SS Vulcania cruise

I may not be adding much to this blog as I am on what might be a year-long cruise as a passenger on the SS Vulcania sailing through the Lemurian Seas.  Please visit http://osbethsview.wordpress.com to enjoy some of the adventures and discoveries, both external and internal.

Transformation

“We fear that we are inadequate, but our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be these things?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people around you won’t feel insecure.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically releases others.”

- Marriane Williamson from ‘A Return to Love’ -

 

Shivering, she darted across the snow, her feet making no indentation in the white crust glossed on like a final coat of icing during the last freezing rain.  She had been hiding in the woods, trying to keep warm and dry, afraid to enter the rambling house whose lights beckoned with such welcome and warmth.  Hesitant, not sure if she had anything to offer, she hesitated, watching as the doors of Riversleigh opened to invite in others as they arrived. 

A gust of wind pushed her physically and mentally toward the entrance wreathed in lights.  The door was chinked enough to allow her egress, so she slipped in, unnoticed.  Scurrying along the wall, she followed the scent of delicious food into another room.  People moved to and from the table, placing items on their plates.  She was able to move unnoticed, checking out one morsel after another. Memories wafted to her along with the fragrances of baked cookies and other treats, laced with wisps of music drifting from an even different room, punctuated by the chatter of adults and the laughter of children.  Chocolate, walnuts, pumpkin, cheesecake, apple pie, fruitcake-all satisfied the palette and the expectations of Christmas.     

Full for the moment, she moved into a secluded corner to sit and relax, even as she took note of some things being different.  Her mind drifted back to that first Christmas in Panama, which wasn’t her idea of what Christmas should be.

What did I learn from that Christmas that has helped me deal with change ever since?  Does that Christmas in Panama and this one in Riversleigh have any similarities?  She thinks it is mostly about finding patterns leading to transformation.  The ability to transform what is to what might be, and what one expects to what one actually has is so important.  The journey I took that first Christmas from being sorry for myself to gratitude for what I had, and then sharing some of that abundance with others transformed the day into a real Christmas in any climate.   Mundane transformation occurs even after taking individual ingredients and stirring them into a cookie or a cake or a meal or of taking material and creating clothing; creative transformation occurs when taking words and making them into poetry or memoir or when taking individual colors and images and making them into art.  One can influence the transformation of how most people view death to allowing for dignity and transformation in trauma; or moving from the grief of loss into grateful healing and wonderful memories.  And the transformation of dying into transformation itself. 

 

Transformation is where we release one identity and allow for another identity.  It challenges the essence of “Who am I?  How much can I give up and still be me?  Am I really giving up a part of myself or am I expanding myself to encompass others with different identities, religions and cultures, physical and emotional traits, human and non-human:  in other words, ‘throwing out the borders of my tent.’   This transformation does not make you less than you had been, but more of who you really are.”   

Transformation can also be changing one’s physical shape to fit the occasion, thus allowing for the next new lesson to be learned as one walks in another’s shoes.  Each transformational experience releases us from the focus of ourselves to identifying with others, whoever they may be.  And the ages-old transformation of  having reached the darkest day to moving towards the light, even while recognizing that in this world of duality, what is Christmas Winter Solstice in one location will be Christmas Summer Solstice in another. 

Riversleigh appeared to be a place where interesting things might happen.  And the guests looked extremely intriguing.  Maybe she did have something to offer.  She had been enjoying being involved in Soul Food Café and its many activities, as well as doing SoulCollage cards, and now combining the two.  A shape shifting character had emerged on its own, one who travelled on the various journeys that seemed to be versatile enough to intrigue readers.  

She glanced down at her tiny paws and thin tail, twitched her whiskers, darted among the feet of some people as she ran under the settee.  She might stay here for a while as she was.  There were good things remaining to eat after a party in this house.  But she will have to watch out for any cats or other critters that might like to nibble on a mouse.

A Christmas Tree Transformtion

One much-loved tradition I grew up with centered on the Christmas tree.  If it snowed, my father would pull me into town on the sled or we would drive.  We’d pick out the tree, load it on the sled or the top of the car, and return.  It would remain outside until Christmas Eve afternoon when Dad would haul the tree into the living room, get it prepared in its holder and tie it up in place so exuberant kids wouldn’t inadvertently topple it.

