The Hidden Pearl Revealed

Even Tomas did not know his true identity.

Everything changed for the quiet deckhand on the wooden sailing vessel after the new travelers joined the next voyage.

Tomas had hair that looked like the wet ropes he coiled on the decks and his pale eyes were the color of the sea in the fog.

He seemed very ordinary.

“So quiet, almost like a clam,” said one of the other sailors, nodding toward Tomas.

“Yes, but I bet there are no pearls inside that clam,” said another sailor.

The two sailors laughed.

Tomas pretended not to hear them, although their voices were pitched loud in his direction.

Beneath his exterior floated secret depths with wavering shapes like mystical creatures living near the floor of the ocean.

Someday, they would surface like something rising upward through the waves. But now they shimmered gently under his ordinary exterior.

The day when change began to ripple for Tomas began when the newcomers arrived.

A journey began to unfold over the ocean waves and inside of Tomas.

Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern and official ship’s Woman of Ancient Wisdom, welcomed the new passenger, a blind man who was called The Light Bringing Poet, "Poeta Que Trae Luz."

The blind poet wore the dark strands of his hair in long, beaded braids, falling across his shoulders to the waist. Next to him, bearing his left hand on her shoulder, guiding him, walked his ten-year-old granddaughter.

Her eyes twinkled like her name. “Estrella” which meant star in their language.

A red and blue parrot flew in the air over them, wings spread almost as if it was sheltering them. The parrot was called Libertad, meaning “Freedom.”

Estrella’s parents allowed her to begin training and traveling with her grandfather so she could follow in his footsteps someday.

Now she accompanied him, absorbing experiences and studying her grandfather’s unique skills. No

She, too, was born with the gift. But she still needed to learn the art of using it.

Standing on the deck, the blind poet, Poeta Que Trae Luz, tilted his head, shifting the beaded braids, and listening to Anya, the Storyteller of the Blue Lantern.

Something puzzled him.

“I hear someone’s footsteps to the right, but unlike the others, this one is not speaking,” he said to his granddaughter.

Anya overheard and she waved to Tomas, who was standing nearby silently, and motioned to him to come over.

A storyteller too, but of a different type, Anya was born with different gifts.

Anya was a storyteller with layers of senses and time. She carried her ancestors’ stories and wisdom for thousands of years within her, sharing them with others. The tales would be saved and told for many generations.

Life and newer ways kept changing. Some things improved and others got worse. People like Anya kept the priceless ancient tales and wisdom alive.

There was a flutter of wings and feathers above. Libertad the parrot, whose name meant freedom, was expressing his personality with swirls and twirls overhead.

His red and blue feathers gleamed like sunshine on the sea.

Libertad was a companion bird and a guard bird. He drove away anyone who seemed to be behaving in a threatening way toward his precious family, who were like his flock.

His big, strong beak would erupt with ear-splitting squawks, penetrating the ears of living things nearby. One time, he even sent pirate thieves cowering and covering their heads when they ran away from him.

His sparkling wings would spread wide, flapping fast, blocking the sun, casting shadows, when he was in guard mode.

Today Libertad felt safe and secure on the wooden ship Destiny’s Dreams and his round eyes were relaxed.

Anya waved to Tomas to come over.

"Light Bringing Poet, Poeta Que Trae Luz, this is our Tomas. And Tomas, please meet our new guests on this voyage."

Her low, smooth voice blended with the sounds of the waves sloshing against the side of the ship, the creaking of the wooden beams, and the ruffling of the sails.

Tomas reached out a hand and touched the blind poet's right hand lightly. The man’s eyes were fixed and unmoving, covered with a milky film.

“Very pleased and welcome, honored guest.” Tomas lowered his head and nodded. His low but melodious voice was like ocean music.

The blind poet of light drew in a quick breath. He felt a tingling in his fingers. Thoughts raced through his mind. He was sensing something. Could it be? He would need to find out.

The eyebrows above the unseeing eyes raised up and the poet’s mouth opened slightly.

He straightened from his hunched posture, stretched up taller, widened his shoulders, and everyone looked up at his face, towering high above them.

