Sometimes a fairy tale is simply the most satisfying way to make sense of life. Read here the tale begun on the ledge in the woods when a Pond opened the souls to a time of EVER.
Witches and crones are the dispensers of remedy.If not for the kin of Tandalori, story would be less interesting not because there would be no odyssey to recount or journey to describe.It would be the absence of humor and practical jokes that turn tragedy into a twin reality, a parallel universe where something different waits in offer.Incited with the bitter root of irony Tandalori and her coven have a recipe for destiny mortals cannot imagine.The story of Wood Crafters and mortals continues and draws on the simple phrase first canted by Travelling Frog when he used ‘the nectar of place’ as remedy for feline and canine who were far too precious to harm, yet the nature of both would have led them to destinies of edgier consequence.Put the spring water on for tea, get comfortable with quilt or sunny bonnet and listen to the tale of Tree Skin.
Our story draws closer to its destiny, dear ones. The journey broad, the telling savory, the lessons wrapped in filigree and sennit, bundled in cedar boughs and hidden on bits of driftwood from islands far south of the high mountains. The tale cannot be finished without knowing more about my own dear birthing, and that of my twin Shelela. If ever you will need the nectar of the place to taste the truth, it will be here as I braid the final hank into place. Have you kept the kettle hot for tea? If you have neglected the small ritual it would be a fine time to raise yourself to the burner and bring the spring water to a boil. A story always tastes the nectar of the place with tea.
We must return to the beginning and listen as my own dear mother and father consider the choice Kaimalama Noa has made.
Shemaladia of Osprey listened as her mate to be recounted Kaimalama’s disclosure. Both my parents were full-size Grey Wood Crafters. To see them now, their heights would surprise mortals for they were Giant in your vocabulary. Perhaps as large as twelve feet from ground to head feathers, Shemaladia and Freeilll were among the last of the Giants with coil of stardust and bird nearer fairy than human in spite of their size. My mother waited for my father’s final word, looked deeply with her eyes closed and sought any unspoken thought that might linger in his telling. When she found none there Shemaladia asked, “Are these mortals long in coming? Will it be within our cycles they be here on The Planet?” Freeilll Noa felt certain the mortals would come only when his name and that of Shemaladia of Osprey were as fairy tales or make-believe. “Do you see the lesson in our mating as a birth-place for our future coveys, a warming of a different sort to prepare our twins for change?” My father simply nodded, affirming Shemaladia’s intuition. “Kaimalama has opened a channel to the Ever of the future through his choice. What has been is reassembling, and though you and I have enjoyed the Grace of Grey and crossed the Cosmos with our gifts there comes a time for loving the small, birthing the value of reserve and it continues with our mating. We have been asked to value a concentrated version of ourselves, leaving behind that which no longer serves, embracing all that will likely flourish forward. My brother’s choice will reveal the nature of small when nurtured. He has lived one hundred cycles with a secret kept. Hording polyps, fish and the moving winds examples of secrecy and a grace ill-founded.”
Shemaladia of Osprey remembered the moment she first saw Freeilll Noa. “What will our twins be like from our mating?” She had thought that then, and now she knew the answer was “different.” The lid of stars that poured stardust from the constellation of The Big Dipper would open within three moon rising. Time was still on the side of destiny. My mother had received many gifts of gratitude and thanks over her long life. Souls lost and found often gifted Shemaladia with tokens of their appreciation. Thinking of her pouch of brocade that held those gifts my mother conned in my father’s direction, “I believe a clue has been with me all these many cycles. A gift from a sister lost to herself gave me a circle of silver with stone of pink quartz. The ring was too small for my claw. Pink quartz is for the healing heart, perhaps the perfect size for reassembling the size of a Wood Crafter’s egg.”
In the end the ring crafted of silver with stone of pink quartz was indeed the perfect size for twin eggs birthed by Freeilll Noa and his mate Shemaladia of Osprey. The lid of stars poured their stardust as it had for times back into memory, and as it has been for all those times, mates of destiny embraced their dance of bliss. One of those paired is said to have embraced with a small circle of silver held tight between their breasts. The ring of silver split between my mother and father. Each half was absorbed into their hearts creating two halves the size of perfectly reassembled eggs, twin girls named Shenia and Shelela Wood. In the scheme of destiny we were the first of the covey to be She the Little. My mother and father viewed the future knowing the new race called Mortals would grow with the spell of hording in their coil. Like my uncle the spell would be like a mask unconsciously worn unexpectedly risky business. My parents chose to value the small concentrated good that had until that point lived grand, large, and Giant. We sustain our Grace through that choice and look from our coveys and warrens at the mortals who are called Sensitives and Spell-binders and watch for one woman in particular who has memory of kin and kind. That mortal carriers the gift of Fantasy … a willingness to forget all and then, she will make room for us to join in. From the Ledge near the Pond of Ever a woman fitting that description has moved herself and her mate into a wee wheeled home. The fairies are keeping close watch on things on the Ledge, and warming on a branch is a pair of violet eggs the size of a mortal woman’s earrings.
