Autumn Alchemy

The air is very still. Around them the trees perform their autumn alchemy, transmuting their leaves into gold against the gold of the late October sun: gold against gold. Together they walk between the trees. Hand in hand, as always. They do not speak. Words would add nothing to their togetherness.

Every now and then one of them stops to read a text on a stone, out loud, but softly, while the other waits quietly. And then they walk on. Sometimes the woman bends over as if to brush away some leaves from the stones, and only then they let go of each other. Many of the texts they know by heart, but every now and then they discover a new one, and pause to read it with great concentration. Their bodies stretch forward, and quietly they read names, dates, wishes for peace: gestures of a love which endures long beyond the dates on which they were inscribed.

Sometimes the effort needed is too much for them. Then they speak in turn, each one carrying the words forward to the end of the inscription. The rhythm of the one glides effortlessly into that of the other, as if one voice only is speaking. But a beautiful text they read together, simultaneously. The woman now and then shakes her head compassionately: "So young still, so very young." "Come", says the man then. And at another place they might just nod, or agree together: "Yes, yes, that is a wonderful age!"

Their bench is occupied. A woman, middle-aged, alone. They greet her. "Good afternoon madam." But the woman does not respond. Her head is lowered, sunk deep in her own thoughts with a resigned finality. She hardly seems to notice them as they walk past her. They walk on, a little taken aback, to the next bench. There they rest.

A bird starts singing its evening song, sitting in a tall tree which bends over a new grave. The song sounds so full of life. In the distance a church bell starts ringing, almost as if in response to the bird’s own cadences.

"That late already? Come, we’d better go now." Hand in hand they walk back between the trees, past the woman on the bench. She looks up at last as they approach her, grateful to have the cemetery to herself. Grief is, after all, a private thing. High overhead a formation of geese is flying. Winter is nigh.

The Question

In my ears: the unceasing voice of the wind. I wonder where the figure has vanished to. Perhaps if I could just make it to the crest of this dune I might yet catch another glimpse of her. With the wind at my back, and the blown grains of surface sand stinging my ankles, I struggle up the shadowed face of the great crescent of sand. 

With the light of the fast-sinking sun flooding my face I emerge from the dune’s shadow, and in two more paces I am standing full in the orange light on the sweeping crest of the dune. I scan the view in front of me for signs of life, and notice a dark outcrop of rock emerging like an island from the sand sea. And there in the shadow of the rock I notice a movement, as if she is deliberately revealing her presence to me – which perhaps she is. Perhaps she seeks this encounter as much as I myself do, for is that not her nature: to confront the other?

A few more minutes and I am climbing over the dark rock to reach the place where I spotted her. At first I do not see her, even though she is very close. Then two orange eyes open and stare at me from the shadows. Oh, such eyes! All the mysteries of the world are contained in those twin pools of amber. Her long mane of hair blows around her shoulders like a cloak, and her body, though human-enough, seems somehow other-than-human in a way in which I cannot explain to myself.

What does one say to a sphinx? Is it protocol to wait until spoken to when encountering such a fabulous creature of legend? Such encounters are too infrequent to really know the correct form of things. I feel awkward and unsure, and if I am truthful, also rather nervous. I notice the sphinx’s dark nails grown to the length of talons.

“May I ask you a question?” I hear a voice say. The voice is my own, desperate, apparently, to break the prolonged silence. The eyes of the sphinx fix onto and hold my own. She does not speak. “I would like to ask you” I continue, “if my life has a meaning.” Still the sphinx remains silent, scrutinizing me intently. Such silence can bring anxiety, so I continue: “I mean, sometimes I feel that it does, but at other times I feel just as equally that it’s all random, and it doesn’t matter what I do or plan because things happen anyway, but then it all more-or-less turns out in the end and I’m left wondering that even if I’d planned it all, would it have been any different? I suppose what I’d really like to ask you is: is there such a thing as free will, or is it all beyond our control? Although, now I think about it, I guess we must have free will, because it was my own free will that drove me to search for you so that I could ask you the answer to such a big, big question.”

Behind me, the pale moon is on the rise. The sphinx stares at me, and I seem to notice a faint smile. That ghost of a smile is still there as the sphinx curls up in the velvet shadows and silently falls asleep.