“The honor is all mine, thank you.”

The poet bowed low from the waist in the direction of Tomas. His voice was resonant like a singer, and often his poems and stories did come out like songs.

Tomas’s sea fog eyes lit with a new spark and widened. A strange sensation flowed and filled him.

The simple, ordinary seaman was startled with the way the blind poet addressed him. What did this mean?

“Thank you,” he said politely. “Please let me know if you need anything while you are on board the ship.”

There was a chuckle. “Only to hear about life on these voyages, and you seem like just the right person to tell me about it.” The poet's mouth smiled.

In the following days Anya wrote in her journal, recording what she saw and experienced.

During lulls in the wind and the deck work the Light Bringing Poet, "Poeta Que Trae Luz, with his granddaughter, and their companion bird, hovered together next to the side railno.

“What are they doing?” The rest of the crew members were curious.

Anya explained. “The blind poet is a listening storyteller and a healer. He listens not only to people’s stories of their lives but to the unspoken, the unheard, within the story.”

Then she said something that startled the two sailors who had commented earlier about Tomas being so quiet and ordinary.

“The poet can spot a clam who has a treasured pearl hidden deep inside. He senses things. I think he is feeling that Tomas is like a quiet clam with a very rare and priceless pearl hidden beneath the exterior.”

On a sunny, clear morning with calm seas, Anya was nearby when the poet, his granddaughter, and the shiny companion parrot were gathered near the bow of the ship.

The poet's voice floated on the wind over to her. “Tomas is carrying a secret. I sensed it right away.” He continued.

“Tell me, granddaughter, is he not ordinary in appearance? Has he sometimes been ridiculed for a seeming lack of talents?"

"The secret gifts often hide in places where they are least expected.”

“Only the most humble and true are given the rarest gifts.”

“Yes, Grandfather. He is like you said."

Estrella’s round, dark eyes looked up from under a fringe of dark hair at the poet's face high above her.

He spoke to her almost in a whisper. She leaned closer to hear him over the morning breeze.

“Watch and learn, dear one. For someday, my time with storytelling and healing will be over, and be yours.”

The poet's blind eyes seemed to glow beneath his eyebrows and above the beard that was like a thick forest.

“The gift of telling healing stories is within him. But he does not yet know it. I will keep listening until he speaks enough to begin reaching deeper under the surface. Then, the magic will happen.”

The days and months of the voyage went past and became memories of sun, sky, wind, stars, and moons.

Then it happened.

The Light Bringing Poet, "Poeta Que Trae Luz, the healing storyteller, was listening to Tomas tell about the time a whale nudged a sailor fallen into the sea back to the surface so he could breathe and be saved.

Tomas’s voice trembled with emotion and caring.

“We saved the sailor, and the whale followed us for many days.”

He felt something floating up from deep down inside of himself.

Then Tomas felt a special energy tingling. A faint light began to glow around him.I

“Estrella…Estrella.” The poet's voice shook.

Tomas paused. His dark eyes went to the blind poet’s filmy eyes, but something was different.

Over their heads the red and blue parrot was swirling and dancing in the air.

The poet's eyes seemed to be moving as if he was watching the parrot.

There was a gasp. The poet put a flat palm on his upper chest.

"Are you alright, grandfather?" Estrella's voice was high pitched and breathless.

“I can see." The poet's voice rose. "His storytelling has cured me. He has the gift.”

Nearby, Anya scribbled fast in her journal, writing, watching and listening all at once.

Over a hundred and fifty years later, in the attic of an old lighthouse keeper’s house, several children came across Anya’s faded journals in an old sailor’s trunk and read them.

The outside of the trunk bore the name “Tomas.”

“It was real, wasn’t it?” One of the children spoke.

In the fading light of sunset through the attic window, the children sat with wide eyes and nodded to each other.

Each child secretly felt a sense of being ordinary, but with something special hidden inside.

Now they each knew what that meant.

The young faces wore soft smiles and their eyes sparkled.

They knew now that appearing ordinary meant there was a rare pearl hidden inside each of them.

Like a pearl in a clam shell, the gift would be revealed someday when the time was right.