The Promise

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Dec 13th/ The Promise, Part 13

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The soft, soft snoring of Fox – inhale, exhale, inspire, expire, wssssss, wsssss – gently woke me up. It wasn´t as much Silent Night, Holy Night as it was Holy Morning. December 13th.

The whole crew was still sleeping.

I lightly curled my fingertips in to Fox´s soft bellyfur, softly brushing her ribcage – her favourite form of bellyrub. Yellow eyes woke up, looked into my soul.
”Let´s go outside”, I whispered. ”Let´s witness the rising of the morning star.”

In one go Fox did a 180 in the air, went from lying on her back to standing on all four paws in a split second, yawned, stretched out. We tiptoed and tippawed towards the opening of this huge ballrom inside the mountain.

The stars were high in the sky, the milkyway at the height of our eyes .

The snow creaked under my feet. Fox`s paws made no sound at all.
”That´s why you people so often stay in 3rd dimension, ” Fox laughed. ”Because you walk so heavy!” She rolled around in the snow, laughing at her own joke till she almost choked.

”Waaaaaah, how I love this bundle of joy, my own little gingerbiscuit, my pepparkaka! ” I yelled out to the universe, laughing along with her.

We rounded the fourth granite giant, heading up the steep part of the glacier. I found myself on hands and feet at times when it got really close to vertical.

Up there the horizon opened up. Covered with distant mountaintops, dark treelines, blistered with millions, billions, trillions of stars glowing like heartdiamonds unobtruded. The morning star, Venus, the brightest, slight pinkish-yellow light waking up as the morning started breaking through.

”I have something for you, ” Fox said. She started digging in the snow, jumping up and down at times to speed the burrowing up. Then she stopped. ”Look!”
I peeked down in to the hole. A black velvet pouch. I laid down on my belly to reach down for it.

”Let me!” Fox nudged me with her nose. She climbed down in what actually looked like it could be her winter den, came back up with the pouch in her jaws, put it down in front of me.

As the sun started rising in the sky I opened the velvety package. My eyes froze as I saw the most exquisite, multifacetted, alivelooking, full of attitude and gentleness rainbow quartz ever.
”It is called ”Fire and Ice”. It holds your promise”, Fox gleamed.

Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring.

My heart woke up.

– Cecilia Götherström, 13 December, Lucia, 2018

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Dec 12th, The Promise, Part 12

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The wind seemed to come at us from all sides. No matter where you turned it hit you in the face, in the back, made you fall to the side. It was so strong we´d had to tie ourselves to the sleds. It felt like ice whipping your face every time a gust picked up. Still it felt somewhat normal, like exactly what you´d expect at a place like this called The Upper Glacier.

Wizard waved at us to turn a bit more left, towards the rocks we could barely see through the blizzard.

Poor little Jake was so small that any sudden shift in wind would wipe him all the way back down to the lake, so he´d been tucked in deep under blankets and cushions in a soft cave of his own. In my mind I could hear him really curious about where we were, what we saw, how it felt, when we´d get there and on and on and on.

Owl and Raven sat on the handles of the sled.

As soon as we turned in direction of the rocks the wind seemed to die down a bit. We were protected by the reclining glacier and those four beautiful giants of granite.

”Holy moly not so holy night”. Hawk came to life, shaking his head and wings. He´d been travelling on Wizard´s sled. ”What a whooping welcome by the glacier! I guess we ain´t climbing any tops to skip through Ursa Major tonight then!”

”You never know, you never know, you just know when you know which is why you never need to guess”, Raven croaked his way.

Right then and there the wind seemed to cease whining and started singing instead. Gently, puffing almost. The sound of a crackling log fire, of violins coming out of a crevasse in between the granite giants. A flute.  The tunes of ”What Child Is This” was welcoming us. A guitar added to the chorus. Wow.

We tied up the sleds and moved towards the music, all of us. Huskies, Samoyeds, Shibas, Wolves, Raven, Hawk, Fox, Owl, Jake, Wizard and myself.

The light from the open fire and candles shone through the opening. In there the Cold Mountain Trolls, The Higher Silver Alves had prepared a feast. Long wodden and stone tables, plenty of bowls for the fourleggeds, high branches for the winged ones, silver blankets for all travellers. What a welcome!

  • Cecilia Götherström, December 12th 2018
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Dec 11th / The Promise, Part 11

 

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The crustfrozen snow made a sizzling, crackling sound as our skis cut through the thin surface. We had set our course direction Upper Glacier again. The ascent from this side of the lake was said to be a lot easier and less dreary than our long journey across the Lower Glacier.

The Husky Queens, Samoyed Knights and Shiba Pushers had made lunch camp up ahead. The view from up here was magic.

