• CRONE TALES

    THE CHANGELING IN THE FOUNTAIN, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    October 14, 2020 /

    The sea rages. Rather than fear any coming storm, you could fling open your every last window and door. That would make it easier for spirits or faeries or what-have-you to find you and take glorious hold. The Crone will explain more. Come, listen to the tale of her beginning. 

    It’s up to you to find what meaning you will.

     

     

    A faraway king heard tell of a maiden’s lovely face and wanted her for his own.

    The maiden read his letter of proposal and knew right away he fit her fancy. For he spoke of her being a queen wielding power to help everyday folk, and that sounded very good to her.

    Besides. No one else would have the beautiful maiden. Her parents had despaired of ever marrying her off.

    The maiden agreed to return with the king’s messenger upon a royal ship. The captain and crew couldn’t stop staring at her, so great was her beauty. Meanwhile she became very excited. Looking up at the main mast of the ship, she went to climb up.

    The captain caught her round the waist and pulled her down. She explained she wished to sit in the crow’s nest to see if she could grow the wings or beak of a crow. She thought it possible.

    “But why not?” she asked the flustered captain who held her fast. He tried not to look at the king’s betrothed as if she were a nutter.

    “Why, your lovely hair would get tangled in the wind if you climbed so high, of course,” he sputtered.  

    The maiden agreed she didn’t want her hair mussed. Do not judge her. With such overwhelming beauty, she couldn’t help being vain. She also knew good and well that without her lovely face the king would not marry her. And then she couldn’t do good things for a great many everyday folk.

    When the crew sighted mermaids, the maiden bounced about the deck with glee. She insisted she knew of mermaids from books and dreams and would very much like to jump in the sea and meet one. She actually said so.

    The maiden seemed unaware that her extravagant betrothal dress would drown her and that mermaids are known to be cruel.  

    The crew began to mutter amongst themselves with faces aghast. She noticed and grew pensive, wishing for once in her life to be thought wise and not a fool.

    It was no use. She couldn’t put the brakes on her fanciful nature.

    The maiden talked quite a lot about wanting to befriend a unicorn once she reached the king’s castle. She was sincere in this. Captain and crew worried that when she opened her fanciful mouth before the king, he might find her queenly unsuitable.

    And yet, her heart was as good as her face was beautiful.

    After many days at sea, a great storm arose. “Batten down the hatches!” the captain ordered, and men scurried in each of the four directions. Our maiden seized this opportunity to climb the ship’s mast.

    She really, really wanted to see if the crow’s nest held magic that could give her a beak. This notion which had taken hold so enchanted her that she didn’t stop to think that the king might not want his queen to be beaked. 

    The maelstrom blackened and bore down upon the ship. Ropes twisted, creaked, and snapped. An enormous wave crested high, high, high above her head. So stunned was she at its frightening magnificence that she made no protest.

    This, despite the sea shaping itself into her deathbed. 

    Our maiden felt the shock of the sea’s cold and tasted its salt upon her tongue. She found herself bobbing on the heaving sea with a piece of broken mast in her hand. This wasn’t so bad as you might think.  

    For our maiden floated. She did it prettily, and she did it with ease.  

    She lifted her lovely, smiling face to see a fountain of watery wind blowing towards her. From sea to heaven it rose. She imagined it to be a magical beast.

    Her breath drew in when the windy water wrapped itself around her in a twist. There was an unexpected spurt upward—fathoms high she went into heaven’s tempest. What happened next was this:

    A maiden riding a mast from a ship.

    She found herself soaring through a fountain of seawater that glittered with salt. Lightning cracked, and in a blinding flash of light she glimpsed what could only be the billowing veil of the sylph called Wind.

    “Tell me your life’s one wish,” Wind invited with her lashing voice.

    “Oh, but I’m stuffed full of wishes!” the maiden answered as she clutched her zooming mast stick.

