"Literary" fragments from the 21stC...
The Children of the Sun
Frame
Red fox was tired. He had been on the scent of a story all night long. It took all his trickster wiles just to bring home one story. And this morning he had a good story.
He went down on the sandy shore to watch the sun come up. After a while the first sun sparkles lit the morning path over the inland sea. Soon the sun had raised his whole head over Bear Tooth mountain and was looking down on all the world and the first thing he did was listen up while Red Fox told him the morning story.
First Story
Tortoise was cold and wet. He didn't want to do anything. Especially all the things he was supposed to do. First he pulled in his back feet. Then he pulled in his powerful arms. Then he pulled in his head. Then he jumped into bed and pulled all the blankets over his head.
The children knocked on his doors and windows but Tortoise just stayed under the covers. The children shook rattles and took leather bound drum beaters to his shell knocking on the top, knocking on the bottom, knocking on every scale of Tortoise’s painted shell pattern. But Tortoise just dug down deeper under the covers. He was one obdurate dude.
The children built a big fire. They thought Tortoise might be cold. They thought Tortoise might be sick so they put an iron cauldron on the fire and filled it with spring water and just a little sea water and seaweed and a dark stone and a bright stone. Then the children all jumped into the cauldron one by one and the last two children lifted Tortoise over their heads and when they jumped into the cauldron together they dropped Tortoise onto the top to make a lid.
Now after a long time Tortoise started to warm up and he started to feel just a little better. Soon he slid down into the cauldron and he started to drink the nourishing broth of all the little children. He drank and he drank and he began to feel much better and he drank until every drop was gone and he could feel the warmth from the tip of his head to the tip of his toes. He went down to the shore and into the inland sea and he began to swim and he swam so far and he swam so fast that he felt like he was flying.
Since then whenever human children are sick and sad or lazy and stubborn and won’t go to school or do their chores they call on Flying Tortoise. Look, he says, I may be a Tortoise but I can fly. Think how much more you can do!
Cortes Island, October 2010
*****
Dream Theory
Crazy Horse had been telling stories to Jade Stone for so long that Jade Stone just sat there all the while and never said so much as a word. While he sat and sat the salal and the salmonberry and the bramble had taken hold and grown all around and over him. That’s how long he had been sitting there listening to all those stories.
Crazy Horse Dream Weaver is both scriptwriter and director. Then there's Paleface Dream Rider. The dreaming happens to him. As lead actor the moving point of awareness is from his perspective. He is at once hero and victim. Next is Jade Stone Dream Watcher. He's seen it all. Most of the time he is just dismissive. Nothing new here. Nothing interesting. He is the carved stone Buddha grown over with vines. I also call him Jaded Cowboy Dream Shooter. He shoots down all the annoying and uninteresting dreams. They get lost in the dust. Finally there's Red Fox Dream Catcher, our trickster messenger between the worlds, who to the Romans was Mercury of the winged ankles, and to the Greeks Hermes. It is he who journeys between the depth and waking consciousness. He honours our waking curiousity about the dreams that Jaded Cowboy has shot down. He catches as catch can and brings these fragments to surface. They may be almost dead when they come out of the water. Certainly they are suffering from the bends. But sometimes they can be written down... fragments of a multi-dimensional enigma.
Cortes Island, 2010
*****
The Beasts are Local
Τα θεριά είναι ντόπια
«Τις φορές, που ο δεμένος πετάχτηκε απάνου
με τα δόντια να κόψει του ξένου τυράννου
το λυτάρι, δεμένος βρισκότανε πάλι.
Τονε δένανε τρίδιπλα οι ντόπιοι μεγάλοι.
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Τώρα η Νύχτα τελειώνει... Παθοί και μαθοί
ξέρουν, όταν η μάχ' η μεγάλη δοθεί,
για να μην ξαναχάσουνε τη λεφτεριά τους,
θ' αφανίσουνε πρώτα τα ντόπια θεριά τους».
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Κώστας Βάρναλης
The Beasts are Local
—Kostas Varnalis
**
θεριά appears in English in the word therianthrope, for shapeshifter - part beast & part human. Therianthropes were commonly portrayed throughout 40,000 years of shamanic cave painting. They are a reminder that the beasts are never distant, those of our waking nightmares as well as those of our dreams. They are the "beast within", just a short dimensional shift away. Varnalis lived from 1887 to 1974 and his concerns were, of course, political. They remain particularly apropos to events unfolding in Greece at this time. The English translation is adapted from a draft by John Handrinos.
February, 2012
*****
The Interrogation of Abstraction
Ridge Road, April 1st, 2014
*****