Pieces Of My Heart

Stairway to Somewhere (Heaven Closed for Renovation)

In response to Sadje’s Whatdoyousee #337

https://wp.me/paf3ao-n6x

There is something suspicious about a staircase that climbs into the sky. It suggests ambition. It suggests arrival. It suggests that the universe might be reachable if only your calves are strong enough.

This image feels like a conspiracy between stone and starlight.

A narrow cobbled path rises through jagged cliffs, obedient to gravity at first, then quietly betraying it. It ascends toward a rocky outcrop that looks less like a destination and more like a question mark carved by ancient hands. Above it, the Milky Way curves like a celestial spine, as if the night itself is bending down to listen.

The walkway is called “stairway to heaven.”

But what if it isn’t leading upward at all?
What if it’s leading inward?

The stones are uneven. The railing is modest. There are no golden gates at the summit, no orchestral swell promised at the end. Just a peak suspended between abyss and infinity. The path does not shout. It does not guarantee transcendence. It merely offers movement.

And that is the most dangerous thing of all.
Because movement implies choice.

Standing at the base, you are still safely human – held by the valley, cradled by the known. But once you begin to climb, you enter the territory of intention. Each step is an act of defiance against stagnation. Each breath taken higher is a quiet rebellion against gravity – not just physical gravity, but the emotional kind…doubt, fear, inherited limitations.

The Milky Way above does not sparkle romantically here. It arches like a cosmic witness.

A reminder that while you labor upward, galaxies are exploding without applause. Your ascent is both epic and irrelevant. There is humility in that.

The cliffs on either side resemble ancient guardians – stern, unmoved, unimpressed. They have watched countless climbers approach this symbolic edge. Some come seeking God. Some come seeking a photograph. Some come because they cannot bear the flatness of their own lives.

But the staircase does not discriminate. It accepts the faithful and the confused with equal indifference.

I am struck most by the loneliness of the path. No crowd. No guide. No signage that says, “This way to enlightenment.” It is just you and the incline. Just you and the expanding sky.

Perhaps heaven is not at the top.

Perhaps heaven is the courage required to take the first step when the drop on either side is visible.

The image feels like an invitation, not to arrive somewhere divine, but to confront the scale of existence. To stand midway between earth and infinity and realize that you are small, yes, but also astonishingly capable of climbing.

The Milky Way arcs like a halo above stone and shadow, yet it offers no instructions. It only glows.

And maybe that is the lesson.

The universe does not hand out maps. It hands out awe.

The stairway is not promising salvation. It is asking a quieter question:

Will you ascend even if you don’t know what waits at the top?

Because sometimes the holiest act is not reaching heaven.

It is walking toward it anyway.

© Rohini 2009–2025.
All text, prose, images, and artwork presented herein are the original intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved.
No part of this content may be copied, reproduced, distributed, displayed, or used in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

For licensing requests or usage inquiries, please contact: manomaya0214@gmail.com

(A Three Tier Therapy Session for the Thirsty Soul)

In response to Sadje’s Whatdoyousee #337 on April 20, 2026

https://wp.me/paf3ao-n6x

Once, in a village that had forgotten how to look up, there lived a potter who made cups shaped like sleeping faces.

He placed them outside his door with a small sign: “For water before the fire.”

No one understood.

The villagers were practical people. They drank only when thirsty. They repaired their roofs only when the monsoon punched holes through them. They spoke apologies only after funerals. Why prepare before the fire?

The potter’s cups were strange. Three faces stacked upon one another, eyes closed as if dreaming. The villagers laughed.

“Why would I drink from a face?” they said. “Why would I buy three?”

Then one summer, the river thinned into a whisper. Wells coughed up mud. The sky became an unblinking lid.

In panic, the villagers rushed to the potter’s shop.

The cups were gone.

The potter had already taught his children to drink before thirst, to repair before collapse, to speak before regret. The rest of the village learned slowly, from cracked lips and empty fields, that preparation is not paranoia. It is tenderness toward the future.

