Visions of Music - Enya and "The Dream of Waking Earth"

Omnem crede diem cride diluxesse supremum
(believe each day that breaks to be your last) -  Enya, Pax Deorum

Music wakes me to story, evoking images and scenes within my mind. I've come to realise this gift is a form of synasthesia, but this knowledge does nothing to dispel my wonder at the beauty of my fantasies, and my sense of "travelling" to strange and wondrous places, within my own mind.

Behold below the story I envisaged when listening to Enya's beautiful "Pax Deorum". The story is strange, and heroic, and the ending mysterious. Alas - when the music ended I saw no more. But stories are never done, and perhaps one day I shall continue it.

The Song of Waking Earth

A wind calls above the School of the Lightgatherers: a cold, wet wind – a winter wind, that yet smells of coming sweet spring rain. With strong fingers of air it rakes the hair-fine needles of the plateau pines, so that the mighty trees toss their proud heads blackly against the night sky. But the high stone walls of the school stand firm, as they will for many years, and the wind spends itself wailing around the crenelated walltop, a wordless prophecy.

A time of change is indeed foretold – for the solstice of winter is past, and all growing things feel the foreboding of spring. Yet darkness still holds the land, and all life is gripped by bitter, blighting cold.

Beneath the meagre shelter of the rocky plateau upon which the School is built, huddles a village, surrounded by a few bare, frostbitten fields and a wide wilderness. Frequently, the inhabitants turn to look longingly toward the east – but the sun has not risen since Tallowtide, and since then, snowclouds have obscured the moon, so that none can measure the turning of the days save by the waning of candles, and notches on the hearth. As it happens every winter, Time itself is frozen in the village, but though they do not know it yet – this bleak time of waiting nears its end. Tonight is the ritual of Lightsummon. Soon, it begins again, in the School of the Lightgatherers.

Tonight, the courtyard of the Lightgatherers is torch-lit and crowded with moving figures; women all – old and young, of all heights, slender and thick-waisted; hooded and cloaked in black velvet. To a watcher on the ground their movements would appear casual – each woman walking, seemingly at whim throughout the courtyard, from end to end, around the perimeter; weaving in and out of the crowd. But if we were to glide on silent wings over the school, like a snow-owl, invisible in the night – the order in the chaos is revealed; an ever-shifting pattern, like a stately dance. No word is spoken, but as the snow in the courtyard is ground to slush by many feet, and the wind blows back the snow clouds, to reveal a sparkling sky of midnight-blue, a song is born.

From the throat of one neither old nor young, of middling height but a strong, wise face it begins – low, and quiet and rhythmic. But soon the song rises above the calling of the wind, for like a candle flame igniting many others, the chant is passed from woman to woman, growing in power until it contains the strength of a multitude. This is the song of Lightsummon; a song of many parts, and many voices. But just as a tapestry may be woven of many threads of varied hue, yet may reveal a glorious and cohesive pattern, so the song contained a mighty spell. They – the Lightgatherers – sang of the waiting of the world, and blowing clouds, and of the pounding heart of the earth that throbs with fiery force under the snow.

And now, from black iron sconces in the wall, the strongest and tallest among the women lift torches and carry them high, in gloved hands. The flames seem to blaze brighter and hotter for their singing, and fierce are the women’s smiles in the flickering light. The other Lightgatherers take warm censers from a brazier, and swing them on fine silver chains. From each moon-like globe emanates a fresh and woody scent that recalls the memory of green and pumping sap. As the sky is blown clear of the last snow-clouds, the heavy doors of the School swing open, and the Lightgatherers stride out into the night, moving swiftly in a double line across the plateau. The song now is powerful as a river, with the chanting of elder voices providing the depth, and the high harmonies of the maidens shifting and beautiful as the play of light on a rushing stream.

From a mighty height, the path from the plateau curves down toward the village. Steep it is, and treacherous, as it has been unevenly eroded by many storms and is covered with loose gravel. But fast and sure as meltwater they descend, the Lightgatherers, and their song is heard long ere they reach the village below.

From the cold stupor of winter the villagers awake, and the inhabitants of every house, from youngest child to wizened grandfather, stand at their windows to watch the Lightgatherers come, and in each hand they grip a scrap of unlit tallow-candle.

