storyteller

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Elsa’s Song, Dec 1st 2021

“When the full moon dances in its own light. When its shadow pulls the breath of slivering starlight. When the omens and the 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 speaks to you my child.”

The voice meanders through the dark morning like a hymn.  Dawn is approaching, yet it is not here.

The moment before dawn. The moment before birth.

The dark. The void. The nothingness.

The sense of being held in Nothing-ness, in Everything-ness. The space we have been taught to fear, but which is the most loving, enveloping space. The space where we can hear. Where we can listen. Where we can see through the eyes of our own inner light. 

I roll over in bed, ready to put my feet on the ground, placing them on the warm, fuzzy blanket. 

The entire bedroom floor is covered with blankets held in place by sticky yoga mats underneath.

She’s old, you see. Her paws sprawl out to the sides sometimes. Her grip on artificial surfaces has let go. Her grip in moss, mud, earth, soil and sand has strengthened.

As the dust of dawn foxtrots gently through the tightly pulled blinds, touching the floor, reflecting off her fur, I see her. Curled up. Her white furry legs crossed. Jaws totally relaxed, breathing, snoozing. Head resting gently on the edge of her orthopaedic bed.

Peace. Magic. Love. Stardust. Gentleness. Listening. Kindness. Holiness. All. Breathing in. Breathing out.

As I open the faucet to splash my hands and face in ice cold water, it drizzles like gemstones landing in the sink. The light is as if from another dimension.  Rich, gentle, blessed. This water. A gift.

 Day one. Every morning anew. A promise. A vow. A vow of presence.

I will give myself to the story being birthed in each breath. The one story springing forth from the song. The song of creation.

“Listen. Listen to the moon. Listen to the stone. Listen to the song. This is Elsa’s Song.”

She on the other side of the veil embrace us both in her magic stride of sacred fierceness. Blessing us.

“We are all blessings”. Elsa’s song begins.

December 1st 2021, Cecilia Götherström

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Kringlans Kalender 2020. Sacred. Part 14. Dec 14th.

Marcus was floating in that space between dreaming and waking. He felt like a feather swirling through space, gently landing on a soft, soft deep- sleep – breathing wolf belly. He felt the warmth, he heard the breath, he was one with that fuzzy, thick winter fur there in his featherness for a while.

“Oh, if I could grasp this and put it in the symphony”, a thought drifted through his mind. He woke up.

“Nooooo, I want to go baaaaaack”, he stretched out under the duvet.

“The grasping brought you back”, Barry’s voice from outside the bedroom window. “Just lean in to that tune again, drift on the first octave, let yourself be featherly carried and you can go back. Through any music.”

Barry had taken the habit of sleeping under Marcus bedroom window. That way they could both breathe in symphony he’d said. Marcus quite often got the feeling that the polar bear took finishing writing this symphony even more serious than he himself did.

“OK”, Marcus said. “I am awake already. Might as well get up and get out. I am done with this onyxing. I can hear the moonstones calling.”

“That can only mean one thing”, Barry’s voice now came from the front door. “There is just one way to journey to the place where we meet all the moonstones. Make sure to pack more than lunch my dear Marcus.”

Marcus made his staple breakfast of oats, apricots, bananas and nuts for himself, a full side of smoked salmon with some dried lingonberries for Barry. Sat down out on the porch with the bear as they both watched a full show of Northern Lights making its way through and around the Milky Way. It was 3 minutes past 3 in the morning. No moon.

“New Moon today”, Marcus said. “I guess there could not really be a better time to start the journey to the moonstones. I mean, we finished quite some chapters yesterday, both the movements for the symphony and the heavy chapters for the book”.

“You are so right my dear WolfHearted Human of the Wilderness”, Barry replied. “I can sense that our guides are not very far from here. They heard the cry of readiness in your dream as you landed and started on their last leg this way already.”

Marcus had just finished making what Barry had called “not just a lunch package”, closed his backpack, got his “good walking shoes” out as he called them, staff in hand – no clue why, but he felt he’d needed what his neighbour Gina called “the witching wizard’s staff” for this walk. It was a pretty long staff which Star had found in the river when she was just a little puppy. She’d pulled it out of the water with all her might and dragged it up to the house. Put it in front of his feet. He smiled at the memory as he tied it to the backpack.

A howl. Quiet. Then a choir of howls. Through the treeline at the back of the house he could see countless eyes shining in the dark. One large, grey wolf stood out front. The rest of the pack waited in the trees.

“Our guides are here”, Barry waved at Marcus with his head and then gestured towards the family of greys.

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 14th 2020.
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Kringlans Kalender 2020. Sacred. Part 11. Dec 11th

Another evening on the path following the pawsteps of the little bundle of joy & life force Vayu The Whispering Wolf. They were being guided by Josephiel the Cloud Shrouding White Dragon floating in the air just above them through the valley,  heading towards the Mountain of Stillness and Silence.