I remember looking at the tree every year and wondering why it had looked so much better outside, when it was purchased, and how it was so scrawny nothing would improve it.  Years later I could totally relate to Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree program, relating to both Charlie and Lucy’s viewpoints.  I was always disappointed as I marched up the stairs to bed after my younger siblings all had gone to bed.  The presents we had gotten one another were in small piles in the living room, waiting for Santa to come, fully decorate the tree, and bring presents to augment our meager piles.  He would have the cookies and milk we left for him and be gone to do the same for everyone else all over the world.

And every year, as I came down the dark  stairs by 6 am, I was overwhelmed with the beauty of the fully light-covered tree with each strand of silver tinsel put on separately.  Even knowing my parents spent most of the night decorating the tree and gathering, wrapping and putting together presents did not take away from the beauty and wonder of seeing the tree that morning.  It was always an incredible transformation-never taken for granted.  I still entwine little lights in a hanging philodendron to be savored all year long.

 

 Gifts were opened Christmas morning, followed by breakfast, and then church.  Relatives arrived in the afternoon and we all enjoyed lots of food.  Didn’t everyone celebrate Christmas that way?

I married a man whose tradition put up the tree (and maybe even a fake one) the week before Christmas.  They opened presents and went to church Christmas Eve.  They slept in a bit on Christmas Day, then visited and ate again.

It took some “conflict resolution” to come to terms on how to “do” Christmas.  As it turned out we spent our first Christmas in Panama, which was totally different from either of our traditions.  We later worked out a pattern that satisfied both of us and became the pattern for our children.

Seasons Greetings

This Year’s Christmas Card:

I happened to come across some water-color paintings my father made in 1946, and  thought they would be great to use for my card this year.  

Cover page:

  

Inside:

 

 

My greetings to all.

Christmas in Panama

My first married Christmas was spent in a foreign country, far away from my beloved family.  My new husband and I flew into Panama a few days after we were married, in 1961.  It was the beginning of the threat of high-jacking, so we were subjected to women being searched and boarded separately, ahead of the men.  My husband previously told me of some of the problems regarding ownership of the Canal, which added to my sense of unease.  For a shy girl of 19 traveling for the first time on a plane and leaving my family, it was a difficult experience and added to the fears of being away from loved ones and her familiar environment.  The fact I didn’t speak any Spanish and was obviously not from Panama with my very natural blonde hair in those days and quite fair skin, also added to my discomfort and trepidation. 

Fear and sadness led into feeling lost and overwhelmed.  The sadness derived from my seeing really poor people for the first time: children climbing through garbage dumps looking for food, people living in wooden shacks with cracks between the pieces of wood and a bare electric light bulb dangling down in the middle of the one-room building, women washing by hand out-of-doors and laying the clothes on the dirt and scrub grass outside to dry.  The two extremely different views from our apartment on the outskirts of Panama City exemplified the socio-economic division at that time: rich and poor with no middle class as we know it.  The very poor were across the street while behind our apartment were wealthy homes where the maids arrived every day and fancy cars roamed the streets.

I missed my family terribly.  I was used to my four siblings and parents, and to just be with one other person, and a new husband at that, was quite strange.  By Thanksgiving I felt totally lost.  Everything was so different in my life I decided to try to keep up some of the traditions.  My mother always started making hand-decorated Christmas cookies right after Thanksgiving, so I started to bake.  Pinwheels of chocolate and vanilla, peppermint pink and white candy cane cookies, pastel pretties with various hues all in one cookie, chocolate walnut crisps, by-crackys, butterscotch pecan freezer cookies, gingerbread cookies, snicker doodles, mint green cookie press tree cookies, and sugar cookies cut into many shapes and all hand painted with colored icing-all accumulated and stored in various containers.  It felt so comforting and familiar even though the weather was hot and dry rather than the familiar cold with a chance of snow.  I baked over 1500 cookies before I suddenly wondered, “Who will eat these cookies?”  I was acquainted with a few people but not enough to utilize all those cookies.  What was I thinking?