    “Tell me your ONE life’s wish,” Wind screeched in demand. Lightning drew jagged lines in the sky, and the thunder that followed very nearly shook our maiden free from her makeshift witch’s broom. Faced with a plummeting death—

    The maiden’s truest wish screamed from her lips with an anguished longing she’d had no idea she possessed.

    “I want to be wise! But I’m so filled with fancy, you see. It can never be.” And the maiden began to cry.  

    Wind deemed this wish the best she’d heard in a very long while. “Your heart wants what is faraway to draw near. Therefore I shall make you the teller of fairy tales. But there is a price you must pay, and it’s one you hold dear.” 

    Wind blew.

    She blew and blew and blew—

    Wrinkles.

    The maelstrom vanished.

    During her fantastic fall from a clear blue sky, our maiden had no idea the change she undertook. Wind caught her at the last perilous moment and lay her gently upon the battered ship’s deck. In this she fared much better than the crew, who lay moaning gobbledygook.  

    The crew set sail for home mourning the loss of the beautiful maiden betrothed to the king. For when she could not be found, the captain declared with a cry that she must have washed overboard into the sea.

    Meanwhile, an old woman tended the wounds of injured men with bandages as she regaled them with tales of wonder to ease their pain.

    “Who is this kind and wise crone?” the sailors asked one another with incredulity. “Where did she come from?” Neither captain nor crew could account for the presence of the cheerful and heavily wrinkled woman leaning upon a stick fashioned from the mast of the ship.

    They had no idea she was a changeling.

    Yes, a changeling—the true kind, that you should grow up and want to be. Isn’t it grand that your deepest, most unknown longing is WITH SURPRISE meant to be achieved? For most of you it tends to happen après a journey lived at raging sea. Whatever.

    No price is too dear to pay for the grace of blooming into wisdom. And the play of ever-happily.

    To be wise is to be in wonder, to find what is impossible hiding in absolutely everything. Vivid appreciation—divine magic—is required. Simply open your eyes and see. Do it, truly.

    As for our maiden who of a sudden found glory in thin white hair…You should know it was only the beginning for her. For Wind decreed she would keep her fated number of years to live.

    Though most pray to find the fountain of youth, our heroine was thrilled to have found the opposite that fated day at sea. It was how a wrinkled crafter of fairy tales she came to blessed be. She found her stories helped everyday folk fall into wonder.

    And come so very alive. As was she. 

    She LOVED being forever wizened, forever old.

    For she was Crone. 

     

     

    If you enjoyed this tale of a wise woman’s beginning and wonder at the fairy tales she might tell, I hope you SUBSCRIBE 🙂

    I love to hear comments. Please leave one below!

     

    Featured storm image by Prettysleepy

    Lovely maiden image by Arthur Rackham (repurposed here)

    Ship at sea image by ArtTower

    Sylph called Wind image by Arthur Rackham (repurposed here)

    Crone image by Arthur Rackham (repurposed here)

    Yes, I LOVE Arthur Rackham’s illustrations. Aren’t they classic and lovely???

     

     

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  • CRONE TALES

    THE WILLOW TREE OVERTURE, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    September 23, 2020 /

    Lanterns light a path where the crone gathers what she needs to brew a tea that shimmers. Take three sips, recite a love poem, and offer the crone a kiss. Come, sit by the blazing fire. The crone is ready to tell the tale of long-lost bliss. Listen.

    It’s up to you to find what meaning you will.

     

     

    It came to pass one late summer’s day that a princess grew tired of being in a long, deep sleep and escaped a castle tower. 

    Taking an unknown road, she came upon a faraway forest village. She was exhausted from traveling and decided to stay for a while. This, despite the fact that the people who lived in this faraway forest village could only offer the princess a crude hut made of branch and not stone.

    Come morning of the autumn equinox, a crispy wind blew across the land to swirl and settle over a patch of nearby willow trees on a lake. The spirits of the women within the trees wakened. They stepped free of root and limb and leaf. The weight of flesh came upon them—mostly—and they walked, their nearly boneless arms blowing in the wind, up to the village to give their kissing blessings upon it.