When the company of Lightgatherers enters the village, the women’s quick stride slows to a solemn, steady tread, and their song becomes gentler; less fierce and more hopeful. Though they look neither to the right nor left, the singers’ voices wake in the heart of every listener soft memories of sunlight and tender growing things – and the torches and swinging censers create a warm, sweet-scented illusion of spring. As the Lightgatherers pass, each villager lights their candle, so that to a watcher it would seem the singers leave a trail of light that bravely burns even as the company passes out of the village into darkness…

For leave they must, and take an arduous route into the frozen wild. No road is laid to guide their feet, but the uncovered moon reveals a sparse trail of white pebbles leading into the distance. Onward they march – their defiant song swelling again in volume – and they stride unceasing, over crackling frost that glitters in the moonlight like splintered glass, and around deep drifts of snow; up rocky hillsides tufted with dead, cold-blasted grass.

For an long and weary way, their torches are the only lights in the frozen waste, save the cold and distant sky-companions, the stars and the moon, but all at once, sinuous and iridescent flames of green and gold appear in the sky, forming a flickering trail of light. Though the Lightgatherers’ song was powerful before; now it sounds exultant, as if the women’s hearts had been further strengthened by the fire of the sky, and the steady pace increases.

Down at last they venture, following a frozen river into a dark valley, wooded with tall, forbidding pines. This is the valley of Telmoth, wherein few dare to go. The ways of its forest are torturous, of blackness unrelieved by any glimpse of sky – and villagers mutter of fell beasts that roam unchecked and ravenous.

Yet resolute still, into utter dark they march, down into the terrible wood – young and old together. Their torches blaze like embers of the sun, and their song is fierce as fire. Downward and inward is their path, and yet they smile still, for to wake the earth to light again they must pierce dark winter’s heart with voices and with torches – and to summon back the sun they must enter deepest shadow. 

They enter the forest, a singing, shining company. But their light is lost between the vast trunks of trees, and their song fades with distance – till all that can be heard on the Telmoth’s lip, is the sound of wailing winds, and the roaring of the pines.

A Midsummer Night's Imaginings

The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sighed for the dawn, and thee.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Come into the Garden, Maud

Magical Garden by ermzam on deviantart

I thought I'd share with you today a short story I imagined last night, when at first I lay awake with a head buzzing with worries. To calm myself, I did what I love best, which is to imagine myself into another place; to craft a scene of such peace and beauty that I would forget my cares and fall blissfully asleep. It would have worked - except I thought suddenly that I did not want to lose this waking dream, but to write it down instead. So I kept myself awake writing down the visions that I saw, and until I fell asleep at last with the pen still in my hand and my writing book in my bed...

When I woke I told myself to write the story properly, with all the detail I had left untold in my midnight scribblings, but which I could see clearly, gleaming in my mind. So I wrote, and as I described those things I "saw" - I saw many other things and the simple scene grew...

I hope that you enjoy.

Night Garden by Arwen's Grace on deviantart

The Visitor in the Night-Garden

One night in deep midsummer I left my close stone chamber  with the tapestries and furs, and tiny window, and descended spiral stairways to the garden. The ancient stones which formed the steps leading from my room halfway down the tower were grooved with the tread of countless years. These I negotiated carefully, tiptoeing with wavering gait, for they were treacherous in the dark. For support, I kept one hand on the inner wall, the tower's spine, which was intermittently scored by the sword-cuts of an attack on the keep, repelled in the time of my grandfather.

Midway down the stairs, the old steps were replaced with sandstone, softer than the ancient granite, but as yet unmarked by time. When I was but an infant, a great deal of the old stone had been severely damaged by the acid slime of the Terrible Worm and her foul hatchlings when they invaded during the Red Years, and after they were destroyed the pitted rock was quickly replaced. The new stone left tiny grains on the sweat-sticky soles of my feet, as I flitted from the tower through the great hall - deserted save for a boarhound sprawled below the dais with a bone - out into the pleasure-garden.

The pleasure garden was lush and sweet-smelling; tangled and delightful. In the bleak winter it was enclosed within a protective palace of glass, but tonight it was open to the night breezes, which loitered in the pathways, creating rising, swirling eddies of cool air that raised the hairs on my skin and tingled my body with exultant, heart-jumping pleasure. For a time I wandered the labyrinthine paths, white stone laid between thick-planted, exotic beds of maraya, jasmine and summer-roses - lost in waking dreams - and the twining vines reached lovely tendrils over me. 

