The Egg, the Dove, the Golden Dress and the Magic Key

The Queen of Bohemia delights in the garden eternal in her Little Piece of Paradise. She sits among the banana trees with her trusty animals and all the little children listen to her tell lots of stories.

She even tells them the story that happened long ago of a little peasant girl who once upon a time became a Queen. But this Queen had a hard time living in her desert kingdom. War, death and destruction had destroyed her home. Terrible demons tormented her and badly wounded her. And the biggest wound was a hole in her heart.

So she sojourned to the land to the south. A long journey that first brought her down, down to the great city near the bottom of the earth and then back up to an island near the middle of it. To her Kingdom by the Sea and the garden. There the gardener fed her fantastic feasts of the finest plants from the garden, and flowers brought her to a magic place of the other world. From out of her dreams in this other world appeared entire new worlds, because every day the Queen sat peace in the garden, quietly fishing by a well.

Until one day she fell asleep and she fell into the well. Deep down she fell. The well swallowed her up into the darkness, the terrible darkness, and she felt the terrible fear overwhelm her as she could barely see the light above her.  She worried what was awaiting her in the darkness. What beast would leap out at her? She had battled so many demons in that old kingdom, could she find the strength for yet one more battle here? She breathed in and out. She felt her feet touching the earth at the bottom of the well. Her body and mind were posed and focused for battle. Her hands reached out in the darkness. Within that darkness appeared an egg. The first thing that arose from the egg was a golden dress that radiated like the sun. The next thing to come out of the egg was a white dove, fluttering toward the light, and the third thing was a tiny, magic, golden key. The Queen put on the golden dress, the dove alighted on her left shoulder, and The Queen's hands held the key close to her heart. It fit perfectly the hole in her heart. A golden, peaceful light permeated her being. All is well. All is eternal. Water began to flow into the well, rising up until it reached the top, overflowing, delivering the Queen back to the surface once again.

All the trees and flowers in the garden started blooming.  The Queen started blooming too, like a hibiscus blooming the world into creation. The Queen bloomed into creation and eventually she expanded so much that she left for the stars, because she discovered that amidst all that creation, she was there at the center all the time. She was the jewel in the lotus. A bright star in the night sky.

She's up there now today, and is also now a book on a shelf. Her story. The story is still told to little children as the Queen lives on with them in the Little Lotus so they can all find their way to the stars one day, too.