I stopped, shoved my poles in the snow, hung my lovikavantar on them as I took in the magic view over the valley below. The glittery frozen on the banks open in the centre river twirling towards High Lake. The reflection of the dancing shadows the soft, fresh snow made as it was being blown to and fro in the wind as if making music. The pines to one side, the cedar forest on the other. The pack of wolves leading us ahead – a mixture of White´s gracious, ancient tribe and Grey´s somewhat younger Rolling Stones style crowd.

I heard large wings flapping in the air. Who?

I knew Owl had to be up ahead with the wolves, and Raven?

Anytime there was any sort of food or drink to be prepared Raven was sure to be there first of all, I could hear him across the white landscape chattering in lunch camp.

A buzzard hawk almost landed in my face! I saw his eyes as surprised as mine as I was facing his claws on their way to touchdown. I swept my head to the side just in time.

”Jeeeeezessss!”, he settled in the snow next to my skis. ”You´ve got to get some other type of headgear! What you´re wearing looks strikingly like the top of a moss-covered old tree to a slightly sleepy hawk.”

”My apologies, sir”, I removed the beanie I´d recieved from Nisse years earlier. ”You mean this old thing?”

The buzzard nodded.

”It is actually quite nice I see now. Handcrafted by a true NisseMor I see. Not many of those around out in the open any more unfortunately”. He proceeded to fly up and post himself on the lovikavantar at the top of my skipoles.

”I´ve been sent by the matriarch of The Little People. The Nisse, the Vättar, The Moutain Dwarfs and The Silver Alves. It´s not wise to go jump through Ursa Major without the blessings and promises of these tribes, which I am bringing you as their messenger. ”It´s a quest of the soul” are their words.”

A quest of the soul?

Then and there I realized that my soul had started talking to me, as the poem which sprung out of my pen the day before finally made sense to me;

”Candlelight, chestnuts and pinecones

Christmastree,
it is just you and me

Comfort, life, breath
Pineneedles, light, sacredness

I stop,
I forget
in a way which makes me re-member

you came from a slope,
which was once me,
specks of atoms, of dust
you grew out of snow
I was

yesterday,
today,
tomorrow,
now

It all just is.
We all just are.

Christmastree,
you and me
are just dreams of traditions,
of what is and what is to come
Nothing more.
Nothing less.

You in my livingroom,
I in your forest.

It all blends,
in this moment
tomorrow
now
then
there
when
who cares?

Let us sing,
let us be the charol.

Have you not always dreamed,
like me,
to be carried out on a chord,
to slide down a tune
echoing in to the wilderness
with nothing to stop you
sounding

Who cares?
What cares?

Let us sing with the stars,
soak the light in to our hearts
Like the candles on your branches,
let us shine through the night

Midvinterblot,
I hail thee

My roots are deeper than the mountain
My home is stronger than my heart
My soul echoes through eons

Take my hand,
carry me away

While remaining here,
watching,
re-membering
taking in your light
Oh Christmastree, oh Christmastree
of Odins heart so strong

Hel.
Whole.
Hel.
Helig.
Holy

Oh , holy night.

Åh, helga natt.

Home.”

– Cecilia Götherström, Dec 11th 2018

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Dec 10th / The Promise, Part 10

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”Melvinia. Melviniaaaa. Wake uuuuup”, a soft voice was whispering me out of sleep. I openend one eye. Fox was there, next to Jake the yellow necked mouse.

”The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don´t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don´t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don´t go back to sleep.”
 

”Reciting Rumi as a wakeup call are we?”

They both smiled and nodded vigourously at me as Raven flew in through the opening.

”Awake are we? Pardon the pun!” he croaklaughed so hard he had to make a frontflip not to fall flat on the ground.

I sat up. The smell of coffee and scones cooked over open fire flowed through the door of the kåta, blendend with the scent of a very cold, crisp morning. Yes!!!

The morning sun was working it´s rays across the crusty snow, shining through in on floor clad in pine twigs.

I got out of the sleeping bag, pulled the anorak over my head, got my arctic pants on, laced up my näbbstövlar, popped my head out and took in the fresh air with the longest inhale ever.

Wizard and Grey were immersed a deep conversation regarding the aligment of the stars in December of 1088 as the coffee was boling over on the fire .

”GoodmornigStar Gentlemen”. I could not help myself.

”Top of the morning to you”, Wizard replied faster than a smash from the net during Wimbledon finals. Grey stretched out and yawned.

As I sat there with White Wizard and Grey Wolf, Raven, Fox and Jake, watching the morning star rising as one with the slow moving sun just above the treeline I felt what I can only describe as pure, true joy from inside for the first time in a long, long time.

