Forgiveness comes in waves, unexpected, glorious waves. Nothing is ever wasted, not even a sci-fi series. I’d enjoyed it., thoroughly delighted in the plots and characters, but didn’t realize how wondrous a gift these books were until today. I’d mistakenly called them something else: a bit of fluff, a fun distraction, a waste of time.

I’m always a bit saddened when I close a book and say goodbye to the storylines, the colorful and creative way the author reels me in. Saying goodbye is laced with grief, like laying to rest a good friend.

Today was no different as I closed in on the last pages of The Lightbringer series. Weeks had crafted some amazing characters in the series’ five books, ones I loved love and cheered on, watching as they grew and became larger than life on so many levels and the villains too, some that couldn’t be misconstrued from the first paragraph that brought them to life, others that lay in wait, and the few you thought were villains but weren’t that at all.

I was already ripe and ready to cry, to grieve, to laugh. I knew today would close out the storyline. What I didn’t expect was the bonus round, the forgiveness that sprung within me vibrating from every cell in my body, the names, one after another after another, that poured from my lips, the absolute purging of things deeply hidden and held against the ‘others’ in my life.

I cried. I laughed. I went down on my knees and forgave. Some of the names came with a flash of image, reminders of the pain that stuck and held, some came with videos that played out before my eyes unwinding the reel from the real, and some were just a name, a simple out loud name, whose sound reverberated through the cosmos shaking and shattering its foundation, eroding even further, the remnants of self and other.

When the light show was done I was grinning like a pup seeing a long lost friend, freed from a burden I didn’t know I carried, grateful for the fascinating design of this world that undoes all the perceived harm when I no longer hold the perceptions as real and willingly lay them down.

Even when the body clings unknowingly, This I am still moves miraculously towards the great freeing. It seems that is its nature, to right itself, to free itself from the absurdities of not love, to expand its love, rippling forgiveness into the deep crevices of manifestation, returning itself to Itself.

I may have to go back and read those last 100 pages again and thank Kip and Gavin, Karris and Teia, Tisis and The Mighty … and I mustn’t forget Ohorlam and Ironfist. There were so many gifts in these pages today. Forgiveness was just the easiest to write about.

Should you go read the series? How would I know. The gifts are embedded in our lives, in what we are called to explore, in the ways our desires comes to life. It need not be a trip to a sacred location, a deep meditation, or something as ordinary as a book. Whatever you require is right here whenever you are, whenever you are wide open and willing, when you lay down your ideas and beliefs, when you are the hereness, the nowness, when the separate self stands down.