    The princess was in a foul mood that fateful morning, for torrents of rain the day before had made a muddy mess of the village. She stood at a well drawing up a bucket of water when she caught sight of the willow women.

    Her eyes grew as big as those of any wolf. Quick as a hare she scampered to hide in her hut. Peeking through a crack in the half-rotted wood of the door, she shuddered at the impossible. For she had no idea such a thing could exist:

    Willowy women, with strange arched backs, whose supple arms billowed in the wind! 

    The princess drew back just as a willow woman’s kiss was set upon her hut’s door.

    For the rest of the day, the princess found herself in bliss. Every single thing she laid eyes upon was sheer beauty—be it the splash of chrysanthemum color, a spider’s knotted silk net, or mud upon her skirts. All of it seemed as impossible, as wondrous, as a tree woman with waterfall arms.

    Every breath the princess took was deep and fresh and new. Never had she felt so alive.

    Right then and there, the princess fell in love with being in bliss. And the mystery of the willow women who knew how to give a kiss.

    It so happened that the very next morning the bliss was gone and everything was ordinary again for the princess. Worse, she was found by a royal scout and whisked back to the castle. The king had died in her absence. She was crowned queen and now could not leave. She had responsibilities.

    As she performed tiresome duties of decreeing whatnot, all the queen could think of was her blissed-out day bestowed upon her by the mysterious willow women. Nothing at all about the castle or crown interested her in comparison.

    “If only I could shirk the burden of this crown and return to the willows,” she complained to the moon as it waxed and waned. She was so desperate over it all that one bitter winter’s night, the moon spoke back:

     

    Bliss

    must be courted, now, by you.   

    Her name is Mystery—

    and she must be wooed.

     

    “This is beyond me to do,” the queen said after thinking it over. She wasn’t one for romance. “Is there another way that’s tried and true?”

    But the moon in its glowing white wisdom refused to say another word.

    It wasn’t long until the queen developed quite the reputation. She sulked despite her bejeweled gowns and only ever wanted to talk about being kissed by willow trees. Time and again she sneaked out a castle window to run away to the faraway forest village and the willow women, but she never got far before she was caught and returned to the throne.

    “This is a horrible, boring place to be,” shouted the queen from where she sat above them all. “What I really, really want is the kiss of Mystery!”

    Her advisors gathered together to confer about the state of their queen. “If we satisfy her with Mystery, perhaps she will behave better,” they agreed.

    A wise woman, a crone, was fetched. She wore purple flowers in her hair.

    “Do something about the queen and her desire for Mystery, please,” the advisors beseeched the crone. They shoved her into the throne room, then slammed and locked the door.

    The queen perked up. She recognized that before her stood a crone. “Tell me,” the queen wheedled, “do you know the secret of courting Mystery? The moon told me that to be in bliss, I must woo Mystery. The problem is that I find romance ridiculous, so I need help with this.”

    The crone tittered. “You don’t know how to be in love with the world? Is this true? How very sad.”

    “I wouldn’t say that,” the queen said, both ashamed and confused. She fiddled with her crown. “Look. Can you help me or not?”

    The crone wished aloud for a breath of fresh winter’s air. As it happened, the queen had a secret door her latest batch of advisors knew nothing about. Soon the crone and queen were strolling the castle gardens, which were not pretty.

    “Why are the gardens neglected?” the crone asked.

    “I don’t know,” the queen answered, noticing the trampled winter flowers and vines of thorns. She rubbed her cold arms. “I don’t give attention to such things.”

    “Ah. Now we know the problem! My queen, perhaps you don’t realize, but you’re in a deep sleep. You need to wake.”

    The queen shook her head. “No, that was before. It’s why I escaped the castle tower in the first place. Should I run away again?” She clasped her hands and got excited. “Will you help me to escape back to the faraway forest village with the magical willow women?”