Fortunately, my husband happened to mention that the Army Post was going to organize a Christmas party for the local children.   Children!  Cookies!  They go hand in hand.  He investigated.  Yes, they would be delight to receive 1300 (I’d keep some) cookies to distribute to the children.  Would I like to attend and watch the distribution of gifts and cookies?  You bet!

What a pleasure to watch those children who barely had enough food by day to receive what they considered to be such pretty cookies.  Most never saw such things much less received such things for their very own.  They wouldn’t eat the cookies but planned to take them home and show the rest of their families.  Watching their faces light up with pleasure and wonder and their dark eyes twinkle was such a joy for me – a true reward.  My heart was filled with gratitude for the experience.

  

The rest of Christmas was handmade as well.  Since there were hardly any evergreen Christmas trees available (palm trees decorated with lights were not Christmas trees in my mind), and the ones that were for sale were scrawny and costly, I constructed our Christmas tree using a cardboard wrapping-paper cylinder as the trunk of the tree.  I took and straightened out wire clothes hangers, covered each with hanging green crepe paper, and stuck each in cascading fashion into the “trunk” of my tree.  Then I fringed the crepe paper to create the evergreen branches.  Ornaments were designed out of various construction papers.  And most of the presents we gave each other were handmade.  Our families did send us store-bought presents that we placed around the “tree.”

Christmas day saw me with a terrible sunburn, blistering skin and swollen eyes I received from being in the sun less than 15 minutes two days before at Rio Mar where there was black sand and white cliffs to, unknowingly, intensify the sun’s rays, and where I had no familiar family or traditions I grew up with or even their voices (phone calls were too expensive).  Christmas, seen through the slits of my eyes, appeared very different than I was accustomed to.

It must be true “It is better to give than to receive” since I so clearly remember the sight of those children receiving the Christmas cookies I baked that Christmas and have absolutely no memory of anything I received in presents.  But I did receive the lasting appreciation that simple gifts can bring joy to people, especially children.

Ride the Night Wind

 She quickly found that even the bouncy ride on this black mare was putting her to sleep.  How was that possible?  Maybe because of the darkness?  Maybe the events of this last week were more exhausting than I realized.  My back and legs already ache from moving all the tables and chairs, and then unloading the car for Hospice Volunteer Recognition.    I’m glad I loaded the car over the previous two days.  Spread out the achiness a bit. 

 But it was worth it.  The volunteers felt very appreciated by the buffet, the speaker and, of course, the skit performed by the hospice staff, with even three doctors performing in it.  The awards, certificates and gifts are tokens of appreciation, but they know how much I care and appreciate all of what they do. 

 Wesssss… wesssss….. The fast night riding was making the wind rustle by.  I wonder what her name is?  Or does she even have a name?  Black Beauty?  Way too obvious. And would anyone here in Lemuria even now of that book?  Probably not.   She put her hand on the mare’s neck and felt the blood pumping through engorged veins and the powerful muscles tensing and releasing as her head moved up and down with exertion.  There also seemed to be a slight vibration underneath the muscle.  Almost like the purr of a cat.  She leaned forward to place her head on the mare’s neck, breathing in the smell of horse and stables even as the silky mane tickled her nose.  Now she could place both hands on and around the mare’s neck.  Wesssss… Perrrr… Perrrr…  Whisper?  Could that be her name?  Whisperer?  Like horse whisperer?     

 Wesssss… Perrrr… Ah!  Like air forced out of lungs.  Was that part of the sound or a reaction to running?  She felt like she was careening through the world in this darkness, unable to distinguish any landmarks, only hearing the wind rushing by.  More accurately, as she and the horse rushed by.  Maybe that’s how the phrase, “runs like the night wind,” came into being. 

 Wesssss… Perrrr… Ah!  Again, the same sounds.  She snuggled closer into the black mare’s neck, becoming one in the ride.  Hearing someone saying: “I think we should name this mare Wespera.  It’s an ancient European name for night wind.  She rides like the wind and is blacker than the night itself.”  A nod and flick of the tail accepted the name.  Wespera-that’s who she was… rider in the night wind…  rival to the night wind… free in the night wind… Wespera!