Artwork by David Bergen

The Stone Ape

Once, when the world was not as old as it is now, there lived a stone ape. This stone ape lived in a forest, because endless forests were what this young world mostly consisted of. It was rumored that somewhere far beyond the forest, at the very rim of the world, tall cloud-shrouded mountains nestled together. But no one was sure, because no one had ever journeyed quite that far.

The stone ape was a rather arrogant creature, but this did not bother anyone because there seemed to be no one else around to bother. Until one morning. While swinging through the forest the stone ape suddenly saw in a clearing below a figure. The figure looked human enough, but the stone ape seemed to sense that there was somehow something different about this one. Curious as to whom the figure was, the stone ape swung down to the ground and asked the figure’s name.

“I am Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.” Replied Buddha. The stone ape had heard of the Buddha, and dimly remembered hearing that he was some kind of great being. 

“You are great, Lord Buddha, but I am greater still.” replied the stone ape smugly. “I am stronger and faster, and can cover more distance in a single day than you could even dream of. In fact,” he added with a flourish of bravado, “I will! I’ll start out this very moment and journey to the very edge of the world. I’ll leave my mark there and meet you back in this clearing before the sun has set on this day!” The stone ape had hardly finished speaking before he had whirled around and set off, but Buddha merely smiled and settled beneath a tree to meditate. 

How vast the forest was! The stone ape had never been so far from his own territory, but the forest seemed to go on forever. Still the stone ape journeyed on as the bright sun climbed higher in the sky towards noon. For the first time the stone ape passed great rivers, leaping over them with what seemed to be a new-found strength, bounding along with the exhilaration which comes from knowing one’s own powers. The forest was at last giving way to more hilly terrain, and still the stone ape journeyed on with a speed which even he had not imagined himself capable of. Now the afternoon sun began to be shrouded in mist and clouds, and the stone ape sensed that ahead must be the mountains at the world’s edge. 

As if growing in power, the stone ape now reached up and grabbed hold of a cloud, swinging from cloud to cloud above snow-covered mountains and frozen rivers of ice. And when he saw ahead of him the tallest mountains of all, he knew that the edge of the world was only a little way ahead. At the very summit of the highest peak two great pillars rose up to almost touch the sky. The pillars marked the edge of the world, and with an extra great effort, the stone ape hurled himself on high and in the red light of the sinking sun scratched his mark on the two towering pillars.

But there was now no time to lose. Even as the sun was setting the stone ape set off again, speeding back over clouds, hills, rivers and forests, at last to arrive back in the twilit clearing where the Buddha was calmly waiting for him. 

“All that I said I would do I have accomplished!” announced the stone ape. "While you have only been sitting here in this clearing I have journeyed to the very edge of the world! And I left my mark on two great pillars that stand there.”

“Oh?” said Buddha, and held out two of his fingers to show the stone ape. “You mean this mark here?”


Retold and adapted from an Indonesian folktale. 

Painting by René Hausman

Sacred Friend

There we sat on the beach, our hands with the playful fingers, always ready to let the sand run through them, now quietly resting on the same sand - while he was talking, and I was listening. At first he was searching for words, and somewhat reluctant to release them, to let them free in the air where they could either rise up to the light or fall silent on the sand. They fell, his words, in good earth they fell. Those words, coming from the depth of his soul.

They painted before me a man who made himself a mirror and did not shun his reflection. He looked at every incompleteness, every flaw and imperfection, and fought the fight of his life, like Jacob wrestling with his angel. It wore him down time and again, and his heart broke manyfold, but he did not flinch. He observed himself, he studied his inner and outer being. Gradually his reflection began to change form until one day it disappeared and even the mirror dissolved like a base metal in an alchemic process. 

Born again, he looked at the man that he had become - a man who had won, not only the battle, but also had ended the war against himself. The battle he had won was the victory over his small self - the victory over judgement and dualism. He had gained compassion, and more. No longer unaware, he had gained bliss. Pure bliss.

My silence was not mute. My silence spoke, while his words reached my open hands, and my heart. 

Painting by Hendrik Mesdag

Little Spark

She is dearly loved by her mother. In all that Little Spark does, she feels her mother’s guiding hand and thoughtful attention. And the girl also loves her mother as much as she herself is loved. It is a quiet harmony of being: a harmony that comes to an abrupt and unwished-for end when, after a short illness, her mother dies.

