Sophia's Serpentine Sojourn into Serenity

I had been crouching down to better see and communicate with my little mouse friend – hmmmm, I never even caught his (her?) name.  I used my walking stick to ease my body back upright again and as I did, I caught a glimpse of something black moving past me in the corner of my eye.  I touched my pack defensively, assuring that it was still securely on my back and took a careful look around.  All I could see were trees and shrubbery, underbrush and moss-covered stones.  Wait.  What is that way up at the top of that tree?  I squinted my eyes, shielding them from the sun with one hand, straining to have a better look.  There was something black up there.  It was so high up in the tree that it looked like nothing more than a black speck – not a matte black but something with a bit of sheen to it.  It was clearly moving a bit – on its own or with the sway of the tree top in the light breeze I couldn’t tell but with every movement, the shiny black surface of whatever it was would glisten in the light.  Twinkling, almost like a star in the night sky, and yet black as coal all at the same time.   I stood, frozen, mesmerized by the sight of it.

photo- Flickr John-Morgan

Suddenly, it was gone.  Vanished.  I didn’t see it crawl off down the tree nor did I see it take flight.  My gaze hadn’t drifted from it, not once, and yet, sure enough, it was gone.  Had I been imagining it?  Hallucinating? No, I’m sure there had been something there, but how could it simply disappear without me noticing it?  I gave my head a shake, trying to release the cobwebs now forming in my brain.  I was unsure of just how long I had been standing there, staring at the black…what?  What had it been?  I still had no clue.  Another shake of my head trying to straighten out my thoughts.  I sat down on a tree stump to have a think.  I opened my travel sac and looked inside.  The seed bomb in its wrappings was still there.  I reached a hand up to my hair and ran my fingers through it.  Yep…still some of that icky bird poop there.  So, I hadn’t just been dreaming.  These things so far had been real.  "E, I know that anything can happen when you’re about.  I have come to accept that but this?  This may just be too much for me." I whispered.  "You’ll never be given more than you can handle." What? Where had that voice come from?  I looked about but saw nothing.  It was almost as if the words had been carried to me on the breeze.  I inhaled deeply and let out a long sigh.  With that, I stood up, slung my pack over my back, and began trudging through the forest once again, heading once more for the clearing ahead.

I was awakened by something wet landing directly in my eye.  I had fallen asleep under a tall tree and was just reaching the point in my dream where I was about to succeed in vanquishing all obstacles in my way when PLOP!!! Bird poop right in the eye! Not such a pleasant way to wake up!  I wiped as much of it away as I could before carefully sneaking a peek upwards to try to spy the offender who had dared to take a dump in my eye. 

As I raised my head towards the sky, PLOP PLOP PLOP – more of that grayish white bird excrement came dripping down my face.  "It’s good luck you know," a tiny squeaky voice said.  I looked up, down, all around me trying to find the source of the voice and instead, was greeted with more of the goopy bird poop in my face.

"Come on!!!" I yell.  "Enough is enough!"

"Really, my dear.  Do you not realize what a blessing is being bestowed  upon you?" 

There was that squeaky little voice again!  I grabbed some leaves from the ground and attempted to use them as a rag, wiping away as much of the bird poop from my face and hair as I could.  As I reached down to pick up more leaves, I found a little brown and white spotted mouse staring up at me. 

"You’ve been chosen," he said.

"Chosen? For what?" I asked.  I suppose I should have been surprised to have been carrying on a conversation with a mouse but really, after meeting E, nothing really surprises me anymore.

"You’ve been chosen to embark on a magical journey.  An amazing adventure awaits you." 

"Wait, you’re trying to tell me that being repeatedly bombed with bird poop this morning is some kind of honour? I think that’s an honour I’d rather skip, thanks anyway," I muttered as I tried to remove yet another blob from my hair. 

"You’ll see," he said as he leapt away.  "You’ll see.

I turned the packet over and over in my hands, examining it for clues.  It was tied up with butcher’s twine…red and white striped like Christmas candy canes, waxed slightly for ease of tying.  Again, the memories come spilling forward, picturing those “brown paper packages tied up with string” sent by Grandma and sung about by Julie Andrews.  There is just something so real, so organic about them isn’t there?