Josphiel was of the opinion that wading through deep snow was no dragon business, taking to the wild blue yonder was.

Vayu had hidden a laugh within a yawn as he’d said “Let him believe he’s the one guiding us. There ain’t no better guide in this dimension than this very nose right here”.

Samantha was really enjoying these nightly hikes. They were usually on the move until just before midnight. Then they’d either find or build a shelter. For her, both Josephiel and Vayu were very clear about every time.

“For that somewhat frozen little human”, they would joke daily.

This evening they were getting close to their last hike among the trees. Shelter would probably be just above the treeline.

The glittering snow crystals reflected the Milky Way, or was it the other way around?

“Everything is a reflection”, Vayu said. “All the beauty you see in the world, all the things you reject, criticize or judge, they are all part of your perception reflecting back at you. That is why The Whispers are so powerful. Why you want them on your side. The Whispers are closer to Truth than the words you cover them with when you speak and think loud thoughts covering any possibility to perceive the most perceivable of them all. The Still Whispers of Your Soul. Only in stillness can you hear them. The Whispers.”

“Are you saying that this gorgeousness of diamondy glittery silver lives inside of me too?”, Samantha asked.

“Yes! And do you know what more lives inside of you?… 

Vayu went dead quiet.

“Come on, are you going to tell me?” 

Vayu did not move. He did not even flinch. 

Samantha looked up in the direction his eyes stared. Holy moly…. Was that an avalanche? There was no sound, so there could not be, right?

The sparkly cloud of glittery-moon-reflecting-snow-star-dust rushing down the mountain slope was the size of a jumbo jet.  As the diamond-dust evaporated something took shape where the sparkle settled.

“Mum!”, Josephiel twirled in the air, somersaulted towards them.

Right in front of Samantha and Vayu, the largest, grey-sparkling dragon anyone could possibly imagine.

“Enchanted”, she exhaled. “Mama D welcomes you all.”

  • Cecilia Götherström , December 11th 2020.
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Kringlans Kalender 2020. Sacred. Part 9. December 9th.

Marcus picked up his pen. His writing-feather was actually a ballpoint pen adorned with a massive feather.

He’d found it in a jewelry store of all places when he was fourteen years old. His mum had brought him to that store to pick out a present from his Mormor for his confirmation. Whether religious or not, everyone in the village got confirmed. It was more of a tradition than something strictly religious. A rite of passage. Somehow, somewhere along the way the event had gotten symbolized by jewelry.

Young Marcus would rather have gone out in the woods or down to the river with Mormor herself and picked out a stone together, but mum had insisted her mum wanted to give him something “valuable” that he could “cherish” for the rest of his life – preferably in gold. Marcus had smiled to himself at those words as he knew that was mum’s wish, not Mormor’s. Mormor – and Morfar – had always taught him that nothing is more valuable, nothing is to be cherished more, than this Earth we walk upon and all of her creations.

He’d seen the pen, a huuuuge Eagle Feather attached to it, between a selection of gold crucifixes and “faith, hope and love” themed earrings.

“That one, please”, he’d pointed to the pen.

Mum had raised her eyebrows, but before she could shake her head in a no Marcus had pointed to the little marking proving it was sterling silver. A compromise well worth giving she had decided.

Here he was, 35 years later, a celebrated composer and musician. And it was this pen, this pen only which produced the magic. As soon as he touched it he was transported. Just like when he put his fingers gently on the keys of the piano.

And Star.

She had been his co-composer. 

His magic portal.

All this time.

This morning he had gone out for a 4 am starbathing walk in the snow. Something or someone had called him out of his sleep. By now he had learned to listen to those “whispers”, as he called them.

Down at the river bank he looked up to the skies. North Star. Great Bear. Orion. The Doggies.

Across the ice a misty figure came walking. As the shape got closer it seemed huge. The size of a Polar Bear. He sat down. Rubbed his eyes. It was. A Polar Bear. Should he be afraid? He’d lived with a wolf with little over 12 years, so maybe not?

The bear stopped. A few meters out on the ice still. Saying;

“May I?”

Marcus gestured to the large space in between himself and the trees. The bear settled in.

“Thank you. It was one hmmmm of a journey getting here from the dimensions of the outer banks. But now I am here, you are here, so we can better get acquainted as we need to finish that piece “Home”. The most magnificent symphony to ever grace these dimensional planes.”

Marcus did his best to take it all in. The large white bear pushed him gently on the shoulder. “Barry’s the name. Like Barry-ton.” he said with a wink.

  • Cecilia Götherström, Dec 9th 2020.
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Kringlans Kalender 2020. Sacred. Part 6. Dec 6th

Touch. Meeting. Fierceness.

Sacred.

Sacred Touch.

