MySeLF
Arising from a slumber that was not as peaceful as my soul had hoped; I entered into my vessel that has comforted me in so many ways but yet has held me prisoner from all that lays beyond its storytelling walls. I sat within the same chair that has maintained strength for my weathered bones all these years.
As I beheld all that now encompassed me, breath seemed not wanting to remain within my being any longer. Was it death? Was he here to gather what has been owed to him since my first bellow as a babe? Myopia set within my once radiant and life-holding wells; now nothing but desuetude aides me there.
Within my aged sight all around me seemed to fade; evanescence truly had arrived. One object, one sole bundle of parchment carefully bound with worn alizarin dyed leather, remained evident. Never has my sight encountered such a gloriously aged book. But too soon the realization that I had lost control over took, melancholy began protruding from openings on my skin. Mental demands were made by I, but no signal of movement that I silently ordered my flesh to make was ever heard by any part of my body. I was a doe that broke through a winter’s pond; I was the frog beneath her that slept close to death until the crone’s time had passed. I was suspended within a self imprisonment; my flesh and bones and soul and breath had entered a time of latent.
With almost a surrendering peace I once more returned my sight to the worn cover of unknown that lay before me. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to rest. Perhaps that was the need; slumber. After all, though I remain a beautiful daisy, too many petals have fallen over my years. And when a daisy has few petals to spare, there must be caution against all winds that blow; whether in refreshment or in fury.
An unknown time had passed when I open my eyes to what had always been the usual. I almost felt foolish when I saw that there was no aged book before me. Without another thought I began to retreat to blanket that beckoned me from above. As I shuffled to the stairwell that always seems to add a step with each day, I realized that there was a breeze of warmth and jasmine that was tickling the very tip of my nose. I came to attention with the feeling and scent for it was the middle of the death season. Agape was I; no longer was there the white washed earth that was here no more than a breath ago. I stepped onto the wood entrance and was bewildered. All was renewed; all was clear and bright and magnificent! The earth was reborn. Had I slept that long? Was I less like the doe and more like the slumbering frog that lay beneath? My sight was drawn to the rising hill that I had traveled so often. It was not the same. There was a beckoning that became apparent to my ears. An almost enchanted whisper that was meant for my listening alone. I followed. I followed as if I were walking on a plank of a ship. I followed to a place of unrecognizable mystery that lay within the familiar. I walked till the height of the hill was traveled by my cautious step. And now I stood at the entrance. Entrance to the coppice that I had always shared tales with on cool summer nights. Here, now though, I felt as if I was a guest that had never been calling beforehand.
Unwanted was not the feeling that came to me while I stood on the earthly threshold. Similarity. Simple but true. That is all that the babes here asked of me. To bare myself and be humble, vulnerable, freed, and similar to them. With no shame and a great euphoric honor I bared my flesh. I bore myself with a freedom that I had long forgotten. With a gesture that seemed like no movement at all, the trees bowed and allowed me to share their home. I dared and took the one step into the unknown, then another, and another.
Leaves of Maple and Ash gently crunched their greetings beneath me. Birds that once sang, paused their tunes of love and call as they gazed upon my crone body. Did they gaze in curiosity? Did they wonder why I would dare show such an aged thing. No! They are not of the mundane. They did not stare with shame for me. They stared at my transformation. They stared while my worn flesh burned away to reveal a maiden that had long been silenced.
As I passed those songbirds perch, they bowed, and I returned the gesture of acceptance, salutation, and likeness that we now found in one another. But to continue on this magickal path, I could not. There was something below that called me once more. It was the enchantment that had delivered me this far. I turned and dropped my sights to the earth beneath me. There, within a home that I had made for amphibian kin, I heard the call once more before its complete dissipation. I knelt beside the small, murky water filled indentation within the earth and rested within a glory that made tears of song stream from my eyes. Then my kin called to me. A small frog peeked just above the waters edge. I leaned to see him as he hovered. With every forward movement I made, he slowly moved back. It was not a movement of fear, but rather a movement suggesting for me to hither. I followed closer and closer until we were like mirrored images caught in a dance of reflection. And when he felt as though I was exactly were I should be, he splashed. I was hypnotized at first, then suddenly awakened by his playfulness. I laughed aloud as I stared into the waters to see where the whimsical fellow had retreated to.
Attention was quickly drawn away though. There below I saw my reflection. Not the one I had become accustom to all of these moons; it was now accompanied by countless apparitions of persons that were once known to me and ones that still resided. My heart began to swirl with the small waves that the frog had made before.