I stroke the paper, noting how wrinkled it is, like the paper had been wadded up as if intended for the trash and then rescued and gently, lovingly flattened back out again to make use of it once more.  I love the aged look of it, added to it by the mottled texture given it by watermarks on the paper and a patina much like tea-staining.  Indeed, there appeared to be a stain of some sort on the paper, one which on closer examination seemed familiar to me.  How is that possible?  For a stain to seem familiar?  I chuckle and give my head a shake, thinking I must be imagining things that aren’t truly there.  But then again, this IS from E!  I wonder…

The twine is wrapped around the package several times in both directions, criss-crossing itself over and over again, tangled up like a web.  Where it has been secured with a knot, there is a blob of black melted sealing wax imprinted with the image of a raven.  Ahh, a message of some sort from E I suspect! I find a stick on the ground and use it to gently pry off the raven seal, wrap it in one of my linen hankies, and place it in my pocket for safekeeping.  It’s always wise to keep a raven around!  I carefully untie the twine and put it safely back into my travel sac.  E and the Girl Guides taught me to always be prepared and you never know when you might be able to use a lovely piece of twine like that!

Once the packet is untied, I unfold the paper slowly and with great care.  I am aware of the presence of something three-dimensional inside the packet and am concerned about the possibility of losing anything from within.  When E gives you a gift, it is vital that you keep it safe and secure as her gifts are far more valuable than the kind you get from the Sears catalog.  Inside this brown paper packet is yet another packet, this one made of waxed paper.  Once again, the paper appears to have been wadded into a ball, then rescued, and carefully flattened out again.  What differs though is the structure of the packet.  The brown paper outer packet was folded simply into thirds one direction and then the other.  This waxed paper packet was more of a work of art.  The folds were intricate, deliberate,  like origami, and yet Shaker-like in its simplicity of design.  This made for a very tidy pouch The packet was somewhat self-closing, having no need of a string here.  There is a wax seal again, this time of an Ouroboros, not really holding the little parcel shut in this instance but more like a signature or adornment on it. Once again though there is a raven present; this time seemingly etched into one corner of the waxed paper.

Inside this inner packet, seeds of many shapes and colours are gathered into a seed bomb.  The “bomb” when viewed from a bit of a distance looks like a globe of the world; land masses, bodies of water, and polar ice caps are visible but there is something “different” about it.  It is not a perfect sphere like globes typically are but rather a more free form, organic, malleable form, similar to a cloud or an amoeba.  The landforms and such didn’t seem to be quite in the right places and the fact that they kept changing places, growing, shrinking, advancing, and receding led me to believe that instead of a representation of Earth, this was in fact an attempt at a representation of Lemuria.  I say an attempt at a representation of Lemuria for how is it truly possible to contain something that alters itself to become what you need when you need it?

Upon closer examination, I can make out the shapes of the individual seeds making up the “bomb”.  I can’t find any two that are the same and as each tiny seed comes into focus, I can see that the shapes and colours are rather unusual for seeds.  There is one that is a deep blue black colour and is shaped like a raven.  Another is chalky white in appearance and shaped like a seashell.  There is a serpent-shaped seed that is shiny and metallic in appearance, in shades of the most glorious blues, greens, pinks, and purples.  Continuing to peer into this collection of seeds, I see a donkey, an anchor, a butterfly, a Phoenix, a heart (is that a tiny map on it?), a Carmenta moth, and so many more.  I squint my eyes, trying to concentrate on what I see, and much like what happens with those magic eye pictures, the shapes I initially saw begin to lose focus and seem to shift into the background while those I couldn’t previously see now begin to move forward in my vision.  They take on more defined shapes and I begin to see faces.  Faces?  Seeds shaped like faces? Or are they faces held within the seeds? I am not sure but they are certainly familiar to me.

There is Baba Yaga, Medusa (I peek at her from the corner of my eye not wanting to risk being turned to stone!), and  Pandora. Gazing further, I see the lady of Shallot, Queen Guinevere, the goddesses Aphrodite, Artemis, Athena, Circe, Demeter, Gaia, Hecate, Hera, Hestia, and Persephone.  All of the muses are there.  I can see Thoreau, Plato, Frida Kahlo, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Leonardo da Vinci, Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, Aristotle, and Rosamunde Pilcher. (I am beginning to sound like Miss Ann from Romper Room as she held up her magic mirror…I see Billy and Susie and Mikey and Sherry…sigh…she never said my name!).  The more I peer into that seed bomb, the more images I see, some comforting, some confusing, some a bit disconcerting.  Some I can’t seem to make out no matter how long or how hard I stare at them.