This story is braided complete for the while. Mortal destiny lies tentatively on the balance between grand and small. Sensitive kin with dreams falling down around them are the clue to a reassembled beginning. Will the race who has been spell-bound by greed begin anew, release what no longer serves the original Creators’ song and step gently back where the nectar of place is sipped, shared and for goodness sake, never horded? Cross your fingers and make room in your dreams for fairies and Gypsy Frog kings to join in. Until the next wind gathers the dust of story ~ be gentle with your stepping and kind in your encounters.
Spring finally arrived in the high mountains that cycle, the rains ceased, the winds shifted into more often the breeze and the pond slowly began to fill in from the sides.The pond grasses and shrubs began their tangle dance of sprouting from the edges.If one was not watching you might say the pond was disappearin’ but really, does a thing ever truly DISappear?Jo and Lokea made a ritual of regular journeys from the vardo on the Ledge, Lokea often in the lead at first coaxing the stealth huntress from her den on the porch.“Come on Jo, let’s go.”“Doesn’t she know I’ve spent most the night out there and now she just wants a little hike for the fun of it?”Jo watched from the top of the trail her eyes scanning and her nose twitching. The chipmunk scolded from across the slope, taunting Jo “You keep away from THIS tree.Isn’t it bad enough you and your people have taken apart our ledge and made things different?You can’t move things around and not expect to disturb someone you know!”Jo listened; she’d heard this lecture again and again for weeks.She knew the truth of it.Born wild in a wood far from the pond there remained a knowing the black cat maintained.Her loyalty was to the wildness of her breeding and yet, the affection she had for Lokea and Pat tamed her.It was the price for regular meals and a place to sleep.She’d paid and was not unsatisfied with the bargain.She loved the two old people, and they had finally allowed themselves to love her.“Oh, she’s needing to feel the trail, can’t fault her that.”There was nothing better for transition than to feel the Planet with your paws, or feet.Cat was born to teach the lesson of loyalty.“I can sleep later, the days are so dang long any way,” and as if prodded with a switch Josephine was air born and talking a blue streak as Lokea gathered her wits and balance along the narrow over-grown trail.
If it were possible Lokea wished to experience life on the narrow band Pat liked to called the “mean”… living life evenly neither extremely infused with excitement and passion nor deflated by the humanness of living to the point of exhaustion.The fact that she was on a trail alone, sorry Jo … with her familiar, was an example of an Extreme. Many Sensitives cannot be in the woods where mold, trees, pollens and the general reality of life and death in concentration, is just too much stimulation.Lokea Bird had left one love after another:her island home, books and print friends and family, life in a house, clean air … and now that she had made it safely out of the city, the lure of freedom and fresh air refused to be denied.After the first couple of weeks she traveled without a mask on most of her hikes though she was still sure to leave her trail clothes outside the vardo, changing into her robe or inside only clothes after a hike.There are a multiple of steps that make a human Sensitive’s life less convenient and requires living by the rules of sequential access.A Sensitive lives the prototype transitional human experience…less convenience more consciousness. Like Gypsies throughout the history on The Planet, Sensitives often become Gypsies who choose to be Travellers not just because houses and walled structures create ill-ness.Sensitives like Lokea Bird find that the seed of migration has waited until the spell was broken.A family out for a Sunday walk passed the vardo on the Ledge.The young woman smiled in the direction of the dandelion colored wagon.Her father, pushing a child in a stroller looked from the vardo to the mansion across the driveway.What manner of questions crossed the man’s mind?What fantasies amused the young woman?
Then there is the issue of humans aging.Unlike our kin the human has a relatively short life-span.All four humans living within short trek from the pond of Ever are within a count of one to five from six decades.Each of them lives with degenerating functions that create a challenge in their own fashion; and two of them are Sensitives.Anna Paint was born with the air energy lit with fire.Her nature is quick and her mind a twin with two versions at once.The artist has dipped her pen or swept her brush into every conceivable paint, dye and glue available to a crafter of visions.Bundles of dreams began falling down around her. The Pond of Ever called, and she heard.Doctors have named the condition “Parkinson’s” and I suppose that is as good a name as any.Spell-carriers will be given many names before the Reassembling is complete. How fiercely and how long a mortal clings to the dreams that no longer make for a soul satisfied is different.What matters to our story is the manner in which the four friends smatter with the pieces of their differing dreams to create
No one the better
Nor the other the worse
Graced or gifted
With listening heart
Accepting, not rejecting
The pieces of the dream
Now re-done
One will be this
The other be that
And neither expects
More, in fact
Listening to words
Hearing them through
Connected, Respected
Bernadette knew the warmth of the season would light the fire of the kin’s migration.Many of the neighbors had already made the trek to the Lake, and Calliope prepared for his journey this warm evening.“I see you’re packing for the Lake,” Bernadette called through the window of her vardo.“The heat is making its presence plain to me my queen.Indeed I feel the cool deep water of the Lake calling my name.” Calliope arched his long body sniffed in the cool fresh water from below the creek-bed.“Will you and T.F. be coming with us?”“Oh, yes my froggie and I will be along in a stretch of awhile.There’s still a bit of the business to be done there on the Ledge, so be well on your journey old friend and know our night’s work be done before long.”“Then, so be it with you both.I will make my way to the crossing and bid T.F. my best while I’m there.Till next we meet may it be pleasant for you as Ever.”“The same be truth for you, Calliope.”
