We stood and gazed in awe at this most magnificent oak, like two tiny children waiting on their father’s every word…..and there he stood, reaching his branches out into the sky his stance fixed in yogic vrksana …the tree pose… It was Mukunda though, who broke the reverential silence….”Can we not simply return… the moon to the pool in which fox found her” he reasoned…then would not this mirror image be reflected in the sky, back amongst the stars where she belongs….?’
“No” replied the patriarch, “she would simply drown, just as it was when she was found…the pond in which she lay, was simply made from tears…..no, she must be returned into the very sky, directly…by your hands….there is no other way to light the sky again…”
“How then, could we return her?” puzzled Mukunda…”guide us sweet guru…” he implored…..bowing at the roots of our lord…… “First ,” boomed the mighty oak “You must find the highest peak….the momentary stone, that rises beyond all stones……higher that is than any other…..and then you shall cast my seed…my unborn child into the earth.”
And t’was then he handed us, via Fibonacci leaf and branch, an acorn cup…..”T’is this,” he said……”is my true grail….For you never know, nor I, when you will need a helping hand or flask from which to drink…..”
Mukunda thanked the Thaumaturge with reverence and love….and even lay for a moment at the great tree’s roots visible above the sandy earth and grass….i shied away embarrassed, but then he rose and graciously accepted the acorn cup from outstretched branch to hold in human hand, no longer as the creature he had seemed to be, but as the man i’d met …..
“Come,” he whispered warmly….”the great tree sleeps, and we my friend, must return to both the horses and the caravan…and then our quest begins…”
Before leaving though, he stopped, and with a fallen stick began to write these words about the tree…into the dirt…..OM TAT SAT…he wrote…’what is, is what, what isn’t is’ …… “There…ancient sandscript,” he explained, cleaning the moss from his hands…..”depart we shall…..and must.”
And so we walked through arbor arc, and as we passed the trees…. behind us now, each became as one ….a wall again, birds began to settle nests as the scurrying beetles’ rainbow shells were quietened by the dusk….the only sound, a lonely nightingale… who sang sweet songs of loves once lost …….
And then alone just us, the crunch of forest sticks beneath our feet, as i began to walk again on hind, my straightening spine once more to match the striding gate of my swami guru…
MUKUNDA
And so it was, how we would walk and thus return to white washed walls, the ashram courtyard garden, blossoming and safe, my swami, sat as saffron bomb, orange dyed and sanctified, and i upon my back legs stood, not quite as i might wish, yet somewhere still, the inbetween of sapien and vulpine man….
T’was Shadowstorm who raised his head from thirsty drinking first….then Starwalker who stirred, yet, not to me they cantered….but to Mukunda’s sleeves…..i could hardly disguise my disappointment…these WERE MY horses after all…..were they not, in astral or reality? Mukunda saw me…. “Be not afraid my fox,” he said “for I am ‘KNEW’ to them, and after all, LOVE should know no ownership.”…..
“Easy for you” i heard myself mutter….beneath my foxy breath, “but i am no saintly apparition…i am just a fox…..”
We slept a night in peaceful harmony, until i was awoken….. by a humble bumblebee… tapping continuously at my lead-lined window pane…..as if to say….”time to wake” he buzzed, “your quezzzzt is just about to zzzztart…” and then i heard the kettle boil upon the stove, it rattled as it danced, whistling with joy……
Mukunda had been awake since early dawn of course…and the sun streamed through the curtains of the caravan lighting the room with sparkle truth and apple blossom scent
And so we left the whitewashed walls behind at last, in blazing morning sun, the moon slept sound….still though, wolves, we wondered, might try to pick up on our scent, and so attached , a branch of cyclamen….. to trail behind , confuse our tracks, not just by wiping them away, but through infusion of our travelled path, our every step and bewheeled mark, with blossom spill and odour…… “an old trick” Mukunda nodded “to keep tigers well at bay…”
We travelled east, to higher mountain grounds, our Shangri La perhaps, but all the time we travelled, unbeknown to us, a snake had wound his way about the astral axles…and t’was only, the humble bumble who had seen….and tried to tell me so…
bzzzzz he said…but i heard not, or did not understand…
……days then, from sanctum of ashram floor, in sudden fall of ASH we found ourselves immersed…. A storm….these mountains howled like beasts and belched, showering us with molten core, each element, like splint cut glass, the shards, fell fast, and soon the caravan began to flame, Mukunda covered each steed with banana leaves as best he could, whilst i began to douse the flames…
No bird survived the falling sky, not least the ones of grounded and metal…..and unbeknownst to us…. Humble Bumble found refuge in the kettle top as snake wrapped tighter round our wheels…and that is how we came and fled into the nearest cave….its walls were made of SHELL….
And into shadowlands we carted, past vast segmented floors and walls, the equus hooves trip trapped like echo falls within the ever darkening spiral cavern,ever skywards we were wound past gemstones planted in the path, rhinestones, grind stones,stalagmites and tites……..
Dark coal seams and diamond encrusts that jutted out like jewelry made for giants… this colossus, more than large enough to hold us all….its road….did rise…
Until this darkness GLEAMED too dark…..”only shadows here may pass…”…a mystic breath or air like blast…. declared……with fluted reeds, the deepest voice that whispered through these shell like lips, this kettle house, with whistle tips….a haunting sigh blew through this conch, as faster air pushed faster past….we knew, then, there, that we would wind our way somehow towards a higher path…..
“Then I will be our guiding light” declared the moon, and so she shone, so bright, that rays of light escaped her casket box, and thus as i unwrapped the gentle scarf of silk surround, she sparkled like the stars…. and so i held her sphere like form, like evening glow, just below, the awning of the caravan..
And there she shone, like gas…. a Victoriana lamp….. casting shadows on the walls, she thus became our CANDLE LIGHT, this cavern, ‘PLATOS CAVE…..’
And so, each foot we walked in time, chron-ology, we found our way via spirogiro spiral paves, through caverns climbing ever skyward, through what had once been pitch and since been black, to reappear outside at last apon this very peak…..a hermits crag……and there Orion greeted us and how we stretched and how we fussed, but still the moon, he could not reach…
Even now and even then Orion pulled with all his hunter’s strength, the very plow from fabric space he clasped, and tried to cast as NET…’
But STILL HE COULD NOT REACH… and then, and only then, when we were done….not one small drop of liquid hope remained….nor residue, or fume (long since been drunk from small blue vial so many days ago) and so we slunk so low, immersed in sloth, like creatures in collapse…..was then the acorn spoke…..
“Plant me” she urged, in tiny squeaky,creaky voice, “for I am at first not all I seem, and from this seed I’ll stretch my limbs.”
From acorns….mighty oaks will grow……
And so, we took her from her grail like cup, a decorated breakfast egg …. before our very eyes…. she grew and stretched and reached her leaves…..like MIGHTY MIGHTY OAK
Richmond Harding is a musician and weaver of digital communication threads, and a limerick writer
you can find his music here on Groovelution
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