From one day to the next Little Spark’s world changes forever. There are times when she feels that she needs to comfort her disconsolate father more than she herself receives the comfort which she as a child so needs and deserves. But things are to change still further, and the change is for the worse. Her father remarries soon enough. Perhaps too soon. Little Spark’s new stepmother is everything that her dear mother was not. No scrap of love or comfort comes from this stranger in her house, in her life. 

Instead, Little Spark finds herself sent downstairs to the cheerless kitchen, and there she must scrub the pots and pans and tend to the stove fire as if she were a common servant; which, to all intents and purposes, she has now become. Her father, if the truth be known, discovers all too late that he is rather intimidated by this doughty woman, and keeps silent over the treatment of his daughter.

Miracles happen. As she sits quietly weeping among the blackened pots and the even blacker soot and charred wood of the kitchen stove, a miracle happens to Little Spark. An ineffable essence, a shining form, appears before her. Again her world changes. She feels herself overwhelmed with an unnameable love, and although her tears flow, they are now tears of an inexpressible joy and hope for what might now come. Is this the spirit of her mother come to comfort her? Or some other being? Although no word is spoken, she knows that all her desires will now be answered. What the form of light offers to her is transformation.

And Little Spark transforms. From a girl dressed in servant’s rags she is now a radiant beauty, worthy of the hand of a prince of the land. And it is the prince who duly claims her hand and gives to her all love, honour and happiness in his palace, ‘forever after’. Well, we recognize this story, of course, as the story of Cinderella, which is the translation of the literal name ‘Little Spark’. The story endures through the generations as an evergreen fairy tale. But such stories retain their magic for a reason. In the story of Cinderella we can recognise a far older and deeper story: the story of us all.

Just as with Little Spark and her mother’s love, we also know an initial perfect bliss, a heavenly state. But we (or Eve, or Cinderella, or whatever name we give to the little spark that is the soul in these stories) must descend ‘downstairs’ to toil in the grease and grime of the ‘kitchen’ of the material world, in order to learn the hard and necessary things that will help us through worldly experience to progress. But there always is redemption, both in fairy stories and in the soul’s journey.

These eternal themes echo in our awareness. They travel through time to reach us, and they travel ‘in disguise’ as stories so that their inner meaning may be preserved. They continue to speak powerfully to us if we open ourselves to them. And perhaps now you might never read the story of Cinderella in quite the same way again!

Painting: Cinderella by Terri Windling

Conversation with a Butterfly

I am sitting relaxing in my garden. The day is warm, with a few fluffy sheep’s-wool clouds sailing through a sky of piercing lapis, although the shade of the young maple tree under which I am sitting offers me some relative coolness.

A butterfly alights on one of the maple leaves, close enough for me to reach out and touch it. I do not do so, of course, being glad enough of its company. Its wings match the blue of the sky: a little piece of heaven flown down from above. ‘How are you?’ asks the butterfly courteously. I feel the need to be honest. ‘A little down’, I replied, ‘but rather better since you have come to visit me. ‘Ah,‘ said the butterfly unsurprised, ‘that is to be expected. I tend to have that effect upon those whom I visit.’ I noticed that I felt better the longer the butterfly remained with me. ‘Perhaps you could stay with me, then I would always feel better.’ I suggested.

‘Oh, no!’ exclaimed the butterfly emphatically. ‘It just doesn't work like that. Were I always to stay with you, my attraction would diminish to the point where you would not even notice my existence, because you would then simply take me for granted. In my experience, that is what tends to happen, which is why I prefer just to visit, rather than remain.’ I had a mischievous thought. ‘Then perhaps I could capture you!’ I said. ‘That way you would have to stay with me, and I would always have you close by!’ The butterfly smiled knowingly. ‘No, that would not work either! As soon as I am captured, I change. I become something else entirely that you would not even recognise. So you see, there’s no point in trying to catch me.’

‘Then when you fly away, I will follow you wherever you go!’ I laughed, rather smugly pleased with my own persistent ingenuity. ‘That way, you would always be free, and I would always be near you.’ ‘Still no good!’ The butterfly patiently explained. ‘You may chase after me for as long as you want. But if you chase me, you will discover that I always stay just out of reach. Better to just be still in yourself. That way, if you are lucky, I will come to visit you as I have now. Besides,’ the butterfly continued with a flutter of its azure wings ‘my little life is over soon enough. My visits tend to be brief ones, sometimes short, sometimes a little longer. And sometimes those whom I visit do not even realise that I have visited them until after I have flown away. That is the way it is.’