Sacred Meeting.

Sacred Fierceness.

Home.

Marcus was walking between the pine trees. Following path leading from the back of the house up to Beaver Lake. Here he could always take everything in. Listen. Listen to the whispers of his soul. Something his Great Ma had taught him to do.

Great Ma was not his grandmother by bloodline. She was the Grand Mother for everyone living scattered on this large space of land of mountains, streams, lakes, waterfalls, peaks, rocks, woods and wilderness. She was like the moon – always there, always still yet so powerful, always present. She had taught all the kids in school how to listen to The Whispers Of The Soul. 

When she retired from her position as woodwork, arts, crafts and music teacher at the village school she started giving drumming lessons in the village hall on Saturday mornings. Drumming and jojking.

Those Saturday mornings they had learned how to drum the questions, how to listen and then jojk or sing the answers as they came in.

Sacred Touch.

Sacred Meeting.

Sacred Fierceness.

The first two parts had moved in like pieces from a mystic veil. The last part, placed like a statement in the snow.

Marcus kept following the path. Stars started to fill up the sky as the sun disappeared behind the treetops, making way for the moon. He knew he had only scratched the surface. The phrases were an invitation to dig deeper, an instruction to plunge.

Symphonies never took plunges. They had crescendos, build ups, cross overs. Never plunges.

He was afraid that he would lose himself if he plunged. As soon as that insight hit him he stopped, sighed, raised his hands up to catch a few soft snowflakes falling off the pine branches.

“The soul lives in the unknown. It’s never happy, nor supposed to live in the known of the mind. It’s supposed to live in the heart. And the heart can only be fully open when you are open to fall. Fall to Grace. Fall in Love. Fall Over. Fall.”

He heard Great Ma as if she was speaking from the space between the pine needles, the space inside the pine cones.

“Keep walking son. Keep following her footsteps. Remember in your heart where she wanted to go, what she wanted, what gave her joy, what made her strong, what released her, remember and follow that”, the voice spoke to his entire Beingness.

Her name. He had to speak her name out loud to be able to reach that magic again. Why was it so hard to do that?

Home.

He just wanted to call her Home.

He fell to his knees in the snow, laid down on his belly making a snow angel, his face buried in the snow. He rolled over. Lay on his back, caught falling snow flakes with his tongue like when he was a kid, watched the stars, the tops of the firs moving back and forth, back and forth, covering and revealing, covering and revealing.

That was it! Covering and revealing. Covering and revealing!

“Star”.

He spoke her name out loud.

“Star!”

  • Cecilia Götherström, December 6th 2020
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Kringlans Kalender 2020/ Sacred. Part 3. December 3rd.

“Sacred Touch. Sacred Meeting.”

He heard the words as if they were alive, dancing in space in the room, sliding around the Christmas tree still waiting to be decorated, floating over the grand piano where he was sitting, caressing the keys of the instrument like he was moving his fingertips through her fur. Gently, carefully, lovingly, with an intent to listen to the music of her presence, the one thing which would open his heart up wide. With her, everything had been possible. With her, his whole life – and not just his work – had become a symphony.

People had called him crazy, taking in a 60 kg rescued wolf in his house when he already spent close to a full work day behind the piano quite often seven days a week. How would he have time for the hours of movement, care and attention this animal required ?

But he knew. The minute he had looked in to her eyes, he knew. This was it. Why he was here on this earth. Why she was here on this earth.

The magic he felt under his fingertips when playing the piano, the magic which spun its way in to human hearts and living room speakers, came from the wild, from the habitat which she was. 

Together they had roamed many nights under the stars in the snow, many days up and down the mountains during the light months of the year, spent many mornings down at the lake fishing in each their own way.

“Sacred Fierceness”.

The words danced around him again. He felt in his soul abode that it was her. She was speaking to him from the other side of the veil. The way the words moved there was no other possibility.

The past months since he’d lost her, he found himself more misplaced than ever. 

Not even the music could lead him back. For months his state of mind was in a place of constant straying.

Then, one morning, a strange looking half grey, half white feather swirled down from the rooftop, landed in his morning coffee as he was sitting on the porch looking for the meaning of that day with all his might. 

The way the feather danced was the beginning of this new symphony he was working on right now.

Home.

He had wanted to call it Home. Yet the word “Sacred” kept coming up. Wherever he looked, whatever he did, whatever he read, whatever he listened to, the word was there. 

He got the hint. Named the symphony “Sacred Home”. 

Yet right now he was in a place where his heart felt a need to become unbroken before he could continue with what he’d worked on these last three days since the feather had landed.

“Marcus?”

Gina, his only neighbor, peaked in through the front door. Bob, the Labrador, as always right next to her.

 “Did you write the words “Sacred Fierceness” in the snow out front?”

Cecilia Götherström, Dec 3rd 2020.