shivered as he hid. Fuga flew to that branch and perched herself next to him. She folded her warm wing around him, “Why are you hiding?” she patiently asked.

Ch’amak continued to do this silly and unnecessary thing of talking to the beautiful and gracious Fuga, and every time she made him feel the slightest bit beautiful and even wonderful, Ch’amak would find a way to run away and hide, but she’d come along beside him to ask him, “Why are you hiding?”

Once she must have sensed the pain in his eyes and she asked him why he had to always work so hard to find the bad in something so beautiful? "I’ve heard about you’re destiny, don’t you know you are the most beatifullest and the most wonderfullest Macaw? Fulfill your destiny Ch’amak!”

No one had ever been able to talk to him in the way she did. He wondered how she could talk to him in a way that was so tender and calming. Her words would always reach through his broiling turmoil to leave him at ease and with enough peace to consider thinking rationally about everything that didn’t make sense to him. What was it she said? “Why do I work so h-a-r-d to find something bad in something so beautiful?” “Wait a minute”, he thought to himself, “I remember when Adeline would have me over for diner, did she really enjoy me? Did she really enjoy my company? Did she think I was beautiful? And I remember all the good times Marvin and I had together before we lost track of each other. All the jokes, the laughs, the spiritual arguments we would engaged in, did Marvin see my beauty? After he had moved away, did I let Marvin down by not sharing with him the gift of my being the most beautifullest and most wonderfullest Macaw? Fuga wanted me to see that I work very, very hard to exchange all this beauty with all the ugly non-beauty I willfully choose to find! It all makes sense to me now!”

Ch’amak internalized these thoughts, but the very next time he talked to Fuga and the moment she made him feel beautiful and wonderful, he flew away to hide. Once more Olena patiently flew next to him, but this time she said to him, “What do I have to do to get this through your thick skull, you’re beautiful Ch’amak, I told you a billion times not to fly away and take your beauty with you!” Finally, Olena’s truth reached Ch’amak and he broke down and cried a tear for every time Olena asked him why he hid.

Some time has passed, Ch’amak had changed. He never hid his destiny from anyone ever again. The prophecy was true. If Frank were still alive, he wouldn’t have to get close enough with Ch’amak to brush feathers, one look and Frank would see the story Kan had recited to him years ago was true, Ch’amak is most definitely the most beautifullestand most wonferfullest Macaw around!