From Triton to Yaga (16)

 

Before she knew it, she was riding a black mare, galloping over the verdant hills, her own satchel and the talisman bag received at the stables, deployed across her shoulders.  I wonder what is in the talisman bag?  There wasn’t time to glance at more than the package of dream seeds lying on top of other items.  This mare sure is in a hurry, the way she nickered, pulling at my arm until I mounted and gave her reign. I would have liked to ask a few questions to get a better idea of what this trip is about.  Something mentioned of Dream Masters and Baba Yaga.  Now there’s a combination!  What a sleek, almost iridescent black horse.  Her coat shimmers… well taken care of.   Reminds me of both “Black Beauty” and “The Black Stallion,” two books from childhood that completely enthralled me.  I don’t even know what her name is… another thing yet to be discovered.  I hope she knows where to go and isn’t just running for exercise.  Always needing to trust… always not knowing where the path leads and what one will learn… another lesson coming up.  The last she remembered, she had been playing in the ocean with a delightful turtle, an old friend of hers from her life as a mer-maid, newly returned daughter of Triton.

 

Previous to that she had been following her father as he moved into deeper waters.  Going from being afraid of him to recognizing her kinship with him, she felt she was on a roller coaster of emotions.  When the opportunity arose to play with Tico the Turtle when he appeared, it was exactly what she needed and wanted.  Growing up in the deep, she had frolicked with many turtles, fish, dolphins, even sea horses, as she learned the variables of the ocean and how to understand each interconnection with the other.  Her father ruled this area, keeping out undesirables by appearing ferocious, as Guardian of the Deep.  His seemingly evil appearance and ways were meant to weed out those wandering too close but who were not ready for the next step.  Those able to stand their ground and extend love regardless of his appearance–in spite of his appearance–were ready to be allowed on to the next level of experiences.  Those unable to overcome fear and extend love to something appearing bad were turned away.   

 

She had passed the criteria, not recognizing the monster as really being her long-ago father until that point.  Then she remembered more details of her time with him, her mother and siblings as mers.  Delighted to be on her way to see them all again, she allowed herself to be sidetracked when she saw Tico.  He had grown into a large sea turtle, the many years of existence and experience showing in his shell, now covered with various scars and abrasions, and his eyes, soft and loving and all-encompassing.  He had been such a wise teacher, even then much younger and smaller, yet someone who helped her learn patience and trust, all necessary to being able to find a quiet spot and quietly listen to, first her outer world, then her inner worlds.  Her father tended to be motivated but too critical and her mother loving but too dependent; Tico had helped her forge the best qualities of both parents.  He knew how to motivate others in a loving manner which she responded to best.  She had had dreams of him over the years she was primarily a human being, knowing him to be a great teacher and mentor, sharing his wisdom even in dreams or what might have been true-seeings, but never totally recalling from whence she knew him.  Her heart swelled to be with him again.

 

 

After time spent catching up, on her part (he knew all that happened with her over time), recognizing their means of communication was not verbal words but sounds and thoughts, she moved to ride on his back.  He wanted to take her somewhere.  As they swam, he conveyed that, once again, she was not going to remember it all, since she needed to go back and further experience the human condition.  There were still necessary experiences waiting for her.  But she would not be alone, and many of the associate traits of these other dimensions and worlds would still be with her, multiplied.  Learn, grow, know all as One!

 

The gentle sway of riding the turtle in the ocean somehow transformed to the more bouncy riding the black mare, bareback no less, over uneven terrain.  Here she was on her way to the Dream Master and Baba Yaga—what would she learn now?

 

 

 

A Day of Remembering: Making Descansos

 

 

Years ago, a hospice volunteer mentioned each patient and caregiver she spent time with was like a pearl in a necklace—over time, the necklace grew and grew.  I decided to use that idea as a theme for the Annual All Day Volunteer Retreat I facilitated for my hospice volunteers this year.  I had also come across Heather’s Soul Food Site “Descansos” which familiarized me with the term.  I then thought about how this theme could apply to hospice and to our Retreat.  Combining the two ideas, I planned a “Day of Remembering,” with the creation of a pearl necklace becoming the descansos made by each attendee.