Travelling Frog rested silently on the lichen-covered stones that criss-crossed the gully.From his vantage point the Pond and Lake were equally near, or equally far.He could see the rails of Josh and Anna’s porch surrounding the mansion.Jane E. sniffed the air and noted, “Frogs and salamanders.” The chiz-shu had grown to understand their role in the cycle of things here.Before her unfortunate encounter with Melissa’s swift paw, young Jane was novice to all things wild.T.F. was the patient one, again using his knowledge of the ways the Gypsy Frog poured the nectar of the place into the large pottery bowl of water kept especially for Jane E.“To save you from your own young self dear Jane the nectar will sort the folk who are best left to their own goings and doings.You are meant for kinder things.”Indeed Jane E. was made to listen and love the two who came and built the mansion overlooking the Lake.Both Anna and Josh found comfort and confidant in the small dog even with one eye.“You are more than dog enough for the task,” Travelling Frog said as he finished his alchemy those nearly ten years ago.
Calliope made his presence known with the low and almost chirp like whistle that only he and his old friend could hear.“And to you a good evening,” T.F. was glad to see his orange spotted companion. “I have seen the doe and her children at the Pond.The young are already at the tit and will be strong of foot before too long.Shelela and Tusi sit and warm a growing pair and soon the telling will have come a big and broad spiral.”Calliope clambered to the rock to sit beside his friend.“Will the changes come quickly when the twins be born?”“Change is slow Calliope rarely will nature’s course leap a rushing river when waiting a season ensures the crossing.Then again who can predict nature in a rage?”Frog and Salamander nodded sharing a small chuckle between them. “The Bird and her man unravel as the two eggs above in that mud-covered nest prepare for a criss-crossed nature.”Both frog and salamander considered the possibilities for The Planet.T.F. offered, “In the mind of mortals, beings such as you and I are of small consequence.The mortal mind views fairy as bug or worse something to be controlled as pest.It is a strange and ill-gotten belief that keeps a race spell-bound.Creators have sent messengers, Indigo children, beings of love, star travellers and Gypsies in all forms.Each has been misunderstood, threatened; physically harmed or worse controlled with concentrated doses of life or death … they call it medication.”The two friends knew the risk of concentrating life or death and dispensing a dose without remembering how dangerous sedating a spell in the breaking can be. “So few know how to allow the breaking of a spell, and fewer yet make room and messiness as the piecing Reassemble.” Calliope winked at the Gypsy Frog and in a blink the salamander was gone.“Until we meet, fair winds and cool waters,” T.F. turned and hopped up the wild cherry trunk to the mud covered nest and found both swallows at home.
Rain and wind love the high mountains.“You must have brought the gods along,” Josh teased Lokea.The two friends had their own brand of humor and friendship that brought the best from each of them.“One day out of a month the only day no rain, no driving winds.Here you are.”It was truly a gift to have a clear day in April for the move to the woods.After two years of planning and assembling, Pat Nicely had constructed the vardo of their dream.Hitched and balanced with a sand-bagged box on the porch end of the vardo, Pat secured the dandelion painted home to a heavy duty rental pick-up truck.The bed of the truck was loaded with his tools, the lengths of yet to be used oak siding, scraps of stainless steel left over from the inside walls, the spare tire.Once loaded, Pat and Lokea waited for their friends Briscoe and Baines to arrive.They were driving down from NorthCounty to be part of the caravan, emotional safety nets more than anything.It was a lot to ask of them considering Baines would not be awake until mid-morning and Briscoe probably never went to sleep the night before.Pat’s cell phone rang, it was Baines.They were lost.Any patience Pat Nicely had that morning was stretched to a thread.Catching a ferry always did that to him and catching a ferry with a vardo was really pushing his envelope.
Briscoe’s Volvo finally pulled around the corner.Her bright face behind the wheel of the taupe colored sedan and her waving arms comforted Lokea.Pat was already in gear behind the rental truck and was under-way.Lokea called to Briscoe, “Follow him.You can use cell phones to keep in touch.”The drive to the ferry was classic.Lokea was the designated lead car, but could never get in front of the rental truck.Pat was hell-bent for the ferry, and he was the only one who knew which route he chose.Lokea admitted to Pat that morning, “I’m doing the best I can with brain fog, do what you need to and I’ll just try to keep up.”