The butterfly fluttered its wings more vigorously, and I felt that it might fly away at any moment. ‘Please wait just a little!’ I asked. ‘’Won’t you tell me your name before you go?’ The butterfly smiled. ‘My name is Happiness.’ It replied. 

Painting by Odilon Redon

The Shepherd and the Shell

She has come from the sea, and he, all uncomprehending, can only wonder. His flock continue to graze on the salty grass of the coastal dunes, but he, the normally-attentive shepherd, has already forgotten their existence. Unawares, he sinks to his knees, suddenly suspended in a world between the commonplace of the everyday and a larger reality in which anything can – and does – happen.

She strides confidently out of myth, crossing the impossible space between the waves’ edge and the intervening sand, wading across a shallow lagoon to confront him. Her golden hair, decorated with strands of marine plants, flutters in the sea breezes as it must have fluttered in the more measured rhythms of the currents beneath the waves. She is no more aware of her nakedness than he now is of his surroundings. Her presence is more real than his reality. His water flask also lies forgotten on the ground at his side, and his shepherd’s crook, the emblem of his task, is grasped in his now-unsteady hand.

In her pale hands she holds a shell, and her simple gesture indicates that this is her gift to him. No word is spoken, for none is needed. Were she to speak, her language would perhaps be incomprehensible to him, as his earthly dialect might be to her. So she does not speak. And he cannot, transfixed as he has become by her miraculous appearance in his world.

All that he can do is extend his wondering hand to receive this offered gift from the sea, barely aware of his own gesture of acceptance. She smiles down at him, seeming somewhere amused at the consternation which she has caused, but comprehending as well, compassionate in her invasion of his reality. For a moment, for a brief sliver of time, her fingers brush his own as he takes the shell from her, and he feels an impression of pale skin more silken than human skin could be, like the smooth pelt of a seal.

Now she smiles at him, gesturing with her hands, cupping them to her ear to indicate what she wishes him to do. He obeys, holding the shell to his own ear. Entranced, he hears it: the slow murmur of the deeps, the tug and sigh of currents, the restless, wandering voice of the eternal ocean. He closes his eyes, surrendering to the sound, listening, listening. He has no wish to open his eyes now, understanding what will happen when he does. But he must, and eventually, he does so. She has gone.

Painting: The Sea Maid by Arthur Hacker.

The Homecoming

Corals spread wide like open fans of lace, purple and red anemones unfold like flowers, reaching with delicate tentacles towards the dancing sun’s rays that filter down from above. And through these watery gardens swim schools of blue and yellow fish like flights of tropical birds. Long fronds of sea plants wave gracefully to the half-silent, half-forgotten echoes of sea shells: the music of the deeps… and I float between them, adrift from the world of the land, from the breathing of air, from the heavy and difficult walking on unfamiliar legs, from earthbound cares and sorrows.

Here, far beneath the surface waves, beneath the tug and turmoil of the world above, is where I was born. I do not know, cannot remember, the first moment of my existence. Perhaps my becoming was a gradual thing. What I do remember is a first awareness, a consciousness of my being. Perhaps I was created by an unknown other, or perhaps, in that new awareness, I created myself. I only remember those distant times as times of drift and darkness. Then later, much later, an emergence of a lesser dark as, still drifting, I rose slowly from the deeps.

For millions of years my body drifted. The seas around me changed, became less barren, were now sown with new growth: gardens and forests of sea plants that waved gracefully with the currents, amphora-shaped sponges that among the age-old corals clamped fast to their rocks in a world of muffled light and silence. Now the subtly-changing song of the sea shells tells me that I have reached another ocean, and I drift over gardens of flowers that are really animals: delicate sea lilies that turn their tentacles to the winds of this watery underworld, as flowers turn towards the sun in the world above.

This is my world: a world inhabited by water spirits and nymphs, sirens and sea maids: beings invisible to those of the land, as invisible to them as the pathways we travel across these great oceans, drifting in a deep sea dream of endless blue currents. I drift with them; am myself one of them, ever drifting in this world of blue silence beneath the waves. We never leave the sea, would never wish to, for the sea does not experience departures, only returns. Whether you believe in my existence, whether you believe or not in my slim and spectral sea maid body, one day you also will return, for our mother ocean is home to us all. And I and the others of my kind will be waiting to welcome you home.