 

Starting with a visualization to activate each participant’s memory about their loved ones, whether personal or hospice patients, we all thought of eight people we wanted to remember, and a few words about each that reminded them about what they received as a legacy from the person.  The legacy might manifest as an idea, a trait, or an actual item; such as, a recipe, a love of cooking, or a well-used rolling pin. 

 

I previously drew eight circles of varying sizes, on a piece of paper, with each circle touching the next, forming a completed chain.  This would become our necklace.  The largest circle in the necklace was generally reserved for a personal loved one, with the others filling in for hospice patients. 

 

The grief of hospice workers, and other nurses, doctors, and aides, etc., is considered disenfranchised grief—not acknowledged as real grief since the health care worker only knew the patient for a relatively short time compared to if the person was a beloved parent, spouse, child, grandparent.  However, one can become quite close to someone and still need to deal with their loss when it occurs.  When the losses are ongoing, as with health care workers, and one is then on to the next patient, those losses aren’t acknowledged and dealt with, and so accumulate, leading to eventual burnout.   So I try to allow the volunteers an avenue to know it is all right to grieve for patients, to provide an avenue in which to grieve and express that grief in a different way each year.  We’ve done “Legacy Writing,” “Ethical Wills,” “Rekindling,” “Inner Child” and many others in the six years of having Volunteer Retreats.

 

We each wrote the name of the remembered person in one of the circles.  Then we perused magazines to find pictures or words describing the person and their legacy to us, or used colored pencils or crayons to draw pictures or words.  There is something so therapeutic in using scissors and colored pencils, in smelling glue and crayons that takes us back to childhood.  The volunteers know by now every creation made at our Retreats is considered a work of art, and so have resolved any lingering critical voices in their heads from childhood.  Even the men get involved with creating and sharing.

 

Snip, snip, snip go all the scissors.  Sniff, inhale deeply beloved smells of childhood.  Oh! Look at this! Wow! intersperse the proceedings as people move about seeking the perfect picture or accessory like ribbons or beads, small flowers or feathers, yarn or thread, crayon or colored markers.  Anyone see a lilac bush in bloom?  How about a man fishing?  Here’s a woman baking.  Who was looking for that?  Looking for oneself as well as looking to help others.  Sharing as part of the process of creating, usually considered a solitary activity.  And sometimes it got quiet as each was busy getting it “just right.” 

 

Finally finished, or as finished as it can be in the allotted hours.  I asked each to bring in a fairly recent picture of themselves.  Now those pictures were glued into the middle of the picture, and we each truly had a pearl necklace going around our necks: a descansos of our legacy from losses of loved ones.

 

 

Then the verbal sharing started.  Each, in describing their necklace, gave a eulogy for the pearl-people (in their necklace), telling of the legacies they received from each, telling stories and activities, sharing the love they felt with others in a setting where they were really listened to.  And what stories!  Fortunately, I brought many boxes of kleenex, which were needed during the three hours of sharing.  Powerful legacies from patients one was with only a short time but where a real connection was built, showing we might never realize the influence we can have on others.  Three hours later, we all felt as if each of us had honored our loved ones in a eulogy sometimes more pertinent to the person than that done by the “professionals”—ministers and funeral directors.  Our hearts filled with inspiration and the goodness of so many people, including the volunteers telling their stories.  Truly “A Day of Remembering”, by making a pearl necklace, a descansos of our loved ones.

 

This was so therapeutic I went on and made a pearl necklace honoring my personal loved ones and using their pictures as part of each pearl, as well as individual collage cards honoring my memories of each person and their legacy.

 

Whose Hands?

 

I remember her hands, slim and graceful,

gently rounded fingernails

sometimes painted with a soft rose nailpolish,

sometimes cut up from yardwork or from building something.

 

Hands that could wield a hammer or a needle,

 pounding work or delicate work,

                sometimes doing construction as when building her house

                sometimes doing embroidery or cruel needlework.