In the end both Briscoe and Lokea followed the dandelion vardo through the streets of Seattle, onto the ferry dock, off the ferry and through more streets again giving Pat his due reward of showing off his art.The tiny wheeled home bounced along the rough pot-holed city streets, at one point the old talisman Lokea had kept with each new move they made was thrown from the curved porch.A detail left during the frenzy to move, Lokea watched her good luck whirl through the air and onto the street.“It’s gone,” she said to herself as she watched the old dragon fall.Almost too tired to care, something within her knew to make careful note of where the wooden dragon had fallen.Lokea made another cell phone call to her ferry-bound mate, “It’s gone,” she repeated.This time aloud and to Pat.“What’s gone?” he asked.Through her muddle and tears Lokea told him.Pat found his compassion again, remembering he had already told his wife he’d stop at the light to pull the talisman from the porch.“You know where it dropped, right?Turn around and go get it, we’ll wait for you.”The words Lokea heard were clear and the sentences short.She believed she could do it.Prayers always help, she said a few more.The green station wagon and driver turned a “U” and as guided by angels The Bird found the parked cars where the old wooden dragon wind chime had fallen.“There you are! A bit more battered but perfect.” Lokea trembled with gratitude.What a small and insignificant detail.No a way to hold on to small things that simply continue to be important.An old biker dressed in full leathers passed the caravan as it traversed the streets of Shipton.Taken by the vardo, the biker turned around to take another look and ended up next to Pat at a red light, “Nice!Very nice,” the approval of a biker was candy to the craftsman.Pat beamed.So, that one sunny morning in early April a vardo painted the color of the lion’s heart pulled in and found a place on The Ledge in the woods.
The true test of building with care for his sensitive mate was in the comfort of the first night of sleep.With bellies filled with baked salmon, Baines’ famous maxi-mayonnaise potato salad and Briscoe’s anti-depressant replacement:chocolate and chocolate chip brownies, Pat and Lokea walked to their new home to hear the frog choir for the first time, “WOW!”To hear each other the old couple had to match, or try to match the decibels of sound coming from the pond.Jo was keen and alert that first night.“You’ll be good there,” Lokea reassured her familiar.The Bird knew it was important to give the panther a night of adjustment to the new smells and the place.The small cat looked through the grilled door of the carrier tucked on the porch.Jo did not argue.Her nose twitched with the avalanche of smells.“This old sweater is mine and you two are close by.I’ll wait.I’ll rest tonight.”Josephine was a smart one, a huntress with lives that knew transition.The night was dark, the sky clear, and the stars lit full tilt.“God,” Pat said.“And the Goddess,” Lokea added.It was the most incredible night’s sleep they had had for a very long time.The air was crisp and clean.The electric air filter rested for ten days without being turned one once.The years of inconvenience and deliberation had paid off.They weren’t in the city they were sleeping on The Ledge and the vardo was an oasis.
The dreams came quickly for Lokea.Dreams have always had ready access to her.It would take Pat a few weeks before he was able to slow down and let go of his need to do.T.F. and Bernadette knew their work and paced their grace skillfully.Lokea was unraveling a life line of ancient pathways and destinies.Bernadette trod gently with Lokea. The Gypsy Frog Queen watched the old woman revisit the regrets, losses and unresolved ifs of a lifetime.Bernadette fed the Bird energy for love and turned the juices of trust to the fully ON position.Bernadette could not fix the disease that tampered with the old woman’s body and mind. Pesticides, chemicals, fear, exhaustion and toxic thought permeated The Great Planet.Lokea was one of The Sensitives and absorbed exactly what the planet absorbed.The fairy queen knew her kin were dying from the poisons as well and found the strength of her grace grew with opportunity.Time?Time is timeless.Bernadette knew her place in the Cosmos and simply joined in. Slowly The Ledge and the Reassembling would affect the causes and with more time Lokea would become different, The Great Planet would become different.The Bird had brought a piece of destiny to the moment and care had been taken to remember her place.“One piece, a part, no thing untouched, no soul un-needed.One piece, a part, no thing untouched, no soul un-needed,” Bernadette canted the ancient song and called from the realms of all Fairydom the embracing wings that have healed planets time and time again.Mortals alone can touch the world closest to them … the people, the places and experiences they know can be affected.The links between mortals and stardust, fairies and the beings of All, now those connections cause grand change we call Reassembling.Traveling Frog and his queen poured the warming dreams into the two old mortals.Night after night the Pond’s choir filled the night body of the old woman and the old man.Darkness allows deep sleep.Dreams patch worn coil.Stardust found places where erasures had left remnant memories.What was worn and tired was laid to rest, composted.If a piece of memory missed a blade of freshness it was offered.Weariness began to fall away.There was time here, and there was the warming. Ninety days there were, ninety days of warming.
T.F. visited Pat in his dreams. Waiting he watched as the old man’s body twitched, his mind raced through the heaps of rubble:projects, resentments, imperfection, and expectation, his limbs ratcheted bolts, fingers grappled with stubborn fittings. Each night the Gypsy Fairy waited for a space, a crossroads in the dreaming where a slight pause might allow a small frog to tinker.“Any luck yet my dear Froggie?” Bernadette asked while she tended the kettle now whistling with freshly boiled rain water.It had been twelve nights now, and still Traveling Frog replied, “He’s a piece of work that Patrick.No not yet my bonnie, bonnie Bernadette.Soon now, soon the man will let the Pond pull him from his doing.”
