The Rich Man

“Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater.”

― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

 

blog image tea

 

 


Life is like a dream, and it is also like a book.

I dare say I like it when life’s seemingly insignificant moments come together, forming patterns, and a lesson can be drawn therein –  as if the Creator created the universe, and time, specifically, for each of us.  But I find life’s mysteries and their unraveling fascinating, not just because they are central to who we are as individuals, but to who we are as a humanity.   We are in this life together, like it or not.

Unstable people might also find meaning in every day things, but it’s not this fact that makes them crazy, for everything does have meaning. Even in mental disorders, according to Jung, lies a secret order, and in all chaos, a cosmos. I dare say by contrast, I find those who don’t find meaning in anything, perhaps not crazy –  but not that bright,  either.

For what makes the delusional who do find meaning in everything deluded, is that they dare to assume what the meaning of these things are, as if they are God, and personally infallible.

For me, I simply like to ponder mysteries that don’t end,  and such mysteries, fortunately, are really quite abundant.  Spiritual mysteries are, in fact, way too big and plentiful for anyone to understand completely, this side of the grave. But moreover, I like to ponder how, if a Divine Being would so supernaturally order the universe, to put mysterious parable, or infinite pattern, into each of our very small lives – so that our souls can mature – this must mean that this Creator is all good and all powerful, even when we don’t understand the bigger picture that His puzzles present.

Perhaps life is less about finding out who we are, and more about finding out who the I Am –  is.

And maybe knowing the created, and knowing what created the created, is somewhat interchangeable. Because to find out about anything created, one has an advantage if first one finds out – what purpose for it – the designer, he or she, had in mind.  I have learned this lesson the hard way, from perusing Lowe’s hardware department – only to come home with a “tool wardrobe” that only makes me look like Rosie the Riveter – while rendering all my renovation aspirations into renovation limbo.

Stay with me here.

Yesterday was rough.

First of all,  I have a problem with the repetitive mundane, and a lack of self discipline exacerbated by loneliness.  I become increasingly aware of my shortcomings and limitations, as well as arthritic pain, when I force myself into some marathon labor, on yet more renovations, started a very long time ago.  I speak here of tasks that will not even grant sweet, artistic satisfaction – until I’m entirely done.


“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”

― Hans Christian Andersen

 

 

Yesterday, exhaustion fell upon me as early and inevitably as the dusk, and it was exhaustion made deeper and more complex by reoccurring memories of a human love I had once found –  but now, had lost.  I felt heavy with not only physical, but emotional weariness, which had been mitigated briefly while I busied myself, but come to fruition in the night, in high definition, highly sensitive person fashion.  So I sank into the old and weathered-but-welcoming sofa in my living room, next to a coffee table that I had managed to refurbish, and in fact graced with laptop, pen and paper, and a glass of Merlot, self-served in a crystal wine glass –  because I, at least, should love myself.

Now, I won’t ruin it for those of you who peruse movie channels regularly, for new releases capable of entertaining (or at least distracting, for awhile) –  but who don’t regularly get your hopes up to this end, because you are smarter than a strawberry.

I won’t ruin it for you, in case you haven’t yet seen American Fable, by telling you how this movie ends.  Suffice it to say,  last night I watched, on my laptop – placed upon that refinished coffee table –  a palatable and pleasing tale, about a little girl who risks everything, including her family, to do the right thing and help save an old man –  imprisoned in a silo – simply for being rich and powerful.

 

blog image rich man

 


And then I fell asleep.

When I awoke, the rain which had come down earlier in the evening had stopped. I awoke disoriented, trying to assess my this-is-not-my-bedroom surroundings.  I only found comfort and familiarity in my dogs, still dozing loyally beside me on the thick, fake bear rug I had placed below – to hide for the time being, unfinished floors.

Not every creature has left me, I noted with what I hoped was not bitterness, but gratitude.

Or perhaps the dogs had just been afraid of the thunder.  This was more likely.

I was vaguely aware of a recent nightmare, but the physical pain I felt now was greater and more intense than merely attention consuming. I glanced with self-accusation at the empty wine glass, a migraine teasing at my temples, but this unfortunate, punitive severity paled in comparison to the pain as sharp as hot knives, shooting through both my arms and in particular, up and down both of my legs.

I had assumed it was arthritis.

I realized now, I didn’t know it to be arthritis.

I had felt compelled to play doctor.  I had  blamed – perhaps wrongly – my not so ensuring government insurance program (the kind that not-rich and not-so-powerful entrepreneurs like myself,  are necessitated to use).  I suddenly felt regret and even fear in this moment, such as that that derives from a long bout of personal losses, and an inadequate, self preservation plan.

Had I been like the schizoid, seeing only the meaning I wanted to see, in what I only sensed to be true?

I fumbled for my reading glasses and immediately googled the symptoms of fibromyalgia on my cell phone, each movement exacerbating the pain.  I now read each symptom dutifully,  feeling way too old for my young looking,  fifty-one years. As I read these symptoms, what I didn’t want to know registered as true, with a corresponding emotional impact that seemed once again, to double and triple already unendurable pain.

Could it get any worse than this?  Perhaps I should google bone cancer next.

Or not.

At least I had had the foresight to pick up a spray bottle of something promising to be both icy and hot, the last time I had gone to the drug store, and if I could just be stubbornly tenacious, like Lazarus raising himself from the dead, I might extricate myself from the now not-so-comfortable couch. I could then, perhaps, after a generous application of analgesic  (and two ibuprofen swallowed with something other than wine), settle into a more relieving and restful position, perhaps even post-meditative slumber, upstairs.  But the searing, burning sensation in my legs must stop, before I could meditate, or contemplate anything – and sleep at all. 

Oh Lord, please make this stop.

I prayed that angels of strength would strengthen me, for I was sinking fast.  Melodramatic?  Perhaps.  But the intensity of this pain scared me, and I don’t scare easily anymore. If I cannot be reasonably well, I worried, how can I complete those tasks, even greater than my renovation projects, which God wants from me?  Have I healed from so many traumas and shocks in my life, have I been shown so much discerning my true vocation, only to find God really intends for me a sickbed martyrdom, at this point in time?

I can’t believe His will for me is “just” immolation and offering of physical infirmities – despite not being exempt from this worthy path, through any merit of my own. Besides, I don’t want to burden my still rather young, adult children, and there would be no one left to tend to my side, pay my bills, or change my sheets, when I potty myself.  (The dogs remain my dependents, not the other way around.)

But are these thoughts just another, I do not want to know?  Or the evil one, intent on discouraging a dream?

“Brave soldier, never fear.

Even though your death is near.”

― Hans Christian Andersen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier

 


So upstairs, about an hour later, lying in bed, I felt both strangely cold, and strangely hot.

I had sprayed an awful lot of medication from the small metal bottle on my mostly stripped down body, standing as relatively upright as I could in the upstairs bathroom, and now stood in a puddle of it. Even the spray bottle slipped out of my hurting hand, clattering loudly against floor tiles, rolling somewhere unreachable.  I could not endure the pain necessary to bend down and clean up the mess I had made, so I could not take precautions against slipping in the puddle the next morning – with preemptive housekeeping –  those good habits of which Mother had warned me never to forego, when I was just a little girl.

But even after this self-dousing with medicated spray, I could not detect any lessening of pain, only an added, feverish twist. Now, as I pulled covers up, then off again, writhing in agony, I found someone had turned my mattress into a stone. Soon, I found myself trapped in that self-defeating loop, of trying too hard not to think about pain, trying too hard to drift into contemplation, and trying too hard to sleep. The magnitude and sharpness of pain filled up my mind, blocking everything else out, and I imagined a bleak, fibromyalgic future, the pain leading to sleeplessness, which would lead, in turn, to anxiety and depression.  I had read that commonly happens, thanks to google and my cell phone. What then? What’s next?  I cannot do this alone.

The limit of my endurance had broken, and I started to cry.


Nothing less than God can satisfy us.
– Julian of Norwich

 

Then I noticed the morning birds singing. 

And it was just starting to get light outside.

Casting my eyes upwards, head extended back against the pillow, I stopped crying for a moment, and looked up at the same brilliant moon that I had seen almost every other night, through the window which rose up behind my head board.  It was a moon which now peeked out from behind a brilliantly patterned, green underside of a canopy of leaves, on the giant tree which grows very close to the side of the house. I must have fallen somewhat into a dream state, because I heard myself silently talking to God about my place of business, my soul speaking some spiritual language that we both seemed to understand.

This is my woods.

I see that it is…  I long to sweep you up, into my arms.

And finally, half awake, I noticed my pain had slightly diminished, replaced with an even stronger, burning sensation. It was a feeling of longing I have felt quite occasionally in my life, and it transcends everything else here on earth, even physical pain.  I wanted to go home.  I was homesick.

I do not know for certain that my birth was accompanied by a near death experience, but I remember, in a vague way, that other home, that better place outside of time, where the Bright Light, the Presence, is, and the angels reside. It is a home I remember forsaking only to help undo whatever my mother had done –  so that she could continue to live with me, and the rest of my family there.

I loved her so much, as I still do now.  But my mother has grown old in this life, I too am tiring, and I long for what I can’t quite remember in fullness here below. I am not suicidal, but I’ve longed for that Someone and that Place with all of my heart, in times such as these, but also in times of great joy.

Child, do you not know? You never left My side. 

In that moment, in my bed, it felt like if God allowed me to remember heaven more fully,  my soul would detach from my body right then and there, and go to Him.  He would, indeed, sweep me up in His arms. I imagined at least, He was giving me this option.

But what about my children?

The longing was something so ecstatically sweet, it hurt – but it was not pain like sharp knives in the legs. It was a burning of the heart I cannot explain adequately. The only thought that could prevent me from entirely succumbing to it, was the thought of my adult children, and the grief they would feel if I were suddenly dead. This thought grounded me in that moment –  with sorrow, compassion and love for them.  I even shuddered to imagine my dogs, who would sleep faithfully until they starved to death, beside my already dead corpse. For what are our lives worth,  if not opportunities to sacrifice for others?

And isn’t it more fitting that a parent give her life and sufferings for her children, and the caregiver care for the creature, than the other way around? So, in that moment, I offered to God my pain (which was now re-surging) and the rest of my life for my children. I also offered up these things for all those God might want me to assist on this earth by way of love, even as I had once, as an infant soul, come to life – for my mother. And perhaps there was another human love, that I wouldn’t get to love,  if I let God take me now.

I don’t remember when I fell asleep again.

But in the dreams that soon followed, I heard voices speaking over me, talking about how I needed emergency surgery.

It is her third emergency surgery.

No, she has already had five.

The human love I had lost was somewhere in that room, and a doctor’s assistant with a silent angel’s voice was asking him, will you care for her (meaning, will he care for me)?  My former love shook his head.  He looked irritated and tired.  No, I have to work to do. He was an important, hardworking man, and he too, had recently been sick.

