The Starling crying out,
singing, calling.
A portrait of what is awakening, breaking.
A call of the wild from deep within.
Green moss embedded in the Earth.
It was time to take a new name.
She had been known as Wolf Woman, Fighter, Grand Symphony of Cacophony and many more names before. Now there was just presence.
“I am a force of Nature. I am Power and Stillness in one.”
The Trinity of Presence, Power and Stillness.
The Trinity of the new era.
The Trinity of Starlight.
“I am a force of Nature. I am Power and Stillness in one”, had landed in her lap, via Starlight, some months ago. What it meant had not dawned on her gently. It had done so abruptly. Several times. Multiple abruptness one might say, if that’s a term.
The Trinity of Presence, Power and Stillness.
“It is needed now. It will be sorely needed in the months and years to come. Remember it like a storm within when the wrecking ball bashes outside. Stand in The Trinity of Presence, Power and Stillness. In it. Not outside it. Not around it. In it.”
The Northern Lights were swooshing, speaking, singing to her again. Amazing how they seemed to pick up where Reindeer had left off.
Trinity picked her pen up. Closed the book. It was time to write the new story. With every breath. With every step. With every backlash anew.
The Trinity of Power, Presence and Stillness.
Moon and Star. Star and Moon.
Starlight.
Cecilia Götherström, Kringlans AdventsKalender 2022
“The journey of happiness, sadness and gratitude is the gift underneath the mistletoe. When you mistake that one for the truth of who you really are, that’s when sadness wins.”
Peaking in to the depths of the cold water, she saw and heard the reindeer speak behind her, his breath creating crystals of frozen dampness in the space surrounding them.
“See, I speak on an exhalation and draw inspiration on the inhalation.”
She turned around. Placed her hands around his beautiful, large, wise cheeks. Touched her nose to his. As she said “thank you” she noticed herself becoming that “thank you”.
“Where you end and your words begin is unclear. As there is no division. How you speak so it is and so you are and so it is. Just never ever stop. Never stop as a habit. Always stay in tune with where you are, to the movement. Follow the breath, follow the heart.”
The standstill of the past times was no more. She could feel it release.
“Feel it, let go, let loose, literally loosening its grip. There is nothing to grasp any more. Nothing to hold on to.
Holding on to hurts. Moving brings flow, brings fluidity, brings choice. If you freeze in the middle of a storm you are left to endure whatever is thrown at you and you will most likely be thrown around yourself. If you can move with the storm, with the debris, you feel the storm build and subside, you can move, take a step further out when you want and need to and you can utilize the power of the storm when you need it.
You humans have forgotten how to utilize the tremendous natural powers within you, the tremendous powers of nature. It happened when you all decided to put poles in the ground and stay in one place. All of a sudden you needed protection, shelter, locks and bolts. So you bolted up your heart and your joy in the process. Go release, go girl, go!”
The reindeer turned around and danced his gentle way towards the trees on the bank of the frozen river. She watched him disappear in the distance, feeling a sense of glimmer and hope of something similar to fulfilment for the first time a very, very long while.
This focus on negativity exhausted her. Like you were living in a minefield with fighter jets above your head.
How to vibe higher than this?
How to? How to? How to?
Practice, practice, practice.
“I’ll be home for Christmas”, the speakers toned out.
What is home? And why be there just for Christmas?
Home is your own truth. Home is where you are loved and where you love. Home is where your being is sheltered.
Christmas is a state of mind. A consciousness, where giving and receiving is the same action. Where Christ consciousness is massed.
Where all is gentle, all is seen, all is held. In the one and the same cauldron. In the one and the same shift. Where you don’t look for meaning, where meaning is.
This, that , all, everywhere.
In this time of coldness of souls the hearth is the star in the heart. The play. The ferocity. The calling in of dragons. Of Sacred Fierceness.
White looked at Grey. Grey looked at White. Together they were balance. Harmony.
What steps do we need to take for Harmony? How can we kindle her? How can we leap in to her embrace every morning, be her, live her?
Harmony and Kindness. Kindness and Harmony.
“It’s all a little too much right now. Sprinkle it all with some harmony, kindness and coffee and you will be way on your way child, way on your way.”
She called in the Angels. She called in Source Light. Realizing that you call in what already exists within you, that which if you don’t voice and sound it , the powers, the source, the light cannot act. They can only shine. And if you are blind to their light you cannot receive the reflection of that light in your heart. In your star.
The angels said “Let us hold you, let us bow over you, lift you from underneath, surround you, love you, hold you. All you need to do is ask. Ask and surrender.”
“I surrender”. She folded forwards in a bow, a prayer, like a feather flowing to the ground, lightly resting there. “No more fighting. No more. I am done. Done fighting. Done resisting. Done.”
