Because the Real seems Unreal ... let me tell you a story

I have written a fairy tale, a long story to escape the world of humanity that too often makes no sense at all. This story has two parts, I have finished the first part and envision it to be a teller's tale ... one spoken and listened to as all good fairy tales were told before there were tree skins marked with ink.

The story began when we arrived on The Ledge and poured through me like warm chocolate. It soothed me, transported me and gave me a place that did not poison me. I seek the story for refuge and the words come to me I do not seek them. Maybe, there is something here for your dear heart read as if there was a voice canting. ~

Wood Crafting
Copyright, Mokihana Calizar
2009

Foreword

Inspiration for story comes quickly when the world that is your Real seems Unreal or far harsher than you’re able to endure. Fairy tales have been a world into which I have escaped since a girl in bare feet found solace in the crook of a mango tree. Away from All there were other possibilities, and making believe made it possible to get beyond. Escape has meant many things to me in my sixty plus years, and with the on-set and persistence of the illness called MCS (multiple chemical sensitivities) the word has been my life. At first escape simply wore me down and yet as in most great adventures there are one or two talisman and guides who appear at just the right time for just the right purpose. Nomads and Travellers, Gypsies and Migrating Beings offer me the gift of alternative mind and reassembled prospective. To all of these guides and examples I give thanks. To make sense of the need to be on nearly constant alert to the choices of others, choices that will affect me ill, I have found comfort and resolution in the conjuring of modern day fairy tales. Fairy tales that do what they have done for time into memory: taught lessons, made sense out of bad things, explained the un-explainable and used language that all ages could understand.

Wood Crafting was born from an incident that happened while we lived in the industrial south-west area of Seattle. One day while on a beach walk I found a beautiful small piece of rusted metal. “Perfect rusty decoration for the vardo,” I said to myself. I was excited and without thinking I finished my walk, took the rusted treasure with me and drove home. Beach walks were and continue to be one of the things and places that restore my health and offer oxygen rich air. I treasure the walk and the air. What happened when I got home that night is the stuff of the Gods. It was late winter in Seattle, and the temperature still very cool … thirties at night. Excited to show my husband my treasure, I called him from the curved home he was completing. As I held it up to show him I spotted something I missed while on the beach … a tiny being, a barnacle just settling in. “Oh no,” I’ve got to get him back. By then it was dark and the barnacle would have to wait. I said my prayers, asking for forgiveness for the over-sight and knew the temperature would keep the creature from drying up. I tucked it into a bucket and hoped for the best. One excited mortal woman picks up a small piece of rusted metal with a creature in residence. It was enough to grow this story, this fairy tale. That is what happens when one notices, and gods willing, our noticing will be enough to stay on destiny’s good side. There’s a chance we’re not too late. Cross your fingers, boil the spring water for tea and join me for a story.

From The Ledge in the Woods,

Mokihana Calizar June, 2009

Introduction

The journey to the satisfied soul is personal in length. I mean, what is long to a fairy is a step for the giant. The seasons on the Great Planet have begun to change for her inhabitants. Kings and Empires are quaking as their stores of riches seem to evaporate from the strong boxes of the enterprises they created called Banks and Markets. Imagined wealth conjured from what was once real goods took a chapter out of the book of greed and clung to much more than was necessary to live a full life. There are of course, many paths to re-distribution of energy and power. Some paths are gentle and easy, others more edgy and harsh. We Woods People have watched from our tiny warrens and coveys and wondered when the weight of that greed would topple the few. Seems the time is now. Before the tale grows any longer please allow me to introduce myself. I am called Shenia Wood and I am the keeper and teller of story from the high mountain woods. We are an old race of Great Planet beings, more fairy than animal and nearer human in look though our feathered ancestry is undeniable. In all ways we are yet so much closer to stardust than most humans remember. Our covey like birds are birthed from eggs with shells the color of violets. Warmed and parented by two Wood Craft, a pair of eggs is born to a couple once in their very long lives. The warming period lasts ninety sunsets and within that time, stories of connection and remembering are poured into the growing babes who listen from inside their porcelain shells. This is the story of wood crafting, the ninety sunsets of song and listening that pour all that has been as well as the knowing of yet to be, into the spirit of each growing egg. This story begins in the foothills of a great range of mountains just far enough away from the smog filled cities of industries where these song memories have been lost. The tall old ones in the high mountains breathe rich life-giving oxygen to the land, where a pair of once-young humans pulled a wheeled wee home onto a ledge overlooking the clear fresh water pond that is the source of Ever. They, the once-young humans have begun the Re-assembling and it is this process, and the warming period of a Wood Craft that lasts ninety sunsets that are the twin trails to our story. Snuggle into a comfy quilt, keep the kettle hot for tea and let us begin at the beginning.