The feminine voice hovered over me again, telling me “they” could get me on his father’s insurance plan.

No, I have to see my son, my former love answered, now offering a different excuse,  and one successfully silencing me  –  because I wouldn’t question his parental love.

But wasn’t this disordered, if his son was fine, and my life was in danger?

And even in my dream, I recalled that this man had blamed me for his own illness, as if love was counter-indicated for good health, rather than what God intended to help heal and set people free. But in fairness, Former Love could have been trying to say that his only business in the world was to exist for the sake of his children.  Was he an analogy for God?

 

Author Leo Tolstoy in Peasant's Garb

 


No, clearly, he was not God.  This was the man who had broken my heart and abandoned me,  not the Bridegroom of my soul, who had done neither of these things.

So I wondered, in the dream (because I am ever logical) how could it be true that I could get on his father’s insurance, if we were not even married?  How convoluted and dark this dream has become, I thought. I was somehow aware that I was dreaming, but able to stay asleep.

Then I saw his father in the dream, who was older, unshaven, and surprisingly rather disheveled looking, even though he still wore a suit, as if he too, had recently endured a lot of pain or abuse. In fact, he looked strangely like the same man from the movie I had watched the preceding evening, who was imprisoned in a farm silo for many months, simply for being rich.  Now this kind, gentle man was in my dream, sitting alone in untidy clothing in a hospital, or some kind of waiting place, but looking relaxed now, as if in secret, he really owned the place.

You can be on my insurance, he intuited to me directly, without speaking a word, not because he is my son, but because you are my daughter.

I don’t remember the rest of the dream, but as I awoke the next morning, I had the brief sensation of being wheeled out on a gurney, through the exit doorway of a surgical unit, into a recovery area.  I was slowly waking up in my dream, and in real life. I just had time before I woke up for real to notice a very small sign posted on the wall (in my dream) beside the surgery door through which I had just exited.  So I sat up in the wheeled cot, straining to read it.

It said:  I HAVE A PLAN.

And one more time, right before my alarm went off, and I sat up in my real bed, I heard an assistant’s voice, hovering over me, saying something like:

She’s stable.

And it was then that I noticed my pain was almost gone.

There was one more dream I had, because, finally feeling more at peace and refreshed, I dosed off a bit longer.  It was about tea.  That’s all. A flash of rich imagery, tea leaves in one of those plastic baggies in which I usually store it,  and a heady, sweet, herbal fragrance.


  

 

The Way Angels Speak


blog image angel young man singing

“God wants us to be happy and enjoy our lives, and so he sends angels to help us.”
– Lorna Byrne

When people talk about their life flashing before their eyes, they often speak of it as reviewing images from a reel of movie film.  I contend this film, or mental story book of our life, is constantly replaying somewhere in the back of our minds – especially as we age.

Some images come to us crisp and clear, popping to the surface of mental awareness with a flush of warm nostalgiaThese memories have meaning and emotional depth, marking our lives like purposely placed bookmarks.

Others images fade into white, like footage or a window obscured by static or snow. Try as we might we can’t clear the window to remember what happened ten Thanksgivings ago.  I can’t recall the names of the characters on what used to be some of my favorite TV shows, or some of the long words I was able to spell as a child, to win spelling bees.

I wonder if the forgotten or missing elements of life are insignificant, and that’s why we forget them in the first place. 

No mystery hidden here, by powers unkind.  

But I believe there’s meaning in everything.

Sometimes not unpleasant scenes resurface in my mind like benign flashbacks, of which I’m first unaware.

I begin to notice these because of their repeated persistence. I think of it as interior angels, trying to show me something.  

I tend to recall one summer in particular. A highly sensitive child, I was more in tune with my interior life, animals, nature, and the beauty and mysteries of the changing seasons, then I was with children of my own age, or the games they seemed to enjoy.

I see West Point very clearly, the visuals and smells of it.

I see tiny, sparkling rivulets of crystal clear rainwater, meandering merrily down the road where I lived.

I remember gentle sunshine filtering through leafy ceilings of oak and pine, the soft, warm breeze which carried with it the sweet smell of green, neatly cut military grass, and the incense-like stain of marigolds, adhering to my hands like golden finger paint, from giant seed pods broken open with a pleasing snap.

Suddenly I’m reliving that summer, but especially a specific event that occurred in it.

There was a birthday party at the end of the road at a house, where a girl I knew from school lived.

She was slightly older than me.

She had been kind enough to invite me to her party, and therefore I was obliged to go.  The fact that she was not a close friend and sometimes gave me a vaguely uncomfortable feeling, was not relevant to this duty, nor was my disinterest in the trivial games that seemed to very much interest the other kids.

I don’t remember the cake.

I don’t remember the interior of her house.

And I don’t remember of what most of the games consisted. 

But I do remember when one of the girls dramatically announced that one of the other little girls – arriving late – was a fortune teller and was going to “read” our futures, and everybody got all excited.  At that point I decided I had had enough, and tried to quietly slip away.

Too funny.

I guess I had what some call spiritual pride at an early age.

My interior life was way too interesting and I was way too intuitive, to imagine enlightenment could be aided by another little girl.  Especially not one who might not mind overly sweet frosting, the brutality of bobbing for apples, or God forbid – playing spin the bottle with the few boys present.

But if I was anything at that age I was docile, and didn’t want to hurt or offend anyone.

blog image marigolds


So when one of the older girls ran after me across the yard (after I had made my quiet escape, sneaking shamefacedly out the back door) I was subject to her, and returned with her. She told me the little girl telling fortunes was really “nice” and “don’t be afraid”.

Don’t be afraid?

Apparently, this fortune teller girl specifically wanted to tell me my fortune, for some reason unknown.  I didn’t know who she could be, but the girl had specifically asked about me, wanted to speak with me, and tell me my fortune.

With some kind of glass ball.

Or something she was using as a glass ball.  I think it may have been a basketball.

Looking glass, basketball, did it even make a difference to them, these strangers?

But I’m sure I said makeshift prayers of deliverance – you know – just in case she was consulting with demons ~ that might be hiding behind a basketball, or perhaps inside of it.  I didn’t like demons, nor basketball, and I certainly entertained more than a little superstition…of superstitions.

The fortune teller girl told me was I would be divorced two times, have three children – one of whom would die very young –  and a boy and a girl, who would survive. I remember that quite clearly.

I remember thinking she was the unfortunate one.

I remember interiorly balking at this stranger’s insistence that I would be divorced that many times, and one of my future children was going to die. But I also remember she was indeed very “nice”, adding “Do not worry, you will be very happy in the end”.

So for some reason, every once in awhile, I remember this little clairvoyant, her calling me out, her “service” to me, and her ever so confident prediction.  This is one of those odd scenes that has kept resurfacing in my life with increasing, mysterious persistence.

Of course, I don’t remember the little girl’s face, but perhaps that’s because it was obscured by a veil. 

I realize now, this is very not unlike the scene in Jane Eyre when Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a fortune teller, and gives Jane a spankingly accurate picture of herself.

Because at fifty-one, two divorces, and three children later (if you count my boy and girl now grown, and the baby I tragically miscarried) I’m paradoxically quite joyful. And I think I’m beginning to see why repeated exposures to scenes like this, these mental slides from an interior slide show, are important. Angels continually speak, from the inside and the outside of us. But sometimes it requires the discarding of dogma, and all that is really just fear-based assumption, to hear our angels speak.

 

Fiat of the Eternal Father

This is a Place

This is a place
Where the faeries play
In perfect imperfection
This is a place
Where reality grows
In meaning and intention

woods 13

Cause like the wind
Is a record borne
Upon glorious exultation
Thought like the sky
Is the heavens sought
Above man’s lamentation

woods 11

What name by the same
Do the Druids go
This age’s contemplation?
This is a place
The invisible sing
In quiet adoration

woods 4

Listen if you will
For the woodlands speak
Of things not man’s invention
This is a place
Where the dreamers dream
Of angel-sweet intention

woods 10

Grasp if you will
Tales of wordless Voice
And wordless deep expression
Grasp if you will
The Tale of the Wood
By intuited impression

Eros’s Error and the Compensatory Grace

 

“I thirst.”
– Jesus Christ

blog image gothic wedding tree


In retrospect, Oracion felt Mother had done her a greater disservice when she had recommended Oracion be auctioned for dragons, than when she had sold Oracion’s night visions to a troubled prelate, for the cost of a trikerion lamp.

After all, the dragons had done Oracion no harm, and when she, a princess but only five years old, demanded Mother tell her –  what offenses dragons had committed that all of them were guilty of death (just so a princess could bear a prince) – Mother could give no answer.

“If any knight slays an innocent, unproven dragon for my sake, not tried for its case” Oracion had announced, licking honey cream casually off of her fingers (for she was eating a thick slice of current bread) “be he a knight, a prince, or even be he a king – he will never have my hand.”

Oracion had gone then to see Father, still licking her fingers.

She found him in the expansive castle library on one of the tall ladders towards the back of the room, beneath the ancient ceiling vault upon which the artists had drawn angels. He was paging through a heavy volume he had pulled from a shelf, beside an open window the height of one wall. From this emitted a gentle, summer evening breeze, that caused long, gauzy silk curtains to flutter, like wispy skirts of garden nymphs.

Father often seemed to understand Oracion, when others could not.

Indeed, he had overheard portions of Oracion and her mother’s conversation, which came echoing in from the dining chamber. It was funny how within this castle there were so few secrets, yet so many, that Oracion was wont to realize.

Glancing down at Oracion, Father was now only halfway absorbed in the fine volume, which had such outstanding, gilded lettering running down the length of its spine, luminous calligraphy seemed to jump right off of the binding, in response to the flickering candlelight.

“In your mother’s culture it was an honor for princesses to have suitors duel over them,”  he stated, matter of factly, still appearing to peruse the book.  “And where there was not game, the men would invent.”

Oracion crossed her arms at this remark, her brow knit with great consternation at what seemed like Eros’s error, then sat down silently into a great armchair, three times too big.

“That does not impress,” she had finally responded, which was a response that was also three times too big,  for such a little girl.   “So why would it honor?”

Father considered for a moment, then slid the book back into the row of bound manuscripts, closing the space.  He came down from the ladder and sat down next to his little girl empty handed, drawing her lovingly  – into his arms.

“Do not worry, my righteous little Oracion,” he told her.  “Your mother knows it will not happen that way. For I will not let her do that to you.”

blog image knight with dragon

Oracion had looked up at Father then, suddenly more hopeful of a future not devoid of that virtue of which marriage claimed to promote, and which Father had taught her only too well. Father knew what love was, and he also had a habit of fixing things right.