Six weeks on the mortal calendar passed.“I think I saw a fairy,” Pat said to his wife.“It wasn’t the humming bird.I saw a flutter of wings and then they were gone.”“Well,” Lokea said, “You’ve made space for them now haven’t you?Fairies don’t come if there’s no space for them.”Patrick Nicely was a man of purpose.Without purpose and projects Patrick wasn’t so nice.Edgy would suit, but he was teachable.The years of living with his wife’s disease offered the carpenter a pile of situations that simply could not be fixed.Though he hated it, life truly was out of control.One place after another proved unsafe and chemically threatening.He watched Lokea crumble into someone he didn’t recognize.For too long he thought, I tested her to ‘make sure’ the reaction wasn’t just in her head.Every one around Lokea tested.For almost a decade Lokea defended, and explained.But defending doesn’t work when there’s no space for listening.Six weeks on The Ledge, and Patrick Nicely had seen his first fairy.It was he who was being tested and it seemed Pat Nicely had scored well enough.
It was Long Eyes who witnessed the event.The pale green frog watched from the pile of rotting boards at the far end of The Ledge.A young bumble fairy was very taken by the scent of the tall carpenter, and without reservation, buzzed passed Pat for a closer sniff.“It is always the young ones isn’t it Long Eyes,” T.F. smiled as his old friend and first cousin finished the last of his morning tea.Long Eyes was pleased and patient with the process of any reassembling.“The carpenter will need you to help with his vo-ca-bu-la-ry, cousin.His is a fertile and curious mind and like his hands that mind looks for projects and satisfaction.The words he uses.There is your space gypsy king.When he stumbles for words in his dreams help him.”Traveling Frog was keen to the offering.T.F. had been focused on the actions of Patrick Nicely because the man was a man of actions.Long Eyes’ clue mixed a new method into the magic.Indeed, T.F. would attend to the vocabulary of the carpenter’s dreams and apply the gift of grace.
Jo quickly adjusted to life on The Ledge.The fullness of the wild fueled the huntress with the gifts of her birth.The early visit from Traveling Frog and Calliope did not go unregistered in the soul of the panther.She knew the importance of the frog and yet her nature as hunter reigned.Her territory was broad her wanderings grew day and night.The scent pads left her brand between vardo landing and the reaches north, south, and west.Eastern pathways were problematic.The road, though not thickly traveled by cars was tricky.It was difficult to monitor the speed of cars:some slow, others unexpectedly fast.“Get off that road, shoo!”The road was sometimes the only place for good deep sun soaking.“What is wrong with him,” Jo was embarrassed at Pat’s lack of grace as he shoveled the black feline with his feet and forced her to the slope leading into the back of the vardo.Jane E. watched the corrective actions and snorted, “Hummm…that’ll teach that cat to move in on me.”The road and the saw dust piles around the seedling Josh had planted near the mail box were choice sunning territory.Jane marked the spot with her water and snarled through the hair following into her mouth at Jo who pretended not to see the dog.“Cretan.”A tentative truce kept Jo and Jane E. from outright battle.Jane E. had her job:she protected Anna and Josh and The Mansion.It was clear that her humans’ presence made the difference.On days when Anna and Josh piled into the little red car and headed for the city without her Jane leaned.“Hi Jane,” Lokea opened the front door without so much as a hi ho of a bark from the shaggy shiz chu.With no people to protect Jane was another dog all together.“Got your number, you little actress,” Lokea reached down and scratched Jane E.’s chubby chest.“Your secret’s safe with me.”Feline on the front porch was another story altogether.If Jane saw Jo through the window, she was ON high voltage bark alert.The panther tantalized and stayed within view.A closed door was a green light.
