The Fable of The Beangstieg

"If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. ... New is life." ~ Ann Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

The cave, with its muted darkness dimly lit in the daytime by sunlight bounding through its narrow opening and small cracks in the rock face, and by night, with oil lamps he found upon his arrival and the illuminating moonlight gently blanketing the cave's interior with its ever-searching moonbeams became the perfect safe haven for the man. He had travelled so far in not a small amount of time. His journey had taken him from the abyss.  The life changing, life-saving passage had given him so much, had given him his life back, yet had taken so much out of him.

It was a courageous, exhausting, long, strange trip. He was tired, and frightened.

The Beangstieg, his nemesis, was still out there - he knew it. He had defeated the Beangstieg but not vanquished the beast.

"I will stay here, for a while," he thought. "I must. I must wait out the Beangstieg."

The Beangstieg was a fearsome beast with its vile anger and hypnotic spell it had cast on him and all who dared to engage the monster in battle. Fighting and at the same time for some reason embracing it had overtaken his life. Somehow the Beangstieg became his focus, a dance that had consumed him and led him away from his family, friends and his future.

Of course he had to flee his former life. Otherwise the Beangstieg might sink its teeth into those the man held dear.

What he did not notice, or, what he didn't wish to know, is the creature had for a time laid waste to his family and threatened the very fabric of the community of which he had been a part. He had noticed his loved ones had seemed to overcome the Beangstieg, had somehow prevailed and moved on. He had not.

What he had come to realize is the Beangstieg is a being borne of the self loathing and insecurities of its victims, feeding on a diet of those victims' despair, fear and attempts to defeat and vanquish the beast.

"The Beangstieg," he thought as he sat alone in his cave, "might be invulnerable," acknowledging his own self doubt.

Outside the cave, the Beangstieg was waiting, feeding on these thoughts. The monster was growing stronger and unknown to the man was still the overwhelming force in his life. The Beangstieg WAS his life.

The man had seen the fate that awaited others who had ventured out of their protected zones alone. Eventually the Beangstieg would prevail in a final and gruesome battle matching its superior physical and psychological combat skills to the fading and fruitless efforts of friends who naively thought they were a match for it. In the final battle the Beangstieg would enlist allies familiar to the present foe - friends and family appearing to assist would only get in the way, and weapons formerly effective against the creature would vanish into dust.

So the man would stay in the cave, "for a while," he thought.

He soon noticed his thoughts drifting into recollections of the abyss he had fled which now seemed, incredibly, to be encroaching into the space he had chosen, the safe, secluded spot away from the teeth, claws and appetite of the Beangstieg. It became evident, at least to the man, the monster was somehow reaching through the rock as if to say, "if you do not come to meet me, to face your fate, I have other ways to defeat you. I will devour you in your nothingness."

"Am I losing my mind?" the man wondered.

And he was running out of the precious lamp oil, and food.

The man began to ask himself what would be the worst that could happen if he ventured out to recapture the remainder of a life that seemed a lifetime away. He could die, certainly, at the hands of a foe he had once evaded and nearly defeated. At the very least he might plummet again into the abyss the Beangstieg wished for him, caught in an everlasting web of self loathing, where the creature would slowly drain the life from every fiber of his body and soul.

It was then he began to hear the other voice. This was a kind, gentle voice emanating from the cave's entrance. He turned to face this voice and saw an ethereal being, exquisite in its translucent radiance.

"Are you an angel?" he heard himself ask the being.

"I am what you need me to be if you have the courage to accept me as a gift from The Universe. I am now, yet have been in your past and am in your forever. I am but a guide to a future of your own creation if you are only willing to dream, want, seek and see more than what you have now," said the light.

"What do I need to do," he finally said after what seemed hours.

"Write down where you see yourself in your most cherished future," was the reply.

"But I have no pen or paper."

"Write it on the wall. Use the rock of your cave as your pen, the walls of your cave as your medium. Make it real. Make it permanent. Your heart and soul shall lead you along this path."

As he finished the laborious task of carving his dreams for a future he had never before dared to imagine and how he might get there, stone to stone on the far side of the cave, similar carvings appeared covering the eastern portion of the cave in which he had spent hiding. There they were, carved in countless languages, the hopes and yearnings of what seemed to be hundreds who had come before him in that little space.