His love for Oracion was like a deep well from which she could draw many delightful draughts, to the degree to which she was thirsty, and simply trusted he had secreted them there. Satisfaction was always there waiting. And since satiation could be so endlessly drawn – with little more than an inclination of will, or the sound of one’s voice in this kingdom, why did not everyone know joy?  And why then was poor Mother, so often sad?

“How then, will it happen?”  Oracion asked.

Father smiled.

“Oh that.   I do not know… for that is for you.  But you are part Etherate, so you will not be won.  You are also nobility… so you will rule with your king.  You are a shape shifter, so you will marry like mind –  with free choice –  and finally – you have warrior blood within –  of deep and ancient origin.”

“Warrier blood,” repeated Oracion. “Oh Daddy, I know.  I will duel with the suitors and whomever can beat me – I will allow them my hand.”

At this Father had laughed robustly, even slapping one of his knees.

“I don’t know about that, my dearest, funny heart.  Perhaps, but not like you imagine it.  You are sure to meet him in the midst of battle, but you are going to have to be willing to be saved.  The saving part is mutual, and non-negotiable –  for true love is a gift freely given, and accepted.”

blog image black red gothic rose

This explanation sat true with Oracion, so she had not pondered it further, or plumbed its depths.  Until she met Cosmos, the angel-boy she called Christmas, in Father’s mysterious orange grove.

Now it made even more sense, as if Father had been mapping for her the lines of his face.

As for Mother, perhaps she had just been teasing, but Oracion decided never to tell her about the boy she had heard being called Cosmos.  Telling Mother such things might worry her, hasten competitive suitors, or provoke a loosening of dragons.

And she had instantly loved that little boy like Christmas morning.

But that she was going to marry Cosmos  – the boy she called Christmas   – was something the Presence had revealed to her as well,  so in Oracion’s mind it was already settled.  There only remained decorating the ballroom with balsam and pine, not encouraging the other suitors, and planning the feast to which she planned on inviting all nobility, fairy-kind, shape-shifters,  servants, commoners and animals alike,  regardless of rank, species, table manners… or lack thereof.

But as the years passed, that magical and sleepy spring day in the orange grove faded like a sweet dream rather than a certain, tangible memory.  Though she missed her beloved Christmas with an aching, ever-present longing, Oracion had begun to assume her angel boy was already in heaven and waiting for her there, like one of those perfect cherubs, whose images had graced Father’s ceiling.

Black_Forest_Germany_Amazing_Place


The significance that the Divine Presence would allow her to meet Cosmos again, right before Oracion found herself, as an adult, shifting into the past to revisit her father’s death –  was not lost on Oracion, whose mind was ever reflectant, and constantly sifted analogy and thought. Analogy and thought, to be effective, were like shadow and light, juxtaposed. Though she had perfected these mental skills in time travel lessons as a child, instantaneous contemplation and awareness were something she had never been without.

So truly, as an adult, Oracion knew that hearing Cosmos’s voice (even as he rescued her from a blended-dragon, who was really her brother) was at the same time what gave her strength to face this uncomfortable reality.

Should it have come then as any surprise, that the Artist who tempered the forest she loved so dear, with variant hue and melodious bird song, had balanced her life with such a great paradox, albeit in the unhurried, eleventh hour, like her own father, glancing down from a book?

But He had.

And it did.

It did come as a surprise.

The sound of her lover’s voice, when she had heard it that second time, as an adult.

blog image prince holding rose


Oracion noticed that during the most important events in life many things happen at once, and perhaps this was how they tended to take one unaware.

Even as she found herself shifting helplessly away from the now adult Cosmos, back into the past, visions started flashing rapidly before Oracion’s eyes like cut away still shots of life. The current buns with their sticky, dehydrated fruit – now a startling, disturbing ruby red –  and her mother’s eyes, on the surface kind –  but with hidden complexity.

This was a jarring disorientation, more dizzying than grains of sand in a sand storm, flying into her face.

The two visions crossed, in a sense also juxtaposed, and she saw her mother shifting into a dream snatcher.  Mother’s eyes seemed to sink in her face until they were filled with heavy, deep pools of currant jam –  which became dried, coagulated blood.  Oracion suddenly became aware of her own eyes becoming filled with something opposite – wet, stinging, and raw.

The wetness of tears upon Oracion’s cheeks stung like a bitter salve, even as she passed over and saw below the hang man’s noose being erected by the priests – and the testers –  in the castle square.

But she needed to cry to put back into her own mother’s eyes – life.

A loosening of emotions had been necessary and caused by this time shift, and Oracion wept even as she felt, and was becoming aware, of new – but past – surroundings. She felt the godmothers clinging ever more tightly to the folds of her skirt – Sweet Joy, hiding her eyes, burying her face, as if in this time shift she would be Chagrin once again. But it was also then that she heard the Madonna of the Glistening Wood saying  “He thirsts”.

Her voice was both a startlingly lovely, beckoning song, and a gentle pleading. She had promised Oracion to stay near.

Suddenly all Oracion could think was “Father”  –  the immensity of him –  and the depth of his love for her, what it had been, and what it was.  She was back in the turret bedroom her parents had given her, now weeping for Father, whose death was about to begin.

This was how Oracion realized it, the day the kind lady turned her tears for her mother – into tears for Father – at the sound of her voice. For if she hadn’t spoken Oracion would have died of grief, and martyred herself –  for a wrong cause.

My Pretty Rose Tree

 

Whole Lotta Love

blog images angel crying

“God save us from single vision.”
– William Blake

“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”
– Carl Jung

“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”
– High-level Freemason, releasing a sensational secret

blog image woman dress white rose gothic

I have lost my faith.  I have lost my faith in man.  Moreover, I contend, to really find faith in God, one must discard all counterfeit religions.

Likewise, it is only when man recognizes his very enemy as his other self, and embraces his own humanity  (with all its accompanying sufferings, griefs, victimization, and mini-deaths) that any one man can find life.

Despite the obvious unpopularity of this truism –  and mankind’s many attempts to change it,  like a race of monkeys repeatedly banging their heads against a cage – dying to self is the only way any one of us can get out of this life ‘alive’.  And death to the lower self, the animal self,  is the only way we can live life – to the degree that we are able – as if it is heaven on earth.

That is, in freedom.

As another writer put it (in my opinion a lot more eloquently than I) we must paradoxically “not give a fuck” what happens to us on this earth – to healthily change this life.

For as humans, we are all in this together, and therefore in a spiritual sense, represent one another.  All healthy religious schools of thought hold to some version of the Judeo-Christian ethic “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.

Perhaps this is because, despite being infinitely unique, like countless snowflakes – with just slightly different life experiences and traumas, or choices of free will – we would all ‘be’ or ‘see’ exactly like our ‘enemy human sees’ –   and has come to believe.

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It is really difficult for the sane to believe that there are men who don’t deep down inside ‘mean well’ – or want ‘good’ –  if you really think about it.  “Goodness” is like a magnet, that even atheists desire and fight to possess, though some might call goodness by a different name. And God alone sees men’s hearts, and this similarity between men.  In fact, if you embrace any variety of an all good God and His all good creed, you must pray with Him for a new world order,  that “they may all be one”.  Those who fight against this creed become ‘anti-Christs’.

But for those who mean well, this necessitates we would want our brother to “get to heaven”  – not therein triumph in our brother’s nonexistence.

C S Lewis touched on this startling principle in Till We Have Faces, as have many other esoteric and spiritually gifted writers.  Without the outside-of-us Higher Power on the inner self, and without actually embracing grief, no man can fix the discord between the humanities, move mountains, change people, the world – or our surrounding physical existence –  let alone change the shape and nature of self, or the state of the human soul.

Indeed, as psychiatrists know, suppression of grief and suffering, refusal to acknowledge that we are helpless, in need of one another, or that we have been victimized, sometimes even by our own parents, is what causes mental illness, and is the seed of sadism,  and the development of a breed of empathy-less men.  Empathy-less Man, as I like to call him – Brute Man – though he may experience pleasure at the expense of another, cannot understand or ever attain joy.

If one cannot grieve, have empathy for oneself, and hates and judges oneself and his own weakness instead, one will certainly not have empathy for one’s own kind, or will judge his own brother accordingly, rather than fighting back against the ignorance and evil that afflicts humanity.

It is like suffering and fragility is a necessary healing and illuminating window or door, if properly approached, that every human must pass through to get strong, and therefore not an evil at all – even though in the passing through it might hurt, and feel like we have gotten wounded.

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In fact, though praying “may it be done on earth as it is in heaven… that they may all be one” is a hard, but healing prayer – attempting to make earth ‘heaven’  by one’s own efforts, on the other hand  (though it may not ‘hurt’ at all)  is quite another story.  The damage done to self and to others simply by drug addiction –  tells this story all too well.

Going at it ‘alone’ by one’s own efforts – not God’s – is being dangerously out of touch with reality, and exemplifies mankind’s historically repeated tale, its failed efforts to obtain power and grandeur.

In fact, it is this error or delusion of self-importance and power by which brute sociopaths and brute ideologies have, without any trace of human empathy, traditionally caused death, sometimes of millions of people, those deemed too “imperfect” to live here on this earth.  Sociopaths and sociopath like ideologies lack human empathy, but strangely assume to speak or act in the very name of God Himself, or as if they alone, are above God’s laws, the elected elite.

Thus we have abortion against ‘imperfect’ humans for a ‘better earth’ by the left elite, and ISIS and White Supremacist type movements by the ‘religious right’ elite, to impose control, slander, dominate or eliminate the ‘imperfect’ from one’s ‘borders’ for example,  via other methods of human destruction.

Man does not seek to be perfect so much as he tends not to want to be exposed to the humbling truth of his own “imperfection”, and what he deems as “imperfection” in others. It ‘hurts’ Brute Man to ‘see’ suffering, poverty, or illness, because these things remind of Brute Man’s own mortality.  It hurts him to see – one another.

But ‘imperfection’ is not a sin –  not even a fault – nor does ‘imperfection’ prevent freedom, or peace.   Imperfection is a state of being – not of our own fault and choosing – and a “cross” all of humanity must bear.  Most of us simply inherit a fallen nature.

From a spiritual perspective, the paradox is that though we may be imperfect in a physical sense, we were all born equally innocent, in fact,  in the very Image and Likeness of God. Therefore we can only gain true perfection, by reaching into the spiritual dimension.

We are all called to realize that the perfect God-Man is already risen, after being nailed to our cross, just like time is already written, and time is already undone. Likewise, our ‘imperfections’, sufferings and crosses of humanity if you will  – are also, in another dimension (outside of time) –  already ‘undone’, and it is only through Him that we can obtain our own potential.

Death has already been conquered,  just as the “perfect” man has  already been created – and crucified for it.  Jesus Christ was also nailed to that cross for repeating this truism, this plan for humanity, that I simply reiterate here on this page today. The cross is not very comfortable, but it is a beautiful, healing, life and joy giving reality to many.