    “No. Tell me exactly what the moon said to you instead,” instructed the crone.

    The queen deflated. She quoted the moon.

     

    Bliss

    must be courted, now, by you.   

    Her name is Mystery—

    and she must be wooed.

     

    “Well, there you go,” the crone said. As if all was solved.

    The queen blinked. She had the distinct feeling she was missing something. “Help?” she ventured, flushing pink.

    “Open your eyes, my queen,” the crone invited. Her eyes and voice grew sharp as the biting winter wind. “Stop twiddling that crown and pay attention! Any lover desires only to be SEEN in an everlasting way. Should Mystery be different? You’ve been waiting for bliss to appear as it did once before. But the next step in this dance belongs to you. Here. Now. What will you do?”   

    The queen looked about herself. All she saw was a weedy garden, a gray winter sky clotted with clouds…and a crone with the most beautiful purple flowers in her hair.

    Something within the queen shifted. It yawned and stirred.

    “Open your eyes and see, my queen,” the crone crooned. “Open your eyes and see what has always and already been here, waiting for you to take notice.” And when the queen wasn’t looking, the crone blew a helpful kiss.

    “But I don’t understand…” the queen’s voice trailed away. A sudden warm, fragrant something passed through her body. She felt her limbs melt. She breathed in and r e l a x e d.

    And looked about herself again.

    Mystery.

    Mystery was everywhere she could see. Equally, in each and every thing, spread out for her to see and yet hardly believe…

    A vine that somehow knew how to grow thorns. A crushed flower that bled the exact same color as wine. Pin-leaves beaded with ice. A sky that was covered by clouds and didn’t mind.

    “It’s happened again,” the queen whispered through her tears. She gasped in surprise. “It was so easy! I can’t believe it. I only ever had to look and truly see!”

    The crone with purple flowers in her hair winked and went on home. The advisors found their queen serene and vibrant with bliss. How relieved they were that she made no more escape attempts after this. Of course not. There was no need whatsoever.

    Mystery was as much here as there and everywhere.

    From that day on, the queen of bliss courted and wooed Mystery in this way:

    By noticing. By paying attention. By appreciating with eyes of wonder. After all, that anything could actually exist is a thrilling and impossible bliss. Is it not?

    Are you awake?

    Another surprise was yet to come. One day, Mystery made the next and climactic move—

    And married the queen, making her One, which means wholly real and true.

    As a divine wedding gift, a willow tree grew overnight outside the queen’s tower. The branches lifted toward heaven only to arch and reach back down for the earth, in love. Wind blew, and limbs brushed the ground with leafy kisses of bliss that could be felt for an entire day by anyone who walked there.

    Mystery always makes the first move.

     

    If you enjoyed this willowy love tale of mystery and wonder and want more, I hope you subscribe to CRONE TALES. 🙂

    Featured image of hut by Florian Kurz–don’t you just love it?!

    Image of tree woman by Stefan Keller

    Image of castle landscape by Johannes Plenio

    Image of ice beaded plant by Gabe Rebra

    Image of willow fronds by Annie Spratt

    I LOVE TO RECEIVE FEEDBACK ON THE CRONE’S TALES. WILL YOU, PRETTY PLEASE, LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW? THANK YOU!

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  • CRONE TALES

    THE UNICORN, a fairy tale for enlightenment and wonder

    September 1, 2020 /

    A wise old crone stitches a quilt by the fire, her nimble fingers darting the needle as she sings a long-forgotten ballad. Soon faeries may visit, and she’s brewed an apple cider for hospitality. Often the creatures stay and keep her awake all night, telling one tale after another. Would you like to hear a faerie’s tale of solitude’s wonder? Come, listen.

    It’s up to you to find what meaning you will.

     

     

    There was an old woman who lived in a faraway cottage all alone. No one knew she existed, and she wasn’t up to travel. She felt rather ashamed that she should end her life in such a way.