 

 

Hands that made crocheted gifts for Christmas one year and

hand drawn with the recipient’s interest painted on tee shirts the next. 

                sometimes making and carving candles

                sometimes making beaded flower arrangements for all.

 

Hands that hammered two by four’s

hands that carried large cement blocks

                sometimes up scaffolding while building a chimney

                sometimes making a retaining wall.

 

Hands that made things from scratch

hands reddened from boiling water or strained black raspberries,

                sometimes making tofu or bread

                sometimes canning veggies and making jellies.

 

Hands that hammered wallboard

hands that spackled and sanded each wallboard joint

                sometimes painting ceilings and walls

                sometimes slapping on tar to waterproof basement walls.

 

Hands that danced through the air

as explanations needed visual expression,

                sometimes in graceful dancing

                sometimes in pointed conversations.

 

Hands that changed diapers

hands that delighted to convey love to others through touch, 

                sometimes to hold and caress

                sometimes to massage and heal.

  

But what has happened to those hands?

Whose hands do I now see?

                sometimes bloated from water retention

                sometimes aching from too much work

                sometimes not seeming like the same hands of yore

                sometimes I wonder: whose hands are they?

 

They are my hands now: aging, not as graceful

hands that convey the passage of time,

                sometimes still able to massage and heal

                sometimes to make bread or draw

                sometimes to build something or paint

sometimes pull weeds and plant.

 

More likely than not they are dry, needing lotion

or aching from too much writing or weeding

                always wanting to impart love and touch

                always wanting to distill a little more beauty

                                into gardens, or recipes, or creative gifts

                                into life, work, people, love.

 

They are my hands now—no one else’s

 I am proud of the legacy they reveal

                only to those who have the wisdom to see

                life enhances, not detracts, from the beauty of hands.

   

 

Meeting Triton (15)

 

Settling into a steady swim with broad sweeps of her powerful tail, Thalia moved quickly over the ocean floor strewn with shells, little fish seeking food, a discarded can here and there previously tossed onto the beach by someone careless and taken out with the tides, pieces of beach-washed and eroded glass of various hues from old soda and beer bottles.  She wasn’t exactly sure where she was headed so she ranged along the shoreline a bit, looking for something that would show her the way.  There was enough of the human in her to be annoyed at people throwing things away rather than recycling or at least placing into garbage bins.  The fish part just observed the objects as part of the landscape.  Until one gets caught in a plastic ring holding a six-pack of cans togetheror swallows a metal tab from a can.  None of us seem to be really aware until us, or someone we love, are hurt.

 

She entered a current leading away from the beach, a current of warmer, faster moving water.  Deciding to follow that for a while, Thalia changed direction with a flip of her tail and her fins, and basked in the warmth of the water.  She could see lights flickering in the distance and assumed it was the play of sunlight on the surface, reflecting down.  But she could discern colors in the light as she approached, colors becoming increasingly vivid and tantalizing.  The colors of the rainbow!  Here is where the rainbow intersected with the sea.  How beautiful!  But the other fish seem to be avoiding the area.  I wonder why?  It would be like my time of riding the rainbow to Rainbow Beach.  All that color and light surrounding me, embracing me.  Dare I risk it?  Will it be the same or is there a problem? 

 

 

 

She circled around and around the area where the crayon-lights penetrated the water, watching the fish as they approached.  It was almost as if there was a barrier: they would swim up to a point, then turn around and dart away.   The colors sparkle!  It looks as if the light-crystals would penetrate into whoever or whatever was in its path.  Light therapy!  Let the body be immersed in colors of all hues to help heal and become whole.  But there is also a hum, a sound, emanating from the rainbow.  Light and sound therapy!  So each organ and body part takes what it needs to move to the correct vibration, whether of light or sound or any combination it needs for wholeness and wellness.  Each being knows what it needs.  This would allow each part to receive the frequencies necessary for its growth.  Synergistic!  The whole is equal to more than the sum of its parts.   The merging of sound and light—what could be better?

 

Thalia edged into the whirling mix of colors and sounds, arching this way and that to be sure all parts of her were exposed.  She wound up automatically twirling in the encounter, not sure what she was seeing or feeling or hearing.  Closing her eyes momentarily, she gave herself up to the experience.