And though most of us are obsessed with “left brain” activities regarding time, planning and strategy – to “make our world a better place” –  paradoxically, the only things really left of our once angelic conscious that can “move” anything at all,  or ‘help’ save the world, is none of these –  and never was.

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The “spiritual powers” of “movement” are of energy, of what Is, the Forever Now –  and include intuition, creativity, communication, knowing, understanding, awareness of patterns and analogy, empathy, free will and prayer. This is revelation, the realization of the deeper meaning of things, their familial, interconnected nature, and what Is, or shall I say –  Who Is. This is not to say we must not act out charity, fight back against evil,  exposing imposed wrongs on ourselves and others, or defending the innocent, inspired by these higher impulses –  but it is the will rather than the deed itself  – that is the more ‘powerful mover’  – because that is the ‘how’ we are ‘like God’.

There is a Who Whom holds everything in existence, and therefore a Who Alone that can change or save it.

Also, paradoxically, the spiritual gifts, those gifts that connect us to this ‘Is’, this all powerful God, are strongest in those who have embraced suffering and grief  –  like the handicapped, or the autistic savant –  and practically nonexistent in humanly ‘powerful’ individuals.  Man who has made himself blind to this higher reality and spiritual realm, jealously seeks, none the less, by methods satanic (inhuman, without self sacrifice) to ‘steal’ from God’s children their own birth right.

The reason why suffering and imperfection – trustingly embraced – as it is with suffering children, leads to spiritual enlightenment, is because where one sense may be lost via accident or nature,  others gifts and senses grow more powerful, like compensatory gifts.  Roses bloom, after being cut back.

But ironically, it is the very seemingly ‘powerless’ individual deemed ‘imperfect’ by Brute Man, that is targeted for theft, destruction, slander and extinction –  as if the very children of God – those who please His most Sacred Heart the most – who can move mountains by an act of will, prayer, fiat or simple longing for Him – have no functioning purpose at all in this life.

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This is why those who know Truth, weep.

And from a Christian perspective, this is why Christ’s own mother shed tears at the foot of the cross.

As the weeping, human feminine she was the “new Eve” that represented all of us, pondering these truths deeply within her heart, as she embraced the ultimate grief.  She wept not just for her Son, but for all of innocent humanity whom God allowed her to see would/did/is suffering, and would/did/is willing to be victimized, along with Him.

Therefore the mother of God  is our true Mother, more so than Mother Nature or Mother Earth, for she alone – as a human bridge – offers a spiritual pathway of transformation – always pointing not to herself, but to Truth itself.  I love this God-used link of the human Mary, who shows humanity whom humanity Is, and Whom God Is, the God that loves us humans unconditionally, despite our human rejection of Him – and the choice of hell.

But this is why in Scripture, we find that Satan hates Mary, with her knowing eyes, and her silent, intuitive heart.

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Deep down inside, all evil entities also know (though cannot understand ) the superior power of the innocent through their connection to God, and therefore fear this power ‘of’  humanity –  a power that can somehow turn tears of sorrow and suffering –  into joy.  If evil cannot steal or conquer this power of God’s Movement, evil will ultimately seek to destroy, control or eradicate all those humans whom he assumes possess it, or belong to it.  Evil is an illogical force much like jealous schizophrenia, though this must not be confused by brutes to assume those with true mental illness, are necessarily culpable of the evil they might commit.

The force to destroy those of Good Will, the innocent ( a suffering, weeping but capable of joy humanity) is the real Beast, or the Anti-Christ.

Anti-Christs spin off continuously from one another like countless, fruitless, robotic voids or black holes of destruction, ‘reproducing’ from the ‘makings’ of men… and he is legion.

They, these Anti-Christs,  are easily recognizable in the broken systems surrounding us that have victimized those very persons they were designed to serve, blaming their own corruption, disorder and ineptitude on the victim, each time around.  These broken systems are disordered parents, governmental and all man-corrupted, religious institutions and ‘authorities’  – that abuse their own.  Those that really represent God are all humans of good will, and God’s real ‘universal’ or ‘catholic’ church of every denomination. God’s children, of all ages and genders, are hidden and victimized within these systems, usually completely unknown to society – and the world at large.

They are hardly ever applauded.

These innocents have a spiritually powerful, but almost completely silent voice (I have been privileged to know a few) that the world is in general way too busy to hear, or because, after all, there is something better on TV  – a reality show –  or the football game.

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But in America today,  the political anti Christs that are really distracting, false and fraudulent dichotomies, rage blindly along in the ‘war’ to destroy the innocent, and battle among themselves, throughout all of society,  media outlet and venue.

The left, having chosen disorder over order by means of rebellion, negligence and relativism (“there is no such thing as truth or a moral code that should therefore be enforced or lived”) offers no protection or refuge for vulnerable and innocent victims, like pre-born children, as if they are material objects, possessed by another.

The right on the other hand, has an unhealthy obsession with order that makes man despise everything less than ‘perfect’, or anyone who is ‘weak’ and vulnerable, as writer Dean Koontz put it –  an outward demanding “obsessive compulsive disorder of the intellect, rather than the emotions.”  These entities on the right work to destroy and silence all those they think contribute to ‘imperfection’ or ‘disorder’ – ultimately – through similar methods and means, though cloaked in a different, even more dangerous language. They seek to breed only a ‘superior’ race.

Both of these political errors, the first of negligence and cowardice, the second of pride, are narcissistic. They result in the same thing –  the sacrifice of the innocent or “imperfect and unwanted”  for a “greater good” in life.  “Greater good” has become code for Oneself  (“Hail Man”).

Both are the refusal of self to look inward, the refusal of self to embrace one’s own imperfections of humanity – and the refusal to (instead of seeking ‘perfection’ of humanity outside of oneself) seek perfection and enlightenment of one’s very own soul.

Perhaps there is no place better to examine these conflicting, but equally erroneous pathological ideologies than through the battles that wage on social media, where the Logo that Brute Man has chosen – Might Makes Right – over human reason, truth, self awareness and ‘common’ sense –  is obvious, and clearly turning mankind ‘back’ into a mindless beast.  Man has become much like a squawking, preening peacock, that can’t even get himself above the material world, rather than like a soaring eagle – who can view a bigger picture –  from celestial realms.

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Countless times, I have seen this peacock-dinosaur type creature.

Not only have I been the victim of theft, slander, religious shunning and attempted soul murder by corrupted individuals and entities – in real life – that literally sought me out “to destroy” me,  but have witnessed and been the victim of the illiterate verbal monster on social media practically every time I enter into that realm.

But wherever provable truth surfaces repeatedly to fight corruption (as I have occasionally done in my work in fraud investigation and as founder of the Saint Germaine Foundation) with no party or religious bias, this is almost inevitably going to happen. This is particularly and ironically going to happen more frequently though, the more uncomfortable truths are expressed by individuals in a straight forward and carefully charitable manner, to enlighten minds, not attack, judge or punish others.

If one simple voice of truth did not have the awesome and frightening power of God behind it, why would truth itself be so frequently banned, shunned, crucified or silenced? Indeed it is always the intended deception of a degenerate perpetrator, to impose a toxic, twisted type moral shame on its victim for speaking out, and fighting back, against the perpetrator’s lies.

In fact, sometimes I have to laugh because Evil is so predictable, like an ancient old coot, cursing at rocks that get in the way of his cane.

Rather than assume the position of shame (though the shaming itself by people you love or are trying to help can be hurtful) you don’t have to fall for the toxic, imposed sense of ‘guilt’ – once you are aware of Evil’s ‘trick’.

It is then you can really sit back and enjoy not giving a fuck.

For example,  I got banned recently from Discus by One Peter Five “Catholic” blog owner, Steve Skojek, simply for pointing out contextual error and disinformation contained in his (and his bishop friend’s) anonymous “reveal” against Freemasonry. (Freemasonry is a secret, silent, anti-corruption society that is subsequently forever getting slandered and targeted by tainted clerics – on the right and the left – within the Catholic church, and other entities, despite the absurdities of clerical claims.)  Sadly, by methods of distraction like this, the only thing any hierarchy of man typically succeeds in ‘moving’ around  – are shuffled pederasts.

It never fails to amaze me, particularly as a female, that members of my own religious interpretation, particularly male members, are still obsessing over who is a ‘radical feminist’ in the church, a mason, a heretic, or what gender gets to use the men’s or ladies room, seemingly unaware of the male trans war going on right before their very own eyes. The brute males, though less identifiable and perhaps lesser in number than femme homosexuals, will always ‘fight’ and ‘win’,  perhaps because they appear – so traditionally Catholic – and masculine, even though they possess neither of those qualities,  in any orthodox sense of the word.

These brutes are the traditional, “Catholic”  ritualists, the Pharisees who worship ritual and discipline perfection over God and His teachings on love.  The church has become infested with brute predatorial homosexual types targetting femme homosexuals, women (again) only for breeding purposes, and children for abuse.

I even got accused of Jewry by one woman-subjugating, white supremacist styled brute male on Skojek’s blog, while his adulating guy friends applauded his bravado – let the witch burn!  My last name was  (erroneously) dissected and analyzed for Jewish origin (hail man) and banned, while the Catholic church’s own church builders, the masons, have taken vows of silence and circumspection to avoid corruption, and will not/cannot,  defend themselves.

But I digress.

The dignified and silent masons are masters at the gentle art of not giving a flying fuck, even if they are defamed, slandered and spit upon.  This is true masculinity – that reaches and sacrifices self to protect the innocent, that people of all religions and genders would do well to imitate.

Last I checked, I don’t even happen to be a mason, a ‘radical’ feminist (what’s wrong with being radically female – Mary was) or of Jewish ethnicity, although I wouldn’t mind being any of these things.  The whole humorous interchange exposing Skojek’s hypocrisy, his failure to read his own comments, or admit the pathology of his followers –  including “The Great Stalin”  and “Tall Order” – remains on his so-called Catholic blog –  for all to read.

So,  Evil inevitably simply exposes himself, like a fraudulent emperor not wearing any clothes, or a mean old man tripping up on his own cane, as if just to entertain innocent, but insightful and outspoken children, and make them laugh. Indeed, this life is filled with much suffering, but also with much laughter and joy, a free compensatory gift from the Father, and the author of Love.  Let us not make ourselves unaware of both, for they were meant to go hand in hand.

