The Tree of Many Souls

Out to the country, that’s where we were going. I wasn't fond of “the country”. There were nasty insects and outhouses instead of washrooms. Mams must have sensed I was displeased. I’d rather have spent this afternoon, at home, warm, playing with Lego. So she spiced it up a little for me. We would be going by car.

Only the wealthy had cars. My parents had their educations cut short by a war. Upgrading was done in their adult life. My father held down a jog at Shell Oil full-time and attended university on weekends and in the evening. In the midst of it all he also twice served in the military as a medic (as a pacifist/Buddhist this was agreeable). My mother had been a nurse and studied opera after I was born. At this point my father was at the end of his studies and my mother just starting her performing career. I can only imagine how tired they must have been. Most of our travelling was done on foot or bicycle or public transit.

Neither of my parents could drive, nor did they see a particular need to have a car. To want one would have gone against their deeply socialist sensibilities. Just occasionally we were offered a ride by someone more fortunate in their circumstances. To be so fortunate quite often meant that during the previous world war you had retained your considerable wealth by selling out your own countrymen. This is another reason that wealth was a source of embarrassment to many, and probably should have been.

My parents were devoted Buddhists with considerable interest in the paranormal. Their interests involved hypnotism, seances, bio-feedback, meditation and all other manner of psychic phenomena. My father's friend Wim was a respected psychic and hypnotist from Utrecht he and my father attended the University at Delft together.

He was a tall lanky dutchmen (as if there is any other kind), he had pale blue eyes and no eyelashes, his skin was very pink and he had waves of reddish blond hair.... www.aletta.org/sparrowweb1.shtml

The Unseen and the Weeping Lady

Under certain circumstances, fairies will just see a need to intervene. such was the case with Ms. Millar one warm springtime many years ago. It had not been long before that splendid day that Ms. Millar, they valley's school teacher had to bury her young husband. He had died in a faraway war, in another country far, far away. Ms. Millar was still living in a big city then, she'd just finished going to teacher's college. she was lonely and spent all her evenings in the darkness crying until she finally would fall asleep.

It was her cousin Elizabeth who invited her to come and stay with her in the valley, As it happens, and quite often it does, just then the teacher Mr. Rolf, decided he really needed to stop teaching after thirty years and open a candy shop instead. Perhaps it came about because after years of taking away candy from his pupils he decided he's just much rather make the most wonderful candy for children to enjoy. So he did, within weeks he's rented a store and was making the most wonderful candy.

The position did not come with a fabulous salary, just a small salary and a small cottage to live in just a hundred feet away from the little school house. It meant teaching all the grades and giving all the exams to all the valley's children (numbering no more than 20 per term). Mr. Rolf , the retired teacher, now the local candy store proprietor, even offered to substitute those times that Ms. Millar (only her close friends call her Kate) should fall ill.

The valley over a period of weeks was fast becoming the only place in the world where Ms. Millar could imagine living. so she packed all her things in the city and moved to the valley. She has now been here more than thirty years.

Back to that afternoon, that warm peaceful afternoon, when the fairies were swinging from poppy to poppy. The dog and cat were occupied chasing butterflies. the smell of weak bleach and laundry soap permeated the air. The fresh coat of white paint made her little cottage home sparkle in the afternoon light. The warm wind caused the leaves to make a gentle rustling sound. You could hear birds chirping and the occasional snap of a towel as Mrs. Millar hung the laundry on her clothesline. All the changes in her life had Mrs. Millar losing some weight and it was partly that and partly her damp hands which had the ring slip off her finger. Not just any ring either, but the very ring with which years ago she had become Mrs. Millar. The ring that Mr. Millar had slipped on her finger on that bright summer's day at their wedding.

Falling on the grass as it did it made no sound. Mrs. Millar was completely unaware. The dog took no note of it either. Two beady little eyes had noticed. The small rodent always noticed when sparkly things fell on the ground nearby. After all a tiny rodent like this mouse could not see much above the ground. This was his world, the ground and all that there was. The mouse scurried very quickly to the ring and ran off with it. He did not know precisely why he did it. He had no use for the ring, it could not be eaten, and mice don't wear jewellery, nor had they any interest in how much it might be worth if sold. It just sparkled so intensely and he had to have it. That, and nothing more, was all there was to it. It was heavy to carry and he did not take it far away, just to behind a large oak tree in Mrs. Millar's own yard. He sat feeling quite triumphant for the whole rest of the afternoon just staring at the ring, as it twinkled like a star in the bright sunlight. Well, he stayed, until he became hungry and was then off forgetting all about the ring.

It was an hour or so later when she was taking down the now dry laundry from the line when she finally noticed the missing ring. It was one of those suspicious absence of something. In this case the twinkling of the diamond in the sun as she held up her hand in the light was something to which she was well accustomed so when the twinkling was absent she noticed immediately. She shrieked. So loud was the shriek that several crows very nearly fell out of the tree above her. The shriek was followed by an absolute silence. The birds stopped chirping, the dog an cat suddenly sat in place, fairies and pixies stopped what they were doing, even the wind became silent.