Visits to a cat’s dream were tricky.Since Josephine, like most of her kin enjoyed the sleep of restoration during the bright hours of the day, T.F. enlisted the help of the Tall Ones.Tutu was constantly aware of the movements and activity of the sleek little black cat.The ancient fir watched with interest as Josephine played and practiced.“She is exceptionally quick for a cat not born in the Wood.Her body responds quickly, her nose alert.”Still Traveling Frog knew the cat was a skilled huntress who needed the rules of discerning prey from fairy.“Will she learn without loss you think?”Traveling Frog posed the question through con.“Perhaps, she is clever but not arrogant.Leave messages in her water. Let her drink the nectar of place.”T.F. thought he heard the old tree laugh.“The nectar of place…what a good idea.”To gather what was needed the Gypsy Frog Fairy headed first to the tiny shelf in his wagon reserved for vials of concoction.Organized in his fashion … ‘disarray’ a word Bernadette used when the frog was out of range, T.F. scanned for the proper collecting vessel.When he spotted the squat glass receptacle, he held it to the window to check it for any malingering former specimens.Satisfied the vial would work for his errand, Traveling Frog set about gathering.Flying would be easy, but this work needed to be done with his nose to the ground.The scent of Jo’s pads would take him across her territory.At each spot along Jo’s trail Traveling Frog called to the kin who lives there.Explaining his mission, bug, beetle, bird and mouse contributed a bit to the potion.Like a honey bee collecting pollen Traveling Frog collected nectar of place.When he had nearly finished he stopped at the edge of The Pond.Looking deeply into the now green and grassy water Traveling Frog recited as he dipped the squat glass receptacle and filled it near to full, “The scent of the fairy so clear to the nose, so fair to the eye and like milk thistle grows.Cat will not chase.Cat will not taste.The scent of the fairy no longer so.” From under his cap T.F. pulled a tiny beeswax stopper, sealed the vial sure and rose from Pond’s edge with a flutter of wings.Jo was curled tightly into the old gray sweater in her carrier, asleep.Her water bowl sat next to the dish of dry colored bits she liked to eat when not eating prey.Silently the frog hovered over the water bowl, pulled the stopper and poured his collectings.“It be done.”
Anna Paint turned to her old friend.The journey to The Ledge had been a long and circuitous one for Lokea, difficult on most days the arrival of the golden wagon was an occasion to commemorate.“Are you living on the edge or living on the ledge?”Anna asked.Lokea Bird answered with no reservations.“I’ve been on the edge and I’m living on the ledge now.”“If you’ve been on the edge and need a rest pull up an “L” and “Lean” into it.”Anna cackled. The two old women knew precisely what that meant.
It was a pretty good day for Anna Paint.Her body rested now calmed from the razor sharp and uncontrollable movements she relaxed with Jane E. regally in attendance.Jane was past the point of being objective about Anna’s disease.“I just hate that disease.It makes Anna miserable, and more than that it makes her afraid.Don’t make Anna afraid, just don’t!”Few people heard Jane’s rants, but Anna knew them for what they were … loyal and unwavering love.Lokea had just finished taking a long hot soak in the tub and was perched on the stool in front of her laptop.Sharing the land and the home which seemed a mansion from Lokea’s perspective, the two old friends had begun to re-kindle their already near forty year friendship at a time when Lokea was scraping the bottom of despair with her own physical collapse.Anna’s voice on the other end the cell phone was the thin yet tenacious life line at a crucial time.Lokea blew on that thin spark of hope as if her life depended upon it.And of course, it did.
Bernadette’s song wove the journey of collapsing mortal life with the legacy of an over-looked barnacle in the nest-makings of two ancient wood crafters named Freeill Noa and Kaimala Noa of the Islands. Bernadette sang from memory the same one I have sung for cycles into all memory.She sang it as if I would:“Though all the care in the Cosmos was taken and intention blessed with clarity, a very tiny over-sight took place in the building of my father and my uncle’s nest.A bit of drift wood no bigger than a blink was woven into the bowl of the nest just beneath Kaimala Noa’s violet shell.Over the ninety moon risings and sunsets, a very tiny barnacle unseen in the process of nest building, grew from the surface of the tiny bit of driftwood as well.The unsuspecting Wood Crafters had collected a living creature and brought it into the mix of warming.The short version of a story that will reveal itself further as the song is told, is this:Kaimala Noa and that barnacle become intimately coiled and during the soft shell stages of growing into a Wood Crafter my uncle had also absorbed the memory of a being whose destiny was to cling to survive.”
Bernadette’s recall of ancient melody and lyrics were precise.Shelela of the Swallows felt her chest throb with the memory of this same song poured into her during the warming.Shelela knew the story and added the next stanza in con as Bernadette continued to share the details of Shelela’s coil. The story of horded reef croppings and treasured fish tended to by the loyal winds of the Cosmos, Ka Makani.Honu the ancient sea turtle’s plea to make things right was a plea yet to be satisfied.How many cycles had passed since the old one met Shemaladia the Great and her mate Freeill Noa of the Islands?
Shelela knew the song and knew the lives of Northern and Southern Hemisphere’s had changed long, long ago.Her own changed form to swallow rather than osprey was part of the song.Now the Queen of Gypsy Fairy Frogs promised even more. As if in answer to Shelela’s silent question, Shelela heard Bernadette sing, “And the plea remains without reckoning, the waters continue to warm, the fry are not only small in size they are smaller yet in numbers and mortals now carry the spell of collapsing dreams.In the beginning the spell was easily ignored, mortal will is powerful and tenacious and has birthed cycles of convenience that distant them from the responsibility of Remembering.Some of them no longer fight the spell and are among the humans with finely-coiled sensitivity.The Sensitives they are, like Anna Paint and Lokea the Bird, a covey of mortals becoming un-done.Anna and Lokea are spell-bound by the affects of an ill-placed belief that clinging to more is a grace.Here, on The Ledge and within The Mansion the two Sensitives and their mates call for the dreams of Reassembling.Long awaited seed stones have passed between the mortal woman Lokea and the fairies.Lokea the Bird, spell-carrier and migratory ancestor of the Golden Plover KO lea has brought twin stones hung on golden filigree, gifts of a promised new life, a promise to satisfy a plea made right.”Bernadette turned to T.F. who held up both shiny orange stones.Shelela and her mate Tusi rose from the limb, lifted the ring wrought of silver with the stone of pink with their claws and flew to the porch between Traveling Frog and Bernadette.The twin orange stones fit precisely within the circle created by the ring.Slowly the stones pulsed:orange, then yellow, green, blue, then blue-violet.The same violet color all twin eggs of the Wood Crafters had birthed throughout time, throughout Ever.The filigree fell away leaving instead a sprinkle of golden dust, an ancient gift of the stars patiently waiting the perfect moment, this moment.