“It added importance to its jaw, and ignorance of its notes.  But Truth is like a living stream, that flows ever eternal.”
-From a dream

Day Prose

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Thank you for this beautiful dream, oh GOD
The morning birds
Singing, they greet me
The life of flower, fruit, mountain and bee
Leaves of purple, gold or pine
With artist’s brush
Some powdered white
In confectioners sugared branches

The rivers that run wild
Their torrents of grace
Laugh like following, canine companions
In a niche
There’s an entire grove

Filled with sweet oranges
We can eat all we want
Know the divine
That draws not a dragon’s breath

The spotless lady knows the way
And is there
For those that fear her

Who with angry thoughts
Do not want to know
Love’s forgotten plan
It is something good
To teach all humans
When we startle awake
Arising from where we fell
On bruised and bent knees

Oh world meant to serve
To remind us of Eden
Life’s marvelous Mystery complete
The day we return
Finally opening our eyes
We will also remember
All suffering and sadness
Undone

The day we return to Eden

Before They Made Monsters

 

Where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking.
– Brene Brown

The laws of the past follow a distant norm.
– Lessons of Time Travel for Children, Book I

Oranges are one of the few fruits that will not overripen if left on the tree.
Fun fact

I believe in the magic of coffee and oranges.
– Paul Hodgson

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There was another fruit tree other than the pear that now grew wild.  There were less of these but they grew near and chose to intersperse with the lady’s pear trees that had once been part of Father’s orchards, rather than mingle with the giant oak and pine that lived near the stream.  Orange and pear now had to reach for water with intermingling roots.  Oracion noticed that none of the fruit trees that had been planted so long ago grew on flat land.  They grew into the foothills of mountains as if someone had been experimenting with elevation.

But the fruit Oracion particularly had on her mind this evening was the orange.

She recalled when Father had first had the gardeners plant the trees which bore these delicious treats.  It was before Priest had taken over and begun experimenting with darker things. Since the climate did not naturally host the tropical, Father had induced the hybrid makers to regraft a wondrous, older variety of orange tree that would simultaneously fruit buds, orange and flower, while remaining impervious to the elements.

Father had loved his gardens.

When the weather was kind (in the present) Oracion would make the trek just to hunt for and gather these special oranges, while her godmothers sat nearby, contenting themselves with spinning necklaces out of blossom and vine.  Oranges were one of Oracion’s favorite fruits and reminded her of childhood. This evening however, Oracion was time traveling and it was only by chance she found herself headed towards the older groves, because she had chosen the longer, more circuitous route, embracing the arduous incline.  She had wanted to come up upon the old castle from behind to avoid emerging from the woods into village streets altogether.

The hunters would be on the lookout for stag and the priests were doing the testings, but since Oracion had cloaked herself in invisibility she was not certain why she intuited such a strong foreboding. She wanted to avoid the scouts and dictobots as well, who inevitably would be out and about looking for her, despite the fact they were as unlikely to see her as they were to become suddenly aware of what they themselves had become.

Oracion did plan to show herself if necessary, but only once she had shifted safely into the past, or if she had found Father. Though she could communicate with people in the past that she loved that had gone on in the present to other realms, she could not yet effect the past directly, nor could it effect or harm her.  Nonetheless, the weight of this evening’s importance lay on Oracion’s shoulders as heavily as the fog that blanketed the trees all around her.

It was getting colder as well, which was strange for late spring.

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Usually in the evening, the dark black, lacy limbs of upper tree branches stood out in sharp contrast against a setting sun, and its violet-purple sky.  Now the moon, full but obscured, was the only language by which Oracion could find her way through the younger trees towards what had once been orchards. The godmothers had cloaked themselves into invisibility as well, though Oracion of course could see them, and they occasionally appeared to her as nuthatches or robins. This was intended to amuse she was sure, but as birds they appeared to have no place to
land. Upper portions of oak and pine disappeared altogether into the heavy mist.  It was as if branches had been lopped off by a crazy gardener, who rudely defrocked trees of their budding leaves.

This was extremely disorienting, and Oracion felt like the forest she knew like the back of her hand had turned against her, and was playing tricks on her mind with its own newly found wit.  Or, perhaps Mother Nature could also shift, wanted to tell her something, warn her away from this route and the knowledge she intuitively sought. Nevertheless something in the present, was drawing Oracion irresistibly toward what had once been the orange grove, where she had first seen the boy.

She had seen the boy with the knowing eyes (that reminded her in the present of the pear tree madonna’s) many years ago, when she, as a child, had induced Father to let her accompany him on journey.

Father had been meeting secretly with someone on this farther side of the forest, a mysterious stranger she now recalled in the present as a messenger, or a scout perhaps, from a distant land.  Father had safely secured little Oracion into his stagecoach, then for an hour or so she slept with her head leaning against his big, broad shoulder, as Father drove the horses further and further into the woods. Simply content to be at his side, the ride had lulled Oracion to sleep.   But before she drifted off Father told her, when she asked on what business the special messenger or courier came, he could not tell her for her own protection.

If she squealed, he had said, the tree monkeys would get her.  They could fly and had sharp teeth. He wasn’t going to take that chance. Oracion started to suspect Father was making things up now, for purposes of their own amusement.  It had been a long journey.

She awoke when the stagecoach came to a bumpy stop beneath a canopy of orange blossoms, and in that sweet spring day of many years past the flowers and fruits blossomed in such heavenly abundance they emitted a memorable, heady and potent, but at the same time delicate fragrance.  This scent was better than any perfume the ointment makers made, even better than the lilac butter Mother had dabbed on her wrists, or the honeysuckle milk that Mother bathed in.   Father often brought back sweet oranges to Oracion when he traveled alone this way, but this was the first time Oracion had been to the magical grove that produced them.

He got out of the coach then, and disappeared into a thicket of trees, but not before he had solicited from Oracion another promise.

Whatever she did, she was not to get out of the carriage and follow him, and no matter whom she might happen to see here, she must speak to no one.

Sleepily, little Oracion had agreed.

Sweet, silly, dear Father, she thought.

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The day was so bright, and so warm.

Oracion couldn’t imagine then she might chance to meet anyone here,  for the child found herself quite alone with the birds that thrilled harmoniously amongst fair fruit and blossom.   One branch held many ripe clusters of sun-kissed oranges which peeked out at intervals between petals, and one single, very perfect orange, dappled with sunlight, dangled within her reach as if to tempt her.  Oracion was hungry and overheated, and surmised if she could just take one bite of its cool, rosy flesh it would cure all remaining laments, and she could just get on with enjoyment of this beautiful day.

So, cautiously, she had stood up in the coach and leaned her small body outside of the window as far as she could reach, without falling out.

But this nearest orange was just out of reach.

And that’s when she saw him.

The boy had not been standing on the ground at all but was sitting way up high in the tree branches, looking down at her. He was quite tall and well built but definitely still young, surely not much older than herself.  Oracion had never seen an angel before, but she had seen drawings of them on the castle ceilings, and they suddenly came into her mind much as the boy had suddenly seemed to appear above her.  His face was like porcelain, and his fine blue eyes, as deep and sad as the sea, spoke a thousand stories, he didn’t seem inclined to tell. At that moment he just stared at Oracion silently, the juice of an orange dripping silently off his chin, as if he was as shocked to see her there as she was to see him.

Though Oracion recognized him (hadn’t they known each other, or at least met once before?) she marveled then, that if he was the gardener’s son, he could now possess wings and the fine countenance of nobility, beneath long, wavy locks of fiery, cinnamon hair.

“Christmas” she remarked, simply observing, before she could realize why she had spoken that particular word, and the magnitude of what she had done –  spoken to a stranger –  which was exactly what Father had forbidden.

“Why don’t you use your wings?”  he responded, his voice a melodic, dulcimer chord.

“My wings?”  she asked, noticing that she spoke again.

“To reach an orange,” he explained.   Why don’t you just use your wings?”

blog image oranges with bees


The boy had asked the question so sincerely and innocently it frustrated Oracion to no end. She was unable to understand why a boy with the face of an angel and wings would ask her such a question about wings, as if she possessed her own pair with which she, like him, could use to fly upward to secure the choicest fruit.

But just then what must have been his given name was called out by someone she could not see.

“Cosmos!”

This word was shouted by a very cruel, adult man’s voice, and it echoed heavily throughout the woods like it bore the threat of impending brutality.

And in that instance her new found friend had disappeared, but not before he tossed Oracion the rest of the orange which he had been holding in his hand.

Christmas (as Oracion thought of the boy ever since, not Cosmos ) vanished instantaneously, into the warm, spring air.

When Father returned to the carriage, Oracion had been savoring the sweet, refreshing fruit flesh that had so mysteriously been given to her.

But thinking of the hard, cruel voice and fearing for the angel boy (but hesitating to mention to her father that she had spoken to someone) she simply asked “Was the man you met Father –  was he bad?”

blog image oranges cut apart


He looked at her not suspiciously but with surprise, as if Oracion had asked a question to which she should already know the answer.  “Oracion, you know the Maker does not make bad men, but people do.  And this man that I met wants to delay what is rightfully yours.”

She had turned to look up at Father when he made this cryptic remark, once again expecting him to look disapproving, but he did not.  Instead Father looked solemn , his eyes as knowing, if not more so, than the boy’s had been.

She had never seen Christmas again, and even now Oracion wondered if that day had all been a dream, especially in the contrast of this strange spring evening present,  with its heavy, dream like qualities and mist so different from sun dappled oranges.

Occasionally (in the present) adult Oracion noticed that some animal or beast imitated her pace and direction in the trees adjacent, but this was not so unusual.

Some animals could sense Oracion’s presence when she was invisible, and drew near her. It was as if they felt a safety there that they could not otherwise, easily obtain. Through the thick fog Oracion could tell that one of these gentle creatures followed her now, but if it was a stag it was large for a stag, like Noble Beast had been.  For a moment Oracion felt that this beast was less real than her own memories, which, when she was not literally revisiting them, were continuously revisiting her.  Were those really majestic antlers she saw cutting up through the mist, like steely knives cutting into gray cloud, or just the sharp curve of tree limbs?

The thought of Noble Beast had brought to her in the present circumstance a bittersweet combination of excitement, hope, comfort and joy, intermingled with sorrow and feelings of loss.

And since for Oracion, emotions were as wild, strong and dangerous as she was, she made a conscious effort to harness and focus them now, so that they would not lead her astray, and instead work to her own advantage.

Not so far off she had heard a strange noise, as if large walls of metal creaked and scraped, one against the other.

But when an orange tree emerged in front of her, she knew she was in the right place, for she had found the remains of orange trees near the old pear grove.

Suddenly, there was an enormous, dark shadow overhead,  a flurry of wings and horrible talons pulling painfully at her hair.

A giant bird screeched its horrific cry as it passed over Oracion, a cry much louder now for the sound was in her ear this time, like metal against metal, or a glacier of ice seizing, then crashing into the sea.  As Oracion put her hands over her head protectively, she wondered if this apparently blind creature could actually see her despite her cloak of invisibility, or if it just sensed her presence through scent as animals were wont to do.

blog image dinosaur bird


The velociraptor, being unable to fly very high or far, settled awkwardly and noisily into the branches of an ancient orange tree, his tail curled in serpentine formation down and around the crook of its trunk.  The weight of his body cast too heavy a load on the fruit bearer, and Oracion feared the tree (though much thicker and sturdier now than she had seen these trees in the past) would break in the bending.