“You are that which you Are”, the angels sang. “ A part of Source Light. Nothing else. The rest is just a coat. A coat of many colours.”
She saw a diamond. A diamond with all its facets. The light shone through. It touched the inside. The inside reflected back. The outside reflected the inside back.
“Where the light comes from is not important. When you feel encumbered by shadow, sit in that light,” the Northern Lights swooshed their song her way. Diamonds and crystals of white, green and purple faceting their way through the skies.
The angels widened their circles. Their light became one with the beaming sky in the darkness.
“Without darkness, no fluorescence. In this dark season all can be folded in, embraced, loved, let go of where needed. Life is one big inhale and exhale. Life is one big expansion and contraction. Its energy is light. Its outcome is light. The deeper the winter dark, the stronger the magic, the stronger the light.”
She exhaled. She sighed. Gave herself to the earth. Done.
A wet little nose against hers. A puppy tongue licking her face, sharp little teeth testing the boundaries on her nose. Love.
She closed her eyes to the world, like she had closed her heart to the world too many years before. The world was not what she needed and the world did not need her.
Well, not the real her anyway.
What the world seemed to need was the one she could never be. The one she had tried to be. The one she had done her best to live up to. Which had never been enough.
She closed her eyes and promised to never look back. Only to look inwards. Following the symbols and the keys. Passing through doors new and old over and over again. Inner doors and inner dimensions.
What is out there is what is out there yet it’s not out there.
To see for real you have to fly with your eyes wide shut. So that your souls eyes are held open. Letting the silence speak like the Northern Lights sing. Stalling your gaze on that magnificence. That magnificence your being truly is.
When you walk down to the river’s edge where the white , crisp ice meets the dark lava coloured bottomless water and you peer in to the depths only to see the reflections of endless space, multitudes of stars and galaxies undiscovered. Then.
When you are there, and you lean a little further over the filigreed edge, and you look in to two deep, brown eyes, adorned by a silver grey mane, a large white muzzle, you realize that you are looking at a reflection of that unicorn which is you.
You pull back.
You look again.
Nothing has changed.
Or has everything changed?
The silver grey hair now adorns a woman dressed in white swirling lace and crystal studded layers dancing in the windless night to the rhythm of the Northern Lights.
“Be what you want to be, dive deep in to your true desires and be only that”, the wind which was not there, whispered.
She opened her eyes.
“See what is not there”, the whispers continued.
The first snow had started to fall. Out there, past the frosty grass, across the dunes, over the beach, a butterfly spread its wings.
“Don’t be afraid of completing your transformation even if tomorrow could be your last day. It’s all in the hands of you”.
“When the full moon dances in its own light. When its shadow pulls the breath of slivering starlight. When the omens and signs are one and the same. When the exhalation of the pine trees is your sleep, your lingering moments of trust. That is when the moonstone sings to you my child”.
Nejla recognized the lingering song with her heart. It had been spoken before, not too long ago. It touched her soul-strings.
The sun was at its highest in the sky. The longest night and the shortest day was casting long shadows here at midday. Dawn had presented itself earlier in between the waning full moon and the rising sun. Moments of magic, of twilight, of choice as the day broke in to being.
Nejla stood on the plains of the upper ranges, soup-mug in hand, viewing the vast open spaces surrounding her. Every breath up here this time of year created visible mist. Humans rarely ventured up here anymore. They just could not be bothered to take the arduous trek through The Valley of Thorns.
She watched the sun gently moving towards the mountain tops. Soon it would take its dive behind the peaks and the Aurora would be swooshing in.
Rick was gathering all the dogs. This morning they had all gone on a “walking expedition” so that the dogs could have a well-deserved rest after two weeks of constant day treks,.
Luca the Labrador and Ricky’s husky pack Thor, Kabir, Storm, Wolfie and Saint had taken the lead. Jumping, digging, rolling around in the snow like they were still puppies. The joy rubbed off instantly.
Nejla and “The Crew” – her pack with the dear husky Starlight, the super strong and cuddly Malamute Tuva and the joyful Samoyed Kriya – had tried their best to get Maddy the Magnificent out of her comfortable space in the cargo basket, but the black cat had refused to leave her view place. Off they’d gone without Maddy, jumping, rolling, digging along.
Now it was time for rest. Everyone together around the fire.
A bit higher up to their left Alabasters pack of wolves were resting. Even higher up to the right Snowflakes pack of snow leopards were just waking up, gently stretching and yawning.
“What defines and adventurer I wonder?”, Nejla looked at Starlight.
“It’s not dramatic, it’s subtle.” Starlight replied. “Someone who walks”.
