For as long as I can remember, I have been holding an intimate conversation with an unknown, and perhaps non-existent, woman who haunts my thoughts. She exists partly in my imagination but is no less real for that. Her name, her description and her actions are scattered throughout the pages of my dream books, her footsteps imprinted on the Book of my Life.



It is not her beauty that has drawn me over the decades, nor any talent, (for she has none of these). It is her mere presence: so numinous that no sacrifice would be too great to win her attention.

She has always been there somewhere in the background, this woman whom I talk to in my head (at least for as long as I can remember). But I have not always recognized her. She is elusive and changeable. I have mistaken her often for others. I thought I caught glimpses of her in the faces of my mother, my sisters and the women in my life whom I loved and adored. Trusting in Her reality, I waited and prepared myself for her, certain she would reveal herself in the flesh (so many years I wasted waiting). When I met my wife I "knew" beyond all doubt she had finally arrived! I had found my pearl of great price. But the face soon faded away.

Today, I am still talking to her in my head, this woman who is closer to me than any other, relating to her every detail of my day, arguing semantics with her, pointing out a sunset. She is still here. And she is calling to me as she once did, drawing me out of my complacency, out of my shallow and incomplete understanding into those deeper levels of intimacy beyond spousal or blood relationships.

I will go wherever she leads me, of course, (how could I refuse a vocation from Beyond?). But this time I will not be deceived. In whatever form she comes, in whatever guise, with whatever face, I will know her for herself (for the hallowed presence that she is). She cannot fool me again. Because now I have recognized her within my own self, there is no longer any possibility of deception.