Oracion stood at a distance of about fifteen feet away from him, unable to move, staring in fascination.  As she watched the dinosaur-like bird pull at the oranges on the branches with huge jaws, she guessed that he was frustrated that he could not use his too huge teeth and disproportionately small, stunted wings to separate and loose the treats.  Then beneath the sound of snapping twigs and frustrated screeches, Oracion suddenly heard the Madonna’s voice whisper something silently into her ear.

“She was with child when she was taken”

…like a fragment, of knowing.

It was then that Oracion noticed the creature’s eyes, blind apparently and glazed over, as if with filmy white cataracts.  They reminded her of the eyes of a dictobot.  Oracion couldn’t help noticing that the creature’s eyes appeared in some way inexplicable, unhealthily human, but perhaps even more troubling was that she sensed she somehow knew or recognized the beast.

As an animal much in appearance as well as behavior, the creature resembled a hybrid mix between a proud, preening peacock, and an angry, small-brained dinosaur.  In her sciences Oracion had learned velociraptors did exist – and wondered if it was now possible that the priests could have returned them to the woods, much as Father had reintroduced cold climate oranges.

But his eyes, oh his eyes! Oration was suddenly overwhelmed with combination of pity, empathy, love and grief. Yet with what, to more dangerous effect, had they mixed the poor creature?

“And wanted her son to carry the gene”  said the lady gently, but firmer this time.

Then with horror Oracion remembered what Father had taught her one night when they were standing on the turret rooftop, under the light of a magnificent moon.

Even though lineage played a factor, he had explained to his young daughter that the ability to shape shift was rare. Shape shifting women of nobility who had turned to the dark side, wanting to assure the gene was passed to their first born sons, were going to priests who meddled with hybrid emulsions and vapors.  These pregnant women consumed such potions in great draughts for the price of their soul, a trikerion lamp, or traded agreement, each morning for nine months.  For some, there was biological success, but other offspring were caught in a void-shift, part human and part beast.

The creature Oracion saw before her was a Blender.

And though the Blender seemed to sense or smell Oracion’s existence at least to a certain degree, it did not seem to realize her godmothers, who now were hanging back in trepidation.  For though Oracion was still invisible (and she had checked, glancing down at her feet, which still weighted the grass) the creature seemed to get more and more irate, even in proportion to the degree to which she pitied him.  Oracion had slowly been getting closer even as he spat at her, shaking his head violently back and forth, leaves and debris spewing out of his mouth in every direction, in an angry shower of fury.

Then, to her right, there was a movement where the gentler, antlered, pacing animal had been. Suddenly Oracion feared that the Noble-Beast-like creature that had followed her had actually been tracking her purposely,  for he emerged out of the woods not as a beast at all, but as a man.

A very huge and strong looking man.

Oracion had never seen a dictobot so tall and formidable, even greater a force than Trock had been, with steel plated shoulders spanning an expanse wider than the velociraptor’s chest.

But this dictobot, unlike the mad, screeching dinosaur creature, could see Oracion quite clearly.

This didn’t make any sense.

No dictobot could see Oracion when she cloaked into invisibility, and though his plated visor was down, obscuring his face, he seemed to stare directly at her, one arm extended towards her in urgent supplication.  He was either commanding her to stop or was indicating for her to come towards him.  Could it be that one of Father’s soldiers remained, having survived the scourge?  She thought about that possibility. No, that couldn’t be. Hadn’t all those that had not transformed into dictobots been executed?

But the soldier was real and saw her nonetheless, for in that moment several things happened at once.

He rushed Oracion just as flames shot from the mouth of the dinosaur-like creature in a deadly, fiery conflagration.  She noted the harsh, pungent acidity of burnt oranges and instantaneously disintegrated twigs in the ashy breath of the frightening creature, that she now knew in her heart ~ was really her ill-fated brother. The heat wave alone would have killed Oracion, had not the large soldier-man covered her with his steel plated body.  She then found herself on the ground staring up at an emblem of a lily on his chest plate, as flames radiated and reflected in the metal –  red, orange, blue then white.

There was a flash of memory in her mind like the echo of a little boy’s voice.

“Why don’t you just use your wings?”

Oracion was so disoriented and shocked she felt herself suddenly shifting, beginning to jolt helplessly and violently far back into the distant past.  The current scene – with its heat, trees and everything around her – disappeared, but not before she heard the angel boy’s voice, deeper and all grown up now,  but still like a dulcimer chord, resounding.

“Christmas,” he said in transfixed amazement, as if that was her name now.

Then once again, they were apart.  Yet in that instance Oracion realized that Father had intended them to meet, all along.

blog image Oracion in orange

Oracion and the Lady’s Lament


blog image violet head piece

Thus saith the Lord: A voice was heard on high of lamentation, of mourning, and weeping, of Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted for them, because they are not.
Jeremiah

People just don’t know what civilian prisoners of war are.
-Gene Green

Empathy is the antidote to shame.
– Brene Brown

Do not fear the Opposites
Who insist upon
The lie

Slanderers feign
A brutish bunch

But angels never die
– Song of the Washer Woman, Verse III

We should not be asking who this child belongs to, but who belongs to this child.
– Jim Gritter

blog images oracion


After traveling into the past, Oracion felt she could now surmise why she had forgotten what happened during the night as a child,  the night that she realized Mother had become an Opposite (what most people called in those days, a Dream Snatcher).  Forgetting Elements must have been placed in the small hearth that graced Oracion’s bedroom, which had rarely been lit.

For the next morning, when younger Oracion had found herself so ill, and her father injured (but still holding her in his arms, weeping) the room was filled with the smoky evidence of a hearth fire. Dark, curly entrails had already covered and settled into meager furnishings like an obscuration of sheet covers strewn out of thick fog.  Father’s clothing was covered with the soot of it, as if in recent attempt to smother it out, and as if he, having arriving much later than the moment he wished, stamped it out with bare feet.

At that time, Child Oracion hadn’t been concerned with the fire that had threatened her or the bedroom furnishings, for she was all concerned for Father, and for Mother, who had been taken.

“Will we get her back?” Oracion had asked.

“I do not know” Father had told her, and she read the pain in his eyes, for certainly even his honesty cost him.  “I fear she is dead. So, if you ever see someone who looks like her, be wary, Oracion.  Do you understand me?  Be wary.  So many things in your castle are not what they appear to be, and many persons in this kingdom want you dead, my precious daughter. My  precious…my  innocent, my much beloved daughter.”

Oracion sorrowed that he was brought to tears once again, sad that now he wept for her, but was also not concerned with the notion that she, as a princess, was the target of many malevolent forces.  If Mother could already be dead, Oracion’s grief  was all consuming.

Also, it was the time of the Priestly Conferences and the Cases, which coexisted with Stag Hunt.  It was early spring.

Oracion had a fear of which she could not let go, that her Noble Beast, due to the unique and genetically rare antler formation upon his head, would get mistaken for a stag and murdered for profit, the priests too busy to notice, or even to care.

She remembered sneaking out to look out the window of her turret bedroom many times during this illness (she had been ordered to stay in bed) watching the hooded prelates below, who scurried busily to and fro, constructing their tents before dawn.  They carried with them stacks of darkly oiled, tightly bound parchment, unscrolling them occasionally to examine undecipherable script, by the light of double trikerion lamps, held aloft on gilded swords.

The bright light from these golden sconces and from the priests multiple campfires, had cast an ominously powerful, pulsating glow, and frightening shadows upon the hunters, transforming ordinary men’s faces as they passed through the hooded prelates.  The hunters appeared to young Oracion then in a form she would later recognize as dichobots.  They were very much like the soldiers they were, but their eyes glazed over with the lure of their own growing, brute animal instinct.

Oracion amused herself then (as a distraction from these cumulative events) by practicing her shape shifting skills, but she had yet to advance from sandpiper, to dove, or even to sparrow.

And each transformation cost her,  much like Father’s dutiful honesty revealed, through his eyes, a heartache of monstrous proportion.  Shifting seemed to exacerbate Oracion’s illness, weakening her own heart further, and triggered it into random, flittering convulsions, which ultimately passed.  But Oracion imagined, in retrospect, this is why Father warned her not to practice warrior skills.  She was still too young.  Disobedient Oracion none the less felt watching the prelates from the secret vantage of being a bird or by cloaking  herself as a mouse, and from the added leverage of height (while remaining tucked up safely upon her own window ledge) was way too entertaining and distracting to resist.

Truly, shifting was the only power she could leverage against hooded prelates, some of whom were even bishops, while gaining a mastery over herself.  It seemed like she was prisoner, not a princess, held hostage in her own castle, which was also becoming a place she barely recognized, and had no permission to gain.

blog image sandpiper

Now, when Oracion in the present traveled through time to visit her Child Self Past, it cost her physically much in the same manner that learning shape shifting had cost her then.  However, she was a master shape shifter who had long since matured from the days of earlier lessons, and when she time traveled from the present to the past, she was sure to take along her fairy godmothers, Velocity, Alacrity and Joy.  Though fairy godmothers were at the same time children, they were companionable and reliable adult guides, especially after Chagrin had transformed herself into Joy.  Oracion knew they would never leave her abandoned should she fall ill in journey,  for if they were anything (child or adult) – they were ever faithful.

blog image violet 8


Yet,  she wondered oft why this business of gifting “godmothers” to princesses was more like turning princesses into “mothers”, of loving (but at the same time, precocious) children.  “Who is training up who?” she had often jested with them,  readjusting the woodland wreaths they had merrily woven, then placed half hazard and crooked, upon their own heads.  Admittedly Oracion enjoyed watching their innocent, but wild revels in the wood, and their petal-costumed dance.  But for a wandering villager to unexpectedly come across Oracion’s dancing nymphs, it would have been more unsettling for them than coming across a moonlit, empty grave, in that rarely traveled, wooded byway.

blog image nymph 2


The Sacred Presence knew Oracion loved and trusted in her godmothers, much in the same manner that she had loved and trusted in Father, Noble Beast, or the madonna that now appeared in the wood, who seemed to prefer and therefore reside somewhere in the thicket that at one time had been Father’s pear orchard.

There was a certain, ever untamable aspect about Oracion’s love for these few.  Though there were those she loved with a restrained love, tempered with politeness, nurtured and matured with age, Oracion’s love for her own was a wild and uncontainable thing.  For there was a wild and uncontainable thing to each of them.  Each would give their very life for the other. And the Presence was pleased that Oracion loved in this manner and trusted the fairy godmothers (or shall we call them fairy godchildren) to protect her.