    Days were much the same until an unusual rash of summer storms battered her faraway cottage night after night. Even stranger was that the storms summoned witches to the forest. At least, it seemed they were witches, as they had such spindly bodies and laughed quite a lot.  

    You’d think the old woman would make an introduction of herself and ask questions of women who dance in trees, which is a marvel. But after being alone for so long, she feared she no longer knew how to make friends. 

    One night a storm came so fierce that thunder rattled the floor and walls and flue of the faraway cottage. The old woman set down her mug of cider. She stood from her rocking chair to have a look-see out the window, in case there were witches about again. She got a shock.

    Two very small blue-ish faces with pinched noses, ears, and chins looked in at her, their foreheads pressed against the window glass. Dragonfly wings fluttered at their backs. 

    “First witches in trees, and now faeries at my window!” exclaimed the old woman. She blinked, and the faeries were gone.

    Curiosity took hold, just as it should. She opened her front door and traipsed outside to see if faerie footprints might be in the mud outside her window. She wished to see such a thing. As she bent over with a hand to her aching back, the cottage door slammed shut.

    The key turned to lock the old woman out.

    Now it was she who peeked in the window. And there the faeries were, thin, wearing hardly a stitch of clothing, and grinning like banshees. They held hands and spun in a circle by the fire. Their dragonfly wings kicked up a fine wind through the cottage, scattering trinkets and upending the aforementioned mug of cider to make a stain on the rug.

    The old woman howled in upset, but the faeries ignored her utterly. Next they plopped in her rocking chair side by side and picked up her book to read. She watched their heart-shaped lips move and pages turn while rain soaked her through and through.

    This is when the old woman was stricken with loneliness to see what must be two very close and not lonely friends.

    When the faeries refused to open the door and let her back in, the old woman wandered most dejected toward the forest. She was cold and dazed and at the last moment remembered about the witches.

    The spindly women climbed with ease in the branches of lightning-struck trees. Now that the old woman was close, she could see the witches busied themselves splitting limbs to sit upon and fly, spiraling away into the storm with shrieks of laughter. 

    This is when the old woman was grabbed from behind. A drink of thick nectar was forced down her throat.

    The rest of the night was a dream. There was a ballet without shoes, and kidnapping and stealing. There were poems recited of queens and high towers, fingers pulling at her hair, more drinks of the thick nectar, pinches and dress fittings. When dawn came, the old woman found herself propped against her cottage door and rubbing bleary eyes.

    She went inside to find her faraway cottage in shambles. 

    The rocking chair was overturned. Onions had replaced feathers in pillows. There was a log from the fire in her stove’s pot, and scorched handkerchiefs atop candles. She found only her most colorful socks tucked into mugs. Not one book was on its shelf—and of course pages had been torn out, as we all know how faeries rip out their favorite parts of storybooks to keep for themselves. 

    This is when the old woman remembered that she’d recently been locked outside her home.

    “Oh my, was it real?” she asked herself as clouded memories of forest revelry drifted across her mind. Her eyes flew open and she gasped. “Oh my! Did faeries braid my hair?”

    Stumbling over the wreckage that was the floor of her home, she stood before a mirror. Indeed, her hair was braided in a breathtaking and intricate pattern, with pink petals tucked in. But that wasn’t all.  

    She wore a magnificent white dress of a billowing, weightless fabric stitched with silver thread. The dress was soft and beaded with drops of dew. When she touched it, the scent of sugar cookies filled the air.

    Tears filled the old woman’s eyes, for her reflection was like that of a single, beautiful flower.

    This is when she remembered the unicorn:

    There had been a midnight revelry, a gathering deep in the forest, when a unicorn had appeared. White and glowing like a precious pearl, it had walked through the midst of all manner of drunken fae creatures. Untouched.

    The unicorn had been magnificent in its solitude as it passed by to vanish in the forest.

    This memory came to the old woman bright and crisp, and it changed her. It became alive in her. From that day on, she never felt shame at being alone at the end of her life in her faraway cottage.

