Caela's Story Prologue https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/t2582 Runboard| Caela's Story Prologue en-us Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:31:22 +0000 Thu, 28 Mar 2024 10:31:22 +0000 https://www.runboard.com/ rssfeeds_managingeditor@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds managing editor) rssfeeds_webmaster@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds webmaster) akBBS 60 Caela's Story #43https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17493,from=rss#post17493https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17493,from=rss#post17493A strangely dressed, obviously old, yet regally postured woman appears on the balcony of the City Council Building, arms outstretched as if in benediction. Calmly, serenely, she faces the uproarious crowd surrounding from below. Caela breathes deeply inward, accessing that bright core she has built from all the loving wisdom discovered throughout her life. “You can be healed.” Her simple statement echoing, reverberating throughout the crowd. Everyone within range of her electronically enhanced and broadcast voice feels profound resonance. Every one of them feels tender, loving presence reaching deeply into their secret, festering wounds, bathing their pain in beautiful soothing light. Caela, smiling inwardly in joyful communion with the forest daughter entwining her consciousness, responds to each and every pause of wonder. She sends soothing musical visions with her words. “There is no shame in pain. There is no cure to be found in blame, regardless of accuracy. There are so very many ways to be wounded, deeply injured, horribly scarred. Our natural desire would be to heal, end the siren signal of pain, the suffering of what has been hidden rather than made whole. It is natural for hurting children to offer up their tears and fright and indignation at their wounding to parents who will make them well again. Hiding, making dark secrets of unhealed wounds, is not our natural recourse. We have mislearned, incorporated guilts and shames where openness to nurture was meant to be. Sharing our pain, our stories of wounding, our attempts to regain wholeness, with caring family and friends is meant to make us stronger, individually and together. Go deeply into your greatest, most intractable, pain too intense to touch numbing wound. Listen, intently, to its story. Succor it as you would your dearest child. Then to the next, and the next, until all your despicable woundings are adored offspring of a closely loving family. Share your family tales with the people you see every day. I give you all permission to allow this vulnerability. You are not about fear or anger or intractability. You are alive, growing, changing, learning. Learn to share who you are, really. Magical synergy can give us all everything we have yearned for, felt missing in our lives, individually and together. I don’t know when, why, how it began. The social structure meant to house and contain us, safe, snug, happy children growing to become strong, joyful, nurturing families, instead becomes a prison. Structure meant to be loyal friend and servant becomes heartless master, imposing order without thoughtful consciousness, sane flexibility, wise encouragement of playfully creative boisterousness which might lead to inconvenience, mistakes, disorder. We can always pull ourselves together to clean up an inadvertent mess, correct mistakes, make amends, share discoveries. This is gregarious human life’s natural course of education. Rote memorization of rules, that is but an exercise in discipline. It is not learning. We feel a need for rules to create a safe structure; but the rules are but tools, not the project itself. What is our project but full, true, glorious experiences of life for each and every? To be full and real, we know there will be pain and wounding as well as love, useful work, private contemplations, fun, frolic, humor, loss, death, sorrow. What we do not need to include is hopeless despair, empty loneliness, unwarranted guilt or shame or restriction of opportunities for restitution and true forgiveness. It’s not that we need to avoid breakage, but that we all need to learn the arts of repair, reconciliation, growth that heals and enhances us all. I am here to help you. I offer you the benefit of what I have learned. I am creating a school of healing where you will always be welcome. We will offer you our knowledge of healing techniques, therapy sessions, consultations and training. You may decide for yourself, and redecide at any point, of what offerings you desire to partake. Those who can will be expected to pay for our services in order to keep our operating budget in operation. Those without funds will not be turned away. We expect that what we teach will then be shared, expanding the resource of knowledge, healers, trainers, interactive healing groups. Very simple. Nothing hidden. Though our offerings may only be able to accommodate limited numbers at first, quickly enough we will grow. You, everyone who so chooses, will help to grow us, together. Ultimately, we will all learn from each other. Together we will be able to figure this out, this living thing. We will learn to live with the clarity and wisdom we create for ourselves. We can learn to embrace the bountiful gifts and wisdom of this planet that is our home. We can learn the blessings of interdependency, of give and take based on honor and respect. We can revel in the enlightenment that reveals each of our own self-interests gets better served when we truly, deeply, wisely know that we are all in this together. Can you sacrifice your despair on the altar of such a realization? We can together will a manifestation, of true possibilities. I offer not a vision of idealized perfection; but a readily obtainable viable answer. Guiding a flow of unblocked healthy energy toward the beauty of balanced fully realized lives – this is a mission I gladly accept. Oh, my beloveds, think clearly about what you have to lose, and gain. Feel the compassion, the challenge, the call. Take what I freely offer out of my own great need for connection. We are family, a living interactive system, able together to achieve so much greater happiness and well-being. You can heal.” Thus will it be. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 18 Jun 2017 15:04:36 +0000 Caela's Story #42https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17492,from=rss#post17492https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17492,from=rss#post17492Jorel has been enjoying getting caught up in Caela’s vision as she spins it out for him. He sees the potential of this fine university of healing arts, including the healing to be found through fine and performance expressive arts, touch, movement, meditations, creative play and experiments in communications, even more spiraling out beyond his imagining. A too good to be true fantasy, of course; but he allows himself a momentary luxury of getting caught up in the beauty. “My dear Healer,” deciding it is well past time to inject reality back into their conversation, Jorel adopts a tone of impatient irony. “I am certain I would be glad to accede to your demands. Just tell me, how am I to spirit your charges away in the face of that?” With an angry flourish, he points to the mob, seemingly just shy of storming the barricade around the building and taking them all by force. “Have we a deal, then?” Caela responds lightly, as if they’ve not a care beyond their civilized negotiations. “You do your part, Councilor. Leave the rest to me. Watch and learn why I know my plan will succeed for all of us. But first, one more favor, please. I will appreciate your arranging for electronic amplification of my voice, and for my live simultaneous broadcast over your communications channels to reach everyone tuned in. I know you will find a way to sneak the others out safely while the focus is on me.” Jorel is aghast. “I’m sure it is quite noble for you to sacrifice yourself to save these children,” he begins, ready to plead. She is extraordinary. Perhaps they can figure out some way to … “No need to fear for me, Jorel. Just watch. Listen. And do as we have agreed. We are agreed?” A quality of her voice, her will, commands his full attention. He quickly, authoritatively, arranges for the broadcast and amplification equipment, and transport for both contingents of Lukin’s extended family. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 18 Jun 2017 15:03:31 +0000 Caela's Story #41https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17491,from=rss#post17491https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17491,from=rss#post17491“I believe you have recently closed and taken control of a school to the north and west, far enough beyond the centers of population to afford privacy. There is enough land for a buffering zone, gardens, basic self-sufficiency.” Unsure where this might be going, Jorel concedes her information. “The Harmony Academy. Several of your people were shareholders in the enterprise. Some as well were prominent faculty. The people had been hearing unsavory rumors about goings on there. Some of your social experiments, group sex, occult ceremonies, dangerous ideas being spread. We arrested several of the major shareholder/instigators. The property is in the hands of the City Council until we auction it off.” “Yes!” Caela seems almost glowing. “A dangerous idea – but danger can be a challenging doorway to glorious adventure, or the price of a longed for treasure. Sell me this school. I will pay whatever price you ask, over time from my profits. I will start a school to teach our people how to find their precious abilities, along with immediately practical healing techniques.” Jorel is intrigued, more by her thrilling energy than her words, her proposition. The Chief Councilor in him smells trouble, but it has more the feeling of a reflexive defense than a real threat. It’s not about a financial arrangement. He has no doubt this witch woman will make good. He fears her power. Yet, somehow, it is a good fear, a call to challenge to his self-image as a brave man. Or was that the witchery? Was she playing on his sympathies, bewitching his mind, dissolving his strong-willed resolve? “How would this school help with the immediate situation? Are you going to single-handed convert us all? What could you teach us that would be to our advantage? I am sure you could turn a fine profit and pay your way, benefit the city coffers in return for our protection. Though I am also sure we could not guarantee your safety at any price. What are you offering these people?” He gestures grandly toward the ever greater unrest of the ever larger crowd just outside this governmental edifice. “How will you pay them for your life?” “With theirs, of course.” She laughs, briefly, out of irrepressible mirth. “I am a healer. I have learned long, well and wisely so many methods, so many ways of being ill and injured, how to recover, become a new whole, stronger, better prepared to go forward, healthier, more completely alive. But I have no need to take the whole task upon my self. I can easily train those willing to learn to assist me, more easily at first those who have already developed the sensitivities more natural to we witchfolk. Over time, with longer training, we will be able to expand our pool of potential healers and trainers from graduates of our school, no matter which of our clans they have been born of. Really, it is simple. Together we can make it be. Let us be partners, allies in a wonderful enterprise. Please, now, arrange for these children waiting for their verdict, and their chaperone, in the next room, to be taken to the school grounds. Make arrangements also for their parents, now held in your prison, to join them there. They can get started putting the place in order for our clientele. Eventually our children can learn together, and from each other, what we need to know to be a successful people together.” nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sat, 17 Jun 2017 14:58:27 +0000 Caela's Story #40https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17490,from=rss#post17490https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17490,from=rss#post17490Her senses and contexts expanded by what she has learned, accepted, assimilated through her interchanges, gifts now shared with the forest, Caela feels the wounds these people carry, incubate, spread. "Here and now." Her eyes move from the disturbance escalating outside, lock onto Jorel's. "Those abilities within us that you fear, that you covet, keeping you caught up in the belief that we witchfolk are a superior enemy to be shunned and destroyed, that gift is already yours as well. You can learn to find it within you, to access, develop, use your own innate abilities. You can be set free of this mistaken need for hatred which drains your energies, takes from you what you could be." "But how? Even saying you might be right about some latent witch genetics in some of us, that would just be more divisive. Even those of us with the potential for this so-called gift would have no idea how to make use of it. If they did learn, they would just be more of you, no longer to be trusted." Jorel's attention, divided between that enthralled to the witch's spellbinding charisma and the sure threat of the outside mob scene, is not grasping how to reconcile the two. "Not some, not witchblood. Human blood. Our people came of yours. What we have is but amplified genetically. The right kind of training could build these abilities from potential within all of you as well." "If you could get them to take your training, even if what you say were true. They would rather tear you apart then ever look upon you as their human kin. You are not their kin, nor for that matter mine. You are as alien to us in your own way as the natural lifeforms of our adopted home. What do you intend? To simply walk among those angry mobs and break them to your will with a smile?" Caela smiles broadly. Jorel sneers, not knowing what to make of her, feeling mocked. "No, I am not mocking you. I do respect your words, your experience, your sincere desire to avoid rampant violence." Jorel is mollified. He really does like this witch woman, wishes she could, they could, resolve this mess he knows is partially of his making. But if the instigations of his political maneuverings were all that was in their way they would not have such an intractable problem. He had only manipulated a deeply held antipathy, not brought it into being. "I am sorry." He admits his culpability while regretting the futility of his power. He does not understand why she still smiles, obviously, gently, as a collaborator rather than the opposition. