Underneath the cedar trees you could smell the moist from the bark, from the ground. Beneath the fresh snow lay a witness to an autumn which had been extremely wet. Rainstorms, and later hail, had ravaged the woods. Leaves had not just fallen, they had been ripped apart, brutally torn off their branches before time was ripe. The old cedars at the top of the woods were wavering in their greatness. There had been no calm before the storm. But the legends told of the calm after the storms.

Boom, boom, boom! – A rhythmic drumming souded out from the cave of Linxi.

Known as the olderst, strongest mountain in this range, Linxi held as many secrets as the glacier held wisdom.

Boom, boom, boom! . Eerie, yet warm, the sound grew closer. Out of the cave a group of nine women appeared. Drumming, moving barefeet through the mixture of soil, snow and fallen cedartwigs. A family of deer, followed by an even larger amount of reindeer started arriving from the woods below. Cedartrees and reindeer – never thought I´d see that in my life!

The women wore clothes made of hide mixed with knitted parts reflecrting the Milkyway back at the skies. On their backs a shield, each with different clan ornaments. Around their waists a belt made by the fairies of the mountains set with moonstone and granite.

They formed a circle, each one with a tree between them. Nine women, nine trees. A small rabitt jumped out from behind one of the trees, halted in the centre of the circle and started digging a hole with it´s from paws.

The digging seemed to take forever.

A soft howl.

To the right of the reindeer, just behind Mother Deer, a gangly, old grey wolf came out of the scrappy bushes. The four leggeds froze for a while. Rabbit stopped digging. The drumming picked up. Grey walked over to the rabbit, touched his black nose to the fluffy white rabbits , pushing Rabbit gently to the side. Grey started digging where Rabbit had left off.

Boom, boom, boom, booooom! – The Samoyed Knights joined in by drumming their front paws on drums laid out on the forest floor.

Then it stopped.

”There she is”, Grey spoke.

Wizard walked over. Peaked in to the ground, threw up his hands as he jumped up and down.

”Yohooo! We found it! We found her! Urd´s well, lo and behold! Urd´s well.”

• Cecilia Götherström , Dec 6th 2018

photo by Konsta Punkka http://www.konstapunkka.com

”Melvinia, Melvinia! Wake up! This is not really the best place for daydreaming!”
I looked to my right where the tiny voice was coming from. Nothing.

”Melvinia, Melvinia! Over here!” I looked again. The same direction. Still nothing.
”Heeeeeeere!”

Next to the red flannel blanket we were all sharing a small head peaked out from a tiny snow cave.
”It´s me, Jake! The yellow necked mouse, you know!”
Now I saw him.

”Hi Jake. Pleased to meet you. How do you know my name?”
”How could I not ? This is your story. We all know you and your friends have been working on the portal for years and years and yearrrrrs with the help of all of us. Now it´s just about us helping you out to find it again so that you can fulfill your promise. Like we all have our promise to fulfill.”

He jumped up in to one of the sleds.
”It will be easier for to travel in here. As ling as you make sure them owls and them ravens keep their claws out of my back.”
”No problem”, Wizard chuckled, tucking Jack in the sled. ”Consider it done!”

Fox started rolling up the blankets. I got up to help. Dusted the snow flakes off my hands, grabbed the blankets behind the other sleds. We´d been travelling for days. This glacier seemed endlessly huge. Wizard had explained that it was important to plateau often, to acclimatize, to soak up and linger in knowing. Which is why, he told, the glacier seemed so vast the first time you visited. Based on how much you were able to let go, just be and soak in the whispers of the glacier your next trip across would be significantly shorter or longer. If you were not able to listen from the diamond in your heart it might take a whole lifetime to travel back and forth across these icy , crevasse filled plains. Most people rarely ever even made it to the glacier though Wizard said.

Today we were heading towards the woods slightly below the next mountain top, which meant a minor descent before heading up behind Linxi , the cave at the head of this giant mountain. After that heading uphill again to the upper glacier. From there it was said you could jump straight in to Ursa Major if you wished and come out on the other side.

”Just follow the North Star! Off we go!” Ralph, the chief of the Samoyed Knights took the lead.

• Cecilia Götherström, Dec 5th 2018

”In wisdom there is gentleness. There is softness. There is silence. Deep within all of that lies a strength and a will which is stronger, clearer and shining more brightly than any Diamond Of The Snows ever perceived.”