In terms of time passed on The Great Planet, four moon risings had come and gone by the time Shelela and Tusi finally nestled the twin violet eggs into the curved wagon crafted for their warming.Paddleton and Long Eyes were swift in their work as Bernadette’s song was sure.Lengths of fallen and weathered pine needles collected and dried over the season were fashioned into tightly woven walls.Seamless and water-tight the crafters used the pitch oozing from the firs to coat the outer needles, making sure the inside was smooth and gentle on both eggs and swallows.Tusi and Shelela drew Pond mud to coat the outer walls ensuring warmth and the comfort of a proper swallows nest.Windows, new to the design of a Wood Crafters nest incorporated the ocean shells and coral bits left as gifts along the pathway of Lokea Bird and Pat Nicely’s vardo.A curved roof encircled the home with just enough space for Shelela and Tusi to enter and exit. With the hybrid lineage of the eggs Paddleton and Long Eyes knew to draw from fairy, bird and mortal coils. The design and function was a fitting prototype for the reassembling.
The ninety days and ninety nights of warming began with the full moon in the sign of the Archer, Sagittarius.Traveling Frog and his Queen Bernadette noted the extended period of rain that filled the Pond far beyond its normal season.“Seems we have work yet to be done before our migration,” Traveling Frog said as he pulled himself onto the firm comfort of his bed beside his Queen.
“The dreamers are ripe for the wakening.
We have the songs for their taking.
Long on the limb, not as bright of the eye.
Re-coil, re-store, re-fresh
Asleep on The Ledge deeply.
Spell cast, promise kept, secret shared.
The dreamers are ripe for the wakening.”
Froggie and his Queen closed their eyes and went immediately to their work.
Bernadette and her sisters laid the platters of freshly baked pine flour scones on the fallen log at the pond’s edge.Dozens of platters heaped with the tiny scones filled the evening air with their fragrance.Tea pots and tea cups of all shapes and seasons steamed with the tea of dandelion root and bitter green leaves.The clan folk of frogs, fairies and salamanders and birds added bundled meal of grubs and worms and above them two swallows dove at the flies skipping over the still pond’s surface.Traveling Frog stepped from his wagon and let fly his throaty evening song, “Day is done, join the song.Day is done, the night is ours.Come, come, the night is ours.”Over tiny cups of dandelion tea and gulps of pine flour scones the clan folk joined in.It was a ruckus and full voice, as loud as they had ever been all season long.Bernadette struck two sharp bits of flint together at the edge of the porch steps, sending a quick orange spark to a candle of beeswax which Traveling Frog held with his front legs.The ruckus quieted, but did not completely still.Murmuring persisted, questions began.“The wagon on The Ledge, who brings it and why?”Mo`o of Crinkleroot bounced from the lip of a fallen pine trying to get Traveling Frog’s attention.The young salamander did not contain his skepticism as his orange skin and light green spots pulsed with impatience.
Traveling Frog was a regal sight that spring evening, his purple cape and violet cap glowed from the sprinkle of stardust that joins a fairy when a message of import needs to be shared.He began by answering Mo`o’s questions. Leaving nothing from his story Traveling Frog recounted for his kin and his clans people the arrival of the mortal woman called Lokea Bird.“This old woman,” Traveling Frog continued, “is more than she appears.A brown-skinned woman with hair streaked with silver and eyes that once shone like wet black river rock is The Bird.In my memory of songs and story there is a thread of a tale that connects the mortal to our own purposes here on The Great Planet.Those among us who have warmed and cooled for cycles near the Pond of Ever know how far from center the mortal purposes have wandered.I am a Lord among you, yet that entitles me no more than any of the All.”Croaks and utterance from the kin who had indeed lived through the sharp and harsh re-distribution of space and place rose from the logs surrounding the Pond.Every one gathered there that night knew how precious the space and place Joshua Tree maintained in the high mountains.“The Bird and her mate have come for a Reassembling.The Great Planet is aging far faster than she ought.Linkages between stars and Planets are being erased, too few claim too much.The Ledge has lain empty through the cycles of mis-alignments.Remnants of The Tall Ones heap at the edge, and only now have bits and bobs of these ancestors been reclaimed.”