At every junction of the path there stood a moonwashed fountain of white marble, each a different and fantastic sculpture. The first that I encountered was an ancient hero of my family - my great-grandmother Temara who held the keep against attackers after her son was slain. To me it seemed her petrified image yet retained some of her legendary vitality and courage. 

The next fountain flowed from the snarling maw of a strange and rare beast - a fire leopard, whose coat in life was black as coal and spotted with crimson embers - and the next was of a hooded, faceless god of elder days who stood with palms outstretched and pouring with water. This last image particularly was conducive to strange thoughts, and yet I lingered there awhile, listening to the musical falling of the water, which to me sounded like the gentle notes of a wooden xylophone.

At last I wearied, and followed a moon-bright trail to the secret centre of the garden - a round, hedged enclosure formed by close-planted bushes, with a hidden entrance under branches. Here was the castle's shrine to Hypnos, god of sleep - a stone wall carved with prayers and covered in ivy. Within its gentle curve sheltered a white bed of smooth, painted metal, whose bedposts rose to form an arched canopy, meeting at a graceful point at the top. At the head and at the foot of the bed grew a tree of white wisteria, whose flowers hung in clusters like dripping, sweet-smelling stalactites over the sleeper, while on either side of the trees, the dark green foliage of blossom-starred maraya filled any gaps.

White wisteria

To that leafy bower I hastened, and on that bed I laid myself, under soft white sheets of fine cotton and the furry weave of poplar-felt. I lay awhile listening to the shrill, quiet scritterings of nocturnal insects in the bushes, and the occasional call of a night-bird. Beyond the secret garden I could hear the gentle soothing music of the fountains, and thus gradually, I sank into a state of deep calm.

And then it seemed to me that another entered the secret garden, on quiet feet - a tall man with a face fair and pale as moonlight, and hair as dark as shadows. He was black-clad, and he wore a cloak of dark gauze which flowed behind him, as though constantly stirred by night winds.   

The hedges parted before him without a rustle, and soft-shod he strode the white path through the secret garden. Some distance from my bed he stopped, and turned his face up to the moon. Wild then he looked, and beautiful, but though he was so strange I felt no fear. He began to sing, and his song was the ebbing of the sun and the spreading of shadow, the cool relief of night and the mystery of darkness. And it seemed to me that the sounds of the insects and the birds; the winds, the waters and the rustlings in the leaves - blended in his song and added to it. The song swelled deeply like a pool of sweet water - and all at once I heard a high and cold refrain, as though the stars themselves had joined in chorus to the melody. 

After a time, the man stopped singing, but it seemed his voice continued in all things and everywhere. Now he walked closer, until he stood between me and the moon, and his shadow fell across my bed. But the calmness in me was deep, and instead of fear I felt only peace and a great wonder.

Now he spoke in a low tone - and it seemed he spoke to me, and only me - but his words were strange, though I thought I understood the tone. At first he spoke rapidly and with passion, but then his words slowed and it seemed he mused aloud. Drifting, I listened, for it seemed he spoke of a mystery I desired much to know, but could not understand.

At last he knelt beside my head and gazed with darkening eyes upon my face. Fain I would I have met his gaze - but with the stirring of his breath against my cheek my eyes closed of themselves. I thought he sighed... then knew no more till morning.

And in the morning - what happened? Ah - that is a story for another night... 

Marsh Priestess - a Personal Story

But all I remember 

Are the dreams in the mist... 

There's something out there 

I can't resist

In my last blog post I wrote a bit about the mysterious feeling of sentience one senses sometimes from trees in the forest. It put me in mind of a short story I wrote last year, which was based on my own experiences in the bushland at the bottom of my mountain garden. 

