In a land that is both far away and near at hand, there lived a man called Narcissus. All the nymphs in that place fell in love with him, but he could not respond to their love for him, for he had a secret.
There was one beautiful nymph who refused to be repulsed by rejection by the beautiful young man, for she was very strong and determined. She loved Narcissus, and yearned for him to accept her love. She insisted day after day that he respond to her, yet with every approach she made the rejection grew stronger. She did not understand. She knew nothing of his secret, for it was hidden, even from himself.
In his deepest self he was asleep and dreaming but he supposed himself awake. For him the Dream was reality, and the unreality of the Dream remained secret from him. In the Dream he had long been abandoned by the one he loved. In the Dream there was a terrible, painful abandonment that he believed was eternal and must be endured.
To stay asleep he must always be alone and unloved, so he rejected Echo and all the friends who loved him and yearned only for his lost love. In time the pain grew too much for Echo to bear, so she decided for her own sake that the only way out of the pain was to finally recognise that Narcissus was not for her.
So, letting go at last of the love of her life, she became a faint echo of what had once been. Yet so strong was her love that the echo of her voice never truly faded. Echo had no longer a voice of her own but could give back the words of others.
As Narcissus grew to manhood his despair increased. He had been been born alone and that was all he knew. But the passing of time made his loneliness harder and harder to bear.
His dream was a search for his lost beloved. He dared not awaken to the fact that he had lost him already. He remained asleep, dreaming and alone. His friends drifted away, rejected and hurt.
One day he sat by a lake and saw himself reflected in the still waters. At that moment his Dream became reality. There at last was the one he craved, someone just like him, who moved as he moved and smiled as he smiled. Here at last was the eternal friend who would never betray, who would always be there, who would never leave him alone again. Day after day he gazed into the lake at his own reflection, but he began to fade away and would soon die.
Meanwhile Echo looked upon him lovingly and despairingly, knowing that the obsession with his own image was killing him. For his sake, she decided to challenge him, but she had no voice. With his death she too felt she would die.
Then she began to fight for her life. She summoned rain to help her. Great showers of rain fell upon the lake and disturbed the image. Narcissis stared and stared, and was afraid that the image , the love of his life, was gone. He became filled with grief and rage that the rain had broken the surface of the lake. The drips of rainwater from his hair fell into the water along with his tears of grief. He gazed longingly at the water, and his tears fell ceaselessly. He was cold, wet and pale with mourning.
The sight of such grief and pain in the one she loved was too much for Echo. She turned to the sun drive away the rain, to warm him and dry his tears. The reflected image cleared once more. Narcissus basked again in the vision of the one he loved more than anyone in the world.
Echo dared to come closer and closer. She stayed very close to Narcissus as he stared for hour after hour. She thought that if she remained there, constant by his side, he would one day see her reflection in the lake beside his..
Then at last he did. He was puzzed, and then angry: “Get out of the way of my love!” he cried.
“.. my love,” she echoed.
“What are you doing, always here?” he snapped.
“... always here,” she echoed.
Then Echo had another idea. She beckoned to everyone she could find and indicated that they too could look into the lake and their reflections could also be there. The ones who had been rejected by Narcissus refused to come, but there was one who decided to try to help him to awaken - it was Eros.
Eros came and stood by Narcissus. His reflection appeared in the lake and Narcissus saw him also. Eros found his own reflection in the water. He gave it a different name. He called it Anteros.
“Anteros!’ he cried, “ You must must love me! Narcissus is dying because his reflection does not love him.”
Now Eros had great power, and that power was love. His power drew a deep lovingness from the image that he had called Anteros. Narcissus watched in awe., but he was proud and hurt.
“Get out of the way of my love!” cried Narcissus. “My love is my life and my power - if he does not love me then I do not wish to be alive. I don’t care if I die. This is everything to me: my life, my wholeness. If it means death, then so be it.”
Then, conjured into life by love, Anteros emerged from the waters. He looked upon Narcissus with great love and kindness, and he called upon the sun. The heat increased and the lake gradually dried up. The reflection was gone at last. At the bottom of the lake an old wooden box was gradually revealed. Anteros reached down and handed it to Narcissus, who cast the box aside, indifferent. He lay down to die of grief, for his only love had been taken from him. He closed his eyes. He refused to see the crowd of people who loved him, and who were now in great pain: Eros had failed, and Narcissus would soon die!
But Anteros now began a singing a song of hope that went on and on: a song about the old wooden box. It was a plea and an invitation to open it and see what lay inside. But Narcissus would not open the box. He hung on to the Dream of being lost, abandoned and alone.
Then he began to notice the others who had come into the Dream and the loneliness in the Dream no longer seemed so complete. The beauty of the song of hope and the challenge to open the box grew so loud that he was unable to stay asleep.
He lifted the lid of the box, and. a whole new world, a real world of awakening, opened up to him. In that moment he knew that the world is filled with love.
At once, his heart opened and the love gradually poured in like water into a desert. His whole being grew more full of life and light and warmth every minute. The Dream of Abandonment faded gently into insignficance; the life energy that had been locked inside the box grew in him and he knew at last that he was whole and entire.
Turning his back on the empty lake, he took the hands of his friends. Then he saw Echo again. Suddenly the love between them could flow and her beautiful voice returned.
"Welcome to the World, Narcissus!" she cried.
|