Oh the faces!
The faces of persons that sought knowledge of mine, sought power, pleaded for guidance, wished for strength, took without giving and gave without wanting.
Beautiful and painful images. And while that trance over took me I realized that...that, sometimes emotions could never be placed into simple speech.
Bereavement was now present. So many persons but yet nothing on there part was absorbed. What have I done? Was I insane, perhaps, for believing that I could birth unto them a world that would allow them solitude of their own? Who was I to do such a thing; a thing like teaching them the path of a better life. Who was I to think that? Who? A fool!
And when the inner core of me silently decided that it wanted nothing more to do with remembrance and wisdom that I knew I never had, the foliage on my welcoming host withered. Was it petals from Dogwoods floating? No. It was the cold winds returning the white blanket to the earth once more.
I looked once more to the waters below and saw the ice creep across its surface.
"No!" I said as I threw my hands into her iced surface. "There not ready, not yet!"
I struggled to reach for the frog. My hands were numbing quickly and none but stones were drawn up by me. Again and again I tried. Until I too finally froze and fell into the iced waters below.
Nothing was seen unto me; I only felt. And what I felt was the waters surrounding me. They seemed to swell...or I shrank...I supposed it mattered not now; for the waters warmed and thawed my body. But my body did not return to the being it once was. It was now of the waters. It dismantled into a countless number of drops that flowed with no order. And flowing I did go.
I couldn’t relay to you where it was exactly that I went. So many directions of swirls and dips were made; I wasn’t even sure with which drops my realization had remained. All I knew was that I knew nothing. Nor do I think that I cared to any longer.
I flowed with the body of water until contentment came. It has been long since that feeling had visited me; that contentment; and I wished not to part ways with it once more.
Time had allowed me to slip into a silence as I was cast away from all.
Time.
There was none.
Time was not of the language here and no longer was it of mine until the journey had come to a whirlpool. A spinning on a shallow bank. I spun gloriously as if I were a child once more. I spun as though the winds had swept beneath my bare feet that were once able to run through pastures of dew covered grasses. I even saw those times as my minds eye played them out.
My God! My God! I was free! FREE! Dancing in my mind as a child once more.
Then I was summoned away from my retreat. I was called once more, but not by the same beckoner within the woodland. I was called by a million voices that were entangled within one.
"Create." It spoke. "Begin, pull yourself together." It said once more in its strength-filled feminine call.
And I did as it said. How I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it was in the same manner that a calf knows how to retrieve milk from its mother’s teat with only being an hour old.
I did as she said; I began to create myself. And when I did so, I did not manifest as a persons body would appear. It was just simply me, no boundaries, no restrictions; just my being.
As my sight began to grow from the waters surface, I became aware of the other pieces of my being that were flowing in the rivers current. As if my thoughts were not my own the voice called to me once more,
"Take only what you want; only what you need, and allow the rest to depart from you and never return."
I did as I was told and as pieces of me flowed by within those waters, I gathered only what I wanted within me once more.
Hope, love, courage, then strength. Sorrow and hate I let pass me by. Desires and dreams came and soon friendship , honor, and integrity followed. I took them all in. Patience, devotion, awe, trust, laughter, all was mine. Illness, fear, ridicules; I allowed them to pass. So many emotions and memories, so much. I sorted and analyzed all for what seemed an eternity. Then, just when I thought that all had been sorted; when I thought that my task was complete, the largest piece of me came floating right beside me.
It was wisdom.
Wisdom.
"Yes...I believe I will keep you."
I picked up wisdom from the crystal waters that swarmed around. I retrieved my many moons of wisdom. And as I retrieved it a sparkling aura of kaleidoscopic colors caused it to illuminate. But much to my surprise, wisdom was not alone. When I grasped it, there was a thick cord that ran from its top. I began to reel in its line with a great curiosity. Then the first attachment to wisdom's line appeared, it was fear.
'Fear?' I thought. 'But I had cast this away, how could it return?'
And before I could finish my thought the voice once more answered.
"Every emotion in your life, good or bane, has all contributed to your immense wisdom. Every breathe of air that you allowed to swell within your lungs; every day you saw; all the hate; all of the pain, all! It was all, it IS all part of you. So now I ask you my sweet child, I ask you to lend me your ear for but a moment’s time so I may add but one thing to your wisdom."
