The Circle

Once upon a time there breathed a Cloud of Spherical Endlessness. The Cloud was at once Breath and Breathing and the Breathed-Breath-Forms created within that formless Spherical Endlessness. The Endlessness of the Sphere longed to understand the Sphere-ity of the Endlessness more intimately, more fully, more knowingly:  for though they were One in their Oneness, the Sphere wanted to know Endlessness and the Endlessness wanted to know Sphere-ity. Breathing in Breathless Bliss, the androgyny of the Spherical Endlessness heightened in desirous knowledge of their deeper intimate selves: for what was the 'Endlessness' and of what was the 'Sphere'?  The Cloud of Spherical Endlessness breathed, nay groaned, in birthing a cloudlike Breath-Form of Love, a Baby Circle. Thus, Baby Circle was no ordinary Circle for she was a Sphere, born of the Royal Lineage of the Cloud of Spherical Endlessness - Baby Circle was the most Royal and Perfect of Circles.

 Circle enjoyed being a circle for she enjoyed Privilege in her Parents' Kingdom of the Land of Shapes. Circle was able to move around the Lands with ease and visit the most far away places which other shapes could not reach. Circle felt sorry for the Square for he never moved. Even if one day Square became a Cube, he would always have to sit in the same old place until someone would push him over on one side - but even then he wouldn't move very far. Square was slow and Circle wanted to move around quickly for there was so much to see in the Land of Shapes.  Circle decided to visit the neighbouring Kingdom of Triangles for they were always in competition with the Kingdom of Circles for supremacy of shape. Every four years, there would be a competition in the Land of Shapes for 'Best Shape' and there was always a fierce battle between the two Kingdoms of Circles and Triangles. Finally, having circled the Lands with her faithful 'hoop', Circle finally reached her destination. Circle felt confident entering the Kingdom of Triangles for she was sure of her qualities as a Circle, particularly because she was a Royal Sphere! Circle had graduated from the Royal College of Spherical Studies and had learned everything there was to learn about Circles and Spheres!

Circle looked around and saw that all the buildings were triangles, including the largest building of all, the Triangular Palace. So, having finally done all the rounds, Circle approached the Palace and was introduced to the Court of King Isosceles who was heralded the most fair and equal of Triangular Kings and she displayed her talents as Sphere to both King and Court. She rolled around and around and impressed the King with her ability to move in a quick and agile manner. King Isosceles was also enchanted by her Beauty and he commissioned a beautiful domed roof to be built on his Triangular Palace in honour of her. Circle stared at the domed Palace roof which had been modelled on her and saw that her nature was curved and round.  Whilst Circle enjoyed the attention of King Isosceles because he appreciated her qualities of Beauty, Quick Agility and Curiosity to see for herself the Land of Shapes, Circle began to tire of being the only Circle and felt pangs for her home in the Royal Palace of Spheres in her home county of the Kingdom of Circles. Circle had enjoyed her time in the Kingdom of Triangles for she had learned about the cultural rite of passage of its people from Triangle to Pyramid. Circle liked the Pyramid for the Pyramid was indeed a most Royal shape - but not, Circle said to herself, as Royal as the Sphere because Triangles could not become Pyramids without the help of a Square - and Squares were the most dull of Shapes! But secretly, Circle began to envy the Triangles for they did not seem to mind that they had to enlist the help of the Squares in order to become a Pyramid. Circle could not understand this, for surely it was better to be able to transform oneself from Circle to Sphere all by oneself!

Then one day, as Circle was performing a perfect figure of eight for the King, a bright young courtier in the Court of King Isosceles asked permission of the King to perform his new choreographed 'Dance of the Triangles'. King Isosceles was delighted for the Triangles were not known in the Land of Shapes for performing well in dance and he bid the dancer continue. The triangles danced in pairs, moving gracefully from side to side, before finally ending with a Star formation of Triangles. King Isosceles was delighted for the Star was beautiful and finally King Isosceles felt he had seen the real potential of his people. Circle began to feel very envious of the Star for up until now, she had been the most beautiful and prized of all the shapes in the Court of King Isosceles but Star had now taken her place.  Circle was very upset for she had now lived for so long in the Kingdom of Triangles that she had become dependent upon the praise of the King for her own happiness. Without him to tell her of her Beauty, how might she know it for herself?  Circle decided to leave the Kingdom of Triangles and go in search of another Kingdom which might appreciate her Beauty once more.

Circle left the Triangular Palace gates and rolled her way along the road but the road became more and more dusty and the stones along the way began to batter her perfect circumference. As time went by, Circle began to lose sense of her own Beauty for she no longer had the King and Courtiers to praise her for her beautiful shape. And, as the stones on the road battered her perfect circumference, Circle began to doubt that she was beautiful at all.  Circle began to tire and thirst for water. She came across a large ravine that rushed by her with a constant roar. The River was rushing by so fast that Circle felt afraid. Circle had not seen a river before and did not know that there were such fast things in the World. Circle felt that her own speed was very slow in comparison.  Circle looked over the ravine to the river and was so mesmerised by the rushing water that she lost her balance and fell tumbling down the sides of the ravine towards the river. Circle couldn't stop. She was falling and falling, gathering more and more speed as she hurtled towards the river and, for the first time, Circle realised the disadvantage of being a Circle for she had no sides that could help her to stop and to prevent her from falling into the river. In that moment, Circle longed to be a Square, for Square would be able to stop on one of his big strong sides and protect himself from falling.

