The Gathering of Souls: A Dinner Beyond Time

I close my eyes and summon them—
not with earthly postcards or telephone calls,
but with the ancient art of longing,
the mystical pull of recognition
that transcends the veil between worlds.

My table stretches infinite,
set with china that remembers
every tear shed over beauty,
every laugh that shattered silence,
every word that built bridges
across the chasms of human hearts.

First, I call to you, Vincent—
mad painter of sunflowers and starlight,
your tortured hands still trembling
with the weight of colors
the world wasn't ready to see.
Come, sit beside me,
bring your brushes dipped in pain,
your palette of impossible yellows
that sang the songs of suns
burning in dimensions
we haven't learned to name.

And you, Rumi—
drunk on divine wine,
spinning like the planets
in their eternal dance,
your words still echoing
in the chambers of seekers' hearts.
I have prepared Persian rice
seasoned with longing,
served on plates that reflect
the thousand faces of the Beloved
you spent your lifetime
learning to recognize.

Maya, golden-voiced prophet,
caged bird who learned to sing
freedom into existence,
your stories still rise
like phoenixes from the ashes
of America's conscience.
I have baked cornbread
with the salt of tears
and the sweetness of hope,
the way your grandmother taught you
before you learned
that survival was an art form.

Come, Frida—
crown of thorns and flowers,
pain transformed into canvases
that bleed more truth
than history books dare tell.
Your unibrow, that defiant bridge
between convention and authenticity,
your spine, that broken tree
that grew toward light anyway.
I have prepared mole
with chocolate dark as midnight,
complex as the relationship
between suffering and beauty
you understood better than anyone.

And you, my nameless grandmother,
keeper of recipes written in smoke,
guardian of lullabies
that carried centuries
of women's wisdom
in their simple melodies.
Your hands, maps of devotion,
your stories, breadcrumbs
leading me back to myself
when the world tried to convince me
I was lost.

Leonardo, you restless genius,
dissecting cadavers by candlelight,
painting smiles that hold secrets
archaeologists still haven't decoded.
Your notebooks, mirrors
reflecting a mind that saw
the future in the flutter
of a bird's wing,
the mathematics of God
in the spiral of a shell.

I invite the Buddha,
who sat beneath the bodhi tree
until enlightenment bloomed
like a lotus in his consciousness,
his smile containing
all the peace the world
has ever needed,
his silence deeper
than any sermon.

Emily, strange angel of Amherst,
who found infinity
in the circumference
of a single afternoon,
your white dress, that flag
of surrender to mystery,
your poems, those slant truths
that tell more than facts
ever could.

I summon Beethoven,
who heard symphonies
in the silence of his deafness,
whose music became
the vocabulary of the soul
when words failed,
whose deaf ears
heard more beauty
than the rest of us
with our perfect hearing
ever noticed.

And you, my unborn daughter,
my imaginary son,
the children I might have had
in some other lifetime,
their laughter, the music
I composed in dreams,
their questions, the koans
that would have taught me
new ways to wonder.

The table fills with light—
not the harsh fluorescence
of modern dining rooms,
but the soft glow
of candles that remember
every prayer ever whispered,
every wish ever made
while blowing out birthday flames.

We feast on conversation
seasoned with tears and laughter,
each story a course
in the banquet of understanding.
Vincent shows us how
madness and genius
dance together in the same body.
Rumi teaches us to love
with the reckless abandon
of mystics and children.
Maya reminds us that our wounds
can become our greatest teachers.

The wine flows like time itself—
sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet,
always transformative.
We drink to the mystery
of consciousness,
to the miracle of connection,
to the beautiful futility
of trying to capture
the infinite in finite words.

Hours pass like seconds,
centuries like heartbeats.
We are all here—
the living and the dead,
the real and the imagined,
the famous and the forgotten—
bound together by the simple truth
that we are all walking
each other home.

And then, in the golden hour
when the light grows soft
and the boundaries between
self and other begin to blur,
I turn to the empty chair
beside me, the one I saved
for the most important guest,
and I realize—

You are already here.
You have always been here.
You, the one reading these words,
the one whose heart recognizes
the longing in these lines,
the one who understands
that every dinner party
is really a search
for connection,
for belonging,
for the recognition
that we are not alone
in this vast, mysterious universe.

You, who carry your own
invisible scars and secret dreams,
your own impossible questions
and beautiful contradictions.
You, who have been waiting
your whole life
for someone to see you,
really see you,
the way these guests
have seen me tonight.

Come closer.
Take your place at this table
that exists in the space
between heartbeats,
in the pause between
question and answer,
in the eternal moment
when recognition blooms
like a flower
in the garden of the soul.

For this is the truth
I have learned
from hosting this impossible feast:
the guest we most need to invite
is ourselves—
not the polished version
we present to the world,
but the raw, unedited draft
of our becoming,
the messy, beautiful,
work-in-progress
that we are.

The table dissolves
but the nourishment remains,
the recognition that
every conversation
is a prayer,
every shared meal
a communion,
every moment of true seeing
a resurrection.

And when I open my eyes,
return to this world
of ordinary time and
earthbound tables,
I carry with me
the knowledge that
love is the only invitation
that matters,
and the heart
is the only table
large enough
to hold
everyone.

You are invited.
You have always been invited.
The feast begins
with your arrival.

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