Most of the garden is cultivated, with roses, bulbs and other flowers, deciduous and fruitful trees, little paths and birdbaths... It is a lovely garden, with a magic of its own. But about a hundred metres from the bottom of the garden stand two giant pines, marking the transition from the garden to the wild. Beyond is bushland, often mist-shrouded, where all the colours are different, mysterious and strange and where the eucalypts stand like pale gods with their proud heads crowned by cloud. And at the very bottom is a valley with a grassy, gurgling marsh, full of humming things and secretive trickles. Perhaps the mythic nature of trees is what calls to me, or I sense the borders to otherland fade when I am by a marsh. For sometimes I feel a call to I wander there alone, and at these times I feel a sense of kinship with the forest. 

I hope you enjoy the story.

Photograph credit, Stephen Hayden Photography

Marsh Priestess

I am the priestess of the scorned and wild forest. Afternoons, the softly falling chill brings with it the mists, which, clinging, frost the eucalypts with tiny jewels. I stand on the track my constant pilgrimage has worn, while the borders of reality are shrouded; first the garden, green and tame beyond the furthest pine; the straggling wire fence; the bleached rope swing; all fade. The bush has reclaimed the land from civilisation, and I am enclosed by the pale trees, their stringy bark hanging in rags off white and virgin limbs; initiates disrobing for an ancient ritual. I tread carefully, hesitant to disturb the soft and steady dripping of condensation from the myriad leaves. The track is soft and spongy; new-speckled with tiny ferns I weave around, unwilling to crush.

As I descend, I briefly pay homage to the matriarch, the huge red-bark whose maternal roots shelter and protect the forest’s treasure: the waratah I discovered with my brothers last summer. The red and sticky sap has crusted carnelian, and it beads my forehead as I lean against the trunk. I feel the soil’s moisture soak my knees and watch it slowly darken my skirt. Further down, the grasses have starred themselves in pale blossoms that glow amidst the slate and khaki of the dimming mist. In the half-light my merino cardigan fades to muted steel, until an intruder, stumbling from the end of the road, (hidden a scant thirty metres to my left), would find it hard to see me, my goose-pebbled arms around my wild sister; my wet and darkened hair sticking to my face like sheeted bark.

I near the end of the track, averting my eyes from the plastic teeth of a rake, which leers drunkenly from its precarious position in the fork of a banksia, where my father must have propped it. The rake is a blasphemy to the untamed sanctity of the forest. Angrily, I push it over and watch in satisfaction as it is swallowed by the eager shrubs. A cluster of ferns ends the path, damp fronds caressing a weathered piece of sandstone. Many years ago, the rock was engraved with plain, sensible English, marking the boundary between our property and the next. Now, the crumbled inscription is illegible, translated by the endless dripping of the mists into an arcane script. Here, I too can go no further. The track breaks off at the edge of a sharp depression. Beneath me lies the fertile green of the marsh, waiting silently for nightfall.

The ceremony will not be marked by sunset. My family’s cottage, sitting smugly at the top of the hillside beyond the bushland’s boundaries, regularly catches the last rays of the setting sun. Here, however, obscured in the mist, the marsh is enveloped in mystery. A little to my right, a scribbly-gum has split itself into three, extending over the swamp like the hand of a druid over a cauldron. Gingerly I walk along the middle finger, uncomfortably aware of my sneakers’ tentative friction on the wet wood. Convulsively I grip the twigs then straighten, poised above the morass. As the mist dims and the pale, scented stars light the long grass, I await the invocation, my sacrifice clutched in my hand.

 Sonorously, the bullfrogs give the signal. Symbolically, I sacrifice a piece of my body, heart and soul to the wild spirits of the marsh; a bead from my childhood necklace; a twist of my hair moistened in spit; a name scribbled furtively on a scrap of paper… They slip from my fingers and vanish into the dark trickling of the swamp. On the other side, two foxes perform their mating ritual unconcerned before my gaze. For a few moments, I am one with the forest. But a few moments are all I am granted. The carrying deep voice of my father, floating down the valley, calls me back to humanity. Reluctantly I force myself to turn away from the marsh; to walk slowly back up the path in the chilling fog, feeling the damp cling to my skin; back to reality.

At the border I pause, my hand on the solid trunk of the vast pine marking the end of the forest. Up the hill, past the new-mown lawn and the rose garden, the kitchen light gleams warmly and my father’s shadow moves industriously against the glow. Solemnly, reverently, I turn and make obeisance to the silent eucalypts and they toss their crowns in acknowledgement. Then I cross the border, and make my way up to the house, out of the mist.