There are all kinds of shrieks, but this one, was so incredibly sad, not just horrified but sad. There was no a soul who had heard it who was not profoundly saddened, just from hearing the shriek. The silence was broken by weeping and then sobbing and then for seemingly hours, a soft crying.


... the rest of this story at www.aletta.org/wingedtales05.shtml

Breezing

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Walking under the Moon

One of those exceptional nights, that despite the cold, every step held a view worthy of the trip. The snow turned pink in the twilight of the sun. Ski slopes lit with lights that twinkled as did the stars above them. The grass grew crunchy by the time I was nearly home again. All the while a nearly full moon beamed, seemingly following me home. I'd had the good sense to pack my little camera. I am especially happy with the shots of the red and green light with scored of magpies sitting on high tension wires over the crossing. I could not resist a vanity shot of myself as I passed the bank's mylar lined window. Now I am tired and will have to rest some. If any thing I will be doing my writing.

Excerpt from winged Tale #4 - the unseen world

Adults, unlike children did not see the fairies. Despite that the fairies did have a little something to do with their lives. Very often an adult shakes their head wondering why a lost object has just reappeared even though they'd looked for it right there many times before. Or a knot in the knitting yarn seemingly impossible to unknot becomes undone almost on it's own. All the little things that cannot be explained away, that is the work of the unseen little people. They might be mischievous too and play little trick, turn the tap on a little as you walk away. Nothing really nasty, just mischief. There are rules the unseen world lives by, for instance horrible things are ever done to good people. Mischief is what monsters and gremlins are for. They don't exist in the adult world, in part because adults do not want to believe in them, and besides that because they are helped to forget. That's what fairy dust is for, to make the adults forget. Why is that? Why do adults need to forget and children don't?

Adults don't believe in fairies because they would ridicule each other for believing in them. Some might even be hunting down the fairies for research and put them in little cages in laboratories like they do with mice. Just a lot less complicated and safe for the fairie if adults do not believe in them. Children on the other hand, should believe in them, often a lonely child has only the little persons in the unseen world for friendship. The fairies just love children, fairies are very much like children themselves, always playing and taking delight in games and observing the natural world.

In the valley the only adult able to see the little unseen people was Big Slow Fred, to him they were very real, and the children soon learned they could talk to him about their small unseen friends and be believed. /sometimes Big slow Fred would even invite some of the kids to watch the goose races at his house with fairies mounted on the big fluffy geese and pixies urging them on. The fairies trusted Big Slow Fred and if he brought the children around they knew those were good children and could be trusted not to try and harm them. Occasionally a particularly nasty child had tried to harm the fairies by throwing rocks at them. the fairies with their magical quickness always got out of the way, but the geese might get hurt. Big Slow Fred would remind them that the gremlins would get them when they found out what a nasty little child he or she had been. Mostly the children in the valley were very good children, but it happened sometimes that a child did something nasty. Even here in the valley.

-- it's a start, slow week, running on an hour of sunlight

Enchanted Cork Oak

This tree has some magic about it,

the bark used to seal wine bottles

since ancient times. The tree

isn't harmed in the process, and the

bark grows back. It's just so

beautiful, its curves and foliage.

More pics on:

http://lemurianhermitage.blogspot.com/

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

The Death of Leaning Birches & Company

I've always been fascinated by Birch Trees. So here, in my own way is a tribute to them. This is an older story of mine, but one of my favorites and if you read on you will see some artwork by our very own very talented Heather Blakey...enjoy

I'm from a town called Leaning Birches; it grew up seemingly overnight around a single mining a camp.

Like any other town there’s a church, a saloon a school, a jail and shanties. There were houses on the ridges and even a cemetery. A train comes through now and then to take away the gold, sometimes the dead and it brings supplies too.

In the town of Leaning Birches men have wasted away to nothing working in the mines, they don't think about food or drink or even women when they hit those veins. No one there can remember their life before the mines, it just isn’t as important as what is under their feet.

In Leaning Birches in one way or another the Mines have claimed or spawned what's now above ground.

Once I was lost in the Mines, it was only for a little while though. I'm not sure why but I took my time walking through the darkness to the entrance. I thought I saw Miners down there, laboring, fighting, working, dieing. Only they where nothing more then shadows and whispers.

Ghosts I suppose.

Along my way I also saw carvings on the walls, in parts of the caves the miners had ventured into and then abandoned. The figure was always the same, a woman with arrows clutched in her hands. Corpses at her feet and a sly smile painted across her lips. She had no eyes and a veil of long black hair. Sometimes the figure was painted and sometimes carved. Sometimes it was life sized and at other times she was no bigger then the palm of my hand.

image courtesy of Heather Blakey

I don't know how long I walked before I found my way out; I walked towards vaporous figures that became more solid as I approached. Their voice became solid and real too, not whispers or hints of sound.