I turned my sight to the voice that called behind be. I turned to cast eye upon a surreal sight. There was a massive, brilliant, unbelievable and remarkable Birch Mother. In the midst of my awe, she began to speak.
"You mustn’t trouble your mind with ways of old my sweet child; what is, IS...there is nothing more that can be done. We mothers are all bodies that are supposed to cast our seeds. Some seedlings will stay very close to our side, always fearful of rollin away from the known. There, in our shadow, the can still find growth, but never completely. Some seedlings will never grow at all, it’s almost as if the are forgotten in the timeless forest floor. But on that special occasion, my sweet child, a seedling will take all that you have given it and do what they know to be best. They will find that perfect spot within the forest and grow to a height that is equal to yours. Limbs and branches will never be the same, but the root, the foundation on which they grow will remain the same. Do you understand what I have spoken to you child?"
I responded with a nod, looked at the wisdom that lay within my palm, and replied,
"I know what to do."
She smiled beneath her shedding, white skin and whispered,
"Place wisdom where you wish and close your eyes for a moment. Allow yourself to absorb all that remains within that complex gift in your hand."
I did as she said. Closing my eyes I placed wisdom to my heart...and smiled.
When I opened my eyes to thank the Birch mother for sharing her own wisdom, she was gone...as was I. For I awoke to find myself within the chair that had long held up my aged bones.
My aged bones; yes, they too were present, along with my poor sight and my seasoned skin. But somehow now it just all seems alright.
I looked out the window and noticed that it was indeed still the crone’s time of flight. I couldn’t help but chuckle. I rose and poured a warm cup of tea and tried to sip it with lips that could not let loose its smile. Then I realized one last thing, the book that I saw, the old leather bound parchment was lying before me. I sat and opened it and soon saw that this book was mine. Everything within it was a thought, emotion, or period in my life. I thumbed through, pausing on a few forgotten times. Some sad and some wonderful; but all were needed. Reminiscing I found myself upon the very last page. I realized that there was no more. The very last image was of me...looking at this book of my life. My book! Was it ending? Panic I did not, for now I knew better. I took up a pen and inscribed my direct thought into its pages and as I wrote carefully, more pages appeared beneath the one I wrote upon. They were blank pages; blank one's that awaited my future thoughts.
When I finished I reviewed what I just then wrote…
I am not ready just yet.
Kindly,
Your child.
Then I closed those pages for good.
As I beheld all that now encompassed me, breath seemed not wanting to remain within my being any longer. Was it death? Was he here to gather what has been owed to him since my first bellow as a babe? Myopia set within my once radiant and life-holding wells; now nothing but desuetude aides me there.
Within my aged sight all around me seemed to fade; evanescence truly had arrived. One object, one sole bundle of parchment carefully bound with worn alizarin dyed leather, remained evident. Never has my sight encountered such a gloriously aged book. But too soon the realization that I had lost control over took, melancholy began protruding from openings on my skin. Mental demands were made by I, but no signal of movement that I silently ordered my flesh to make was ever heard by any part of my body. I was a doe that broke through a winter’s pond; I was the frog beneath her that slept close to death until the crone’s time had passed. I was suspended within a self imprisonment; my flesh and bones and soul and breath had entered a time of latent.
With almost a surrendering peace I once more returned my sight to the worn cover of unknown that lay before me. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to rest. Perhaps that was the need; slumber. After all, though I remain a beautiful daisy, too many petals have fallen over my years. And when a daisy has few petals to spare, there must be caution against all winds that blow; whether in refreshment or in fury.
An unknown time had passed when I open my eyes to what had always been the usual. I almost felt foolish when I saw that there was no aged book before me. Without another thought I began to retreat to blanket that beckoned me from above. As I shuffled to the stairwell that always seems to add a step with each day, I realized that there was a breeze of warmth and jasmine that was tickling the very tip of my nose. I came to attention with the feeling and scent for it was the middle of the death season. Agape was I; no longer was there the white washed earth that was here no more than a breath ago. I stepped onto the wood entrance and was bewildered. All was renewed; all was clear and bright and magnificent! The earth was reborn. Had I slept that long? Was I less like the doe and more like the slumbering frog that lay beneath? My sight was drawn to the rising hill that I had traveled so often. It was not the same. There was a beckoning that became apparent to my ears. An almost enchanted whisper that was meant for my listening alone. I followed. I followed as if I were walking on a plank of a ship. I followed to a place of unrecognizable mystery that lay within the familiar. I walked till the height of the hill was traveled by my cautious step. And now I stood at the entrance. Entrance to the coppice that I had always shared tales with on cool summer nights. Here, now though, I felt as if I was a guest that had never been calling beforehand.