Calliope listened intently to his friend’s song and finally asked, “Have any of you climbed the trails to see for yourself the reclamation Traveling Frog is singing about?And the wheelie wagon have you shimmied up the wheel well to view the lovin’ touch the old ones have taken to turn wood into a lovely home for the two?”“Yes, we have taken the trail and hopped onto the ancient one laid on her side to get a closer look at the wagon colored like the heart of the lions.Skinned fir that has lain in the heaps has been gathered up and form stepping pads for the old people.” It was Long Eyes who spoke up.The old frog lean and faded green from cycles of life between the Pond and the Lake sang with a voice deep and fluid.“My son Pad and I have indeed climbed the wheel well as you say; to get a closer look at the crafting took place to make a home for the two.Of course, we have gone to The Ledge while the couple and their panther are not at home. Now that feline is a huntress and I would be warning all of yous to be sure of your next leap before getting near.”Traveling Frog and Calliope caught the meaning in Long Eyes warning.Josephine’s reputation grew quickly.Traveling Frog noted a visit to the dreaming feline would be a must do in the very near while.Long Eyes took up where he left off, “The wagon’s wood sniffs of a tree unfamiliar to our own Woods.The wood is very hard with a sweet smell of its own for sure.The color of dandelion used to cover the once tall is a mixture that does not frizzle my skin nor dampen my senses.The old ones who crafted have been gentle with decoration and used the wax of the buzzing cousins to shield from the damp and cold. We have watched the honey makers swarm and sniff the wagon as they would a hive.The humans have arrived with a wagon that will do us no harm.They have come with care.”Long Eyes of the Pond was aptly named, given his grace as healer the lyric of his songs drew attentive ears.A hum rose from the gathered pond folk, happy for the news.Pad, short for Paddleton Pond was the clan’s master carpenter.I believe carpenter would be the word most complementary between your lexicon and mine.Frogs and fairies construct just as any other covey would assemble nesting material for home and chattel.“The wagon is genuine.Such as the finest of fairy wagon, the wagon on The Ledge is sound, and the design … Paddleton Pond searched for description, without hesitation Traveling Frog sang, “Whimsical, whimsical.The design of the wheeled wagon is whim-si-cal!Both frogs nodded and broken into grins as broad as bowls.
“Dear Froggie,” it was Bernadette’s turn to add to the unfoldings.“The kin need to know the link this mortal bird brings to The Ledge.Tell us the reason she is here and the gifts.Name the gifts she bears and the possibilities they invite.”Though the Lord Frog had lived with his mate for nearly two hundred cycles, his wife’s sense of timing would always define a time table.“Right you are our own dear Bernadette.It is time for that part of the song.”Shelela of the Swallows sat on a bough above the curved roof of Frog and Bernadette’s vardo.The talk about the quality of wood crafting was interesting enough and of course necessary to the general sense of the occasion.Now though, the swallow’s heart opened broadly as her chest spread to envelope the conned as well as sung versions of Traveling Frog’s message.Traveling Frog moved slightly from his place on the porch and made room for Bernadette.“My queen, I believe this part of the song is yours.”He removed his violet cap and bowed fully to his mate.It was precisely the right thing to do.
Bernadette began.“Lokea the Bird is a spell-carrying daughter and one of the mortals known in the spheres of All as The Sensitives.In all beings The Creators hollowed space for Remembering.Wood Crafters maintain, warm and live with our gifts of grace using a body-wide space for remembering. Our times of warming are full, loving and undisturbed.Birthed as twins during the tipping of star-dust from the once rich lid of the constellation The Big Dipper, Grace spread through our coils just as the pearl-woven beads of spider weaves his web of strength and fragility we know the how and when of strength and fragility.Many of us were once much larger beings with frames and shapes of varied forms, not unlike the forms we have now.”Bernadette stopped to view with her wet glassy eyes the many kin who surrounded The Pond that night:Salamander, Frog, Osprey, Duck, Crow, and Swallow.“We were large, giant even to some views and there was space and star dust in plentitude to nourish all of Creation.But something happened a very, very long time ago in a place where Sun shines warmly all cycle through.That place called Islands suffocated with a rising yellow cloud yellow air concocted we were told by mortals called ‘scientists and chemists’ for the purpose of war.The planet has been changing ever since. As if a light had brightened the air between Pond and Lake, all singing saves for Bernadette’s went silent.All present seemed to know this was going to be a very, very long story and settled more comfortably into the night……………………..
So the story of Covey Heritage and the threads of times without clocks wove in and out of the place which we old dears came to know as the Pond and the Woods of Ever. Characters of myth, soul memories that blended geography with cosmology and the diligent coaxing of Muse created this beautiful story. Parallel times that gave me access to sense while my old world of normal reassembled into some thing else continue here. It is separate from VardoForTwo by a hank of a braid.
Pick up the tale by going to the side bar and reading Part 1 "The Covey".
Read the first 5 installments of Part 2: "The Ledge" that link below.