I hesitate before gently picking up the seed bomb.  It seemed so fragile that I was afraid to touch it for fear of ruining it or harming the seeds but I could see the corner of a piece of paper peeking out from underneath it.  Nothing redundant or unnecessary is ever present in a package from E.  There is only what you need when you need it just like everything in Lemuria.  Never any more and never any less.  This piece of paper must be important so I take a deep breath, steel myself, and delicately pick up the seed bomb.  I cradle it gently in one hand while retrieving the paper beneath it with the other.

Softly laying the seeds back down on the brown paper, I examine the folded piece of paper I am holding.  It is a piece of the finest parchment that has been folded into quarters with great exactness and creased sharply. I almost fear that it will fall apart in my hands if I attempt to unfold it for the paper seems so delicate and the folds are the sharpest I have ever seen.  In fact, the paper seems to become more delicate as I hold it, appearing as thick parchment, nearly the thickness of cardstock when I first spied it, but quickly turning, well, paper thin as soon as I touched it.  The longer I hold it, the thinner it becomes, first like typing paper, then Japanese origami paper, and then rice and tissue paper.  I am so consumed by observing this odd phenomenon that I hardly even pay any attention to the writing on the paper.  As a tiny hole begins to form in the paper, I am struck back to consciousness by the action and I realize that this note will be destroyed before I ever get the chance to read it.  I drop it to the ground, hoping that eliminating any contact with my skin will stop this destructive process but apparently it is too late.  I fall to my knees, clutching the paper in front of me, madly scanning it with my eyes, trying to read what is there before it’s gone completely.

The writing on the paper seems like calligraphy…Chinese calligraphy that is.  There are these lovely black ink swirls and twirls that resemble, on first glance, the Chinese characters I have seen on so many products or pieces of art.  I narrow my eyes, squinting to try to make out the words even though the little voice in my brain is telling me it’s useless.  I mean, what do I know about reading Chinese?  Yet, I feel compelled to try.  Surely, E knew that I cannot read Chinese so why would she give me an important message without a way to read it?  And we ALL know this has to be important right?

I let out a long sigh.  And then another one as I continue to stare at the ink on the paper.  It’s as if I feel I can will them into English or something.  Silly idea eh?  And yet…as I stare at the characters, I feel like I can see them moving, shifting, morphing into something else.  They look almost snake-like in their movements, slithering from the Asian-looking characters into, well, into recognizable characters, I realize!    No time to celebrate though as the once tiny holes in the paper were beginning to grow.  It wouldn’t do me much good to be able to make out the letters and words if they were being obliterated!

I concentrate, reading as quickly as I can but making sure not to miss a single word.  It would not do me any good to misread a message from E!  This could be key to my whole journey!  Read faster, I admonish myself.  It says, “There is a tree that grows in China. It’s called a Mimosa.  The seeds for a Mimosa tree are only ¾ inch long but they contain an incredible amount of power within.  Sometimes people would plant Mimosa seeds and think they had been cheated because even when placed in the most fertile soil and provided with ideal growing conditions, the seeds would appear to do nothing and seemingly be duds.  However, those seeds were actually very busy indeed.  For 5 long years they would send roots deep into the earth, creating a strong foundation for the tree.  In the 60^th month, the plant would break through the ground for the first time and within the next 90 days, the tree would grow to be 120 feet tall!  Some days it would grow more than 36 inches in a single 24 hour period.”   There is a space of several inches between this paragraph and the next bit of text on the page.  It is written in much larger letters and says “The contents of this package is referred to as a seed bomb.  It is called a bomb for a reason.  Use with caution.  Not responsible for any growth, changes, or side effects.”

By the time I read the last word, the paper had shrunk in size and developed a web-like texture.  It looked very much like one of those skeleton leaves and I wasn’t even sure I would be able to touch it again without completely destroying it.  I reached out to retrieve it, using as light a touch as possible.  I grab the brown and waxed papers and use these to wrap both the seed bomb and what was now for all intents and purposes, a skeleton leaf back up. I place them into my travel sac, toss it over my shoulder, and wonder what I should do next.  Looking around, I think I see a clearing ahead, just beyond the forest.