Unwanted was not the feeling that came to me while I stood on the earthly threshold. Similarity. Simple but true. That is all that the babes here asked of me. To bare myself and be humble, vulnerable, freed, and similar to them. With no shame and a great euphoric honor I bared my flesh. I bore myself with a freedom that I had long forgotten. With a gesture that seemed like no movement at all, the trees bowed and allowed me to share their home. I dared and took the one step into the unknown, then another, and another.
Leaves of Maple and Ash gently crunched their greetings beneath me. Birds that once sang, paused their tunes of love and call as they gazed upon my crone body. Did they gaze in curiosity? Did they wonder why I would dare show such an aged thing. No! They are not of the mundane. They did not stare with shame for me. They stared at my transformation. They stared while my worn flesh burned away to reveal a maiden that had long been silenced.
As I passed those songbirds perch, they bowed, and I returned the gesture of acceptance, salutation, and likeness that we now found in one another. But to continue on this magickal path, I could not. There was something below that called me once more. It was the enchantment that had delivered me this far. I turned and dropped my sights to the earth beneath me. There, within a home that I had made for amphibian kin, I heard the call once more before its complete dissipation. I knelt beside the small, murky water filled indentation within the earth and rested within a glory that made tears of song stream from my eyes. Then my kin called to me. A small frog peeked just above the waters edge. I leaned to see him as he hovered. With every forward movement I made, he slowly moved back. It was not a movement of fear, but rather a movement suggesting for me to hither. I followed closer and closer until we were like mirrored images caught in a dance of reflection. And when he felt as though I was exactly were I should be, he splashed. I was hypnotized at first, then suddenly awakened by his playfulness. I laughed aloud as I stared into the waters to see where the whimsical fellow had retreated to.
Attention was quickly drawn away though. There below I saw my reflection. Not the one I had become accustom to all of these moons; it was now accompanied by countless apparitions of persons that were once known to me and ones that still resided. My heart began to swirl with the small waves that the frog had made before.
Oh the faces!
The faces of persons that sought knowledge of mine, sought power, pleaded for guidance, wished for strength, took without giving and gave without wanting.
Beautiful and painful images. And while that trance over took me I realized that...that, sometimes emotions could never be placed into simple speech.
Bereavement was now present. So many persons but yet nothing on there part was absorbed. What have I done? Was I insane, perhaps, for believing that I could birth unto them a world that would allow them solitude of their own? Who was I to do such a thing; a thing like teaching them the path of a better life. Who was I to think that? Who? A fool!
And when the inner core of me silently decided that it wanted nothing more to do with remembrance and wisdom that I knew I never had, the foliage on my welcoming host withered. Was it petals from Dogwoods floating? No. It was the cold winds returning the white blanket to the earth once more.
I looked once more to the waters below and saw the ice creep across its surface.
"No!" I said as I threw my hands into her iced surface. "There not ready, not yet!"
I struggled to reach for the frog. My hands were numbing quickly and none but stones were drawn up by me. Again and again I tried. Until I too finally froze and fell into the iced waters below.
Nothing was seen unto me; I only felt. And what I felt was the waters surrounding me. They seemed to swell...or I shrank...I supposed it mattered not now; for the waters warmed and thawed my body. But my body did not return to the being it once was. It was now of the waters. It dismantled into a countless number of drops that flowed with no order. And flowing I did go.
I couldn’t relay to you where it was exactly that I went. So many directions of swirls and dips were made; I wasn’t even sure with which drops my realization had remained. All I knew was that I knew nothing. Nor do I think that I cared to any longer.
I flowed with the body of water until contentment came. It has been long since that feeling had visited me; that contentment; and I wished not to part ways with it once more.
Time had allowed me to slip into a silence as I was cast away from all.
Time.
There was none.
Time was not of the language here and no longer was it of mine until the journey had come to a whirlpool. A spinning on a shallow bank. I spun gloriously as if I were a child once more. I spun as though the winds had swept beneath my bare feet that were once able to run through pastures of dew covered grasses. I even saw those times as my minds eye played them out.
My God! My God! I was free! FREE! Dancing in my mind as a child once more.
Then I was summoned away from my retreat. I was called once more, but not by the same beckoner within the woodland. I was called by a million voices that were entangled within one.
