The Adventures of Stagger Li

Chapter Twenty-Two
Hell Diver

King Fisher has limits to his powers. He is wounded. The current state of obfuscation on earth
prevents him from free movement. These spiritual restrictions produced by the energy field of
mankind’s confusion have their direct physical counterpart. His physical pangs are eased only by
his immersion and prowess in the waters of the river, especially along its banks, a capability
which has earned him his name, among the locals, as Hell Diver.

Because of his woundedness, King Fisher has had to empty himself of his self. As a direct
embodying of angelic forces on earth, this capaciousness has served him well. It is his reaction to
his spiritual wounds that has led him in the angelic direction. Rather than responding with anger
and rebellion and becoming a demonic hells-child, King Fisher has chosen the path of yielding
and surrender, the most powerful tools in any warrior’s armament.

No hells-child has the nerve, the courage to surrender (for what is cour-age but to live from the
heart, the couer?). King Fisher knows well that spiritual sur-rend-er is exactly that, a shamanic
experience of rending, of being torn apart and put back together in unimagined ways. Surrender
to That-Which-Breathes-You, surrender to the Source, surrender to the Force that calls one into
existence allows rebirth into a realm different from the Wal-Mart world.

King Fisher knows that as long as one is embodying, the pain of the wound goes on. But he also
knows the flow of energy known as compassion, as love, as the life-force and its healing relief.
In the Buddhist realm, he is known as a Bodhisattva, one who refuses to enter heaven until all
go.

His physical exterior is not that of a saint floating on a cloud of holiness, but more like a weather
beaten bum who owns nothing of value but his soul.