The Firebird

A beautiful sash, a shirt worked with fine patterns, a shawl, a headscarf: miracles of perfect embroidery that always seem to have the effect of making their wearers feel that in some way they are special. All these items and many others flow from the hands of a modest and gentle orphan named Maryushka. But there is more. Coloured silks and glass beads combine in intricate and constantly-varying designs as if to tell their own different and unique stories, and each story seems subtly to change with each retelling. The young girl could earn a comfortable living with her remarkable embroidery work, but always she is content with the money that others are prepared to give, however small the sum.

Inevitably, some of those who buy and wear Maryushka’s work go on their own travels, and so her work travels with them. Merchants far beyond her own small village notice her handiwork, and so her fame spreads. Some of the more enterprising merchants, eager in their turn to possess more of these miraculous items to resell at a tidy profit, undertake the journey to her village. Each has a similar message: that if she will work exclusively for them she will receive in her turn riches and fame. Maryushka’s response is always the same: that she will never leave her own village, for there her dear parents are buried, and she wishes always to be able to visit and to tend the place where they rest. And in any case, she has no need of riches and fame – although she will continue to sell her work to any who find it beautiful.

Each merchant in his turn leaves disappointed, resuming his own trading and travels. And in such a way Maryushka’s reputation spreads even farther afield: far enough eventually to reach the attention of the evil sorcerer Kaschei the Immortal. Evil abhors beauty, especially the true beauty which flows from the pure of heart. Kaschei rages. The sight of her beautiful work on those who wear it revolts him, and in those terrible moments a dark shadow seems to spread across his face, as if a heavy cloud were passing overhead. Such beauty, he decides, could not be allowed to exist, could not be allowed to cast its light on the world.

Darkness can change its form to become something other than itself. Kaschei’s cracked features, distorted by evil, become those of a handsome and radiant youth. In magical and unseen flight the youth journeys over towering mountains and impenetrable dark forests, arriving at last as an ordinary traveller at Maryushka’s cottage door. An obsequious bow is enough to gain him admittance, and shirts, scarves and other items are set out for his inspection, each more beautiful than the last. "Kind sir," says she, "whatever pleases you, you may take. If you have no money with you, you may pay me later, when you have money to spare. And if my work should not find favour in your eyes, please counsel me and tell me what to do, and I shall try my best to improve upon what I have made."

Surrounded by so much beauty and grace of spirit, Kaschei must now struggle to contain his revulsion. But resolute of purpose, and oiling his most radiant charm, he feigns admiration. “Come away with me, dear one, and I will give you a palace built of precious jewels.” assures the sorcerer in his most unctuous tones. “You will eat from golden plates and sleep on the softest eiderdown. You will walk in an orchard where birds sing sweet songs, and where golden apples may be plucked.”

"Please do not speak of such things," answers Maryushka "for I wish neither for your riches nor for your strange marvels. For me there is nothing sweeter than the woods and fields where I was born. Never shall I leave this village where my parents lie buried and where those kind folks live to whom my needlework brings joy. I shall never embroider for you alone."

At the young girl’s answer a shadow as dark as a thundercloud seems to pass across the face of the youth. “Since you spurn the freedoms which I offer you perhaps you will enjoy another sort of freedom: the freedom of the skies…”  The words of the furious sorcerer have no sooner been uttered than Maryushka hunches forward in the agony of transformation. Her mouth becomes a bird’s beak, her arms reshape themselves into wings, and her whole body covers itself in glowing iridescent feathers: the feathers of a firebird.

Kaschei sweeps the beautiful creature up in his arms, bursts outside, and transforms himself into a great falcon, as black as the pocked dark face of a new moon. His cruel talons grip the firebird and carry her high into the clouds above. But Maryushka’s human soul resolves, even now, to do what she has always wished to do, and what she knows that she is intended to do: to give her beauty to the world, in whatever form that it is hers to give.

A single brilliantly-coloured feather flutters downward to the woods and fields far below. And then another, and yet more, as the wind above the world carries them over the surrounding villages and countryside, meadows and forests. There they come to rest, shining like iridescent jewels among the leaves and grasses: gifts for those below who love true beauty to discover, to wonder at, and to treasure. And with the shedding of her very last feather Maryushka dies, her fragile bird body still gripped in the talons of the great falcon.