“Just drop it, move on. Change course”, she on the other side of the veil added.
“There are doorways, there are bridges, there are walls. You can break them, run or climb them or you can choose. Choose to listen. To uncover. To align. You can choose to open, to cross, to disintegrate through gentleness.” Starlight continued. “It is not dramatic, it is subtle. Where you go from here is up to you. Your heart is connected. Always. Remember – breath is the doorway, silence is the answer.”
Nejla put her mug down in the snow. Ricky did the same.
“Uncover! Uncover! Uncover! Be!” she took another breath. “Embrace! Embrace! Embrace! Align!” She stood where she stood. Just stood.
Snow under her feet, wilderness in her heart. Huskies, wolves, malamutes, cats, dragons, labradors, snow leopards, samoyeds, friends, stars, songs and winter storms. Nejla was home. Aligned. Her heart was full. She exhaled.
Or no, not stuck, just sluggishly proceeding, Nejla corrected herself mid thinking.
“Totally fascinating how deep many thought patterns are. You slip in to them without noticing, then you react and only then do you realise it is too late”, she spoke out loud to herself.
“What is too late?” Ricky asked.
“I guess nothing is too late”, Nejla realized as she replied. “We can always go back and change. We can always connect again and think or say or do what we really meant, not what our old patterns meant. I believe I have come to understand that this is actually what evolving in life is all about. Dropping the masks, gently tearing down the walls and owning what we need to release and uncover. Going back to those we dropped our reaction on, including when that one is ourselves at times, rephrasing, repairing. Through that we not only heal our patterns but we also heal the other being across from us as we throw out a bridge of loving rainbowlight through that very act. Does that sound weird or mushy?”
“Nothings mushy in the life of a musher!”, Ricky couldn’t help himself, slapping his knees, laughing at his own joke.
Soft, gentle chello like music drifted through the air, swirling around the mountaintops, dropping in and out of the crevasses, dancing, mixing, transforming. The full moon travelled across the heavens. No hurry. Just gently journeying.
“Do you know that command on the computer when everything seems to be out of whack?” Nejla looked across at Ricky as she moved the dogs from the sleds to the stakeout.
“Force Quit, you mean?”, Ricky was half way head down and half his torso in to the Cargo Basket, getting the dogs meals out.
“Yes!”, Nejla enthusiastically replied. “It feels like the spell will work just like “Force Quit”. When things are stuck, just hanging there, solidly glued in the same warp you need a “Force Quit” right?”
“Right as rain”, Thor budged in and replied.
“Starlight, Starlight, Comets and Void. Be bright. Shine clear”.
Lyrics were forming to the swirling music.
Nejla looked over at Starlight. Their eyes met. In that moment Nejla realized that Starlight’s very eyes looked just like that – starlight. Why had she not seen that before? Furthermore, Starlights red and white fur reflected the starlight from above as well as the frozen starlight they rested upon. Was it Starlight singing as she gently howled or was it the crevasses?
The woman’s weathered hands moved across the ancient wand.
To the untrained eye the object looked like a shrivelled up piece of wood.
To Disa it had been obvious the first time her eyes met it that it was anything but wood. Being a blend of onyx, shungite, white alabaster, rock crystal and lava from the inner core of Mother Gaia, swirled together in a spiral like pattern it was an extremely magic wand. The Dragon Wind Wand. One of the most powerful instruments to ever grace the Earth plane, even though no instrument had any true power without intent.
Disa had noticed how some of the birdseeds in her garden had sprung out. How they had managed to do that, outside in the cold, on the thick layer of snow and ice covering the ground, was mystery to behold. Unless it was due to the bright light coming in from the galactic suns during the short days. Magic light for magic sprouts?
Nejla and Ricky’s sleds had come to a halt. They had travelled throughout the early morning. At 3 am they had packed up, moved on for a few hours underneath the Ursid meteor showers. Now at 6.30 am it was time for a nap before the bright red and golden sun dawned.
A deep sigh from the dogs spread through the quiet air. What seemed like just as deep a sigh sounded out from the surrounding woods seconds later.
“Light is the first cause, and every second cause is its shadow”, Maddy the Mighty stretched out like only cats can.
‘What’s that?” Ricky turned and looked at the cat.
“Oh, just something this pretty connected guy Rumi I once knew very well used to say”. Maddy curled up.
“How old are you Maddy?” Nejla asked.
“Ancient. Not that it matters though”, Maddy replied opening one eye. “Let’s just keep what the dude Rumi said in mind once we wake up with the sun after this nap OK? You will see. Oh yes, you will see.”
“Did you know I was about to name the second lead dog Rumi?” Ricky turned towards Nejla. “But he insisted on being called Kabir instead”.