"Create." It spoke. "Begin, pull yourself together." It said once more in its strength-filled feminine call.
And I did as it said. How I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it was in the same manner that a calf knows how to retrieve milk from its mother’s teat with only being an hour old.
I did as she said; I began to create myself. And when I did so, I did not manifest as a persons body would appear. It was just simply me, no boundaries, no restrictions; just my being.
As my sight began to grow from the waters surface, I became aware of the other pieces of my being that were flowing in the rivers current. As if my thoughts were not my own the voice called to me once more,
"Take only what you want; only what you need, and allow the rest to depart from you and never return."
I did as I was told and as pieces of me flowed by within those waters, I gathered only what I wanted within me once more.
Hope, love, courage, then strength. Sorrow and hate I let pass me by. Desires and dreams came and soon friendship , honor, and integrity followed. I took them all in. Patience, devotion, awe, trust, laughter, all was mine. Illness, fear, ridicules; I allowed them to pass. So many emotions and memories, so much. I sorted and analyzed all for what seemed an eternity. Then, just when I thought that all had been sorted; when I thought that my task was complete, the largest piece of me came floating right beside me.
It was wisdom.
Wisdom.
"Yes...I believe I will keep you."
I picked up wisdom from the crystal waters that swarmed around. I retrieved my many moons of wisdom. And as I retrieved it a sparkling aura of kaleidoscopic colors caused it to illuminate. But much to my surprise, wisdom was not alone. When I grasped it, there was a thick cord that ran from its top. I began to reel in its line with a great curiosity. Then the first attachment to wisdom's line appeared, it was fear.
'Fear?' I thought. 'But I had cast this away, how could it return?'
And before I could finish my thought the voice once more answered.
"Every emotion in your life, good or bane, has all contributed to your immense wisdom. Every breathe of air that you allowed to swell within your lungs; every day you saw; all the hate; all of the pain, all! It was all, it IS all part of you. So now I ask you my sweet child, I ask you to lend me your ear for but a moment’s time so I may add but one thing to your wisdom."
I turned my sight to the voice that called behind be. I turned to cast eye upon a surreal sight. There was a massive, brilliant, unbelievable and remarkable Birch Mother. In the midst of my awe, she began to speak.
"You mustn’t trouble your mind with ways of old my sweet child; what is, IS...there is nothing more that can be done. We mothers are all bodies that are supposed to cast our seeds. Some seedlings will stay very close to our side, always fearful of rollin away from the known. There, in our shadow, the can still find growth, but never completely. Some seedlings will never grow at all, it’s almost as if the are forgotten in the timeless forest floor. But on that special occasion, my sweet child, a seedling will take all that you have given it and do what they know to be best. They will find that perfect spot within the forest and grow to a height that is equal to yours. Limbs and branches will never be the same, but the root, the foundation on which they grow will remain the same. Do you understand what I have spoken to you child?"
I responded with a nod, looked at the wisdom that lay within my palm, and replied,
"I know what to do."
She smiled beneath her shedding, white skin and whispered,
"Place wisdom where you wish and close your eyes for a moment. Allow yourself to absorb all that remains within that complex gift in your hand."
I did as she said. Closing my eyes I placed wisdom to my heart...and smiled.
When I opened my eyes to thank the Birch mother for sharing her own wisdom, she was gone...as was I. For I awoke to find myself within the chair that had long held up my aged bones.
My aged bones; yes, they too were present, along with my poor sight and my seasoned skin. But somehow now it just all seems alright.
I looked out the window and noticed that it was indeed still the crone’s time of flight. I couldn’t help but chuckle. I rose and poured a warm cup of tea and tried to sip it with lips that could not let loose its smile. Then I realized one last thing, the book that I saw, the old leather bound parchment was lying before me. I sat and opened it and soon saw that this book was mine. Everything within it was a thought, emotion, or period in my life. I thumbed through, pausing on a few forgotten times. Some sad and some wonderful; but all were needed. Reminiscing I found myself upon the very last page. I realized that there was no more. The very last image was of me...looking at this book of my life. My book! Was it ending? Panic I did not, for now I knew better. I took up a pen and inscribed my direct thought into its pages and as I wrote carefully, more pages appeared beneath the one I wrote upon. They were blank pages; blank one's that awaited my future thoughts.
When I finished I reviewed what I just then wrote…
I am not ready just yet.
Kindly,
Your child.
Then I closed those pages for good.