 

Once again she was riding the rainbow.  But this time she was not only riding the rainbow ever upwards through the ocean, she continued the ride into the air as the rainbow curved around the earth, then up into the heavens.  It was all part of her, one with her.  She was that and that and that as she encompassed all things.  She rose so high she was now coming back down, around the earth again, and then up through the earth and emerging into the ocean again.  She was back where she started, but was no longer who she was when she started.  She recalled the quote by TS Elliot: …the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

 

 

 

 

Then suddenly, the colors and sound disappeared.  In their place was darkness and silence.  She waited, holding on to the sense of wonder.   The smell reached her before she could see what it rode on.  A putrid, disgusting, overwhelming smell of fumes and sulphur and noxious toxins.  She recoiled reflexively as her gills reacted to the smell of decay and corrupting flesh.  The darkness thickened, shimmered and took on a hideous form.  Was this the Triton she heard about?     Half man and half fish?  Exacting a price to allow anyone to pass to the Island of Mudjimba?  She remembered pictures from mythologies, teeth bared, grotesque smile. The better to eat you?   

 

 

 

The smell and sight was so overpowering, she wanted to recoil from him.  Not just odious, but a sense of evil emanated from him.  The hell-fire red eyes added to the sense of evil.  Was this Triton?  Or something else?  Much worse?  The smells became suffocating, and the baseness, the heaviness of his presence seemed to drag on her.  Repelling–yet drawing her as a magnet of negative pole draws one of positive pole.  Lumps all over his face and body, maybe tumors?  Black, sharpened teeth.  Arms outstretched as if to welcome but seem more ready to envelope and annihilate.       

 

And yet?  She knew she was that, too.  She needed to relax her fears and extend love to this creature, whatever it was.  A few deep breaths, a remembrance of the rainbow experience and the connections to all things, “this, too, oh Lord.  I am that.”  She could feel the love fill her from Grace, and pour out of her, from Grace.  She reached for the black crystal in her hair and offered it to him, in love, in connection.  His aura altered as he graciously received the crystal, and held it close to better see.  Thalia could observe the crystal first enhancing the red fire from his eyes, but then changing it into many colors, like the rainbow, and finally, into sparkling white light.  

 

His appearance changed.  Long seaweed-rope hair, crystal ocean-blue clear eyes, human upper body and arms with green fish tail.  Still strange but more familiar.  His words bubbled out:  Sirrssle…welcome home!  You’ve been away for a long time.  We’ve missed you.

 

 

 

What do you mean?  Who are you?

 

I am your father, Sirrssle.  You disappeared many, many tides ago.  We could find no trace of you.

 

My father?  How can that be?  You now look familiar, but…

 

I gave you this black crystal when you matured to the egg-laying stage, to protect and remind you of your ocean origins, no matter where you travelled.  And now you bring it back to me.  I am the Guardian of the Deep.  Those who are frightened of me in my other form, flee.  Those who can accept or even love, are allowed entrance.  You have returned to your family, from once upon a tide.

 

But I am human now.

 

You did not appear human as you swam here.

 

I am able to shape-shift.

 

Can humans do that?  I didn’t know that.

 

They can if they focus and are able to move beyond themselves and what they think is their identity.  Most don’t.  But I don’t look like you.

 

He held up a polished piece of glass, now a mirror.  She could see herself, no longer all fish but now a meld of fish below with green scales on a fish tail with human features.  Well, not exactly human—my face would be considered ugly by human standards. My long, rough rope-hair looks rather coarse and ungainly, and is such an odd shade of brown with green highlights.  And my skin is really slightly scaly with protrusions that I thought were tumors on him.  No, I would be considered ugly.  But somehow he…father? Doesn’t seem so ugly now.  He seems natural, like a mer-person.  Pre-Atlantian or future earth… or both? 

  

 

 

Come. 

 

He swam off, to who knows where?  She hesitated, looked in the mirror again, then followed.

 

Thalia had met the Triton, and he was her.

 

 

 

(see also:  http://enchanteur.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/meeting-triton/#comments)