But Maryushka’s wondrous feathers continue even now to be discovered where they have fallen: an inspiration to unknown others to create something of beauty of their own, and to bring that beauty into the world. And it is said by those who are fortunate to have discovered one of Maryushka’s feathers, and who recognise – perhaps intuitively – something of her essence in the wondrous plumage, that the works which they have inspired seem more beautiful even than her remarkable embroidery, perhaps because Maryushka through her sacrifice shows all of us the way to personal redemption.

For even when in the clutches of the sorcerer and transformed into the firebird, Maryushka still chooses to keep the power to herself. And it is through making that ultimate choice that the triumphant beauty of Maryushka's empowering spirit shines.

Retold from a Russian Folktale

Artwork Bird of Light by Marina Forbes

The Songbird

Listen… listen. Head tilted, eyes half closed, the man listened. The thrush sang so enchantingly today. If luck was with him, he knew that he would not have to wait long for the answer from the other side of the bushes. Yes! Listen... there was the female… ah, she did not disappoint him. Oh, just listen… a little concert, all for free.

“Would you like to have French beans for dinner?” His wife’s voice beside him cut through the duet of nature. Everyday concerns returned with a little jolt, and the birdsong receded into the woodland background.  The man turned towards his wife with a disturbed glance. What in heaven's name was she talking about?
"What did you say?" he asked rather brusquely.
"If you would care for French beans tonight, maybe with a braising steak?"
"Woman! What has gotten into you? How can you think of braising steak right now?"
"With French beans." his wife added kindly, apparently unaware of having done anything wrong. "You do like that, don't you?"

The man looked at his wife as if at a stranger. Was it really possible to live on a totally different wavelength after so many years together? The thrush was now singing its heart out, right above them. Could it really be so that she did not even notice? He was astonished. His wife's reaction was beyond his comprehension.
"Why are you looking like that? Did you lose your tongue?" She nudged him, uncomprehending. "Or do you prefer French toast with rhubarb? It's at its best at the moment!"

Oh dear lord, she really did not hear the bird. The man inhaled with a slow whistling sound, pulled himself together, then patiently answered: "No, French beans is fine, you already have them in the house, after all." He thanked the thrush in spirit for its beautiful song. "Come dear, let us walk further," he said, and took her hand with a gentle gesture.

That evening at the dinner table his wife was very quiet, toying with her food. A little concerned, he asked: "Anna, is something wrong?"

"Anna?" 

She seemed to come from far away, answering him with a distant look: "How enchanting that was this morning. Did you hear it too? First the male, and then the answer of his lady friend... two voices, one song!" 
She paused a little, pondering, as if nodding in agreement over something.
But it was her husband who bowed his head in silence at her words:  "As long as I keep a greening twig in my heart, the songbird will always come."

To the memory of my mother who always kept a greening twig in her heart.

September's Morning Mists

The morning mists blanket the farmlands in silence. In the distance a cow is lowing. Closer-by a horse whinnies. The goats in the field next to the last farm walk stiff-legged and sleepily about, in search of forage. They look up momentarily as the early wanderer passes them, then continue further undisturbed. His footsteps echo muffled on the cobbles. The sprightly tapping of his walking stick strikes the beat. Step tap step, step tap step, in flowing cadence.

The road in front of him lies as yet undiscovered; the village behind him still lies deeply at rest. This is the most beautiful hour of the day, when the damp night air with its purple-grey tints slowly makes way for the diffuse gold of the rising sun. When the spider webs heavy with dew hang glistening in the light of the new morning, and the majestic poplars along the road stand tall and silent above their own watery reflections.

The wanderer stands still and looks up to the crowns of the trees moving in the breeze, and he wonders aloud: 'How many others have you seen go by in their haste to be elsewhere, without once standing still.. without once even looking at you?' Again a cow lows - now closer-by, as if she urges the wanderer to go further. He nods thoughtfully to the poplars and walks on. The mist begins to evaporate in trailers, the light changes colour.  Slowly the deep black water is restored to its daylight blue. The ducks, still at rest, their heads tucked well away under their wings, are not aware of the wanderer. They lie in the wet grass. Not one is moving. When he returns along this road, he knows that they will be busy foraging. He grins aimiably.

