Devastated was the word.  Yes, it fit.

The night before found her restless and fitful,  up and down, churning, besieged with scattered thoughts. Noisy chattering, fragmented bits of fear, hurt, shame, regret, disappointment and judgement, all jostling with one another, all scrabbling like jackals to be the first to gnaw on her bones.

Why was she carrying the full burden of shame? Had he not shown his flaws?

But as the indignation rose,  the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn  wept through like an Artesian wellspring of wisdom reminding, "But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

"WAIT JUST ONE MINUTE HERE, AL!" she protested.
crickets
"Oh no!" says she to herself,  as she dusted off her Ouija board, "You will come back here!"  

Nervous fingers and shaky vocal chords work together in a synchronized effort to pull him away from his glass of fermented potato and there he was, a bearded wild haired man with an intense stare that left her wriggling under her skin. But she was on a mission and she would not be deterred.

Clearing her throat, she began, "Mr. Solzhenitsyn ---"
Aleksandr raised his hand up  in a gesture to stop her
His heavily accented English softly penetrated the air.
"Pебенок, tell me, what do you need?"
"I need to understand."
"Tell me why." he pressed.

"Why?"  She forced her words past the hurt that sat lumped in her throat,"I'm trying to make sense of betrayal. How can people insist they truly love even after lies have been uncovered?"
"Tell me Кэтрин, would you agree that morality can often be found to be at odds with passion and desire?"

She nodded.
He continued, "And that good intentions are often found to be at odds with unconscious motivations?"
"Yes." she whispered

Aleksandr sat thoughtful for a moment, then gently and softly spoke. "You understand Кэтрин, your problem is, you want too much from understanding. It cannot turn shadow into light and it cannot right wrongs. So, no Pебенок, you are not in need of understanding. What you need is to accept that a thing is what it is."

He drew on his pipe and smiled tenderly. 
 "And you need to make a decision.
You must decide if your wounds have made you more ... or have made you less."

An early riser, I usually great the day before the dawn

This day was no different and my routine treated me to a delicious quietness and a gorgeous view of Luna, soft and glowing.  In that moment I could easily fathom how the ancient Egyptians envisioned our Earth as an egg watched over at night by the moon, seen as a great white bird.
A mother goose watching over her egg.

I felt small but also loved, protected and connected to something  much larger. I thought about how all our stories are small fragments of the whole that is Creation's story. This made my mind race with delight.
Mental images and words flooded me.

I have always loved imagery and symbolism. I have no idea why it fascinates me, it just always has. So, instantly my mind starts to symbolically merge form with words and I think of all the people I have encountered in my life's journey...

And I wonder what their bodies would look like if one were to map them.

The Physical. The Emotional. The Mental. The Spiritual.

Strengths and weaknesses
Struggles and ease
Fears and Bravery
Agonies and Joys

*What cartographic symbols would they choose to map their journeys and experiences?

Emptied and yet heavy with grief
She made the pilgrimage back to the Birch grove
Where once upon a time she played as a child

She made a nest from yesterday's golden and fallen
Crawled in and lie waiting
For the North to come and mercifully it came

Thick and harsh winter tears lay
Icy and frozen on her lashes
As beneath whitened eyes, stories replayed

Shoving and jostling each other
Among the snowy branches of her ancestral tree
Hungry to be the first retold

Silently, they filled her mind
Beginnings and endings sinking
Into her bones like moons slipping into dawn

And her stories are finally put to rest
And they will remain there, asleep and still beneath her winter tears

*Absolvi