    Rather, she felt magnificent in her solitude.

    “I am a unicorn!” the old woman often said as she clasped her hands at her chest with the delighted smile of a child. 

    Years passed with no more encounters or sightings of impossible things. The old woman became very, very, very old and quite frail. One evening she knew to take out the exquisite faerie dress and put it on.

    A knock came. She opened the faraway cottage door to find spindly witches. They seemed very excited and held forth a limb freshly split from a tree. With winks and long beckoning fingers, they turned to look up at the starry sky.

    The old woman reached for the limb. Gently, she closed the faraway cottage door behind her.

    She felt fresh as a dewy flower. And much, much too thrilled to look back.

     

     

    How beautiful is loneliness.

    How beautiful is aloneness and being in the countryside.

    In the high mountains, up in the clouds,

    The monkeys bounce around in the trees and the birds sing their beautiful songs.

    Underneath the waterfalls, you can listen to the sounds of the brook.

    The cave hangs around in its solidness, and there is sunshine and moonshine.

    But who cares?

    The only thing I care about is this beautiful aloneness, which speaks for herself,

    And is my constant companion in spite of all these happenings. 

    ~Milarepa, Tibetan poet (1052-1135)

     

    If you liked this story of a unicorn and magnificent solitude, you may wish to receive new Crone Tales for free for a regular dose of WONDER:  SUBSCRIBE

    I love to read comments, you may leave one below 🙂 

    Featured image of unicorn by Anja

    (Repurposed) illustration of faeries by Arthur Rackham and edited by Prawny

    Image of stars at night by Artbaggage

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  • CRONE TALES

    THE MESSAGE IN DIVINE BOXES, a fairy tale for enlightenment

    August 11, 2020 /

    The old wise woman weaves sticks and stems into a wreath but does not nail it upon her door. Instead she walks into the rain wearing the wreath as a crown. Her friends pull her inside, making a fuss, but she only laughs. She says the nest upon her head has reminded her of a bird’s tale. Gather round, sit, and listen to the Crone.

    It’s up to you to find what meaning you will.

     

     

    There once was a daughter who was visited by birds each night in her dreams. By day she ran in circles flapping her arms and climbed trees to sing. Other children laughed.

    To protect their daughter from cruel taunts, the parents locked her away inside thick walls. For she was not ordinary.

    The daughter moaned both day and night. She missed the birds and their songs. On her knees, she’d hug herself and rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. 

    After many years she managed an escape while her parents were away at a wedding. Fast she ran all the night long, deep into the forest, farther than anyone had ever gone.

    She spent the next days building a nest for herself up high in a tree. Birds helped, bringing sticks and stems of things in their beaks. She sat with crossed legs within it once it was complete. Wind settled in the branches around her so that her hair blew about her face, and she beamed with happiness.

    The parents searched for their missing daughter. Three moons passed. As they were ready to give up and go home in grief, a golden glare caught the father’s eye. He investigated and discovered a gold box at the base of a particularly lovely tree. The latch was open.

    Nothing was inside.

    He began to complain when a chorus of birdsong over his head drew his attention. How amazed he was to see his daughter sitting in a large nest cradled in the branches of the tree, wearing a crown of birds upon her head.

    The parents called for their daughter to come down, but she only gazed at them and chirped as if quite pleased with herself.    

    The father fetched a ladder and climbed up to retrieve his delinquent daughter. He was dismayed to discover he’d have to take down the nest as well, because she had been sitting in the nest for so long that sticks and stems had grown into the flesh and bones of her crossed legs and twisted up her straight spine.

    The father was angry that his daughter had gone wild, with a bird’s nest atop her head. “You’re a mess!” he chided. 

    She twittered and chirped.

    The daughter in her nest was very heavy. Her parents were in such a bad mood that by the time they’d carried her out of the forest, they decided to set her down in the middle of the village to be scorned by passersby. So she could learn to be different than she was.