She walks beside me. Her scrawny, white legs moving as if in twilight-time. Paws barely touching the ground as they shift. It as if she floats. As if she makes the space around her move as her body graciously motions through the very same air touching my face, my nostrils, while at the same time inhabiting two dimensions.

I have been told a long, long time to use my gifts. To stand on two legs, rooted in each dimension simultaneously. I have been struggling with grasping the practicalities of it. She is showing me how by just being who she is and doing what she is supposed to do. There is no doubt about her having a purpose. Ever. There is no doubt about her following her purpose. Ever. She just does it because her heart is anchored strong and her nose is pointing in that direction.

I remember the little child born into confusion. The little child who believed in the light of the world, in the diamond in the heart, in the nose pointing in the direction the diamond mapped out. The girl who came in to this world with a purpose so strong it was too much for her parents to handle. They did not know where to place this life-bubble, so it was easier to forget her. Easier to push her gifts away, to hide under the strife of daily life, to lose her just like they had lost themselves a long time ago.

This strong, beautiful, white wolf with the constant following of a fox pup had been there all along.

”Yes”, she says. ”I have been watching from a distance. From a mountaintop within. You needed to climb quite a few mountains to meet me again, but Fox has always been there. Through bushes, rivers, sandbanks, rocky roads, gold paved streets, avalanches, waveriding on the ocean, sleeping, waking, sleeping and waking again”.

”In honour of the two of us!”, I find myself gasping while smacking myself on the forehand with the palm of my hand. ”Duuuuuh! That was it all along!”

”Yes”, Wolf replied. ”In honour of you and the one walking next to you. In honour of the one walking next to you and in honour of yourself. Everyone has someone walking next to them, everyone is walking next to someone. Seing that well, that dispels the impression of there being different dimensions once and for all”.

• Cecilia Götherström, Dec 3rd 2018

The crocodile came to me in dreamtime. He told me to seek out the The Mother Tree. Told me she´d been communicating through the roots and the waters of all Soulkind, urging his people to take action, to pass their knowledge through. With his jaws and dark black eyes he nudged me not to wait.

I woke up Raven.

”Come on you sleepy bird, we´ve got places to go, things to do!”

Raven shook her drowsy feathers, a few soft plumes danced to the floor. She looked at me. ”Oh dear, that crazy croc could not let you sleep til at least dawn? Never mind, the days of us ravens having time for a coffee and a biscuit in the moring are long gone ayway. Don´t think I´ve had one of them mornings since Odins days”.

It was indeed pitch black outside still. As soon as my feet hit the pavement a shadow came down in the light of the setting moon, tailing Raven.

”Oh, come on now, give me a break!” I heard Raven croaking. ”Why do you owls always have to barge in as guides? You know us ravens are fully capable of doing this too right?”

”Of course dear”, a soft howling voice replied. ”But I also know your kind are much better at gathering and observing than our kind, which is much needed on this journey. So, please, let me do the accompanying of guiding.”

Owl picked me up. How that happened in practical detail I can´t explain. It just felt natural. On her back, next to Raven, we set off towards the pines.

Moments – or was it months? – later we descended in to an opening among the firs. There, in the centre stood not one but three mother trees – Mother Birch, Mother Oak and Mother Aspen. Also known as The Three Wise Mothers.

The minute we landed on the frost and snow covered moss a song started filling the clearing from the ground up. Tunes arose from the moss. The frost sharped them, made them clearer. A deep voice started singing from the roots of The Three Wise Mothers.

”Every time you humans cut down a tree you kill a part of your own soul”. A voice spoke through the chanting. ”Every time you humans cut down a tree you kill the land of the fairies, you rob the dimensions of connection, you tear out the roots in your heart – the very roots which give life to the body, soul and conciousness of every sentient thread in this and all the parallell universes. How can you stay close to and listen to your own tree if it ain´t there no more?”

Another voice took over.

”You see, child. We trees hold heaven and earth together. On all planes. In all existance. We sing life in to being. Every being is born with a link to his or her own tree. When that link is severed only chaos and loneliness prevails. We love you all, but we can´t take it no more. You see, you can only go so far with love without connection.”

A third voice tuned in.

”Now it is up to you to take our song in to the world. For the last time. It needs to travel through the portal.”

• Cecilia Götherström, 2 december 2018