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 28 May 2017 14:43:34 +0000 Caela's Story #39https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17489,from=rss#post17489https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17489,from=rss#post17489"Your people believe they want us gone. Whatever the reasons, these are palpable intentions. They are inflamed, and need careful tending lest they explode. This would harm them, and you, more than we would feel it in the situations we are already in." Her voice and manner so sweetly calm. Images merely illustrative, not as inflammatory as what they represent. This is merely prologue. Sandwiches and energy drinks are brought in by an aide, for those in the antechamber and the two in the main room. Apparently energy will be needed both for waiting and for negotiations. The aide silently disappears, on to other duties, perhaps speculations. "Yes, those festering people in the streets, living out their day to days, waiting impatiently for justice, if that is all they think they can get. They don't know we're here yet, do they? Under the auspices of their representative in chief, eating sandwiches and leisurely chatting or sitting quietly in an antechamber awaiting the possibility of freedom. Are we your enemies?" He could feel implicit threat, but softly gloved because this threat could cut both ways. Delicacy in the balance of shifting forces is not a theoretical concept, but obvious sensation. The thorny, twisty problem is clearly delineated. "If you but think, you know, at this point of our social history our biologies have mixed so that many of our people are not one thing or the other. In the natural course, this will continue. We are not enemies, but kinfolk. We are human beings upon this planet foreign to our origins, but now the only home we know. All of us are aliens together, making this world our home. We are natural allies, tribesmen, sharing our individual wealth of skills and personal resources in common enterprise, as our ancestor colonists meant us to be." "That's all very nice and philosophical." Jorel has found his voice. "We have an immediate situation to deal with here, as you yourself point out. It certainly isn't gong to help quell the fears of the masses to tell them you people have infiltrated their very DNA. They won't know who to trust. That could create widespread panic less controllable than what we have now. What can you tell me, witch, that I can use?" Outside the window of the Chief Councilor's chambers, a crowd can be seen slowly gathering, gaining in numbers and loudness, on the street below. They do not appear to be in a mood of celebration. Their voices are angry. Their words indistinct, but their faces look more pinched and resigned then empowered. This is not a crowd expressing healthy anger against injustice, or grievances for which they expect redress. This is the face of a desperate response to long felt helplessness, ill-use, built out of a poverty of trust, foundations crumbling. Caela feels their surging waves of murky emotion. Disgust, fear, raw rage, harsh bitter brittleness, ready to break. What has done this to a people whose legacy was meant to be freedoms and opportunities far beyond what would have been left to them by the human confusion, pollution, insanity their ancestors had thought left behind on Earth? nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sat, 27 May 2017 14:10:03 +0000 Caela's Story #38https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17488,from=rss#post17488https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17488,from=rss#post17488The Chief Councilor was not a simple soldier. He was not a follower, but a leader practiced in the ways of power. He was a senior politician, used to tricks, manipulations, maneouverings, his opponents' and his own. This was not a man easily trifled with or stared down. This was a man who could be persuaded, only if he could be made to clearly see his own advantage. Caela could do that. She could show him in clear imagery and well placed words exactly what he had to gain, and what losses he would no longer need to fear or calculate. Caela was not a politician, had never seen herself as a leader, or a follower. She knew the human mind. She understood the inner workings of will and desire. Power may think itself an irresistible force. When it meets calm acceptance, wrapped in well-reasoned, irrefutable logic, power can become a sheepish child happy to find common ground, if that power is backed by intelligence. The Chief Councilor is an intelligent man. He can acknowledge Caela's wisdom, in his own self-interest. In this case, how fortunate, it is enlightened self-interest, a win-win-win for himself, his constituents, and Caela's. Toriv and the children sit in the anteroom while the principles palaver. They do not feel assured of their fate. Fear, though, mingles with hope, a most potent cocktail keeping them still, locked in their long moments of anticipation. In the Chief Councilor's chambers, something akin to a miracle seems to him to be taking place. Even before she spoke, this strange, primitively dressed old woman has pulled from him his total attention. He feels he would not be able to turn from her nor tune out one iota of her message even should he be able to form such a desire. So much more than compelling, this is the most immediately real experience he has ever known. "I am Caela, of the witchfolk." Her words enter his mind accompanied with rich imagery, a gestalt of intent and comprehension. "You do not need to be told of my journey, nor my history. You need to know that together we can come back from this mess between our people. We can all gain from each other, and become the one people we are meant to be. Someday, after the immediate wounds have healed, scarred over, my people, the exiles, or your people of this city, or both, will make inroads into the land between. Those of the witchfolk here are few and dwindling. They have shown serious concern to improve their numbers through social experiments designed to increase procreation. I know you have noted and were nervous about this. But my point, they are dwindling. You could round them up or let them be. They would all but disappear over time. Yet the time bomb still exists to your South. I tell you this to let you know I come not as an outside agitator nor advocate for others. I have a stake in this outcome. My agenda is open to you. By the time the people I have been a part of reunite with these of the city, the rift needs to have been healed. The reuniting must come as separated kin coming together in celebration." Caela's imagery, more than convincing of her conviction, flows, eloquent. Chief Councilor Jorel (proudly named for his spaceship captain ancestor), finds himself to be fascinated, eagerly awaiting what may come next sparking from her intelligence to his. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Fri, 26 May 2017 14:13:36 +0000 Caela's Story #37https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17487,from=rss#post17487https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17487,from=rss#post17487Caela and Lukin touch hand into hand, facing each into shining open eyes, hug solemnly. The children feel as secure as any mother's love could provide. Toriv as well feels that love, allowing himself the relief, the luxury of relinquishing a responsibility he had no idea how to fulfill. None doubted, assured in Caela's confidence, that no harm would now befall them. The knock at the door was no shock, no surprise. Neither were the officially uniformed pair of large brutes whose entrance their knocking barely preceded. They were the ones not so much shocked or surprised as amazed and disarmed by an old woman from the other side of the deep woods. At Caela's instigation, she, Toriv and the children were escorted to the official vehicle brought for their transport to an interrogation area. "You mean to take these children, and the man who has harbored them, to someone with more authority than you for their questioning and incarceration, yes?" Caela had quietly, patiently suggested, clearly eyeing the soldiers. They could but nod, confused. "Take us all to the supreme commander of your government. We have negotiations to begin." She commanded them as surely as any of those officers they had been trained to obey with alacrity, without question. Also, there was some strange subtly commanding desire they could feel overtaking any objection before it could form in their minds. It did not feel strange at all to do as this unknown woman said. It only felt strange to have any idea to the contrary. Off they all go to see the Chief Councilor, head of the city's governmental body. On the way, Caela is able to collaborate with Lukin in forming a link of communication with Merin in his cell at the prison compound. He and the rest of the adult members of Sira's extended family are being held, their jailors believe incommunicado, out of sight out of mind of those of the city's populace enraged against them. Unthinking rage, used so easily in political rallying, is not always so easily controlled. None of Sira's political enemies had ever intended harm to the children. They thought the outrage would die down once the maligned adults had been apprehended, sent into perdition for punishment of their insinuated crimes. Yet the people were calling to extinguish this evil subspecies, as they imagined the witchpeople to be, from their lives, utterly, completely, finally. These people had for so long been unhappy, silently or uproariously building up angers over the miseries they felt visited upon their lives from some unnamed foe. Having found a name, they now must vanquish those of that brand. To their rage, it was all quite simple. Anger can be a potent force for action. Once devolved to impotent rage, it is bereft of the solidity of reason and can only, when released, destroy. Merin, glad for the distraction maybe even more than the hope of aid, fills Caela in on the pertinent history, the players, the games, the scores and strategies, cultural myths, background conditions, that she had missed while living her life on the other side of the woods. He is promised a detailed history of Caela's community once the crisis has passed and there is time for the less immediate. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Thu, 25 May 2017 17:41:06 +0000 Caela's Story #36https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17486,from=rss#post17486https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17486,from=rss#post17486Out of the Woods Under cover of storm, those who might have been about all secured in their dwellings, Caela walks across the fields in a straight line to her destination. By the time she got to Toriv's school, the storm was spent. Soggy ground, grey sky, wind and rain now but wistful breeze and mist. A dark wet day for a stranger's sudden appearance. The main house was abuzz with speculation. There was already much concern about the troop of children Toriv had mysteriously taken in. Some kin of Merin's, a dear teacher to many of them, but still unsettling. These are people who spook easily, do not trust strangers. They are not even on easy terms with their neighbors. They have chosen to live this more primitive style of life, as they see it, in order to be left alone, away from prying eyes and possible recrimination. "That was why we had to. We had to protect ourselves. We couldn't appear to be dangerous, harboring undesirables, enemies of the state." They told themselves they had no choice. The needed to protect their own noble cause, the preservation of their kind. Toriv kept to himself at the school, apart from them. His concern was his own son, Kirin, and the children he taught; but now these other children as well. "He is not part of their cohesive group, not really. These children aren't either, none of our concern. What are they doing here anyway, needing to be fed and who knows for how long put up with? “It's not that we wish them ill. Of course we don't. They are children. But surely no real harm will come to them. Surely the authorities searching for them have everyone's best interests at heart. They will just send over a couple of city reps to take the children away, probably to quite appropriate and loving foster care. We will be left alone. No one will have any argument with us." But perhaps this stranger has come to spirit the children away. "Perhaps we were too hasty in our action, reporting the presence here of these controversial youngsters. Oh, we don't know what to think." No matter. Ripples of forces in motion find their outlets, moving acts and actors into place. Caela hears the chatter from the house as she walks up to the school door. She feels familiarity from those inside. They have been expecting her, without entirely knowing whom to expect. There are others expected soon, by those in the main house, whom Toriv and the children are happy not to see yet at their door. Never mind. It will all play out very soon. First, introductions must be made, brief summaries of stories exchanged, the creation of a bond already in the forming to be acknowledged. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Wed, 24 May 2017 16:12:49 +0000 Caela's Story #35https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17485,from=rss#post17485https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17485,from=rss#post17485There is still a distance, more than several days worth of traversing, between here and there. Caela prepares for sleep, for potent dreaming. There is something within her in need of awakening. It feels, yes, just ready to be released, to claim its power. Is this a spirit child of Caela, of the forest mind, ready to be born as Caela's sacred internal daughter, a part of (not apart from) herself? "I see the cruelty, the stupidity. A tight fist. Harsh measures. Petty meanness because we dare not weaken, dare not show a chink of kindness, dare not relax. Nowhere that deep relaxation, every cell of life open to receive, to exchange expiration for inspiration. Tight disciplined cognitions, never too alive, never to allow dangerous chinks of doubt, unsettling openings to chaos. Fear is palpable, but more. It is gripping. Addictive. You need more and more to even feel, to not go numb with the senselessness, with the constancy. I feel it all. Where? How? I am moving through a forest. One footfall into the next. I see is in dual visions. I am perceiving far beyond my natural range. My senses, my cognitions, doubling up, increasing in velocity and intensity. The me I have known too slow to keep up falls behind. There is so much more to me. No binding down into mere panoramas of perception. I feel, see, cognate, extend, a greater totality. This I is not a limitation. Consciousness accelerates. Mind is not a boundary. Every sensation is infinite, eternal, completely integrated. Yet, here I am, still conscious of my own being, biography, will. Ecstatically integrated beyond my temporal concerns, yet so very grounded, root to stem, to sky. I am of this ground, of this sky, and of what comes between. I am a woman traversing a forest that has become my kin and my home. I am a multi-cultural consciousness in motion through space and time. I am a story in the telling, spinning outward, revealing my wisdom as it is acquired. I am a harbinger of sanity composed of beauty, of grace, of intricate balance moving dynamically through simple resonance." Potent dreaming, indeed. She awoke to a world exactly different. Nothing significant had changed in the time of her dreaming, except for Caela herself. She made all the difference. Seeing, hearing, touching with a different mental construct to decipher the sensory code, she discovered a whole new world. Lukin's impressions are still available. She can look; she can feel his pain, as his not hers. She knows her help and healing is needed. She can taste the forest throughout all her senses, molecular communication from self to self. She can also sense all the busy beings, all the selves working out their lives, or not. Pain, pleasure, the ennui of emotional defeat, the exhilaration of new challenge, the fearful raging, exhausted confusion, the newly forming consciousness opening an inner eye, the lurking of an inner smile. It is what it is, malleable, ready for change, so long as no one let's it know it is changing. Caela reaches, tentative and sincere. Enjoying the flickering light of subtle conclusions, she feels herself gently calming, a feathery serene presence, in Lukin's consciousness. He tells his cadre there is help on the way. Strange, but he can know this so surely without knowing how or when, or whom. Strangely, they trust his seemingly occult knowledge. On that not quite conscious level, they too feel touched by the strands, the subtle movements of change, the ripples on the breeze. Not all prayers are answered. Not all needs are fulfilled. Tragedies often come to pass, unaverted. This is not one of those. Sometimes there is a miracle. Powerful, subtle forces converge. We can feel that electricity playing among our circuits. Not all storms bring destruction. Rain, wind, electrical release, can bring potent healing. Caela feels a beautiful storm brewing. She stands open to the elements, ready for their guidance in the ways of power. The forest, proud of its consort, sings into the wind and rain, rejoicing in storm and song. Unnumbered flowers await blooming. What a beautiful day! nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Tue, 23 May 2017 13:44:37 +0000 Caela's Story #34https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17484,from=rss#post17484https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17484,from=rss#post17484Opening that sharing place in her mind to full sensitivity, Caela feels bathed in totality of loving joy, bliss. All the busy interplay of forest life flutters through her senses. Not so much walking as dancing in that interplay, she partakes of life's daily rituals. It is a brief, though eternal, idyll. A human voice not her own, but one now well recognized, falls like thunder into her peaceful reverie in forest time. It is the boy who called her here, his own mind, not the forest's allegory. He is somehow physically nearer, though still at some distance. Perhaps she has been moving with purpose, closer to his situation. It is not her mind he set out to link to. She is an accidental recipient, along with the intended ones. The story he relays tells her that in the greater scheme this accidental receiver is exactly the person required by that situation. Currents are crossing, lives in the balance. The boy, Lukin, his story, sifted out from what he relays from his grandfather to the other children, his family. They were more comfortable sharing this information in a manner avoiding the wrong people's overhearing. Not sure how or why she was let in on these family secrets, Caela delved deeper into Lukin's memories. She felt no resistance, despite his clear alert cunning in the face of danger. "We both know I am not dangerous. It is understood that I am here as ally." Caela listened and took in the background of her original calling into the forest by this child caught up in more than he could clearly comprehend. Caela, from her vantage point outside the maelstrom, could apprehend the bigger picture. The children had been sent, under cover of subterfuge, to a sort of uncle, Toriv, a witchfolk teacher of the young. Their parents were being hunted down malevolently, essentially for thought crime. Guilty of the wrong kind of identity, of hiding their guilt. Conspiracy. Cover-up. Making authorities in control of terrible power feel like fools. Yet, it is the quiet power of these frightened, pitiful few that those in authority fear to the point of demanding extermination. A real mess these kids have been thrust into. Now they have word from Lukin's grandfather, Merin, with whom he has maintained a mind link, that the adults in question, himself included, have been arrested. No further help can be expected for these forcibly abandoned children from their forcefully incarcerated kin. The forest is complicit. These children must be aided. While Toriv may be a good man, he is too much an innocent, caught up in too much that he can not understand. His education has been more in ideals than practicalities. He has allowed himself to be sheltered from truly harsh experience. He has been foolish enough to see his disappointments as tragedies. Faced with so much more drastic circumstances and consequences, he is but another frightened child. Does Lukin, the young leader of his small troop of frightened children, possess and pass on these insights about Toriv? The forest somehow amplifies Lukin's mind for her. It has a stake in this meeting and outcome. Caela, beloved, healer, has intertwined missions to accept and follow through. This is a time of crisis. A point of stress built up of forces now converging offers unique opportunities. For abiding consciousness, preparing, alert to rumbles and shiftings that foretell action available to outside direction, this is a sacred occasion. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Mon, 22 May 2017 14:39:06 +0000 Caela's Story #33https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17483,from=rss#post17483https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17483,from=rss#post17483So welcome to be undivided, safely within forest consciousness. Feeling every experiential frame falling into place, blending. Light, airy viscosity, like breathing bliss, in, out, all around, a solid-liquid-ethereal state in which thought, movement, awareness is fluid, unset in form, actively adapting, expecting only what is. "I am actively adapting. I am whole as solution, dissolving while redefining, in all ways an accumulating summing, of perceptions, cognitions, interweavings." Revelatory impressions rippling through, Caela walks in a foreground shaped by her background, steps interacting with ground, skin interacting with all the migratory molecules, movement as a whole system, within wider wholes, spiraling cycles, widening Caela's range of perceptions. "I am; and I expand and am expanded, with every interchange of breath, every synchrony of symbol and response, every crystallized moment merging into the next." And the next "I had to learn, to teach myself carefully, who is this I, my private self, my separate consciousness. I had to keep myself whole and pure, individualized. I needed to be me to hold on to my ability to work with my patients in pain, help their separate individual systems to heal after wounding. Of course I felt deep bonding, relationship, love. I could let go with Singer, fuse with his so familiar, so inextricable beauty. Even so, I knew: this is me, in pieces and their combined integrity. No mistaking others' cognitions for mine. Here, though, I am integrating with this other, this nonhuman consciousness, communicating in direct sensation on liminal planes of natural awareness. I as myself continues even as we expand through mutuality. Strongly self-identified, I embrace, assimilate, share beyond compassion. It is not so much a separation as a hyper-awareness. All these floating impressions, imparting graceful strands of wisdom, enhancing my tapestry. I praise the artist, consciously in awe of the art flowing through me. My multi-layered friend, I know you understand. Your comprehension is whole, absorption essential, active, taking nothing that is not enhanced and shared. How have I lived so long in your presence and never before known you at all? Singer only knew of you what you both needed to sing, a specified arrangement of love. He shared with me what I was willing to see, shared his music that was of his essence influenced by yours. I was busy, caught up in concerns of what was then here and now. You were not my concern. You lived as eternally, abiding, direct perception, without my conscious thought." Caela's human cognitive impressions work though perception's code, translating into a foreign tongue. Tasting her essence in flicking serpent-like strokes, thus pleasured, the forest releases its love. We know what and who we know. Love exists as grace, or not at all. "I am proud of being human, woman, tribal representative, individual being on my own. I am proud to know and be known by you, to feel this loving acceptance. I am amazed, awed, deeply gratified by your stories, the grandness of your beauty." Thus grows a beautiful friendship. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 21 May 2017 13:44:39 +0000 Caela's Story #32https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17482,from=rss#post17482https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17482,from=rss#post17482Another mother appeared, ghostly drifting in sudden mist. "Did you grieve for me?" It is Letta's spirit, a mother's love Caela has not felt since she was almost too young to remember it's sweet beauty. "I grieved for you while you still stood before me in strange imitation of life. I tried so hard to reach you. You would not be reached, would not respond, would not know me." Caela felt that grief again, a scarred old wound that could still throb when disinterred, angry, red, infected, long controlled into quietude. "You know I never meant to leave you. I never meant to betray our bond. As you say, my life ended long before my body died. I never knew it could happen that way. I never knew how to find my way back to you. It wasn't that I loved her more, no longer needed you. All love, all feeling, was lost from me. I had nothing to give, no way to receive. But, look at you. You give and take in more than anyone I have ever known. I am gifted with this chance to feel the love, pride, pure pleasure, in knowing what you, my precious daughter, have become." And she was gone, dissolved into the mist which itself dissolved into a sweet, brightly colored flowery glade. Caela stopped to smell the flowers, inhaling a heady mixture of scent memories. She sat, relaxing her weight against a broad tree trunk, letting her freely flowing tears water the landscape until she drifted off into a different consciousness. "Why do your people divide? Not just here and there, spatial separations, but even within? Mothers and children separate to expand living. Death separates, but renews -- feeding the whole. Yet your whole rebels, rejects connection. No, some connect. But not the whole, not seed to root to stem. Even a healer can still be divided. You have strong presence, strong awareness and integrity of self. You are separate from your kind, also because of your own conscious striving to wholeness of self. How is this? To what purpose? Feel your way along the division, healer. Can you weave it whole? See this spiral dance? Reattach your shadow as a companion of play, and dance so sweetly, so free, complete in every movement, every moment, in living embrace of music vibrating eternally. These are your pictures, your words, imbued with that which is love calling between us." As other loves had implanted their brightly precious cuttings through Caela's being, she now accepted this growing loving friendship with sentience not of her kind, nor of the world her ancestors called home. What is home but where we learn to be and feel alive? nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sat, 20 May 2017 14:36:21 +0000 Caela's Story #31https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17481,from=rss#post17481https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17481,from=rss#post17481It was Singer. Really him. If this is a dream, it is a real dream, more real than the dreams of ordinary awake life. He had always loved this natural world. It was part of him; he part of it. Perhaps she was called because of that of Singer which was in her. Now he is here so I can touch him, even if in the way of dreams. Why is one significant touch so powerful, so deeply held in the realm of essential desire? Caela doesn't question. She drinks in that essence so immediate, so necessary. She dreams so intensely, as if lives were in the balance. When the rain comes, it is warm and gentle enough to meld into her dream. Here she was, a great-grandmother. Felicity's oldest, Solia, had had her baby just a few seasons past. Still, her heart was that of a passionate young lover. This forest, so far from human, seemed to understand and take joy in her. She felt welcomed as long wandering kin, with so much to catch up on. As she walked again in the sunshine, she openly shared her memories as the forest, too, shared its stories. They found common nonlinear, nonlingual, imaginal, perceptual language. Was this how it had been in that mythical garden of Earth, the Eden for which this planet had been named by human invaders? Was there a time in the early history of man when he and the Earth had been companiable kin? Could that kind of relationship be formed here, now? Could there be a reconciliation, a healing? What is this primal wound that keeps humankind from wholeness, integration with life? Caela has no reason to leave this forest. She can make a home here. She can make a new kind of life within this friendship she is forging. She misses her old friends, family, as she thinks of them, remembers their presence. Here in this forest she has found a reuniting with spirits of those she had thought lost to death. She found that something most meaningful of them living joyfully within her. She knew when she entered this forest that she was saying good-bye to those she was leaving behind. Something of them too lives in her, carried with her, wherever she finds herself. Young furry creatures playing, chasing each other, tumbling, acting out ferocity that disarms itself with chittering laughter, reminds Caela of the children she left behind. The ones she raised were now children long ago. Larik has become a fine young man. Though quiet, preferring solitude to society, he enjoys his life tending to his companion animals and plants on his mother, Maea's small family farm. The other young people living in what has been expanded from Maris's old homestead, as well as those older folks he has always known as family, love and respect him for exactly who he is. Caela no longer has regrets about Larik, the circumstances and her part in how he was born. Their time together gave them both what they needed to grow strong, to heal, to learn to be more because of who they had been, where that had taken them. Yet, Solia, without those scars, was her own unique wonderfully alive young woman, adored and cherished by all who knew her. She had always been that magical, blessed child, even more so than that enchanting Felicity, her role model mom, had always been. Teren, quietly calm, shiningly creative, strong, magical, loving, had been such a perfect complement to Felicity's willful insouciance. Solia was their perfect blend. Yeah, yeah, everyone has their faults. That stipulated, faults can often be the most endearing of what our loved ones see in us. Spiteful moments, bouts of vanity or self-pity, the occasional tantrum or thoughtless hurtful remark is easily subsumed into a generally remarkably lovely character. Caela brags to her forest friend, showing snapshots from the family album she carries within. They are mothers, together sharing the joy and mystery of life. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Fri, 19 May 2017 15:05:52 +0000 Caela's Story #30https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17480,from=rss#post17480https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17480,from=rss#post17480"Did you grieve?" A grey solitary ghost came forward with open palms, tears dripping down her cheeks, thin, wan, faint, but with intense presence. The forest became a sanctuary, a shrine, a temple of worship and sacrifice. A dark pit slowly manifested, a well for sorrow. Each ghost contributed tears, wrenching sobs, wailing, whatever they could give. Caela felt herself dancing around the pit, drawn irresistibly into the music of ghostly crying. Coming into her notice, she saw her longed for long dead loved ones among the ghosts, crying with her over her loss. Slowly, hypnotized, she moved toward their circle. They embraced her, an ectoplasmic affirmation of love, dispelling sorrow. But what of those other wounded spirits? How could they be helped? Were Caela's deeply embedded wounds so easily healed; or was this uplifting but part of an ongoing process? If we can be ever moving in the direction of healing, no matter how slowly, Caela was thinking. Silently smiling in the center of the pain, wonderful gifts of lives leaving those behind forever better because of the beauty imparted into who we become. When we can let go of the pain and be the totality of who our interchanges and experiences have created, will that be a new kind of wholeness? Could this tentative resolution be useful to the forest's spirits? The well of sorrow metamorphosed into a peaceful pond in which graceful gliding silvery creatures glinted in the sunlight. Caela sat upon a convenient large smooth stony surface enjoying the solitude and warmth. Yet, how strange, she was not alone. A self-possessed child, bright and lively, mature for his years, sat beside her. His image wavered a bit when she looked more closely. She could hear him speaking, though he appeared to be silent. "What was taken from us is still being taken. How can we reconcile, heal, absorb to grow, when our energy must focus on defense against pernicious, chronic attack? Our enemies have not been dissuaded by stoic resolve nor peaceful co-existence. They want blood sacrifice. They are angry beyond reason, calling forth such emotion in we who feel so poignantly a need to arise, take back what we can." This was the voice that had called her into the forest, into this newly forming relationship offering new ways of perceiving. The boy was gone, not waiting for an answer. He had given his message. Their people are still being attacked. The exile solved nothing. Had all the witchfolk been rooted out, wouldn't others with some articulable difference be set apart as scapegoat, blood sacrifice? Does disregard of indigenous life come from a same core of xenophobic disdain? A cognitive confusion of anger, fear, manifesting desire for mastery, control, superior positioning? Back to walking, these puzzles her companions, ghosts dissipated in the sunlight while Caela's focus is more inward. Why would xenophobes travel so far? Was there nothing left on Earth for them to claim? Or was it the children of the pioneers, born into a less clear purpose, into a world still not their own? Caela's eyes were drawn to the only sky she had ever known. Brilliant with colors of the setting sun filtered through atmosphere, shape-shifting clouds showing off in deepening hues. Caela stopped her forward motion, turning her purpose to preparing for the night. For a passing moment she considered that she had no recollection of how many days and nights had passed while she and this ancient forest renewed and deepened their acquaintance. Then, back in the gentle flow of this time, she continued her rituals of preparation. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Thu, 18 May 2017 16:26:15 +0000 Caela's Story #29https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17479,from=rss#post17479https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17479,from=rss#post17479Resigned sadness permeated Caela's mind. It was not hers. She was happy, buoyant, enjoying the scents, the sounds, colors, sensory bliss, her own good company. She felt compassion for the sadness, but did not carry its weight. She did not feel resigned. Her blood felt wild within, her mind sharp and questing. Readying to meet any challenge, outmaneuver any obstacle, fully enjoy each next thing, still she listened. Hearing the stories, envisioning that imagery, Caela felt their desperate shadows. As when Larik was small, confused, angry because he did not know how to respond to frustration, Caela felt love. Flowing through her response to angry visions was loving calm, gentle acknowledgement, glad acceptance, open embrace. Larik always so wanted to be good. He needed constant reassurance. Is that what provides the resilience to face down obstacles to integrity? The deeply cried out for reassurance that, yes you are good and deserve that recognition? So much of the "bad" young people do is naked self-destruction, proving to the world what they have been told: that they are bad, undeserving of respect or real love. Larik was born into horrendous fear, grief, despair. He had no way of knowing these were not his fault until Caela made that clear. It came from what she had learned raising his mother, along with her own daughter. Maea was so much more needy than Felicity. Mirra and Doren didn't understand her the way Caela could. They were still too caught up in their own childhood dramas, recreating in their adult relationships the conditions to fulfill needs never acknowledged. So complicated, so tragic in large and small ways these misunderstandings, disregardings, minimizing of the importance of respect, consideration, for those we do not fully see. Caela has been practiced, tried by fire in her own way. Opening her heart to these long festering injured spirits, bespeaking her in their desperation to be heard, feels natural, an outgrowth of who she has always been becoming. The forest and its spirits accept her love. They love her in return, not as a representative of her kind, but as her own unique entity. The seed growing in her since her birth is flowering. Multiple gradations of coloration, complex heady perfume, this flower, this Caela, is as beautiful as they come. Human hag, old, wrinkled, grey, yet what she projects transcends such definitions. Walking, traversing light and shade, consciousness as well moves. First cause, first principle: keep moving. "Something vital was taken from us. We don't know how to respond. We are wounded, unwhole. Tell us, healer, how do we reconcile? How do we grow new hearts, neural pathways, create what we need to feel alright?" A common theme so may of the ghosts agreed on. Caela too felt severing losses that had overwhelmed her, wrenched away good lives, those she most depended upon. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Wed, 17 May 2017 15:32:57 +0000 Caela's Story #28https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17478,from=rss#post17478https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17478,from=rss#post17478They had assembled in ghostly presence, those from early memory who had walked with her through this forest. These spirits had not aged as the bodies that had carried them did over years in the human environment formed in the soft divide of this vast woodland natural to this world. So many of these she had traveled with were gone now. Yet here they appeared to her shifting in guises from that previous time in their lives. Shifting positions, faces, garments, props, several of these dream ghosts bespoke her, as if acting out a morality play, vagabonds in the woods begging for favor. The ground around her shifted as well, quaking, dream sand turning quick, sticky, flimsy, unstable. Yet she was not falling through, but with this slow-motion molten panorama. Voices, figures fashioned of old friends, memories, and memories of what had never manifested past fears and dreams, continued their performances into changing scenes. Too amazed and swept up to notice fear or her own reactions, Caela dreamed unlike any dream she had known before. "Somebody called me. Was it you?" she asked of each ghostly presence. They all had their stories. These became a song of endless verses. When she awoke with the morning light, Caela was still singing. The feelings evoked by the dream lingered. Still dreaming, she resumed walking, perceiving multi-layered forest imperceptibly interweaving with the many layers Caela had never realized she contained. Or was it the forest bespeaking her? She felt drawn to shiny succulent fruits when her thirst needed slaking. Their dripping nectar gave not only moisture but renewed energy. When she needed rest, she felt drawn to securely comforting soft vegetation. She found herself frequently accompanied by soft, chittering creatures, droll and endearing, somehow leading her into wordless conversation. Her human ghosts too had their say, quietly, whispering barely discernibly in the shadows. Far from frightening or unwelcome, these gentle, often changing companions amused Caela, engaged her attention, set off trails of reveries. "Tell me." she whispered in return. Not dreaming, but seeing in a way that accessed unexplored places in her mind, Caela's rhythmic movement, her very open senses, her willing acceptance of mystery, was rewarded. "I was a tailor. I measured fabric, repaired treasured garments. I was not a monster. Mostly I was generous and kind. Not always. I still regret yelling so angrily at my little daughter when she scrambled my buttons and clasps in innocent play. I should have made a game of sorting them out together. But they sent us away, tore us from our hard-won through diligent working lives. Not because we may have been at times unkind or foolish, but just because we were." Caela felt the memory of tears. "But you found another life." She wanted to give comfort. "But it was not the life I wanted, worked for, chose over my years of childhood to give my devotion. I found another life out of necessity. I never found justice for the life taken from me." The forest too had life taken from it without its choice. The small clearing her people had taken was not such an issue. Of course over time and human ideas of progress it could become much worse, like the city. When the settlers first arrived, they took over only small areas, as the witchfolk did now. They took only what their several hundreds needed for continued life. They were careful, not knowing what to expect. Now they have claimed ownership of everything within their range of sight, as if by natural order. Perhaps it is the natural order. There they are. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Tue, 16 May 2017 15:02:29 +0000 Caela's Story #27https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17477,from=rss#post17477https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17477,from=rss#post17477Old man rabbit feels the call. He is not so spry nor sharp of sight as he once was. It is good that he is called; better than the young ones with much life and potential still in them. Old man rabbit is not afraid. More curious than anything, "What is this will that calls me? I am a rabbit, burrowing in the earth, gnawing on roots, nibbling on leaves, ever wary of the predator in all his mighty forms. I am quick and sensitive, enough, while I am lucky, to survive and become old -- too old to count on luck everlasting. I have never felt a call such as this, overtaking a will I had not been aware of possessing. What is an old man rabbit to do? Thought is a foreign concept. Action, reaction, that’s what I do. An overwhelming power pulls me closer. Without thought or emotion, I follow the pull. Am I to be eaten by a mighty foe? That is, no doubt, my destiny. I am to be honored by assimilation into the great mystery of life eternal. In this way, prey becomes predator, becomes mulch, falls back into the cycle, becomes the essence of life." "Come to me old man rabbit. I call you, with deepest respect, to offer me your lifeforce that I may continue to have the strength necessary for my mission. I enwrap you in a happy, peaceful dream as your life recedes. I consume your remains with reverence, feel the essence of your sacred sacrifice.” Thus Caela bespoke the creature in their conjoined fields of consciousness, binding it to her will. A special kind of hunter, conjuring the prey into view, into giving itself to her need. A very special power must be tempered with love, compassion, humility. It is well that such power be discovered in a time of liminal contemplation, that it be honored and addressed appropriately. It would not do to be overtaken by fear or bravado, or a desire for self-aggrandizement. All of this Caela understood as she sat there, in what seemed the beginning of the world, in a state of reverence and awe. She prepared and ate the old rabbit. It took a bit of cooking covered by wet leaves on stones in the fire pit. It was clear to her that what she had gained from this lesson was much more than a full stomach or added strength and vigor. It was clear that her strength and will, her gift, were much stronger, subtler, more powerful than she had dared to imagine when she had lived as part of a bustling community. It was clear that this knowledge was now being revealed so that she could hone her skills for the adventure ahead. Whatever was to fall across her path to be overcome, this time alone, learning the ways of her spirit, would surely give her the skills and confidence to do what she must. Replenished, Caela watched the last performances of flame as the fire consumed what wood it had been given. Darkening forest, ebbing, flames, tired body ready to sleep. She found her way back to a nearby sheltered grove noted in her earlier brief exploration. Having improved it for her purpose in rudimentary fashion, Caela lay down upon the soft forest floor and relaxed into dreams. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Mon, 15 May 2017 14:38:46 +0000 Caela's Story #26https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17476,from=rss#post17476https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17476,from=rss#post17476First, find food. There is water running in the narrowing/widening stream she can hear and smell. Water is water, pure without pollutants. Minerals are minerals. This planet seems to be pretty much of the same kinds as Earth. We have lived here all these years unpoisoned. Caela's people had dug wells to make use of the water in underground springs. They had devised irrigation for their plants. They had lived all their lives with, more and more as part of, this land, this sky. After food, find a place to sleep of soft mosses, grasses, loam, dry enough, secured enough from rain and other detriments to sleep. Simple survival, basic building blocks of communication life to life in those simple, basic demands of biology. Caela stopped walking; sat in the curve of an old gnarled tree. Listening intently, reaching out from a primal place in her mind into the teeming, pulsing life surrounding her, she drew it in with her breath. Very still beyond rhythmic breathing, she sat for a small arc of eternity. Heightened awareness to all sensory data without intrusion of conscious thought, Caela was finding her rhythm, the tune, the music of forest life with which she could improvise, sit in, sing along. When he was till quite small, Larik had found and brought to her a sharp, jagged rock of clear, hard crystal. Over time she had found it to be a useful tool for digging, cutting, grinding herbs, even focusing sunlight to start tinder burning. She kept it in a pouch tied to the woven belt around her waist (a more recent gift, from Maea now settled into Grandmother Maris's legacy). Had she not this fortuitous, familiar tool she no doubt would have found what she needed, made plans around what she found, for foraging. No doubt her crystal ally had originated in another part of this forest. Thus Caela amused herself with thoughts on the vagaries of fortune while digging a fire pit, arranging stones, tinder, various widths of fallen branches which she broke down to appropriate size. Making preparation, not far from the stream. Moving through these purposeful actions as if in meditative ritual, Caela felt herself getting caught up in a quietly graceful dance, each movement blurring into the next. Bright sun star shining into rippling water, trees standing their ground as branches play with breeze, rustling scratching chirping squeaking creatures playing out their destinies, dramas, simple cycles of life. Caela discovering while creating her way in, feeling satisfaction in this expression of her consciousness, carrying water on broad leaves from stream to pit site, becoming hunter-gatherer natural human being. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 14 May 2017 14:56:01 +0000 Caela's Story #25https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17475,from=rss#post17475https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17475,from=rss#post17475Into the Woods At first she walked without thought, mind caught up in languageless reverie, body exquisitely attuned to every sound, scent, touch of living plant against her skin. Feet and arms bare to ground and air, though toughened by years of work and exposure, Caela moved into this landscape bare of expectation. Scurrying, hiding creatures, peering out curiously slowly came to understand that she could be safely ignored. Walking into a rhythm in tune to the forest sounds, she could feel the music. She could feel completely alive, a creature in this natural world without guide, constraint, responsibility or companionship of human kind. Not thought, instantaneous realization of another level of being outside of society, inside the ecology of the forest. There is a restfulness to shedding roles. There is an energy that comes from rhythmic movement, a relaxation from moving in tune to the natural music of the moment. Habituated ways of sensing, of perceiving, of thinking can silently fall away. Without preformed valuations, what is speaks for itself. A few smaller Earth mammals, originally brought as embryos on the ship, then propagated on farms, had escaped, gone wild, mutated to better fit in to their new world. Earth food stock in seed and embryo form had been sent on the ship in case Earthmen might find the local lifeforms inedible or lacking in needed nutrients. There had been hydroponic gardening on the ship for fresh vegetables, and, perhaps, to keep food growing skills fresh as well. Farming in Eden's soil had presented no problem for the plants growing from Earth seed or the people and Earth animals eating them. It was even found that grazing Earth animals could find sufficient nutrition in the local flora. Still, suspicious humans preferred their own food stock to foraging. Caela would need to eat in the forest. She must learn where useful, nonpoisonous to her body, sustenance could be obtained. She needed to learn to speak with the forest, learn its language. This seemed to her, on a level beyond conscious thought, the most obvious next link in the chain from here to there. She remembered Singer's love of the forest, the music he found and co-created there. After all, it was the same forest, as far as the forest was concerned, a bit further north. She could find Singer's presence within her, reassuring, loving, telling her to love this forest, his friend. She could also feel chilly ghostly energies, the pain, the fear, the intense emotion of her people's journey that this forest had never assimilated into its own abiding wisdom. She could feel, sense, become a conduit, student, and awed participant with all of these energies ready to interweave into something she could accept and carry. But not yet; this journey is only beginning. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sat, 13 May 2017 15:29:22 +0000 Caela's Story #24https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17474,from=rss#post17474https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17474,from=rss#post17474Lukin and Merin knew what Sira knew. Anxious since his exile to the academy, Lukin has been monitoring his mother's progress and anxieties. Lukin and Merin had been developing a meeting of minds. Smart, shrewd and meticulous in his knowledge, like his grandfather, Lukin had not the years of idolatry and indulgence to mar the clarity of his vision. Merin, shaken out of his self-obsession by the seriousness of their immediate peril, could still indulge in grand pride for his grandson's gifts. Merin, for all his grandiosity, had never even considered the kind of distant and multi-leveled mind to mind communication that came so easily to Lukin, developed with the extended cousin network but originating with Lukin's own natural talent. In times like these, when normal methods of communication are far too open to surveillance, Lukin's talent was made to order. There's some kind of saying: When the student is ready, the teacher will come. Perhaps when the times require it, the talent will come. The Harmonic Academy, being a somewhat wealthy, prestigious facility at this point in its history, had an arrangement with a farm not too far south of the city, to provide fresh produce and such. Part of the agreement involved periodic field trips so that young students might experience the bucolic realities of food production. Fortuitously, such a field trip was scheduled in the not too distant future, just before the end of term school vacation period. Even more fortuitously, Merin had several former students who had formed a conscious experimental community down in farm country. South of the city, several families had decided to make their own way, thank you, outside of restrictive city laws. They produced the food necessary for all those city folk in return for high profits and an unspoken agreement that they were to be left alone. To the east of the farm lands, outside the arable zone, were the military/police academy and barracks. This school of martial arts and military discipline was the original City Council's solution for useful deployment of aggressive youthful energies that could not be adequately addressed within the city frame. Once properly disciplined, indoctrinated, these otherwise troublesome youth became excellent enforcers of city civility, or if not tame enough for that, excellent prison guards out east. On occasion farm folk and police cadets would find commonality in raucous celebrations or simple conversation while gaming or otherwise socializing. Mostly, each group kept to itself, that being part of their misfit natures. Of Merin's merry band of misfits now farming in the south, one was quite familiar to Lukin. Toriv had been an uncle to him for the years Toriv had been with Jenia. He now apparently ran a school for the kids of his community and others of the farm land who wanted to attend. He had a son a bit older than Kesia called Kirin who lived at the school with him. Merin might not mind-talk over distances, but he had plenty of other sources of information. Those would not be of help now. They needed to make contact with the farm folk and arrange for shelter for seven witch kids about to find exile preferable to the likely alternatives. Lukin reached into his memory to find what he knew of Toriv's mind. Reaching into a familiar, inarticulable process in his own mind, Lukin created a conduit. Before long, he was there, feeling Toriv's presence questioning: "Is someone there?" Not sure of what level of "voice" he needed to negotiate the distance and unfamiliar with the mind he was sending to, unlike the familial children he was accustomed to, Lukin considered the situation. Anyone who picked up on his message would be by definition of their kind, on their side. Keeping it simple, direct, an opening volley, Lukin called to Toriv: "Help! We need your help. We are of your kind; and we need you." Soon Lukin felt the response he was seeking. Toriv, sending a clear signal of willing agreement, asked what was needed of him. Thus, the conversation proceeded. The pertinent information was exchanged, along with planning for continued dialogue as the venture should solidify, move forward. Lukin's pleas also reached another whose response was much less direct. Like a melody carried from some far off transmitter, Caela felt the call as she stood, mind open to the breeze, at the edge of the forest. It was a call that carried some element of distant past completely caught up in the immediate now. Caela felt something of a destiny calling, perhaps from her future. She walked into the forest because it was the next obvious thing to do. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Fri, 12 May 2017 16:29:06 +0000 Caela's Story #23https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17473,from=rss#post17473https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17473,from=rss#post17473Kesia, Jenia's little girl, was growing to be a quietly thoughtful, loving child. Her intense temper and stubborn streak melted at any thought that she might be causing pain. As for Sira's project, eventually there would be papers to file, fees to pay, a campaign to run. Long before any of that could be of any use, she knew she must take a long time building up information, supporters, a clear plan flexible enough for contingencies. Most importantly, she needed to take the time to build up a reputation for being the kind of strong representative on whom voters could count to promote their interests. She has been thinking, talking about respect, appreciation. “It's not that people don't want to make reasonable compromises when they harden into set positions. They want their positions respected. They want voiced and palpable appreciation for what they choose to give.” Merin and Vika were proud of Sira's gumption, and did what they could to promote her cause with those among whom they had influence. The whole family felt proud, excited, somehow solemnly touched, each doing what they could. The seven children of this extended family, Lukin, Tela and Kesia in their city home, Noria, Serg, Safa and Tamis at the academy, were developing among themselves their own secret network to share, comfort, inform, bolster each other through the dramas and changes of their seemingly accelerating lives. The grown-ups were busy, did not need to know and possibly forbid or be concerned. It is good that they have their silent support system. It is good that they grow learning clearly, deeply, certainly, who they each are, how they can best collaborate. It wasn't that Sira was naive. How could she be with all her worldly experience? To some extent she was sheltered. Always surrounded by loving family, often knowing the joy of making them proud, had left her mental defenses against conscious opposition flimsy at best. She had long known how to get her way so graciously that none would find offense. She was so caught up in her inspiration and ambition to do very good for very many. She knew that there might be obstacles, stubborn loyalties to the status quo, countering ambitions of opponents, mistakes in planning, misunderstandings to watch out for and be made right. She did not, stupidly, plan on the opposition being so mean, so vicious, so entrenched, sneaky, or no holds barred. It was hard on them all. Kesia was so proud of being a big girl, going to school. She was not prepared for this greater world in which she was not automatically beloved. Due to the trickle down of incomplete information, children thinking they knew of some fault in her family teased Kesia unmercifully. She was used to silly sparing with her extended cousins at home and several miles away. She shot back the most nasty imagery she knew, not realizing the effect she would have on these children. Frightened children told frightened parents who prevailed upon frightened authorities. Sira was all damage control commander. The kids got dropped off to stay with Merin and Vika at the academy to keep them out of harm's way. Sira put together a media blitz campaign showing her opponents to be using scare tactics to hide their own serious crimes of corruption. She personally calmed the local parents, children, teachers, using her special charm to move their fears into the realm of hyperbole easily released with some well placed jokes. The kids knew they were being mean, that they did so out of irrational fear, that they overreacted to Kesia's tantrum out of guilt. They understood it all once Sira explained so warmly and clearly. Perhaps it would all be ok. Sira, finally, knew better. The family would have to come up with a plan to take the kids someplace more anonymous and safe than regally flamboyant Merin's lair. She could feel rumors already spreading about those weird academy people related to Sira and Reag. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Thu, 11 May 2017 15:38:52 +0000 Caela's Story #22https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17472,from=rss#post17472https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17472,from=rss#post17472Toriv thought about Jenia, reaching out for a familiar comforting presence. What he felt was icy fear and raw, searing pain that did not originate with him. Well, maybe, in a very tenuous sense of effects and causes, his behaviors were in the mix. She was sad, at a loss for self-comforting, depressed over their loss, over feeling that her life was going nowhere, over not being good enough. Not fully aware of her surroundings in the immediate here and now in a sometimes unruly neighborhood, she was ill-prepared to protect herself. There were too many of them, too muscularly advantaged. She blasted out fear, rage, warnings of danger, but they were already too angry, keyed up, lost in chaos, to much care about the added pain her mind impinged on theirs. Later they would remember, talk about that weird witchy bitch, add to the rumors. Maybe, had she been trained, or even experienced in broadcasting her energy and imagery, they might have been dissuaded, turned away from prey too difficult for easy pickings. Instead, she had been trained, even pre-birth, in restraint, staying hidden, meek acceptance. Sira felt her sister's agonized screaming, found Jenia torn, bleeding, battered, trying to drag herself home. Reag felt Sira's screaming and came running; they carried Jenia home, tended to her wounds. When Jenia realized she had conceived a child, despite her family's very real concerns for her, and her realistic concerns for herself, she knew she wanted the child in her life. It was a clear, fierce bond even before this baby was much more than an idea. Sira, after her initial worry, completely supported her sister. Soon this new child became another layer of their family life. As the child slowly yet inexorably grew within Jenia, an idea was slowly growing to obsess Sira, teasing her in reverie long before it was consciously formed. She wanted to, believed she could, get elected to the City Council. In a very small way this was tied up in her desire for her people to have more power, a basis for respect that would allow them to be openly who they were. After all of her years of experience in hiding this part of herself from the official world, she didn't actually believe her efforts would get them there. Much more immediately importantly, she wanted to help to shape a better set of policies, better governance, for all the people she felt she could represent responsibly. She wanted to help empower an active citizenry, to help create a better city with so much less fear and hatred. She wanted to clean out the ugly emotions permeating too many squalid city streets so nobody need have their lives overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness, oppression, helpless rage. Sira had always been the responsible one, smart, strong, brave, caring, reliable. She had early on taken charge of sweet, dreamy Jenia, seeing how hopeless their parents seemed to be. To a large degree these sisters had formed each other, raised each other to be as they had become. They each felt strengthened, encouraged, by the other. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Wed, 10 May 2017 16:17:57 +0000 Caela's Story #21https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17471,from=rss#post17471https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17471,from=rss#post17471Reag, Sira and crew enjoyed frequent visits with Merin and Vika. Neris too taught at the academy and had her own ménage not far from her parents' family home and playground of idealists and their ideas. Pera, another former academy student of the group who grew their minds and ideals in Merin's salon along with Reag and Sira, had moved in with Merin and Vika. Her daughter, Noria, was close to Lukin in age. In their developing friendship, Lukin and Noria secretly stayed close in mind over distance to share private jokes, consolations, working out together puzzles and curiosities in their lives. It was for them a game and a comfort in a confusing world. No one outside the inner circle knew Noria was in fact Lukin's aunt, Reag's half-sister, one result of Merin and Vika's exploration of polyamory to boost the witchfolk's possibilities of progeny and future. Neris and Sebia, lovers since their teen years, not outgrowing their experimental young crush, had taken into their fold another of Reag and Sira's crowd, Jal, who happily served to father the so far three youngsters of that household. Sebia’s son, Serg was only slightly younger than Noria and Lukin. His half-sisters, Neris's girls, Safa and Tamis, were one a bit older, one a bit younger, than Tela. Merin was jolly about his pater familias role. Vika, typically, enjoyed the constant high drama and turning it all to farce at the appropriate moments. "The fun never ends while we enjoy the play," she liked to say. Not the best people to go to for a reality check, they were always happy to argue any proposition, brainstorm up a gale, love and support without reservation, point out the structural flaws of any proposal while offering creative alternatives. Lesa had been another of the old academy crowd (or would that be young academy crowd, now older?) who had stayed to teach the younger kids coming in. Back in the transitional times, when the confused youngsters who didn't know what to make of their standard schooling were the prime customers, needing her patient care, Lesa felt fulfilled. She was where she belonged. But where she was was changing. Toriv had been her friend for, well, forever, from their own early academy days. He was somehow now part of Merin's extended family, and often about visiting the academy. After the miscarriage, he needed consoling. He needed a woman who could give him a child. Lesa needed to be needed. After he left Jenia, Toriv moved in with the Lesa, now the mother of his child to be, and picked up some classes teaching the younger kids at the academy as Lesa did. But the academy was changing. Lesa and Toriv had talked with others of their friends about a community that had been started down in the libertarian farm lands to the south. Looking for something to belong to, a way to make their mark and make a life with meaning, Toriv and Lesa moved south to start a school for children like their own within the still newly forming community of former city misfits. "You left little sister, but you're still trying to please great god Merin." Why had Lesa said this to Toriv? Back in their school days they had called Jenia "little sister." Reag was Merin's son, Sira his sidekick. Jenia was Sira's little sister, along for the ride. Merin was their hero, of course. Yes, he was here in this strange new pioneering way of life because of what he believed Merin was preaching. But she was being ironic, angry, because he did not show the courage of his convictions. He wanted his school, his traditional family. She wanted to join the mainhouse, be part of a brave new world. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Tue, 09 May 2017 18:38:05 +0000 Caela's Story #20https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17470,from=rss#post17470https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17470,from=rss#post17470Jenia's tragic miscarriage helped to sever her bond with Toriv, separate their lives. There was no fault, no blame. She turned to her more fortunate sister, by now mother of both a bright, caring, naturally responsible and mature little boy and a younger precious precocious marvelously charming little girl. Jenia enjoyed her niece and nephew, the comfort of her sister and brother-in-law's home, being family. Not enough, but enough for now, along with her if hectic and often frustrating inherently fulfilling work. It was a deep solace to her, sharing her knowledge and love of learning with the amazing children it was her privilege to teach. "Not just food and a roof," Sira was explaining. "People need dignity, respect, a feeling like we matter. We want something to believe in, to belong to, to hold sacred. It's not enough to have the basic biological necessities. That's only a small nugget of being alive, like an embryo. Unless that innate potential has its chance to be realized, there's not much reason to be born at all." She was working out these ideas, this logical progression, almost a political platform. It felt compelling, this desire to figure out what was wrong and how to right it. All these broken people, day after day, it was her job to help find strength to move forward. She often thought of it as working through the knots binding their potentials. More and more she could see so clearly that this was not a matter of individual failings to thrive, but systemic disease. If she kept working at the equations, cause and effect rationales, common denominators, kinks in the social fabric, perhaps she could discover appropriate treatments to apply. Her children, Lukin and Tela, touchstones and joys that anchored and expanded her life, were so young and vulnerable. Increasingly, every day, a deep and growing part of her demanded a better world for their future, as well as for hers and for everyone she loved. Love can be such an infinitely gentle and suffering thing. It can demand more than simpler emotions, much more than would make sense from a standpoint of survival. Sira stealthily plants within herself, without her conscious knowledge, a seed of political ambition. For politics at its core and best is the art and science of moving the vectors of social change. Meanwhile, back at the Harmonic Academy, small stage social evolution moved at a different pace. The school was no longer seen so much as an experimental answer for parents of nontraditional learners. It had become a well-loved learning community for students of expressive and performing arts. As such, a certain amount of social experimentation was expected, and therefore accepted. What a bunch of crazy artists do in their sheltered little school out, away from everyday decent living was just a colorful footnote to real life. Let the creative kids sow their oats and have their petite revolutions of the mind. They'll get straightened out by real responsibilities soon enough. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Mon, 08 May 2017 15:17:45 +0000 Caela's Story #19https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17469,from=rss#post17469https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17469,from=rss#post17469Outside of their formal schooling, Sira and Reag spent much time with Merin, and Reag's mom, Vika, also a teacher at the academy. Vika also wrote and directed plays performed by the students. Others of their students, as well as Reag's older sister Neris and her friends, were often about taking part in vociferous discussions and impromptu entertainments. Sira's younger sister, Jenia, soon became a regular there as well. It was not just the kids. Other teachers, even some of the parents, would drop by as schedules permitted. It was good that Merin and Vika had such a large lovely home just beyond the academy grounds in which to enjoy and entertain their many friends. At home Sira and Jenia were not so merry. Their parents' fear, and loathing of their subservient lifestyle, permeated the rooms, the walls. The girls were not cruelly treated. They were loved, cherished as the hope of a dearly desired future. It was the here and now, day to day, grinding away at aspirations, at any chance of joyful prosperity or even honorable integrity that made this home a little taste of hell. It was so good for Sira and Jenia that they had their school, their friends, their own growing lives. For some, with only mini-hells to build on, life at best is merely unbearable. Sira and Jenia are built of much more. They have the potential to build a future more suited to living than dreading. In the due course of time, Sira and Reag's magnetic friendship blossomed in the strong bath of maturing hormones, into true love. The idealism they imbibed in their academy garden of knowledge matured in Sira, Reag and Jenia into studies leading to caring careers. Reag and Jenia developed their loves of learning and children to find teaching positions in a neighborhood low in hope and ideals. Sira, strident and self-assured, found working with the troubled and disempowered rewarding when her efforts made a significant difference in more empowered and self-defined lives going forward. Reag and Sira found a large rambling home, full of character and charm, near their respective jobs at the high school and community center. They also found themsleves to be expecting parents. They were living an emotional high, giving them incredible energy necessary to maintain the activities underpinning their high emotions. Jenia and her young man, Toriv, primary teachers, had a cute little apartment nearby. The sisters, as close as ever, entwined lives, shared the excitement of the baby. Jenia and Toriv were hoping to have their own child as well soon. Their love of nurturing young children was a strong bond that had helped to bring them together. They were also concerned, it was a mostly unspoken but growing concern among their people, that their population was dwindling. After the devastating diminishment of the exile, the numbness of being so overwhelmed with emotion and the fearfilled introversion had been their major theme. Time and routines had mellowed that fashion of thought. Perhaps a group identity so maligned that it must remain a secret link shared by a secret few is in no position to demand continuation, survival as a kind. Perhaps assimilation into the accepted norm is the saner, ecologically sounder way to go. Jenia, Toriv, their friends and family, could never be convinced of that. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sun, 07 May 2017 15:25:18 +0000 Caela's Story #18https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17468,from=rss#post17468https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17468,from=rss#post17468Harmonic Academy's philosophy of encouraging a variety of learning styles and peaceful self-expression was a positive nurturing environment for children who might feel pressured by social stigmatization of any kind in their neighborhood lives. With gorgeous rolling grounds, just far enough north of the hub of the city to be out of the way, it was a wonderful world of play in which to grow. The witchfolk children knew not to shine, not to stand out, to get along enticing no comment. They knew which teachers they could trust to help them with academic or personal concerns. Out in the harsh eastern drylands, no one wanted to build their futures. Land more dust than loam, weeds more yellow bristly rough to the touch, creatures less shy, more mean, stinging angrily at whatever may disturb hard fought for and unforgiving territory. Sira had never been beyond the city to the east. She had been given warning images in her catechisms against careless disclosures. They might not exile someone like Sira if she should be fount out. They well might imprison her in horrible conditions, a much more viscerally palpable threat. It was in the harsh glaring sun of the unproductive east land that prisoners, pariahs from city justice, were sent for penitence. All societies need prisons, don't they? Time-out holes to hold the dangerous, or repositories for the politically and socially incorrect are hallmarks of civilization. Aren't they? Well, not in a community in which a wrongdoer is immediately hit hard with the emotional toll wrought; not where the governing structure is more libertarian than democratic and disputes are honored by settling them through well-argued compromise. It is easier, of course, to settle disputes and prevent the welling up of criminal intentions within small enough social confines so that all parties are mutually well known. Once factions set up against factions, arguments intractably settled into place, disputes become institutionalized, and so do the losers. Sira's favorite teacher, Merin, was secretly a historian among her people. He was also a learned historian of their colony planet and of the home world, Earth. He was generally a favorite among the teachers and students for his easy friendly, yet passionately fierce manner, the way he made what might seem difficult concepts so immediate and real, the way he readily listened and deeply appreciated what was said to him. His intense mental thirst had led him to acquire a broad range of knowledge which it was his great joy and privilege to share. That Sira's best friend, Reag, was Merin's son only added to her estimation of them both. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Sat, 06 May 2017 15:23:57 +0000 Caela's Story #17https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17467,from=rss#post17467https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17467,from=rss#post17467On the other side of the forest, beyond the open fields of the less socially enclosed, changes in situations and attitudes moved slowly. Of course they continued the long tradition of slowing enterprise through the perceived requirement that all must move through the viscous medium of money. Psychologically this tradition was beneficial to tamp down escalation of anxiety and panic known to accompany rapid change in a society founded on desires for stability, safety, clear and consistent rules of the road to a successful life. We did not come all this way, brave all this unknown and inconvenience, start from scratch in an alien wilderness, to accept anything less. Red brick roads. Centered in a park of verdant glory, a fountain statue of a mythical god of the sea. Bright colorful street lanterns shine bringing out the patterns of iridescent threads fashioned into clothing, flowing, open, light and merry. No one hungry except by choice for the experience. None without their cubicle, apartment, palatial estate. Comedies, tragedies, play out in street and theater. Venders sell their succulent or fanciful wares. This is a city self-consciously fulfilling the needs and ambitions of a people who strive to be worthy of the style and livelihoods they embrace. Earnest scholars comment upon every aspect of their cosmopolitan endeavors. Social commentators dumb it all down for easy access. Everybody knows what everybody knows. Everybody knows we all get along a whole lot better if everybody agrees to know only what we should. Not to say we don't happily indulge in heated debate and individual choice. It's just that everything has its proper place, that we may all fit securely in our urbane scene. Sira's parents had not even been born at the time of the exile. Their parents had been of the fortunate ones too unimportant to be pointed out, too meek and quiet to be concerned about. Really, there were lots of them. Being different only counts if you're seen as a threat. The mainstream folk are perfectly happy to have lesser empowered dweebs with embarrassing secrets to feel above. You, freaks, don't be threatening my position, my possessions, my profits, my popularity, and I just might let you go on your miserable way. Is that how it was? How it is? As her parents had been by theirs, Sira was warned, had bitterly sown into her earliest lessons in belief, don't be noticed. Don't let anybody know what you can do. This is inner family business, not for outside consumption. We are who we are; but no one else can know. In fact there were a rather large group of them. A very small percentage of a large number can still be a large number of ones and twos in a small world of who we know, those people we carry in our minds between meetings. Sira's friends at the academy, the private school they attended, were also of the secret society who could always know each other by reaching mind to mind. There was never need to speak of the secret aloud. