It is said and we have been told that life is an illusion. It has been said and we have been told that we all wear masks. It has been said and we have been told that there is life and death, good and evil, right and wrong.

It has been said that to find truth one must look within.

As i live out the days of my life, I do not find that Truth is something which needs to be discovered. Truth was always there. To some truth needs to be Uncovered to be known.

Perhaps Truth only needs to be accepted?

I ask myself what masks I have worn that was not of my own choosing? WHat illusion did I project that was not of my own making? What belief have I held onto that I did not agree with at some point? What faith did I embrace as an adult, prolonging the system of belief even knowing I did not want to believe what I had accepted?

And why is this?

Why in the face of my own truth would I rather choose to wear the mask of an untruth, or buy the idea of an illusion, or believe that everything came from nothing, is going nowhere and will end with nothing? Why would I choose a purposeless existence over the qualities of what I know inside myself to be real?

Was it to learn? And if so… to learn what? If in me I have always known about…. me…. then what was there for me to learn?

We seek such beautiful knowledge. We seek such beautiful stories. We seek such beautiful ideas and concepts to explain our very lives to our very selves.

So now in me the masks come off, the illusions come off, the stories come off, the concepts come off, the ideas are no longer relevant.

I will not debate that truth is universal. For truly I have seen and witnessed the sons of man living in different realities and different truths. Some could not live with certain facts, while others cannot live without those very same facts. In stark contrast these are true for the lives of these individuals. Glaring contradiction has proved both real to me. And it is not by the eyes that I judge, for they are projectors, nor the ears, for they can be clogged, nor is it by a feeling that I have witnessed, for feelings can be manufactured. Even a heart can become mislead and fooled for a time. It may never be accepted, but I have known of two bi-polar truths. Neither of them untrue.

So there is my own truth, which matters only to me. And it is my own truth that I have waited to choose. Because again as an adult, i knew what I knew about me… and it never changed.

What then is my own reality?

My own reality has been very simple, and it has existed all the days of my life. It cannot even be honestly said that my truth is what I desire.. for in desire I would have to believe the truth was not there for a time.

But my own truth has always been there.

Without an ounce of false idealism, my truth is to share the wholeness of my life with One. In all of my days I have known this One. Being male, and being a heterosexual, the one my life has known is a woman. She has been before me in all things, and has been a part of my life long before we met here on earth. There is no illusion to this fact. There is no mask to this consciousness. It is just a plain and simple truth. I always knew that to meet her would bring about the great reality. I always knew that to speak to her would alter the course of everything in both our lives. I always knew that to touch her would open up the great realities.

And all of this has been so.

And all of it is so because of the truths found in her and in me.

And as we come together, we ask ourselves silly little questions. We wonder why we took so long? We wonder why we moved so slow? We wonder why we spent so much time with the wrong people? We wonder why we lived so many lives wearing so many masks even when we knew in our hearts the truth? We wonder why we allowed corruption and lies in ourselves that kept us from each other? We wonder.

Even though we ask these things, we already know the answer.

It is as plain as the nose of my face. All my days and nights before, were for her benefit, not mine. And all her days and nights before, were for my benefit, and not hers. What she is missing, is found in me, and what I am missing is found in her. Her life’s experience has been for me, and my life’s experience has been for her. Her sacrifices have been for me, and my own have been for her. My questions are answered in her, and her questions are answered in me. Those things we don’t know, the other knows concerning our life.

In us there is fullness and a perfect circle. Though our intentions were to seek something from our lives for ourselves, it has been the other who does need that which we thought was for us. It is not that I lived something so she does not have to, it is that I lived something so that she has also lived it. Our state of being One has always been so, even when we thought we were miles apart. Even when we thought we would never find one another, our being of One was, and is, and always will be.

My life has given me strength and courage and much more then can be calculated. And ALL of these are what give unto her. Her life has given her humility and Love and much more then can be counted, and ALL of these things she gives unto me.

She has felt brutality, and I return tenderness. I have felt isolation and she returns Unity. All of our experiences are washed clean by the other, and all of them are shared by the other. By giving to the other that which we sought for ourselves, we receive that we which sought.

My intention, and all the choices of my life were an effort to find her. It is there in my life I do find her.

Regardless of my masks, regardless of my intentions, regardless of Illusions or ideas or concepts…. Regardless of everything i once thought i believed….

Our truth was always in both of us.

I love you Colleen… Because we always have loved Us.

Ryan o0o

(artwork “Masks” created by Colleen Ranney)