”You might think that circumstances and the place where you are right now is what makes you feel like this dear child.” Whites voice came not through my mind this time but from behind me. Tears of joy froze instantly on my cheeks as I met her gaze from the pile of snow she´d built . ”It is not. You made a choice. You let go of what was not yours to hold. Of what had been piled on you. Of the conditioning of ”this and that is your duty”. Through that you made a choice to walk through the round open door every time you feel yourself falling. You made an active choice to be happy my child. You did.”

 

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 10th 2018

 

 

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Dec 9th/ The Promise, Part 9

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Just a few seconds feel like a long time. Yet time does so not exist here.
I am about to observe what happened lifetimes ago. Nevertheless when I am there it feels like yesterday. For some reason it feels like I already know what I am about to understand.

The village is encircled by rolling lush hillsides and mountaintops capped with summer frost. This is his people.

We met picking poppies in the fields. He just back from the last war. Me leaving the sacred grasses of the lowlands behind. Leaving my people behind. The people of the winds, the seas the hearts and the storms.

Among the mountains I found peace. Wisdom. We lived according to the ancient samurai code, ordained from the times before the emperors. What was to later be called The Tao guided us. We all flowed with it. The entire village. From the outside it might have looked like a hard life up there in the mountains. From the inside we bloomed, the mountain bloomed, all was sacred.

Ambush.

One day he travelled with four of the sons of the village to meet with the people down the river, the Fisherfolks. The five of them never arrived. The five of them never came back. At least not on horseback.

At the time of the funeral pyre it seemed natural to the whole village that ”the she” should suceed as our lives, our practice, our guidance had intertwined and interwoven like one. The Tao told to handle every big matter like it was small, every small matter like it was big. I accepted.

My practice thrived. The village thrived. The children thrived. Yet inside there was a hole growing deeper and stronger. I knew we would meet again, so it was not his energy I was missing. I knew next time I would be the teacher, he needing me.

That day in the poppy field I had made a promise to myself, to fill my true purpose with all my heart and soul. I was there holding ceremony. No matter how much peace, joy and fulfillment the deviation of path right now was gifting to the world around me, this was not the path. It had been the best school ever. I had even more to dive into. I was filled to the brim with gratefulness, but it was time to leave.

How does one leave four young children and a whole village? One doesn´t.

I hear wolves howling. A crying howl , looking for a missing wolfpup. It touches the soul of my bones. I know I have to and that I can let go now. Let go of a promise not mine still and all fulfilled in the Land of The Dragon. Meet The Promise to fulfill in my soul, the cry in the wild.

Arigatou gozaimashita

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 9th 2018
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Dec 8th / The Promise, part 8

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All of a sudden I felt intensly tired. All the travelling, the journey, the light – or the lack of it – , the long nights. Large spots in my memory had been whiped clean.

”There is really nothing to remember”, I could hear White say through my mind from afar. ”All that exists is here and now. The past is a reflection. The future is a reflection. When you stop, sit down and see then all comes together in this one moment. Magic. Understanding. Alchemy. Morphing. Forgiveness. Release. Letting go. Welcoming in.”

What would I do, where would I be without this wise Wolf Queen of mine?

”Glooooooooooria, in excelcis deeeo”, a childhood memory sang its thread through my mind. A soft breeze touched my cheek. Flying sparkles of gold movning swiftly through the cold evening air. Fairies!

The fae takes many shapes and forms. I knew that from my great grandma´s renderings.

These were gorgeous, glitterly, sweepingly strong as they danced around our shoulders, swirling a path for us out on to the ice.

Dragon was unwinding on the other side of the lake after her ordeal of making sure we got all the signs the Great Mother had wanted us to see. DragonWhite had cleared what she herself called Mirror Patches on the ice. I followed the fairies to one of them. Sat down. Kneeled over the open space while wiping the last dust of snow from the clear, dark surface. Something rolled across I could see in the corner of my eye. Little green stones. Malachites! A memory of a very dear soul sister from the far north. It made me smile inwards. I knew I was at the right spot.

Fox motioned over from the snowcave she´d built herself, sat down next to me, locked my eyes with hers. ”I am here with you all the way Sister”.

Time to let the soul peek in to the depths of the ice on High Lake.

At first it was just greyish. Like heavy rainclouds slowly growing lighter. The deeper my gaze sank the more the clouds opened up. Travelling through a thin veil I saw the Land of the Dragon taking shape below . Cherry blossom on their last day of bloom, petals falling gently to the ground. People gathering under the trees offering them all their love, admiration and connection. Further up ahead,  the mud road passing through the field of cherry trees were leading up the soft hills trailing towards the mountain range which legend here held was holding up the sky. My village from back then was somewhere among those mountains.

In an instant I knew what was about to happen.

 

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 8th 2018
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Dec 7th , The Promise, Part 7

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The name kept coming into my mind, ringing, moving to the background again, lingering in the forefront, drifting away. Was I hearing it or was I not hearing it? I knew that you can only imagine what you have already experienced on some level, in whatever dimension or lifetime, so I could not bush it away by thinking I imagined it.

