The Naked Path

The Naked Path

The Naked Path

Written By: C. Michelle Gonzalez

Cover Image By: Delphine Devos

(Under Creative Commons License)

Published By:

The Naked Path

www.NPrEvolution.com

Copyright 2015 by C. Michelle Gonzalez

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

The Naked Path

www.NPrEvolution.com

This work is Fantasy Fiction

Based on a True Story of the Author’s own personal battles, dreams, and visions.

I will leave it to you to decipher the realities from the dreams!

Table of Contents

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1: The Donning of the Masks

Chapter 2: The Dragon Awakens

Chapter 3: The Gate

Chapter 4: Rounding the First Bend

Chapter 5: The Song of Soul

Chapter 6: Lotus Blooming

Chapter 7: A Bright New World

Continue the Journey

About the Author

Connect with Me

Sample Reading

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may.

We ourselves must walk the path.

Buddha

Can you tell reality from imagination? Dreams from visions?

The Naked Path follows the author's personal journey of transformation. Walk with her as she battles demons of the underworld and learns to navigate her way through her waking world, taking on many forms, though none are her own.

Is she brave enough to walk this path alone, to save not only her world from total destruction, but also her very soul? Is she strong enough to silence the demons that screech out to her every night?

As her world comes crumbling down around her, there is only one path to freedom. A path shrouded in mystery. Only the brave who can hear the call can unravel the mystical and magical wisdom of The Naked Path.

Chapter One

The Donning of the Masks

I was born on this path, naked, in the dead of winter precisely two days before Christmas. My mother had always joked that coming in to this world was the only thing I had ever done quickly as I was not due to arrive until sometime in January. I was always a slow moving child, moving with purpose rather than in a hurry. I ate slowly. I was slow to anger, slow to ask for anything, and slow to become comfortable enough to speak to others, even family that I knew well.

In the beginning, I was quite literal. I had no concept of sarcasm, jokes, insinuations, or half-truths. In my little world, everything was or wasn’t. You either loved me or hated me. Things you said to me were either truth or lies. Black and white. A perfect balance of Yin and Yang, easy to navigate.

At first, I walked this earth in quiet contemplation, soaking in the ways of this world, learning my way around. I played with Angels and Demons alike. The denizens of the earth took my hand and led me to the solace refuge of nature to escape a hell of abuse and pain.

Soon, the demons of the day infiltrated my nights and sought to devour my soul. Yet, in these times, both day and night, I stood outside myself, watching the fires burn around me. I sat and watched with little emotion, studying the events in pure light. Everything simply was or wasn’t. There was no good or bad, simply light and dark. I could walk through each grim scene in calm serenity it seemed, and with a wave of my tiny hands, brush the dark away.

The constant battle began to wear on me, as sleep became a distant memory. Nightly trips to the underworld where larger and scarier demons lay waiting began to crack the crystal surrounding me under pressure. The mornings brought fights for survival. Somewhere in the midst of all the storms that raged around me, I was forced to understand that here, in this world, not everything was black and white. I could not understand how a friend could mock and ridicule how love could bring violence. I was wounded, my wings were broken, my crystal shattered.

Weaved within this pain, I decided to test theories and work to understand this world. I was consciously aware of others behavior, analyzing, and performing case studies on why people did the things they did. I soaked up information and drank its sweetness, then tested theories for myself. If this does this, then will doing this create the same effect? Oh yes, I became quite the inquisitive one for some of my favorite teachers. Always asking, What are you doing? Why do you have to do that? What does it do? How does it do it?

I used to dream that my grandmothers were what you would call witches. When I was small, these dreams terrified me to the point where I was scared to visit. The Wizard of Oz and bedtime stories of Hansel and Gretel had poisoned my view of the Wise Ones. Indeed, I gained much wisdom from my time with them. Overseers of our earth. While one grandmother gave me the gift of poetry, the other gave me the gift of the world.

She advocated for my slow pace, for patience was her virtue. She taught me much about the love of a single flower, embodying the spirit Osho as she lovingly reminded me, If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.

She taught me to care for the tiny creatures as I followed along behind her in the garden where she worked, teaching me how to build tiny homes for our frog friends. I wonder, as I write this now, if grandmother knew that frogs were a sign of rain, therefore, building those homes, would encourage them to bring the rains to her garden.

Grandmother taught me the spirit of energy as she warned, Do you see this plugin outlet? Don’t ever put your fingers in there. It will give you a shock as the currents run through your body. Your hair will stand on its ends.

She taught me biology as she lovingly explained how our bodies process the food we eat. Why it was important to chew our food slowly and drink lots of water. She taught homeopathy and natural cures as she healed many of my internal infections with food.

She taught me the magic of cooking with feeling (and her special ingredient ~ Always cooks from a place of love.) I would watch her stand in the kitchen lovingly preparing a meal. I’d ask, How much of that do you supposed to put in Grandma? She would always reply, "Oh honey. I don’t ever measure anything. Just put until it feels like it’s enough to you." I suppose it’s only fitting. After all, we are what we consume and consuming a meal that’s truly made with heart, with feeling and with love is bound to bring at least a little of those energies into who we are.

She taught me to have respect for all that I do not yet understand. The first microwave oven that I had ever lain eyes on was given as a gift from my grandfather to my grandmother. As she sat it up on the kitchen counter, I was mesmerized. It looked like some futuristic machine, out of this world. Though she warned, Don’t ever play with this. Grandpa paid a lot of money for it and you could easily break it. I nodded with compliance, but curiosity always seems to kill the cat. She sat a cup of coffee inside the machine, pushed a few buttons and it lit up and began twirling like a merry-go-round. It was fascinating! With a loud beep, she opened the door, removed her cup of coffee, and headed off to relax in another room. I couldn’t peel my eyes away. I waited for it to come on again, but impatience overcame me. What exactly had grandmother done again? Was it this button? Or maybe this one! Suddenly, the lights came on again! It was turning. "Oh no! What have I done! Grandmother said I would break