" Christ almighty, " one said as I approached " what the hell is down there? "

" Rats, " another answered " dead rats and they must be waist deep in that one enclave, I ain't going in there again the smell is God awful "

" You're sure Amory? They were all dead? How can that be? We were just down there yesterday and everything was fine."

" Listen Del, I’m telling you that cave is full of them. They all went recent too, they're still, you know, fresh"

The voices retreated, and now I stood near the entrance, I placed my hand against the hall and my fingers danced...like spiders when they spin a web and when I took my hand away the woman with the arrows in her hands was there.

And now, so was I.

I crossed the threshold and I was topside. The town was very much alive, but I saw the shadows everywhere.

These shadows weren't shadows cast from the Sun, they were cast from the darkness and they moved liked predators stalking prey. They slid up and crossed the faces of men, women, children, livestock and they nested there.

As the shadows become darker the figures under them seemed to fade until nothing was left.

Sometimes they saw me through the Shadows. I saw traces of their faces and I also saw their fear, I saw their anger, I saw their regret. And sometimes I saw relief. They died very quickly.

The road to the cemetery was traveled almost hourly now, sometimes even at night. Later, when they all became sick the entire town turned into a cemetery and the dead were left to rest where they fell.

The town of Leaning Birches simply shut its eyes one evening just before sunset and drew one last long rattling breath and stopped.

It was done in less then 3 days.

That's how the town of Leaning Birches died. It was murdered by my hand and what I brought from the Mines with me. It was a Black Death that consumed them all. When I was done I retreated back to the mines.

I'm still down here, wandering the tunnels carved by the Miners and I still make my little drawings. Sometimes animal ventures in and I take it, sometimes it ventures back out alone and sometimes I go with it.

My little town is famous I've learned. There's a legend that over 500 souls disappeared from it without a trace over one night. The story says a surveyor came up and found food set out on tables, half filled glasses in the saloon. Money on the counter at the bank. He made it sound like all those people and their animals just got up and walked away into the hills.

Of course he lied, I know because I was there. As it would happen because I claim what is mine...no matter how far I have to travel, I found him years later in another country at another mine and I saw the look of regret on his face in the last few minutes of his life.

I didn't begrudge him his tall tale. He shouldn’t have and you shouldn't either.

He did come to the town and he sat on his horse on the ridge above the town and looked down into the ruins I had created. Bodies littered the street, the smell and silence and ugliness seemed to reach up from below and grab him by his throat.

The horseman didn't see the corpse of a ruined town; his mind simply refused to see it. I think he saw one corpse in that valley. Not, buildings or bodies or decay. A single ruined corpse.

"Somebody killed this town,” he said to himself " as surely as if they put a rifle to it's head and pulled the trigger."

Then he felt me. His hand went to the back of his neck and he saw the hairs standing up on his arms on that hot summer day. He nearly fell off his horse as he felt me approach from the bluff below. His mind slammed a door shut so hard in his own head that even I heard it.

Then I was next to him.

He couldn't see me, but he felt me. His head snapped from left to right, he turned in his saddle and his eyes were bright, defiant. I admired him very much. Which is why I didn't take him that day.

Then his horse reared and threw him to the ground. " Not here, Jesus Not here...Christ those poor people...God, God in the streets like runned over dogs...God..." he was saying from the ground. He was on all fours for a moment and then he was on his feet and his horse tried to gallop away, but I put my hand on it and it screamed in terror and stood still. It's eyes rolled and its sides heaved but it would not move past me.

I'm not sure who showed him Mercy that day but when he looked back down into the town he really saw the tale he told all those years later. He didn't see death and decay. He saw nothing except dust and empty buildings.

The town was completely abandoned by the world once it heard about the sickness there. That tale didn't come from the horseman, it came from a woman who escaped my attention entirely and I'm not sure to this day how she managed that.

So the world never came back, my presence you see...after all of this time you can feel it. You can see it in the trees and grass that don't seem to be as green and alive as the trees and grasses that grow on the opposite side of the river. The air here is still fetid and dank.

The way it is in the mines.

Still, the explores come. They try to stand in the places where buildings once stood and never seem to venture very far down what was once the main street. They don't go to the cemetery because, they tell each other, it's flat and there's nothing to see. They don't even realize it is a cemetery as all the markers were wood and when the Blackness came for them the Miners and townspeople stopped using markers at all.

But there's plenty to hear and if you can't hear it you can feel it.

That cemetery is never quiet and nothing sleeps up there. Sometimes hikers happen by and so do the hunters and the lost. But nothing stays here. The wind won't even travel these streets and sunlight doesn't come any closer then it has too.

But I walk these hills and valleys and sometimes I travel far away from this place.

But I'm from this valley and from these Mines and I am always here; I will always be here.

Waiting.