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Fri, 05 May 2017 17:31:27 +0000 Caela's Story #16https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17466,from=rss#post17466https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17466,from=rss#post17466 You are always going back into the forest. It helped to form you, as did your father's seed, your mother's womb and milk. What forms us, becomes us, we must explore, if only in dreams or strange obsessions, or unnatural silence. Caela and Larik are quite a pair. Old and young, female and male, hyper-sensitive and numb to sensitivity, working out who they need to become in the cabin once a happy home to Caela, Singer and Felicity (with Maea and friends of the moment in tow). It naturally fell out that they be together. The boy who could not bond, could not fathom what was common to those around him, was bonded to Caela. She alone made sense to him. She had always been a part of who he was. Caela too felt a strong and special connection to this child. She also felt a need to find a way to heal him of the affliction resulting from a wound she also needed to heal within herself. Larik's mother, Maea, meanwhile, was having difficulties and unpleasant awakenings of her own. "He acts like I got pregnant on my own. Now it's all my situation to deal with. As if he had no part in it at all." Maea is speaking bitterly of Larik's father, Larn, whom she clearly still adores. He has shown considerably less interest in her since it started to become evident that she would be more of a drain than an energizing inspiration. It's not that he didn't care for her; but there are many for whom he feels great fondness. All are subservient to his brightly shining visions, his grand plans and their imperatives. It is not that he is any different from the man she has known him to be, loved him for being, all along. Yet she feels bitterly disillusioned. She has lost her anchoring, her way, her understanding of and belief in who she had thought herself to be. She no longer feels part of the House community. For awhile she tries staying with her parents, spending much of her time with Caela and Larik, attempting to be a family. It is clear that Larik greatly prefers Caela, is shy and confused around Maea. Mirra and Doren have become set in routines to which Maea feels an outsider. She feels their love; but Maea feels awkward when she needs to find a respite of serenity in which to reconnect to herself, discover where her next steps need to lead. Maea's grandmother Maris's place had been left behind, not too far from Jase's outpost, as building moved further outward. The house is surrounded by plenty of land for their grazing animals, crops for fiber, feed and food for the household (supplemented by trade). It was a large house, built onto over the years to accommodate people and projects. Maris and here older daughters, Arla and Cali, still kept up their busy textile workshop. Cali's longtime lover, Lilia, does her part as well, including her magnificently intricate and lovely embroidery to their bag of tricks. Lev, who has been living with Maris for decades now, assists with his carpentry, building equipment and furniture for the household and as part of their stock for trade. Always plenty of work for another pair of hands, and Maris informally takes in whoever wants to stay for as long as it all works out for them all. There is plenty of room in which to enjoy solitude, and plenty of companionship, easy-going or intense, depending on what one seeks. Caela comes around frequently with Larik. He likes the more private simple chores as he learns them, working with the animals and plants, away from the main farmlands of the community. His family knows not to pressure him, not to overwhelm him with expectations he has no ability to comprehend. Maea is getting better at dropping her own expectations for how life is meant to be. Less enthusiastically involved with Larn, though still sympathetic to his vision, Felicity and Teren now live in their cabin near the House with little Solia. Solia, beautiful entertaining, entrancing, cuddly imp, is their perfect muse. They are developing their own project, based on their combined talents. Felicity's knowledge of healing and Teren's experience with creative expression have given them ideas about exploring the realm of possible expressive therapies. Working with others who are excited about possibilities of working out personal issues, improving health and attitudes, getting more intimately in touch with their inner muses, they are figuring out together how their theories can best be turned to practice. A life expands into other lives, energies combining and recombining, creating human ecosystems. Like trees, each living through its own cycles within the cycles of the forest, we create our stories, our lore, our social networks.nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Thu, 04 May 2017 17:25:24 +0000 Caela's #15https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17465,from=rss#post17465https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17465,from=rss#post17465Contractions to crowning to birth, and Caela showing off their grandchild to Singer's tears of overwhelming joy. Felicity, after screaming her head off in amazingly colorful language, and otherwise expending her legendary energy in biological abandon, now is blissfully happy to let her mom and dad extol her virtues. She smiles, though wanly, at Teren, sharing this moment of deep satisfaction. New mother and baby daughter, Solia, trade in their well-earned exhaustion for sleep. Caela knows that where Felicity has gone, Maea won't be far behind. She too takes this opportunity to nap between birthings. Singer, with more emotional high than even he knew possible, makes for the woods to compose appropriately expressive song in collaboration with nature. She is certainly in a receptively collaborative mood, brewing up a storm. Loving the musicality of storm winds, driving rain, crashing thunder, cracking electricity, Singer exults. What a beautiful day! Maea's child, though clearly moving toward being born, has moved into an inappropriate position for ease in exit. Though not the norm, this situation is not one with which Caela is unfamiliar. She knows all it will take is intense concentration into this newly forming consciousness to guide the child into position. First casting an aura of calm through Maea to enhance relaxation, she calmly links to the baby, so gently he feels only the relaxed presence of mother love. Despite the wildly loud storm picking up outside, within the House all is secure. Deep crack of thunder and accompanying swath of light outside suddenly coincide with crashing painful agony so loud it reverberates throughout, it seems, the world. In an instant lives are shattered as one is lost, killed by the woods he loves. There is nothing but screaming, blinding pain. Caela can always feel it if she looks there. Maea, in shock and overload, suddenly freed from the woozy peace of Caela's ministrations, goes through the motions necessary to complete her separation from newborn Larik. He appears a healthy, if inconsolable, child. All his parts in their right places seem to be functioning as expected. Maea is in no condition to notice what is missing, her mind overtaken with Caela's silent screaming. Caela of course knows what is wrong with Larik. She was right there with him when the world exploded. She knows, but such knowledge, all knowledge, has been cordoned off from her consciousness. She is only conscious of great, wet pain, crushing into hard, damp ground, crushing out of breath and life. She is no longer alive. All the places throughout her being that have always been filled with Singer are gone. There is no more screaming. Larik was silent. Suddenly Maea knew. The bond was absent. That part in her people's minds capable of sending and receiving immediate perceptions, memories, raw emotion and emotional bonding, had been horribly wounded in Larik by the circumstances of his birth. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Wed, 03 May 2017 18:07:23 +0000 Caela's Story #14https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17464,from=rss#post17464https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17464,from=rss#post17464In the way of human destinies, it was not more than two seasons before Maea and Felicity were full of the wondrous news that they both were with child. Sharing their happiness with their parents in the superior manner of the young who seem to believe they have invented biology, they also share their courageous trepidation in the throes of new experience. Caela reassures them. This is just another adventure they will have together. Entering a forest only seems more courageous than entering life because of the illusion of choice. We hear a calling. That compelling cry will not cease without an answer, no matter how we may try to quell or override it. What we answer, how we comport ourself over the journey, that we may choose. That choice may still be illusion, but of the kind extolled as prophetic in dreams. Maea's paternal grandmother, Narda the historian, had been part of history herself. She had been one of a small council of negotiators sent to plead the case of what were called the witchfolk to a council of leaders from the city's government. The city leaders didn't want bloodshed on their watch. They wanted a peaceful, prosperous reign. It was concluded that the small minority population causing all this excitement by their existence in the city must be banished. No problem. This planet has plenty of land thus far free of humanity. The native creatures have not shown signs against encroachment in all these centuries since men began doing business in this enclave. Send them far enough from here that they become a distant memory, eventually not even that. No need to be cruel. The elderly and infirm can live out their days in their familiar homes. Certainly they can do no harm in the time they have left. But we can't allow the young and strong to have technological tools that might facilitate a future return or ongoing communication. The contract was made with the understanding that the witchfolk historians would remember and honor it, carry it forward to their historians to come. Being a small, out of favor, minority, they agreed to a contract of exile in return for freedom and life. Fearful as exile had been to those who lived it, for the younger generations it has become more of an opportunity. They have been born into a society with few overt rules and an appreciation of creative innovation. The basic, primitive material conditions, depending on their own muscles and skills rather than elaborate machinery, makes for immediate appreciation of good ideas. Larn had good ideas. He was idolized by his peers for his audacity of vision, and ambition. Maea is prouder than proud, higher than the stars, to be carrying their child. Felicity as well is (surprisingly, more quietly) glowing in that rapture of love and hormones. Felicity and Teren are so sweet together. Caela's heart pitter-pats to see them. They share a larger room in the House now, with an area they are preparing as a nursery. Family arrangements are flexible and fluid within the House. There are shared nursery and children's rooms for less unitary families. There is plenty of loving nurturing to go around. As Felicity and Teren become more closely bonded, though, they are talking about perhaps moving into a cabin near the House eventually. Right now they are comfortable where they are, busily involved in the House community projects. There is the theater, and the classes they teach, and the classes and workshops they attend. Of course there are still the farm chores on rotation and the day-to-day hands on with whatever those hands are being asked to do. Felicity and Maea know they can be called to accidents at any time. Then, Teren, like Felicity's father, Singer, seems to be compelled to irregular and unscheduled calls from the muse. nondisclosed_email@example.com (libramoon)Tue, 02 May 2017 22:25:53 +0000