    But villagers gasped in awe to see the daughter open her mouth and sing in the language of the birds. In particular, they marveled at the crown of birds upon her head, and what it might mean.

    Villagers divined that here before them was a holy gift.

    This appreciative take on things proved temporary. The question was raised if the daughter should not be more ordinary to be of use. To prove her worth, the daughter tweeted and chirped on behalf of the villagers to the birds of the sky.

    After hearing what she had to say, the birds flew away beyond the clouds.

    It came to pass that these same birds returned with gold boxes in their beaks, one for every villager. Each box bore multiple doors which could easily be opened. It was fine to take your pick.

    Frightened out of their wits by the unexpected gifts, they consulted the village elders.

    “We must not open the boxes,” proclaimed the elders after thinking too much. “For surely divine messages are inside. And that is scary. None of this is ordinary!”

    The people agreed. “Everything depends on this,” they told one another. “Divine boxes must not be opened!” They submitted to the decree of elders that the daughter wasn’t normal but all kinds of wrong. No matter. She continued to sing on their behalf.

    Gold boxes piled up beneath beds and in cupboards. Unopened.

    Meanwhile, little children found fun in playing with the birds who flocked around the Bird Nest Woman. They practiced sitting as still as she, so that they also could wear a crown of birds. Not only that. Because the woman could converse with the birds, they assumed they could do the same.

    And it was so.

    Mothers and fathers fretted over their little ones chirping and tweeting instead of speaking. Also, the children wore crowns of birds upon their heads into the house come supper time. Mops and brooms became hot but scarce commodities. For this, the Bird Nest Woman was blamed.

    One night the villagers gathered and set her nest afire. But birds flew to her rescue and lifted the nest to carry the Bird Nest Woman up and away into the heavens.

    There her nest remains, forever streaking across the night sky, gold boxes trailing.

    I have not forgotten you still don’t know what divine message lies inside the boxes.

    It came to pass that the little children who had learned the language of birds grew up. When they asked for and received their own gold boxes as grown-ups, they went to open them. 

    They peeked inside.

    After this they were changed. They would never be the same. Like the Bird Nest Woman, they pleased themselves doing new and odd things as a matter of course. But it was more than that.

    Because of what they now knew, they were not ordinary through and through and through.    

    They realized that when it came to who and what they were in the world, the reality was contrary to what had always been assumed. For instance, the box openers insisted there was nothing at all to worry about. They simply grew curious about what to do next no matter the circumstance. They cared nothing about being in control. They only wished to create.

    Instead of being worriers, they grew curiouser and curiouser.

    Despite being adults, not one of them behaved as if the earth was any less delightful than any idea of heaven. They saw no difference between the two and relaxed. 

    A rare few of them had hearts and minds opened so wide that they slipped into knowing they were no one in particular and also everyone in the world. This was even more relaxing. It also increased their sense of responsibility. They loved in every way.

    Listen. There remain unopened gold boxes of divine messages to this day. Given, but not received. If you come upon this village at night, you will know the cottages of those who opened their boxes, for they glow upon the hillside like beacons. Golden light shoots from the windows and up through the chimneys, as if stars had burst inside. If you cross the thresholds of these cottages you will be surprised. The cottages with unopened boxes are dark and anxious. Inside those doors you will find what you expect. 

    On certain nights of the year comes a reminder that divinity wishes to speak. A bird nest on fire trails gold boxes in the sky, a promise beyond the rainbow. Yet everything depends on this:

    Divine boxes are meant to be opened.

    Here’s the upending secret you’re sure to discover if you do:

    For every humdrum thing you believe, the contrary—the not ordinary—will reveal itself to be true.

     

     

    If you liked this contrary story, I hope you SUBSCRIBE to Crone Tales for free 🙂

    Oh–and please leave a comment below! 

     

    Featured image of bird in hand by Lane Jackman

    Image of brown bird by James Wainscoat

    Image of gold box by Kevin Phillips

     

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