Nejla could not help laughing out loud. “I always thought it such a weird combination of names and energies with Thor and Kabir in the lead, but Thor and Rumi surely would have been outrageously weird.”
Another sigh from The Crew and The Pack. Time to snooze.
The three dragons soared above the mountain tops. There, underneath the sheath of mist, as well as in the other world underneath the ice, two different realities took place. Yet they were still the same.
Through The Valley of Thorns the humans, canines and the one feline were led by the great Alabaster. The whitest of white wolves ever to walk this surface.
Underneath the ice, in the river running through the valley, sparks of wisdom, sparks of Isness started to move, warming up, melting and cracking the ice. In some parts it began to break open.
Oneness, Magic and Infinity were also known as The Trinity of The Dragonhood. The spells had woken them up, calling them in to this dimension. The Adventurer was about to be embodied again. Even though her body had left 15 months ago her soul and presence were everywhere. It was just that the humans forgot to tune in from time to time. Oneness, Magic and Infinity were sort of her knights here on earth whenever the humans needed to be reminded to connect in to what is already there.
I know, if you are a human reading this right now you are most likely saying “if the dragons are soaring and the presence of The Adventurer is everywhere, how can I connect “in”? Shouldn’t I connect to all of that outside of me?”
And that’s just it dear human, nothing is outside of you. All and everything is inside of you. The universe is in you. You are not in the universe. All, all, all, my dear human is a mirror. A reflection. Of you, you, you. You are me, I am you, we are us, we are they, they are us.
Oneness. Magic. Infinity.
I might be called Storulven, I might be your guide at times, and your times might feel like eons. But I am you. You are me. We are all aspects of The One.
Nejla, looked to her left. They were moving really fast through this valley. It felt like someone was tugging at them, pulling them through and they were not to stop. Something had moved her to look to her left. Thick branches surrounded them on the right side, less thick, lower brush grew on the left side. She heard a noise of ice cracking. A humming sound. Like thousands of little voices singing “Om” arising through the cracks in the ice on the other side of the bushes.
“Go, go, go!” Ricky shouted. His pack was moving faster than ever. He turned his head looking back at Nejla and The Crew. “Pick up speed sister dear! Now!”
The Crew sped up. Nejla felt a slight tingle in the back of throat, a slight jump of the heart in to higher gear, for the first time since she embarked on this trip of allowing the journey to unfold. To her left a huge light shone, like fire.
The Fire Dragons had woken up.
Little sparks of wisdom had collectively opened up the portal of centuries thick ice.
The air filled with fierce, sparkling Fire Dragons.
As the sun is rising over the suburb and the castle walls, spreading its morning fire over the rooftops, she speaks gently with a whisper from within her very being.
“Look at all the gold”, she says. “It is dancing on the street, in my fur, inside your heart.It is dancing within our connection”.
I see it. I really do see it!
Thanking her, I reach down to her height, gently caressing one of her ears. Soft, gingerbread scented, furry red and white ears. She speeds up a bit. Time to go home. There is always a snack and a cuddle after the morning walk so it is time to get the priorities straight. As we cross the street full of stressful morning commuters she slows down again. She speaks.
“Infuse a bit of sacredness in to everything you do, into every act.” She smiles and speeds up again.
“Sacredness is the key to so many doors”, Starlight explains as Nejla, The Crew, Maddy, Ricky, Luca & The Pack are in anything but a hurry getting everything sorted for the days trek. They are all enjoying the fresh morning air, the rising sun, the warm open fire crackling, the coffee & porridge scent, the dried meat and fish for the four leggeds, and basically just sharing space. Hanging out. In a way it feels like they don’t need to go anywhere, yet the adventure spirit is tugging to move on. Just a bit ahead. Without a real goal. Just to check what is next. While being present with what is.
“I think I just sprinkled my coffee with sacredness”, Nejla jokingly replied.
“I think we just spice every breath with sacredness”, Ricky said while jumping up and down after his dip in the hole he’d made in the ice, initially to fish for the dogs and Maddy.
“Every breath already is sacredness”, Thor the lead dog of Ricky and Luca´s pack barged in, grabbing the last piece of oatmeal porridge left in Nejla’s bowl on the ground. “All you need to do is notice it.”
From in between the trees Alabaster was watching this morning ritual of this “band of relatives” like he´d loving started to refer to them after his last conversation with Snowflake. He was there in the shadows to guide them safely through the Valley of Thorns, which is where they were heading next. It was the only way through to get to the higher ranges.
The mist of transformation had started spreading out from the narrow passage way already.
A small, blue butterfly flew through the air, circling the two sleds.
FlowerOfTheThunderAndLightning 