Inside the heart of the lion

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 North County 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.”