And the sign faded under the sun.

The image of the three cups, each sculpted as a woman’s face, eyes closed, stacked one upon another, feels like that village.

At first glance, they are art. Elegant, meditative, serene. But look again. They are not three different faces; they are variations of one face. The same person, expressed in slightly altered moods. Perhaps past, present, and future. Perhaps innocence, endurance, and wisdom. Perhaps denial, awareness, and acceptance.

Or perhaps they are simply us on Monday, Wednesday, and after coffee.

The cups are held carefully in human hands. This detail matters. They are not displayed on a shelf. They are not abandoned in a museum. They are being carried, supported, offered.

And here is where the symbolism slips under the skin. We carry versions of ourselves stacked neatly inside. The face we show the world. The face we show the mirror. The face we refuse to examine.

We wait for catastrophe to rearrange them.

A diagnosis makes us eat better. A betrayal makes us honest. A funeral makes us gentle. We treat disaster like a life coach with excellent timing and terrible bedside manners.

But what if the cups are asking something simpler?

Drink before you are thirsty.
Repair your spirit before it cracks.
Speak truth before silence calcifies.

The closed eyes on the cups are not asleep. They are inward. The kind of inward that terrifies modern life. We scroll to avoid it. We schedule over it. We drown it in productivity podcasts.

Introspection feels inefficient. There is no invoice to send. No applause.

And yet, everything collapses without it.

Three faces stacked together suggest continuity. We are not isolated moments. We are layered beings. The child we were sits quietly beneath the adult we pretend to be. The elder we will become waits patiently above, shaking her head at our drama.

Imagine if we consulted her now.

“Should I apologize today,” we might ask.
She would laugh. “Of course. Before the fire.”

There is also something mischievous about drinking from a face. It feels intimate, almost rebellious. You must press your lips to someone else’s expression. You must align your breath with sculpted silence.

It is absurd and sacred at once.

We are taught to separate art from utility, beauty from survival. But what if they are the same? What if tending to the aesthetic the thoughtful, the symbolic, the reflective is precisely how we prevent inner drought?

The cups do not look panicked. They are calm and prepared. Their eyes are closed not because the world is ending, but because they have already looked within.

And here is the twist…disasters are not always earthquakes and floods. Sometimes they are subtler.

The slow erosion of empathy.
The casual postponement of joy.
The habit of saying “later” to everything that matters. Later is a charming liar. We tell ourselves we will change when things get serious.

As if life is not already serious. As if the act of waking up each morning is not a fragile miracle wrapped in routine.

The image asks, quietly but firmly…

Why do we wait for the river to dry before we learn to store water?

Why do we wait for loss before we love properly?

Why do we wait for collapse before we fortify our inner architecture?

Perhaps because urgency gives us permission. It justifies transformation. It makes improvement feel dramatic. But quiet improvement? Preventative healing? That requires imagination, and courage.

The potter in the parable knew something radical – the absence of crisis is the perfect time to change. The three cups know it too.

They are stacked carefully, balanced precariously. One careless movement and they could fall. That is not a warning, it is a reminder. Stability is an art form.

You must hold it consciously. You must choose it daily.

And the unsettling part? We are all carrying our three faces right now. The version that survived yesterday. The one navigating today. The one silently forming tomorrow.

If we neglect one, the stack wobbles.

If we ignore all three, it shatters.

So perhaps the real disaster is not the fire. It is the habit of waiting for one. The cups close their eyes, not in fear, but in knowing. They do not scream or preach. They simply exist, ready to hold something life-giving.

The question is not whether the drought will come. The question is whether we will learn to drink before it does Or will we keep rehearsing our awakening… until the flames demand an encore.

© Rohini 2009–2025.
All text, prose, images, and artwork presented herein are the original intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved.
No part of this content may be copied, reproduced, distributed, displayed, or used in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

For licensing requests or usage inquiries, please contact: manomaya0214@gmail.com