Here and There: Part One
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”
-John Lennon
I often find light in a world that exists beyond the weighing darkness of night. One night in particular, shadows’ fingertips rested gently on my eyelids. My body, as I had always known it, lay paralyzed beneath frenzied coverlets as my heart hammered ribs like a stubborn gorilla on fraudulent cage bars. It was hounding my mind with panic, convincing my lungs that oxygen is a scarce resource reserved for moments of clarity. Meanwhile, my latest gulp of water stretched to one last thirsty cell.
The actual descent into other worlds is often more memorable than this one, but the same can not be said for the events to follow. Nighttime dissolved without the usual adrenaline rush and freefall. I suddenly stood barefoot on broken stalks of grass while serene winds awakened the exposed antler tattooed on my left forearm. My fingers were tiny people dancing at my side with nervous curiosity as a girl slowly approached from the eastern slope of that small hill. Wearing a delicate cirrus veil, the sun painted her adolescent skin in radiant pink tea roses while her locks tickled twin-sister harvest grains low behind her back. Resting humbly beneath it all was a wisdom rooted in ancient eras, silently laughing away the joke that appearance plays on wits adrift in worthless preconception.
Awe had never felt so comfortable as it did the moment she stood before me. When she spoke, her words plucked at my nerves sweetly but passionately like a violinist translating orchids into song. They blossomed in a language that does not survive on paper, yet their meaning is easily decipherable with an honest ear. And so it was, at the age of thirty years, that I believed in faeries. She glanced over my shoulder and, within an instant, locked her stare deep into my rambling gaze. The winds suddenly carried with them consequence, and with a wave of her hand, the girl before me became my faerie guide through shifting dreamscapes.
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
-Khalil Gibran
The force of a thousand tornadoes beat Earth’s deepest drums from the West. The faerie’s movements were urgent as we scampered through weeds leaning away from this ominous energy approaching on faster legs. In many dreams before, my legs were locked to imperceptible masses buried beneath the surface. In these fields, however, they ignored the burden of clenching shackles and floated boundlessly through playful meadows (wary as the fields may have been, given the circumstances). I followed her with an antelope’s graceful spring and momentary flight of the locust.
When tempest shadows finally cloaked our dance in apprehension, that forgotten gravity brought earth back to our feet and stomped reality back into my senses. The gorilla returned to my rib cage, adrenaline sending a reminder that body is connected to mind. We sprinted on human strength toward what I began to think was a lost cause. The air was growing cold. And, suddenly, the faerie stopped. I almost lost my balance, stumbling to a much less elegant halt. She calmly lifted her left hand, placed it on my chest and pacified the obstinate beast within. With her right, she motioned toward four faint markings on the stems of seasoned grasses. “Here,” she whispered.
One by one, translucent golden threads levitated from her back and pointed toward our destination. My arms soon followed at the command of impending winds, my shirt anticipating the transformation into a kite. She embraced my drifting eyes once again with hers, warranting trust without another word. Her hand gently grasped mine as we turned into stride with the wind, consenting to its domineering gestures and advance. Shadows’ diligent hand was much more significant than the one that lulled my weary body into slumber, and it once again lifted me to another world. Though the journey was swift and furious, the melodious pulse between palms comforted shaky nerves.
“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I don’t remember so much as one of the many images that blurred past as we were carried off. My last recollection of the field world, just as we lifted from the ground, was the vision of many other individuals running with guides of their own. I could not recognize a single one of them but was reassured by the idea that others were in the midst of a parallel experience.
They were in this new domain as well. Though it took a while to distinguish any physical object, clumsy steps sent echoes of snapping twigs through what was obviously a wooded area. My distorted view melted into a zebra landscape of standing birch trees at nightfall. A few withered leaves clung to swaying branches above as they delicately tapped the outstretched fingertips of their neighbors. My first step in this forest generated a crunch through a fallen frosted carpet of leaves and sticks.
The faerie squeezed my hand tenderly, reminding me of her presence. My breath produced quick swirling clouds that dissolved into mist, which I was certain would become ice on peeling white bark. She once again placed her other hand on my chest and somehow moderated the temperature of the air I swallowed. My respiration would no longer have an effect in this forest. She glanced at my sunken step, and my feet felt suddenly weightless. With a quick turn, we began to skate effortlessly across the crystalline forest floor, which reflected the woods above like a lake muting mountains. The trees swung like skeletons, bones unbound by muscle and chattering.
This rhythmic requiem haunted the sky while wind forcefully whispered memories of calmer breezes tiptoeing across grasping leaves. When the recollection became too much to bear, the branches rattled to the introduction of deep war horns from some remote horizon. There is no direction when the heavens are cloaked in sheets of gray, but the faerie purposefully set our course. We anxiously crashed through birches, frozen paper tearing from their sides and dancing to the turbulent percussion and tuba playing dark shadows’ anthem. My limbs vibrated so severely that the marrow within their bones was softening.
And suddenly, the faerie stopped. I carved a perfect circle in the snow around her with a lumbering slide as she stood gracefully, still holding my grip, joyful at my inelegant ballet. Before I could find humiliation or fear, her soft voice returned. “Here.” Four markings on four trees, just barely distinguishable from birches’ standards, advised us once again. My heart beat strong but slow, and we were again swept into the sky.
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.”
-John Muir
With a landing so forgiving, I was certain of my own homecoming to the world I most often call reality. Surely nothing could fashion the sort of relaxation afforded by my mattress and pillows. My eyelids extended their hugs with eager friends within, accustomed to prolonging release until reflections of dreams have a chance to imprint themselves as memories. I gripped at my sheets but found only a handful of needles, pliable and delivering more of a tickle than poke.
Their scent, however, pierced my nostrils in a peculiarly delightful way, eighty eight tiny swords composed of gingerbread cookies and genuine affection. They played the role of smelling salts, my senses springing to life. Towering above, straight in my line of vision, were the tops of giant elms, redwoods, and ponderosa pines. Earth’s giants wrapped me in a cool shade, teasing me with glimpses of sunlight and starring as geishas in my dream’s new theatre. Their eloquence balanced between subtle movements and complete stillness, hiding a magnificent beauty within even more splendor.
The faerie lay beside me, flicking needles with her toes and smiling at the sky’s persistent glances through the canopy. I wondered when the ground would begin to shiver under moving clouds’ unsettling bass and breezes. Instead, the faerie slid her hand across mine, lifted my palm, and calmly rested it against the redwood trunk at our backs. “Here.” We rested there peacefully until everything faded without a true ending, and I opened my eyes to an amiable Seattle sun melting rain clouds.