Like a soft veil the name drifted, whispered through my conciousness. Like a very thin, very ancient memory, bound to a thread so strong it was still present. Like the whiff of a scent which moved like a soft wave on endless waters, it lingered.

At her well Urd had instructed us to heal piece by piece, bit by bit to reach The Promise. That there was no turning back from healing right now. That ripping off the layers was to happen or else it would not be a New Earth. Old Earth was dying. New Earth was imminent. But who would go there? Who would be left behind? New Earth was calling. The 9 women and the 9 trees at Urd´s well had sent us all ahead to heal the wounds, to open the golden promise, each for themselves and through that for  generations before and ahead of us. New Earth was calling everyone. If not everyone could hear, those who could hear would need to fulfill their promise and through that spin silver weaves to carry the others through.

”You see”, Urd had said. ”All is connected. Everyone are connected. Man, spirit, rock, water, fire, air, growth, fourleggeds, winged ones, swimming ones, bugs, earth, everyone, everything. A broken web is no use. Not here, not there.”

Grey the Gangly, Fox of course, Raven – and naturally Owl, as now there was no Raven without Owl and no Owl without Raven – Jake and myself were heading down through the forest towards the High Lake. White Wizard and White Wolf were travelling at higher altitude. We would all catch up and regroup later.

Glimmering snow fumes were climbing up from the forest floor further ahead, between the pines. It was windy. Like silverflakes the soft fresh snow whirled from High Lake , building a large bank around the loch. As we left the trees behind us we saw that the gust seemed very local, centered around a spot at the south side of High Lake, where the river from the glacier entered in to the wide waters.

What made the wind blast that hard just there?

Raven croaked, pointed with his right wing upwards. A gigantic white dragon, so allmighty it covered the entire sky, was making the snowcrystals dance while composing gigantic patterns on the ice covered lake. She curled her back, aimed with flashed jaws. Within seconds she´d painted the ornament Urd had shown us in the well up among the cedars.

”Look”, the dragon wheezed. ”Look deep, deep through the mirror of the ice. Look deep, deep , through the mirror down in the depths. Look deep, deep in to the depths of your soul. The name which have been calling you is to be found deep down, in there and in here. A silverstudded claw pointed to her own heart. You need to connect back to this energy, forgive each other and move on together simlutaneously towards your Promise”.

  • Cecilia Götherström , 7 December 2018
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Dec 6th / The Promise, Part 6

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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

 

 

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Dec 5th / The Promise, Part 5

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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
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Dec 4th/ The Promise, Part 4

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Morning. Dawn had dispelled the last remnants of starstudded darkness. A blue moring sky was making itself known behind the tree tops. We were halfway up the mountain now – myself, Raven and Fox. Sitting at the kitchen table of White Wizard, overlooking the valley, the village just down the slope, the numerous lakes lakes of which the last one mounted out in the river leading to the ocean. The waters coming down from the mountain – that is the direction we are about to head next.

”First things first though!”, Raven squawked out. ”Coffee and porridge for the two leggeds, a couple of boiled eggs for Foxie here, some of those delish pumpkinseeds and Lussebulle for me.”

A sneezing, couching noise followed by a laughter sounding like a thunderstorm rolling through the mountains dances through the hallway in to the kitchen.

Wizard is awake! I´d heard so many stories of White Wizard sleeping through many winters lately that I could not help myself feeling totally stoked he´d decided to stay awake this winter.

”Yohooooo my magic crowd!”, his voice sounded round the loghouse as he walked towards the kitchen. ”This is a splendid morning for gathering the Husky Queens, the Samoyed Knights and the little Shiba Pushers for an update on the situation up the glacier. I know it´s early hours for the snow setting, yet that ancient ice will always speak. Born of the first waters it contains all the wisdom in this world . Now that wisdom is flowing out through the melting glaciers in to the world at a speed never experienced before in the lifetimes of humans. And your DNA has become a bit lazy lately, mankind, hence forgotten how to assimilate and put this wisdom to immediate use.”

”OK?” I heard myself frowning while sipping the coffee Raven had prepared.

”You see”, White Wizard sat down at the table, his long white hair reaching down to the floor as he lowered himself in to one of his designer chairs. ”The huskies, samoyeds, shibas and wolves travel back and forth across that glacier often. The wisdom whispers as it moves. The clever lupus canines receive it through their paws, merging it with their inner knowing. If there was ever a marriage made in heaven , that´s the one! At the same time, being at that altitude means you can hear and feel the vibration of everything going on in the worlds below. And according to the last report I got there´s still a lot DNA shaking up needed. Let´s do the hippie, hippie shake! Now, where´s my coffee before we head off? ”

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 4th 2018