Chapter Twenty Three — Of Vocation
Sister Joseph’s sudden arrival and departure from Soléa left the youngsters insecure and missing home. Despite being given the extraordinary chance to discover everything the universe had to offer, despite the thirst to know that drove them to the other side of the galaxy they felt vulnerable and alone on this strange cold planet, not because they couldn’t handle their tasks, but because they found themselves with no reason for performing them.
It is not that they were constantly told what to do on Terra Two, goodness knows it would have been hard to have a less hands on approach to child rearing than that of their parents’ and the sisters’, after all living in a world without peril does come with wonderful opportunities for self-discovery, but as they grew and experimented with life there was always someone there to give them comfort and advice, someone wiser, who had the answers to their questions, someone who loved them and kept them from harm. Because the sisters didn’t grow old the issue of coming of age never occurred to the children who assumed the former will always be there at their beck and call.
Now they were on their own and when they turned around for solace or confirmation they were met only by the wind. It was unsettling, the constant wind of Soléa, singing and resonating among the rocks, heartless and unrelenting, moving with the natural order of things, of much larger things than themselves.
Their unanticipated vulnerability made them look for safe haven but there was no refuge on the cold blue planet, everything was out in the open and exposed to the winds.
Lily wondered how the sisters had kept their composure when they first arrived on Terra Two and considered the fact that maybe their daily prayer service held a lot more meaning than she thought. Growing up with the sisters she couldn’t miss their faith in God but she always saw deity as an all encompassing entity who was out there and ruled all things, not something that she could interact with or speak to. Come to think of it, Soléa and her perception of God seemed to be fashioned from the same essence: bright, distant, beautiful and silent.
Lily reviewed all the spiritual knowledge she had accumulated in her young life, poring over logical pros and cons, reliving the philosophical society debates, going over whatever she thought she knew about life and meaning, raring to find the solution, the conclusion, the way forward, trying to understand her part in this exceedingly vast and sophisticated machinery of the universe that was unfolding before her eyes and goodness knows how far past the limitations of human gaze. The only feeling she could come up with about the splendid world before her eyes was that of a haunting absence. There was something she missed painfully, something Soléa didn’t have and wouldn’t allow her to have it either, a caring soul.
The winds kept blowing inexorably as if to make her aware how small and lost she was in the larger order of things and she started questioning her cosmic ambitions, her resilience, her drive. She took every opportunity to go back to Terra Two where things were just as she remembered them and spent a lot of time around the sisters who were both pleasantly surprised and slightly perturbed by her constant tagging along, but she couldn’t figure out the secret to their balance. There never seemed to be any need for spiritual counsel in the living paradise that was their home. As soon as she got back to Soléa, though, the ghost of insignificance shadowed her again, woven in the wind.
That’s when Seth arrived unexpectedly to Soléa, all by herself, just to check on the progress of the young team and get an idea of their future plans.
There couldn’t possibly be a more awkward small talk than that between Lily and Seth, who were both direct, self-motivated individuals with a million plans in progress at every moment and for whom idle chatter was a pointless waste of time.
“Welcome to Soléa,” Lily said cheerfully and then couldn’t figure out a single subject of conversation. What was there to talk about? The windy planet was open as the palm of her hand and after you saw one location of it you’ve seen it all.
“I trust you’re well,” Seth helped out uncomfortably. “How is your research going?” she continued. Lily breathed a sigh of relief that she had something practical to talk about and over the next several hours she gave the leader a complete account of their research activities, the feature mapping, the habits of animal life and the very boring climate of Soléa. Seth listened carefully to her report, but listened even more attentively to her thoughts, as they had their bracelets on, trying to figure out ways to ease the burden of the young woman’s existential angst. She felt responsible for not taking more time to deepen the children’s understanding of the unseen waters of the soul and of the loving presence of God. Eventually Lily finished speaking and they walked in silence for a while.
“Your heart is troubled,” the leader spoke in a soothing tone, but her words took the young woman by surprise and made her startle.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Lily brushed her off, “the wind can be disquieting,” she continued. As if to enforce her point the air movements reverberated against the rocks in weird harmonies. It almost sounded like Purple music at times, but Seth didn’t want to point that out to the already distressed Lily who found nothing warm or familiar in the relentless call of the wind.
“How long are you going to be here?” Seth asked in an unquestionable tone.
“I beg your pardon?” Lily blurted, perplexed.
