The Astral Hydra

like children on holiday they awoke….. Mukunda, swami form sniffed clean, clear air, and Humble Bumble buzzed….like excited buzy morning bees will buzz….and, after buzzing each “hello” he was off…..and ZZZZZzzzzz… a blur into the morning sun….Mukunda yawned, and began to make a breakfast, unlevened japati …bread, fruit and leftovers from the caravan….

The fire, we relit, for still the morning cool set goosebumps on our skin….and from where we sat, at the opening of this enormous cavern, we could see nothing….but more sea…..a beautiful, sea salty day….waves dancing in the wind…

the Astral Island

..whilst Mukunda, stacked the dishes, and made his way from cavern floor, to beach, and footprint leap to brand new shores where seas met shell, i began to mooch, and play, and pass between my paws, this moonstone egg…this exquisite gift, and there it glowed, like a secret chrysalis, waiting to be reborn….throbbing…breathing…

now…..whilst no-one watched, the manner of a fox, is to investigate vessel, CHICKEN EGG or box…, it is a challenge, an adventure of hither too unbeknown curiosity, dyu see? and i gently bit the moonstone crown, just as you might try the handle of a door, meaning not at first to go inside, but just to know ONE COULD….and then i thought i might just break the carapace…and see what creature lay within…

“FOX NO!!” despaired Mukunda’s voice…..”NO” my son, “all things in time will come”…

Mukunda continue briskly…”and there are greater troubles to be explored right now, upon this island earth of ours….i must show you the horror i have just seen……” “horrors…i wondered here?” at that moment in swollen time Humble Bumble reappeared, he too seemed fiercely vexed….HUMmmmmm, BUZZZZzzzzzzZZZMM..

bumping his nose with quite some force onto my fur like creatureskin…..”Place the moonstone near the embers of the fire,” advised Mukunda, “this will warm her inner glow, and then, who knows, wings might unfurl, like flower petal…now come,for this you have to see to be believed…”

The Astral Hydra

and so we peered from neath the shell, our hardened tent like canopy, …..the shape of figured eight entwined…surrounded by eternal signs……the seven heads…..for seven sins…..the chakra demon thus displayed,…. a seven headed hydra beast, each crown a chakra to release…each star a kingdom to unveil, a monster to be tamed…..

each head, a rep-resent, of seven sins…….each chakra thus entwined and meant …..like seven candles Christmas placed, the seven stars, or senseless beast, all seven seemed to grin…..GREED, how he hungered for more and more, whilst APATHY.. a melancholic child..hungered for so much less..

DESPAIR himself broke our hither to most buoyant hearts, whilst SLOTH asleeping dreamt, and ANGER roared with fearsome voice, ENVY twisted serpent strong as PRIDE stood still above them all……..but how this hydra beast did talk, in many tongue and many fork…..twas VANITY, you see who spoke….and began to address us all….

“welcome to my rootsssssss” he sneered…”for thissss issss what you’ve done…, you dared carve your heart into this tree of life, this earthen jug and think that all will be as IS …and has?” and then “the beast it sneered with venom spit and bile…”you have the greatest audacity to blame this on ME!!!????? and name me by my ETERNAL names….”

mortified, i stepped one step closer to this awful writhing beast….sniffing the air, acrid,and unpleasant….yet Mukunda held out his hand open palmed to stop my snout….and then he raised his hands to halt this seven headed beast..”twas not the heart he carved, sri seven headed beast….” he said…

“that made this wound you see.. this heart … once carved was pure…and truly opened portals lead, to wounds we do not choose ….but like a flower….dyu think each of us should stay a bud? i think not…it is each of your forked tongues then ……that eased DISHONESTLY beneath this tree’s skin…..”

“then i alone” hissed all heads as ONE, “have now become the most pretty of prettiest bouquets….a sssseven headed bud, a rose…..of sanguine red, petalheads that morph and grow….and each therein must feed upon EMMOTIVE SOUL”

“you are NO ROSE” i barked in sudden fury and repost……hackles rising fast…..”you are but a tree of THORNS …a thorny bush…a thistlewitch, a sticky black bouquet of blood, a thorn in all our sides….”

“MUHA HA” roared seven heads, each candle lit, awrithing, like a slick…..medussian Menorah, feeding on the renegade Renard energies…..”d’yu sssee, thessse thorns, dyu see these horns, for these will be our glory crown, dyu sssee? our destiny, and your emotions, well me fed….”

“A thorn within the LION’S paw” advised Mukunda in my shell like ear…”and i, like Androcles shall pull this jav-elin, from this tree’s soul, this sole, this root foot, of our beloved tree….” Buzz buzz hum hum said Humble Bumble…buzz buzz….agree, agree….

yet all this time, unknown to us….the fire so warmed by mistral wind, a minstral’s song, across the seas, began to warm this moonstone seed, this mystery chrysalis within, will momentarily begin, to stir and stretch her silken wing, a moonstone butterfly…..