Oracion knew this was true because this was what the madonna had confirmed.

The pear tree copse (by the power of time) had shifted itself as well, into wondrous trunks and strong branches that now grew to magnificent heights, interspersed occasionally with jade green pine, as if with bold, avant -garde, artistic intent.   Oracion and the godmothers would take violet and fern, weaving not wreaths but desiring to cast petals about the madonna’s feet (the godmothers’ idea) while she spoke to them,  in that steady and silent, maternal voice.  The kindly lady would gently submit to this, the Showering of Petals as Joy liked to call it,  so gracious she was, inside and out.  She was even more beautiful than Oracion’s own mother had been, and Mother had been an Etherate.

Oracion noticed that the madonna also wore upon her head a crown of more exquisite gems than Mother had ever worn, and it was interwoven with such unusual flowers (that resembled, in best human understanding, roses) that no earthly wreath could really, quite compare.

Therefore, Oracion’s companions had never bothered to boast or insult with a like gift of their own.

The lady’s fair, soft skin had a luminous quality to it that reminded Oracion of the moon.  Where she stood the beams of light that cascaded, particularly from her hands, sent shimmering translucent rays upon the pears that still fruited here in abundance, as if she was a spiritual chef sugaring them with a mystical, glittering light.

It was funny how much the madonna also reminded Oracion of Gilda, the washer woman, only Gilda seen in a manner by which Mother Nature had never naturally bestowed.  She remembered now she had gone to Gilda for advice as well, in those early days when she had first fled the castle compound, and sometimes Gilda would even sing to her, after her kitchen chores were done, and all the smaller children had been nursed.

But now that the time had come for Father’s Reviewing, the review of his death that is,  Oracion was glad she had come to know the Madonna of the Glistening Wood.  The anguish at facing this next step in her journeying was intense, and she shed so many tears before the woodland queen, so many shape shifter tears in abundance, that there was no need to cast petals, for wood violets arose instantaneously from the earth by the mysterious lady’s feet, wherever Oracion’s tears had fertilized them.

Finally Oracion begged her (for she had not yet this time heard the madonna speak) “Be with me when I go.”

blog image violet petals

It was in this moment that the lady gently moved one of her hands so gracefully that a beam of light shifted, and fell upon Oracion’s face. It startled her and dried her tears with its sudden, perfect, consoling warmth, and drew up the ecstatic fairies high, literally – high. They soared up into the air around the lady in a dance Oracion had never seen them do before, but it was as if it had been borne in their blood of fairies ever since the beginning of time, and they were just now rediscovering it.

The lady then spoke to Oracion.

“My child, you know I have always been with you, since before you sought my Son’s grace through your bedroom turret window.  One day you will remember it all.  Now at least you realize it is you who travel with me (for I take you with me wherever I go) not I who travel with you.  But this has come to pass so that thou shouldst ask for my companionship.”

“I don’t want to see him die,” Oracion confessed.

“Nor did I,” she said.  The lady paused, her face so solemnly beautiful in this moment that Oracion felt tears spring up again, unbidden,  but this time they were for the lady, who was gazing upon her with such perfect love, perfect beauty and perfectly deep sorrow.  Oracion suddenly understood that a creature so lovely, could only experience sadness in an equally meaningful manner .  Within her solemn eyes lay an infinite profundity, like the ironic juxoposition of sky with earth.  There was gravity in those eyes, though not of a fallen nature.

It was the Weight of What she Understood, as it had been the Weight of What Father Understood.

The lady continued.

“But the viewing is part of the warrior lessons he wished you to complete Oracion, for it is only through a father’s death by which all of your kind is born.”  She paused another moment, a moment in which Oracion felt the lady was speaking things directly into her heart, that even the godmother’s couldn’t hear, issuing secrets that Oracion would discover there later, when she needed light for a second illumination.

blog image violets 8


Then the madonna assured her:  “Even when you cannot see me, know that I am with you always, for I am inside your soul only to a lesser degree than the Very Presence, which makes up your very heart, very mind, very soul,  and even this very moonlit grove in which we now stand together.”

Oracion liked the way the lady called the Presence the Very Presence.  She like the feel of it to her intellect, as she had liked the feel of Noble Beast’s fur to her hands, the same way as a child she had liked naming Noble Beast, and in contrast, calling the corrupted shape shifters – Opposites.  It felt… True.  Who was this woman who was not her mother but her true mother, all at the same time – as if by adoption –  and who knew so well the language that the Presence used, and that He was so Very?

“Oracion” she added, as if now in turn beseeching. “My Son. They murdered my Son as well, and burned me at the stake, as they continue to burn me at the stake when they burn all women who speak in my name.  Now go.  Your hour is at hand.”

blog image gothic violet wood

Missing Persons

This, Cassie had known, ever since she
[static]
Cassie, my nephew, a driver in a small van
had wounded
seemed very apoplectic
the life of me
deep tissue scarring
my world
89
her limbs crushed beneath

[I find myself crying, feeling a very empathetic, deep sadness]
press a button
release the hatch
arrived in pain
Bobby was still throwing a
[static]
thrashing
like a giant pistol
assault rifle
no ones knows where the bodies are
by the side of the lake
a gorge
a pistol
crying in despair
I sat there
watched him pull the trigger
dust
cold, green grass
a river spotter
fishing
thought it was a hoax
drowned in despair
I took a watch
It keeps on ticking
turning point
freedom
viral
release
the words
the dead
can’t speak
the records
will show this
none the less
cut open the bag
the keys are in the trunk
murder
violence
brute force
the facts remain
I’m cold
ice
a sad time of year
making a living by the stream
these notes
do not indicate the past
From a vantage point however
the fish swim
see
grasping curdles in their mouth
like straw
sipping at Coke
Please don’t make me
come back and spoil it for you
a bronze star on my bed
morphine in the shack
squirrels in the rafters
were obtained for medicinal purposes
The bodies don’t disparage
[An automated sales call comes in on my cell phone, from Fox Lake, Illinois. My left ankle hurts]
Get up

The Tower Bedroom


In every person, you can see their childhood room.
~Old German Saying

blog image gothic washer woman

Do not fear the Opposite
The dark that steals the dream
Man cannot reverse the flow
Of river, gorge or stream

– Song of the Washer Woman

blog gothic washer woman grown up 4

 

When the Presence allowed it, Oracion could travel into the past.

On these nights she often found herself in the upper chamber of the castle turret, looking for Mother and something else she had lost there, a long time ago.

This room had served as Oracion’s bedchamber when she was just a little girl, in the days before Mother was taken.  Oracion had begged Father to let her sleep in the attic, for the moonlight shining through the small window there was beguiling.  Because she would be closer to the moon in a turret bedroom, Oracion knew it would cast its enchanted lunar reflections within – all throughout the night, and she could learn things of which most children weren’t privy, even things of which most shape shifting children hadn’t been privy.

At least that’s how it had been in those days long ago. In modern times, the moon drew closer to earth to educate all of the young, as if in compensation for the stars which had been lost, burnt out in their orbits or cast to the ground.

But in days of old, on certain summer evenings, Father would allow Oracion to accompany him through the small trap door and winding turn of stairs that led from her bedroom to the open roof top above, and she relived all of this now. He and daughter would spend long hours in contemplation studying the landscape below from the advantage of height, moonlight and crenellation.

She remembered she hadn’t asked him for much, but whenever she did ask, Father had never denied her.

And though Mother had not resisted the idea of a tower bedroom, she balked whenever Father took Oracion to the roof. Oracion saw again her face, tinged with a delicate pink, demanding “Whose idea was this?!” It was as if Oracion was a fragile possession that would somehow plummet from the castle rooftop to the ground below, in some unforeseen accident or unexplainable turn of events, that Mother would inevitably blame on Father.  Mother also suspected he was up there teaching Oracion the Art of War.

blog image Oracion in turret

Which he was.

But he was just giving her the Early Lessons, which consisted of maps, animals and flowers, and in particular the types of birds.  He would tell Oracion how the shifters would shape themselves into the humbler varieties – shore bird, sparrow, and turtle dove – to go unnoticed among the enemy.

“I would want to be a sparrow, or a dove” Oracion had announced, for these creatures had several times landed in her hand for a crumble of scone, and she thought them the most gentle and intelligent of all birds, especially compared to the sometimes brutish jays.

Father had smiled at her then, and would mention, casually, how shape shifters could even shape themselves into bats, and get up into a turret tower, to frighten little girls.  He had teased Oracion relentlessly.

So Mother was correct in many things of which she suspected Father, but wrong in so many others, and Oracion grieved for he who had loved Mother from the beginning and therefore had to subject himself to her more worrisome imaginings.

For Mother was one of the Beautiful Ones, an Etherate, who would not become tame in any fashion or sense of the word, whose noble northern heritage could beguile any man, or make anyone love her, just as the moon had inevitably enchanted Oracion in the attic room.

She remembered Mother’s cloud of dark hair, very much like her own, and eyes as blue and twinkling as the clearest spring water, laughing and flowing through a river gorge. She smelled of honeysuckle, baking flour and sometimes a sweet smoky scent that reminded Oracion of fire from an evening hearth.  She graciously swept through the castle in velvet slippers and flowing patterns of rose, gold brocade and lace.  Oracion remembered now that Mother had always been conscious of the dust Oracion’s skirts collected, as Oracion ran laughing and tumbling through heath and heather, but laughed off the dust that collected on her own as if it was simply embroidery, casting a delicate hue.

blog image hem of mother's dress

And though Mother did not laugh all the time, her moods being very delicate, her laugh was one of the things Oracion missed the most. When she did laugh, her laugh had rung out like a transparent chime, up through the castle’s chambers, and sometimes when accompanied with lullaby or tale, had lured Oracion warmly to sleep in that room, in which Oracion had dreamt dreams that princesses can only dream – when they are feeling very safe and secure.

Yes, in time travel Oracion missed Mother’s laugh and those days as deeply as that turret bedroom had been high above all river gorges and blistering mountain heights.

The room itself had been sparsely furnished. 

During her night travels when adult Oracion returned there invisibly, she would find the same small bed beside a rarely lit hearth, fur rugs, rolls of parchment and scattered orange peel, a single crucifix being one of the few adornments against vast stone wall. This was because of Father’s penchant for giving things away.  Oracion had shared the compulsion, and their secret charities were another thing that Oracion feared would drive a wedge between Father and his Etherate Bride, when she was just a little girl.

blog image queen bride

Father would laugh at such concerns –  the adult ones young Oracion had voiced to him in those days, throwing his head back in amusement at the ancientness of her tiny soul. She was his verbal dueling and parsing protégée, too eager to trade in her words for a sword, so she could become a brave warrior like him.  His dark brown eyes would study her and twinkle at her with a lucidity that surpassed even mother’s blue ones. This suggested to her he possessed secrets so deep and elusive they were like that of the moon’s, and she hoped he would share all of them with her in time, because he could refuse her not.