But Circle was not a Square. Circle was a Circle and she continued to fall, landing in the river which carried her along at its great speed. Circle was afraid but at least, she said to herself, she had not drowned because, thankfully, she was a Royal Sphere and was floating on top of the river! Gradually, Circle began to enjoy her journey along the river. She had a great view of life along the river banks and was beginning to relish being carried along by the river and be able to see such sights without having to make any effort on her part at all. Just as Circle was beginning to feel comfortable, the River began to feel agitated and Circle began to be buffeted about. The River was moving faster and faster and Circle was tossed around in all of the rapids, hitting rocks and further denting her sides. Circle looked up and saw that the River ended. Circle panicked and tried to swim with all her might up stream, clinging onto a tender river reed. But the force was too great and the river reed could not keep itself rooted to help Circle. Spinning, wheeling  and turning in eddies, Circle had no choice but to allow herself to be taken along the flow in the final stretch of the River and to accept her fate...

The end of the river was approaching. Circle closed her eyes and suddenly felt weightless. 'I'm flying', Circle thought to herself. She opened her eyes to see herself flying but to her horror she was not flying at all, just falling further and further, faster and faster. She had fallen over a Waterfall and there were a lot of jutting rocks below...............................SPLAT! Circle fell squashed on the rocks.

Circle  was winded as she had taken a big blow. She lay there for a while wondering how long she might have to stay there all alone. She felt the breeze over her battered body, slowly drying her out. And when she felt able, she crawled her way onto the river bank. But a thorn bush caught her and punctured her on her side and Circle cried out in despair as the remaining air inside her leaked out. Circle had no more energy left after that final puncture and she finally collapsed on the stoney river bank.  As she lay on a rock under the thorn bush, Circle began to drift into dream-consciousness and she dreamed many dreams of Circles and Spheres, Squares and Cubes, Triangles and Pyramids and Stars and she longed to return to the Land of Shapes and to build a building in honour of All Shapes. It would have a Square base with a Cubic body and a domed roof like the one built in her honour by King Isosceles and Triangular towers on each of the four corners of the building with a Beautiful Star crowning the top of the Dome. Circle felt happy.  But the dream-building began to fade and even though Circle tried to hold onto it with all her might, she realised that she had just been dreaming. The dream-building became replaced by the river bank once more and Circle sat on the bank, dressing her wounds. Circle heard some strange and unfamiliar sounds in the distance...

"Look, Nicholas, Look", said Ruby. "A Ball - I can see a Ball".

"Where?", said Nicholas. "Look, over there - under that thorn bush".

"Let's go and get it", said Nicholas. "I'll race you..."

Ruby and Nicholas raced over to the Thorn Bush where Circle was taking shelter. Nicholas reached up because he was taller than Ruby and took the ball down. "Oh, it's a bit battered", he said, handing it to Ruby. Ruby cupped it in her hands and looked at it.

"A Beautiful Red Ball", she said. "It matches my ringlets". And as she cupped the Beautiful Red Ball in her hands and pressed it to her chest with pride in her find, Circle felt the warmth of Ruby's hands all over the circumference of her body. The warmth permeated every inch of her circumference and Circle was absorbed in a completely new experience of herself. Circle had never been held in this way before and had never felt all the sides of herself at once; Cloud-like, Spherical Endlessness.

 "O", Circle said to herself, "This is what it feels like to be Round - Now, I know".

Circle looked down at her wounds and, as Ruby skipped along the River Bank holding her Beautiful Red Ball tightly in her hands, Circle knew that it no longer mattered that she had been battered and punctured along the way because Ruby loved her, just the way she found her.  Circle had no more questions. She knew she had returned home to the Palace of Spheres in the Kingdom of Circles. By journeying through the Land of Shapes within herself, Circle knew that she was now forever at home in the Spherical Endlessness of the temporary sphere-like form of her bodily Red Ball, cupped and warmed by the Presence of Ruby's Joy and Delight. At once, the Cloud of Spherical Endlessness within Circle smiled: Sphere-and-Endlessness finally knew each other more fully, more deeply, as if for the first time, as the very Heart of Cloudnessness.  Relaxing, smiling, breathing as One, knowing each more clearly through the agonising journey's tearing stretch of the Royal Birth of their precious longed-for Baby Circle who had grown up and journeyed for them down that very gritty, earthy road, all the way to the Rock whereupon Circle was finally lifted up in Ruby's cupped hands and found. The Cloud of Spherical Endlessness enfolded Baby Circle in their entwined arms, encircling her into the disappearing spiralling contours of One's revolving, devolving, evolving, twirling, swirling, whirling Circle-Dance of Love - a Spiral of Rose-Gold Hearts, Spiralling, Inspiring, Expiring, ever Aspiring...

– Rev. Jenny Miller