“You don’t belong here, Lily. None of you do. It’s taking a toll on you and distracting you from your purpose. Weren’t you going to travel beyond the edges of the universe?” Seth asked. The stark questioning reinforced the young woman’s feelings of inadequacy and almost brought her to tears. If she couldn’t make it for a couple of years on a reasonably habitable planet how was she going to make it out there? The leader shook her head.
“What is there for you to do here other than allow the wind to drive you mad? Sarah is very worried about you, your parents too, we all are,” she continued gently. “If this were the place for you, you’d be happy and fulfilled, look at sister Joseph, she can barely wait to sneak out and visit.”
Lily thought how at ease sister Joseph looked among the dragons, walking alone for days in the sparsely populated fields open to the winds. What was it that she knew, what kept her soul at peace and drove her spirit every day in this strange land?
“Well,” Seth answered her unasked question, “first of all we’re a religious order,” she continued obviously uncomfortable about revealing her innermost beliefs. She was going to explain that sister Joseph enjoyed any venue that allowed her to be away from people’s ‘useless yakking’ for a while but she changed her mind and continued. “We rely on God’s guidance no matter where we are.”
She would have loved to make Lily understand her words beyond the dry linguistic meaning but knew there was no shortcut for the young woman’s journey and everyone’s soul had to come to peace, balance and wisdom in their own way. “Anyway,” she continued, “you classified every rock, animal and body of water on this planet, unless you want to live an ascetic life in the midst of a natural preserve I suggest you wrap up your research and come home.”
Throughout this soulful talk the dragons followed them humbly and faithfully and without questioning their purpose, always unfailing guardians, closing a protecting circle around them when they sat down and ready to guide them on their path when they got up.
Lily came home as requested but her heart was heavy with what she perceived as the failure of her life plans and with guilt for not being able to love a planet which by any description was one of the most beautiful places in the universe. Just when she thought she had found some peace she would run into Josephine wobbling down the corridors of the Institute like the blue ghost of Soléa and personification of her inadequacy.
“Get over it! Go visit if you’d like, you don’t have to live there!” sister Roberta cut off her mental anguish.
“What if you said the same thing upon coming here, I mightn’t even have been born!” Lily protested, revealing the hurt under her short lived adventure.
“I didn’t have anything to do with you being born,” sister Roberta attempted a little humor to lift the morose youngster from her doldrums. “I love it here, I knew I wanted to be here before we left, that’s why I came. You don’t have to like a place just because you’re capable of traveling there!”
“Purple. Like. Terra. Two. Better.” the immortals added their two bits in an effort to console Lily.
“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” the young woman protested.
“Yes.” Purple giggled. “Purple. Love. All. Places.”
“You heard them!” Lily turned to Roberta, anguished. “How can they love all places and why can’t I? I should be thrilled to discover new worlds, this was supposed to be my vocation!”
“Don’t let them get to you, you know how they like to tease,” sister Roberta quenched the argument. “Listen, while you were away we sent a few probes in various directions and found a couple of planets worth seeing. One of them doesn’t have a breathable atmosphere but it spins a crazy doily pattern around a double star system. Temperatures are tolerable and the skies are amazing, you might want to take a look.”
Lily nursed her wounded self for a while, not wanting to start another venture, and spent a lot more time around the sisters just watching their easy assurance and their contentment with their daily tasks. She followed Sarah around all day and dropped with exhaustion at the end of it wondering how she managed to fit in all her activities and still find time to hush Josephine away from the vegetable patch. She spent a few months in Roberta’s lab learning everything there was to know about the solenoid’s function.
She took some time to study the images the probes brought back and had to admit, even though still raw from her disappointing experience, that the double star system was filled with a beauty and strangeness no human mind could have conceived with its violet, green and blue iridescence that flashed like so many dancing rainbows across the blackness of space. The stars around the tiny planet without air looked huge and blindingly brilliant due to their close proximity and its dark side never got dimmer than a twilight. The other side was stuck in quasi perpetual daytime due to tidal lock; the planet spun several loops around one of the suns, facing it the entire time, then took its leave, did a half twist at the center of gravity and turned to run crazy loops around the second sun for the other half of the journey, dazzling the observer with its beautiful celestial ballet and feeling much more familiar to the Terra Two child than the singular sun of Soléa could ever be.
“I see I’ve piqued your interest,” sister Roberta commented, pleased.
“It’s amazing!” Lily exclaimed, forgetting her philosophical reserve and her recent delving into the meaning of life or lack thereof. “What’s its name?” she asked, excited.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to deprive you of this joy, now, would we?” sister Roberta smiled and left the lab to give Lily time to find the best name for this beautiful and eerie new world.