What Oracion didn’t realize then was how much of the light that had burned in Father’s eyes was simply the manifestation of the love he felt for her. She was truly his little ancient Soul, and he often called her this. How bittersweet this made Oracion feel now, recalling what she had taken for granted, or not even noticed, even though she had been ever vigilant, loving both of them with all of what little girls who might really be age worn Souls, consist. 

blog image young Oracion as soldier

“Do not trouble yourself with growing up too quickly, Oracion” Father would advise.  “Just think instead of the merriment of the washer woman at the light cast by our candlesticks set upon her table on Feast of Fat Pheasant”.

Oracion would giggle at this, thinking of Fat Pheasant and hopefully, soon to be fat Gilda, the one little boy Gilda had borne who had died, and all the children whom she had since wet nursed. This could constitute the whole, entire village guard, she thought out loud. Father would toss Oracion up upon his shoulders when she made this comment, still laughing, and Oracion would be laughing too, feeling lighter and safer there than even when they stood on the turret landing, surveying the landscape below.

But perhaps Gilda’s new fortune was why Mother had accused Father of stealing the trikerion lamps from the chapel priest in the first place, the prelate with the dark brown hooding and intelligent but brooding eyes.

blog washer woman 8

It had been a moonless night, with rain coming down in torrential drifts, when Oracion first heard her parents arguing about trikerion candles. She remembered that night well because Noble Beast had not shown up like usual.  Noble Beast showed up whenever it was raining or the moon was obscured by shadow or snow.

Oracion had awakened because of the pounding of rain against glass and her parent’s angry voices from the chambers below, but this didn’t disturb her as much as the absence of the creature. She had glanced about the room, half expecting to see Noble come padding silently towards her on his huge, hairy beast feet, beseeching her with sad eyes until she allowed him the pleasure of sleeping at her own.

But he hadn’t.

Oracion had not known or cared until now from whence Noble Beast came, because he was yet another one of those things she simply didn’t question, and took for granted in days of sweet cherries, moonlit lessons and the smells of sage and dripping candle wax.

Invisible Oracion moved with emotion into the past and watched as her younger self arose from the bed, not bothering to slipper her feet, seeking instead the creature she loved like a childhood pet to warm them. But he wasn’t really a dog. Noble Beast (which is just what Oracion called him) was very much like an oversized German Shepherd, yet not quite canine, because he had two antlers that emerged from his head in such a fashion that one bent over the other, then twisted down to end in a sharp point.  This unique antler formation reminded Oracion of the small crucifix that graced her wall, but even more it reminded her of the cross on the banners the brave warriors carried, family crests with gold lettering hanging down from one side.

It had disturbed her, when she had dreamt of those banners broken, littering the ground, and golden calligraphy stained red.

blog image washer woman with son

But now child Oracion wasn’t worried about war. She was hurrying down the stairs of drafty, stone white passages, until she reached the rooms below. There she momentarily forgot her quest to find Nobel, because Father’s voice from within Mother’s bedchamber was filled with something Oracion identified as pain. She wasn’t used to hearing Father like this, and crept even closer to the closed door, to listen without being observed.

“How can you say this, of what do you speak?” Father was asking Mother.  “Why would I take the special candles passed down to me, that which has been consecrated to my Lord?  Of what dark deeds do you accuse?”

“If it wasn’t you than it was Priest” Mother stated with a voice that still sounded angry,  but very determined now, and colored with urgency.

“Why worry yourself, even if the old man did?” Father queried. “Do we not feed him enough? Don’t we pay him enough, to perform the rites?  If the priest has taken trikerions for dark purpose, the candles won’t light, and if he has taken them for good, to bring light to others, then we cannot condemn.”

“We shouldn’t tolerate a thief in our house for any reason” Mother insisted, and Father must have come to her then, consolingly, for after a moment of silence his voice grew softer still.  Oracion had to press her ear against the door to hear it.

But what Father said then frightened Oracion to the quick.

“There now, there now, you know the truth, Grisel. The only thieves that can wrongly take things of value are Dream Snatchers.  And these I will never allow in my house, I promise you.”

Upon hearing this declaration from her father’s lips, a chill had gone down the spine of the young girl, a chill accompanied by the realization of an evil present, although not yet fully understood.

Though Oracion hadn’t known what these creatures were called, when she heard “Dream Snatchers” she knew of whom Father spoke.  But Oracion had thought up to this point that these evil things, these dream stealing creatures, were imaginary, and not a real threat to anyone’s well-being.

And she had been calling them Opposites.

blog image Oracion learning from book

She called them Opposites because when she woke to find them silently prowling about the side of her bed, which she often did –  sinewy, dark, smoky creatures – as if part smoke, part human and part beast, drooling and smacking their lips grotesquely like they wanted to devour her, they reminded her in an opposite way of Noble Beast.  She had screamed of course when they first appeared and called out for Mother, who would come to her doorway immediately. When Mother appeared the monsters would disappear quite instantaneously, leaving only a swirling, smoky residue behind, as if they’d never been there. Could it be that Dream Snatchers were so frightened by something as pure and beautiful as an Etherate, they couldn’t exist in the same space or time?

“Where did they go?” Oracion would ask.

“Where did what go?” Mother would ask.

“Opposites” Oracion would say, her voice still trembling.  She didn’t really even want to say the word out loud, as if to speak it would hasten their return.

“Silly child,” Mother would say “Opposites are just your imagination.  You don’t see them here now with us, do you?”

No wonder Mother worried about her well-being, Oracion thought, frozen at her parent’s bedchamber door.

Mother knew the truth of what lurked in her bedroom, but perhaps hadn’t wanted to acknowledge their existence to Oracion so as not to frighten her.  In seconds Oracion’s mind was spinning, grasping at what could constitute and motivate such vile creatures, and it didn’t take long for her to theorize that they were some form of shape shifter, but with a darkness inside them.

If this was true, than Oracion knew what she must do, but it would take the courage of a brave warrior, not just a princess. She had to see where the monstrous creatures went when they disappeared at Mother’s entrance, next time they invaded her room.  For as long as smoky exhaust still lingered and swirled it suggested Dream Snatchers could not leave castle grounds quickly.  Oracion wondered what they cloaked themselves into next, perhaps a malformed grape vine to climb down and out her window, or a deformed animal –  part pig and part goat – howling in agony at a turret moon, which would be way too bright for their weak and watery eyes.

But what had they been originally? What was their natural form?

blog image castle wall ruin

Time travel to the past can be such a frustrating thing.

For as the Oracion in the present sees the Oracion in the past, forming this plan to catch Dream Snatchers, it is as if suddenly time starts to speed up. Walls start aging with decay, their crumbling stones tumbling out, and archways fade in and out, then dissolve altogether into translucent, arched tree branches, which in turn become more and more solid over her head, until Oracion can see the morning light of present filtering through.

No, she must stay in the castle and watch.  She has long since earned her sword.

The sound of rushing in the ears again and Oracion is back in the past. But as usual, she has lost a segment of time, skipped right over it like a section of ink on parchment too wet and blurry to read, and now she is young and in her bed again  being woken by something wet upon her arm. 

Is the window open, and rain coming in?

No, it is Father, holding her in his arms, and the raindrops are not raindrops but his tears. The sight of her father crying moves child Oracion to much love and she calls him “Daddy” this time, instead of the usual Father.  Looking up, she also notices what looks like horrible wounds about his neck, as if rows of sharp blades had been pressed into the weather-tanned skin, and at intervals pierced it.

So she lays her small, child hand upon the bruises, as if her touch could heal, and asks “Daddy, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Oracion has seen this scene too many times.

It hurts and she doesn’t want to see it again. Moreover, she knows she must go even further back into the past to find what she missed, what she’s lost, and realize what she needs to realize.  (Rushing, rushing, the sound of rushing in her ears like a pressure, a frightening wind, driving rain against turret glass. Presence, be with me!) then she’s back to the deleted time frame, when it is not raining at all.  Father is not there either. Oracion is in her own bedroom, and a hideous Dream Snatcher, half crouched, encircles her bed.

“Mother,  come help me, quick!”

The Etherate appears almost instantly, disheveled in unspeakably radiant beauty.

When the frightening beast disappears just as quickly, Oracion waits only until her mother leaves her room as well.

Then she gets out of bed and peeks out from below the open archway that constitutes her bedroom door, just in time to catch a glimpse of the tale end of Mother’s cloak, crimson red, sweeping dust as it disappears down the stairs.

Back in her room, the Dream Snatcher’s residue is still visible, dusty entrails one would not wish to inhale.

So over to the window young Oracion scurries, hoping to watch as the Dream Snatcher flees. This time the moon is quite full, illuminating everything below it, the extended drawbridge and finally the figure that emerges upon it to meet Priest, who has been waiting there all along.

But it is still only Mother, in her crimson red cloak, the figure that emerges from the castle.  Mother’s hood is drawn up around her face like Priest’s brown one, and despite the moon and the brilliancies of color, Oracion marvels at how similar in this night the two hooded figures appear. However, when the priest removes his hood, and Mother in like fashion removes her own, there is no trouble making distinctions between them.

Mother’s face is hideous now, perhaps not even human.  Her face is that of the Dream Snatcher.

She opens her jaws wide as if to devour the wiry little man with long, fierce teeth, but instead slowly leans her gaping mouth close to breathe Oracion’s dreams into the greedy priest’s ear.  After receiving the vapor, he removes what he has brought hidden from beneath his garments, a trikerion lamp, and hands it to Mother, who enfolds it into her own.

blog confession image


Oracion is so stunned she cannot move or speak, and it is only when she sees Noble Beast come charging out through the castle gates to attack the Dream Snatcher, and watches horrifying movements of flying fur and teeth too rapid to mentally contemplate, then Noble’s neck being pinioned and tightly clenched in her own mother’s jaws, that Oracion can scream at all.

“No!”

The child’s cry alerts the beasts. They pause in one, simultaneous motion to look up at her, and in another instance –  are gone.  Both beasts have vanished, and now Priest alone stares up at Oracion with eyes still human, but as cold and dead as the stones in her tower bedroom wall.

All that remains of Mother is the swirling, dark smoky residue at his feet.

It takes another moment for Oracion to realize that her hands are clutching the window ledge so tightly that they hurt painfully, until she realizes they are not hands at all, but the tiny feet of a small sandpiper bird. For through the intensity of her emotions she has awoken her first transformation, but has not yet achieved sparrow or dove.

In this moment Oracion is just a small ground bird, trapped way up high on a ledge.

blog image sandpiper on ledge

Song of the Washer Woman, Verse II

Do not fear the Opposite
Who dies not out through blood
Though blood is red as roses are
Life forms but through its bud