STORY was one of those trees I spiral in towards. Whenever I feel overwhelmed I go for a drive in my car at night to clear my head. I always end up parked down the river, up beside old STORY.
Sitting in my car, under the stars, I wind down my window, and I speak. I share my thoughts and feelings, I share my own story. I gaze up at STORY'S vulnerable silhouette, bare of bark, limbs stretching up, reaching high into the black night. Over time STORY became my dear companion. Listening to my stories as they were carried away by the river.
Something about this place, wrestles with my senses. My ears, flooded with the echo's of crashing, fast flowing river water. Pushing and pulling on them, forcing my strained senses to loosen. Dismembered are my fixed narratives. Tense and brittle fibres of restricted, outdated patterns, are torn apart here. They crumble at STORY'S rooty feet.
It was on a windy night last week that I made my usual visit to STORY'S side. A ritual I had repeated so many times. As I pulled up and parked my car at my usual space along the river side. I felt a loud hollowness. Where STORY once stood, only a gaping emptiness ensued. Those elegant nude spires of her body, were missing from my view. STORY was gone. The gales of the previous couple of days had claimed her. On this night, the wind howled in her wake, the remaining trees creaked and crashed against each other. 'Hold on' I whispered to them.
STORY'S stump and some woody parts were all that remained. Scattered around her, the limbs and body parts, blasted from the bodies other trees. I sat there, in a void, bearing the loss of her physical presence. Her Tree Kin surrounded her parts, swaying in the gale, bending, holding her. I thought about her life, beyond my knowing of her and imagined a time of her youth and strength. I thought of her spirit and her presence held within the tribe of Tree Whispers. I set her card on my alter.
STORY.
What is our story. What have been the running narratives of our lives. Have these narratives been with us since childhood or crept in along the way. She speaks to us about folklore and fairy tales and encourages us to find insight through folk tale lineage. Look at our experience of life thus far, does the narrative of us, reflect present day experiences. Are we content or discontent. Who are we in this tale and what lessons have we learned along the way. How do we view the gestalting interactions of our lives. Do we view them as kind or unkind. Do we anticipate doom and gloom, or are we always on the brink of something wonderful. Is our tale one of despair and struggle or one of triumph. STORY pulls apart the fibres of our fixed plot, allowing us to reimagine how our tale will turn. Imagining into being a new narrative. Imagining is the seed of change.
STORY goes beyond asking us to imagine. As the fibres detach, our minds are free to create space, space for us to arrive fully present in being in ourselves. No longer caught in trappings of anyone else's narrative. From this place we are creatively charged to realise the pathways Infront of us. We can make plans to manifest our path before us. We will reset our off course direction, and align again on our best course. STORY wants us to believe that we can write the story of our own life. That we can achieve what we envisage for ourselves. She wants us to believe in a kinder life that is willing to provide for us. STORY tells us, a gentle and giving life awaits. A life of mysterious wonders. A life of adventure and richness in experience. STORY wants us to know how precious we are and never give up fighting for the story we want to be ours.
Let us say goodbye to STORY'S earth presence and wish her an extraordinary new adventure as she journeys back through the folds of light into the otherworld.
Yours always in the heart of the woodlands.
Mags.
Beautiful. Indeed.❤️