He asked the light, "Were all these people fleeing the Beangstieg like me?"

He turned around. The angel was gone.

The man looked around, smiled and felt a teardrop trickle down his cheek landing precariously on the corner of his mouth. He knew what he had to do. He had to leave that cave. He now had dreams. He now had somewhere he knew he needed to be and it was no longer THAT CAVE. He had a life to live.

"But what about the beast?" he thought. He reached for his sword which had served him well, but not well enough, in his battles against the Beangstieg. He grasped the hilt and once again experienced the deadly power of the long leveraged blade in his hand and how savagely lethal it felt. He had been a warrior against a deadly foe for so long, battling bravely against certain death. He had prevailed for a time where others had failed.

He placed the sword against the stone wall beneath the carving he had just completed and proceeded to the cave's entrance. He knew he had to devise a new battle plan.

The man exited the cave. As he had expected, there IT was, the beast, the Beangstieg, waiting, its claws deployed, its fangs dripping with anticipation of its next feast. The man could feel the roar of the beast and smelled its putrid breath as he passed closely by. To the man, the Beangstieg was no longer an obstacle. It was now a gatekeeper to his most cherished future. 

There he stood, within a sword's length of the monster and awaited his fate, his transcendence to a life he had never imagined before the angel appeared.

"Hold fast," a voice within him whispered.

It was the angel.

The Beangstieg in its battle stance saw the man had no weapon. It became perplexed, then enraged at the audacity of this puny being thinking it had any power to withstand the inevitable mortal blow. The beast propelled its claws toward the man's jugular. This would be a simple nick to the artery to begin a slow, weakening flow of blood, bringing its victim to his knees once again before its master.

"This human needs to be taught a lesson," reasoned the Beangstieg.

The claws met their target and the monster felt the brutally satisfying blades-through-butter sensation it always felt when bringing down its victims. It waited to watch for the inevitable buckling of the knees, the look of despairing horror of another brought back under its control.

The man stood, unflinching.

The beast swung again, and again to no effect. Feeling only wisps of putrid air passing across his face the man had no response to the attacks, there was no need. He would no longer be a pawn to the wishes and pull of the beast's enticements. He would no longer feed the Beangstieg's insatiable appetite for other's lives, at least not his own. Slowly the monster tired, and became weak with exhaustion. It's knees buckled, a look of perplexed horror crossed its visage.

The man watched as the beast began to transform into nothingness. At this transformation a black putridity left his body, causing him to lurch. The man fell to one knee, his right-hand fist on the ground, eye level to the dying evil being.

"I am done with you," shouted the man with a strength he had not felt in years.

The monster breathed its last.

The Beangstieg, defeated and vanquished, disappeared, leaving only a small dark remnant on the ground before the man.

"I did it," thought the human, who felt a strength return to his body he had not felt in years. He turned to look toward an unknown but exciting future, an adventure he knew would be both exhilarating and sometimes terrifying. In the far distance he saw what he thought at first was a hallucination. As he walked toward the vision he realized what he was seeing.

"It's the hundreds!" he cried out loud in his amazement.

And leading them was the Angel.

At the feet of the angel were three gifts from those who had gone before: a compass, a walking stick, and, his sword.

As he held the last gift he looked at the angel curiously.

"To make your way through the thick brush and hedgerow should you become lost," the being said with a gentle smile.

The man turned and made his way through the hundreds who began to slowly vanish as they seemed at the same time to follow him. He was heartened to see his family and friends among the multitude, smiling, encouraging.

This would be his journey to embrace but at that moment he realized he would never be alone. As he looked back at the cave, his heart leapt with excitement and a strange sense of melancholy. Returning his gaze to the opposite direction toward which the angel, the hundreds and his family and friends had escorted him, the man took a quick glance at the compass.

"That way," he said.

And so it begins.

. . . keep coming back

"My will for you is not harsh or unpleasant. It is gentle and perfectly tailored to your unique needs. Do  not fear my direction. I am your heart's happiest guide." ~ Julia Cameron, Answered Prayers: Love Letters from the Divine