A motor boat approaches. The muffled gurgle of the motor penetrates the stillness. The once-smooth water surface begins to ripple and wrinkle like the face of an old woman. Still there is nothing to see, but it doesn't take long before a figure looms out of the mist. With his cap pulled well-down above his eyes he calmly steers his boat, knowing that in spite of the mist his course is straight ahead. The skipper touches his cap with a finger by way of greeting. The wanderer lifts his walking stick in silent acknowledgement.

The boat leaves a ripple behind it on the water, and the crowns of the trees move with their reflections. He looks up again, the trees stand as directionless as before. But the man knows, while he stares at the water's surface, that they too were touched by the silent presence of the passing boat. 'That's the way it is.' he mutters. 'Each change finds it echo. Even the smallest movement makes a difference.'.

He walks on as he loosens the top button of his coat. It begins to feel a little warmer. The first rays of the sun take hesitating possession of the chill night that has stirred him so early. The light changes quickly now. Rays of sunlight fall across the revealed landscape, and the man sees a wider view of the world. The cows are no longer hidden in mists, the reeds comb the roots of the poplars that sigh in the soft breeze of morning. They also greet the sun in their own way. The man breathes in deeply, and throws his coat open, he stretches his arms and allows his walking stick to point upwards, towards the sun, towards the sky, towards the tops of the trees. He turns around in a circle and touches everything, to the farthest point.

The animals look at him, the cows chew the cud slowly, a horse whinnies and begins to trot. The ducks are awake and spatter around. Nature awakens, and each creature in the peaceful world is in its element.

The rest of the world is now also awake. A farmer drives past him on a tractor. The man wanders further, the sounds of the new day dominate his passing, and the magic is silently withdrawing in invisible haze.        

SHE

The black water beckoned. The current here was barely noticeable, and therefore especially dangerous. Only the inhabitants of the district knew the secrets of the river that for generations surrounded the area around the mill and the nearby valley with her silver inconstancy. For a stranger she hid her secrets like a coquettish young mistress. And so she wound her way with soft nibbling movements around the ankles of the innocent admirer who allowed himself to be completely taken in by her carresses, and like the young man tasting fresh love, surrendered to her intoxicating spell.

But as soon as the wild winds of autumn sheered over her waters the river revealed another darker face. Then she cried out and blew her foam-topped waves upwards to the overhanging branches, sighing to grasp what she could not possess. She let her depths seethe and became as dark as the night. The innocent passer-by of summer no longer dared to approach her, and the skimming water beetles disappeared hastily into her darker undercurrents. She raged and stormed like a rejected woman, dragging everything along with her that in her wild anger she could grab hold of. She tore at the banks, shook with her hips until the young trees relented; let the mud from her underbelly swamp the boats of the playing children. She laughed and howled when a child clutched crying to the thin rope of the fragile craft. Then she tugged until the rope was forced loose... and dragging her prey to her secret place deep beneath the surface, carelessly tossed the rope back into the boat as a vain woman tosses her long hair behind her, as the last air bubble on her surface burst like a twig in a fire. Her bosom would rise and fall, rise and fall, with the wild need to destroy.

Until the winds died and the iron cold of winter forced her to silence with its smooth tongue of sleet, covering her body from the depths to the surface under a layer of ice, freezing every movement. Then she surrendered, allowing herself to be walked over. Sharp blades etched lines into her unfathomable soul. Now that the winter freed them from their fears, the villagers illuminated the sails of the windmill and the trees along her naked banks with lanterns. Wooden huts were set up on her ice where tired skaters, huddled over wood fires in braziers, could warm themselves with hot soup.

Sometimes she fought back. Then, just a little, she melted and opened her watery eye. But the people knew her ways too well. They did not allow themselves to be bewitched, but skated instead in a great arc around the gaping hole which had formed. Then she sputtered and spat. But her powers diminished, and instead her sputterings became something rather pathetic. And so with shrunken pride she closed her eye once more.

While she lay imprisoned in her own currents, the river waited confidently for the coming spring. The winter, she knew, would always lose its cold and silent grip over her. She had time. And once the ice had melted and she had regained her natural beauty, then saplings that lined her banks would see her fairness, give her a new sheen, and then she carried out her victory rite. She would sing once more, and let the mill wheels turn at full tilt. She would allow herself to be decorated with water lilies, and her water beetles would smooth the long tangles from her silver hair, and comb the dead branches and drifting boats out of her locks. The tears for those who had been lost would cleanse her banks, and she would flow, her bosom rising and falling, and her hips again would lure the stranger who would lie in her bed. Her dark undercurrents she would keep hidden until the moment when she once more needed to appease her hunger. And the valley dwellers feared that moment. Each year they braced themselves, and each year anew the river extracted her price, and they were not spared. Then there was talk about shutting down the mill and leaving the valley for good. But no-one took the first step, and they dare not look each other in the eye. Instead they gazed towards the dark water where the undercurrent was the strongest, the most invisible, and shook their heads with heavy hearts. Not only did she enchant the unsuspecting stranger. Nobody escaped her allure. 

She gave life and she took it. And so they feared her. But stronger than fear was their love, and as uncontrollable. So they stayed and paid the price, for she flowed as blood through their veins.

Artwork: Water Goddess by Greg Spalenka

Destiny

Calmly they approached, with the self-awareness that comes with the knowledge of their own vested power and sense of mission. Their apparel was opulent and exotic: the deep azure of far oceans wandered together with the ochres of the earth and the pure white of distant stars. There was a scarlet turban, and a headscarf of modest grey. One of the three wore a robe in which red fires seemed to burn. They came to a halt.

They bowed, and I returned their bows. "May peace be with you."

"And with you.” I replied. “You three are welcome in the fields of Efrath."

They asked for water, and I gave them my water pouch. One of them hung a chain of ivory-smooth shells around my neck. Then we settled ourselves down in the cool dusk of the approaching desert night, and they told me their story.

"We have come from the far east, where the sun does not hesitate in her rising. Each one of us is from a different region, but we are befriended as readers in the language of the stars. Our names will remain secret until the kingly child is born on the crossings of all roads. The western road will be darker and carry thousands of years of fear and decline. It is along the eastern road that we will travel back with new light in our eyes. The north road is melting ice on which no-one can tread. The south road is a basket of fruit that still must yield its bounty. We knew that in our lifetime the great star would appear. We began our journey as soon as we saw her rising, and now wait for her to be tethered in the heavens. We know that beneath her is the place where we are to bring our gifts. Even should we be forced to relinquish our authority, we choose to honour him. It is for him that we descry the stars." It was the one with the grey headscarf who had spoken. His mantle shimmered with ochre and white in the light of the rising moon.

“All of destiny resides in the star, and so our own as well.” said the woman robed in red fire, “But we also journey to the City of David. In our baggage we carry sweet herbs and soothing unguents, for in the Holy City we will dress wounds. Of the precious flowing  myrrh which I have brought with me, I will give half to the kingly child. The remainder is for those in Jerusalem. They shall know the scent and the salve of peace.”

“You underestimate the danger,” I said. “Jerusalem is a town full of spies. Whoever defies the will of the great Herod is made a ghost.”

"My power resides in the mountains of Ethiopia," said the woman. "To earthly kings I am untouchable."

“We have descried the coming of the kingly child in the stars,” said her blue-robed companion, “And we have seen that our journey is under the mantle of divine protection. Therefore we fear nothing and no-one. I have the purest gold of alchemy for the child. It shall be wrought into a crown when the time is right.”

“In earthly value our gifts are great,” said the sage in ochre and white, “but for the child such gifts will be humble. For this child will be spoken of in the ages yet to come, and by those yet to be born. Our names will only be mentioned in his presence, for to him they are already known, as all is known in each breath which he breathes. Our own words and deeds are no more then the scent which I bring to him: it burns and fills the air with sweet perfume, and then it evaporates. May the scent of the sweet divine have mercy on him."

“Do not go!” I said. “Do not go to the palace of great Herod. Choose instead your way straight through the fields of Efrath. Far from the worldly powers of the palace you will find the child. That is where you also will find those who are most in need of your healing and consoling gifts. That is where the story of your coming will be told in scents and rich colours.”

But they shook their heads. Either they could not or would not listen. Instead, they gathered themselves up in their finery, the array of their apparel shaming the white face of the moon. The three travellers gestured a farewell with the finality of destiny. “May peace be with you,” I heard the woman say, “for we anticipate a time of peace to come!”

Image adapted by David Bergen from a painting by Jean-Leon Gerome