WOOD CRAFTING The Book: Chapter 1 The Covey

Good day to you where in EVER you be reading this tale. If you have just come upon the page, catch up on the opening lines if you wish ... and learn what fueled the story. Over the while I will share the writing of this Ledge story, one that is timeless and maybe timely. It's for the memory of a truly blue and innocent sky I keep writing and telling Fairy Tales.

Here is an additional bit of storyteller's food, something I found while searching some where to hear Ursula K. LeGuin ... one of my teller's inspiration. Link here to listen to Ursula K. LeGuin speak about the ways writers deceive themselves (and a few other things).

WOOD CRAFTING
Copyright, Mokihana Calizar
2009

Part I

The Covey

Shemaladia of Osprey

There can be no Now without the fresh water pond that we call the source of Ever. Inconspicuous to the eyes of mortals the source of Ever is simply one among thousands of small ponds that serve Frog and Salamander during the seasons of winter and spring. Rain and snow fill the source of Ever and allow passage between the realms of beings too little to be significant to the large and the Giant. The warmth of summer turns the watery pond into grassy meadow, a spot where deer bring their young to bask and grow strong of foot. The source of Ever remains undisturbed below the layer of meadow, activities of small and grand consequences continue in natural progression. I was born to the beings called Shemaladia of Osprey and Freeilll Noa of the Islands, a pair as unlikely as imagination. My place of conception is the constellation you on the Great Planet called the Big Dipper. I am a twin to my sister Shelela Wood. It is difficult to describe exactly how the birthing of our covey started. Language is such fluid media. Let me try to piece together descriptions that will illuminate. In a time long out of memory, there were a cluster of stars that served as a kind of lid to the Big Dipper. Ancient and rich in life-giving light this lid of stars opened once every ninety sunsets to allow a scoop of star-dust to flow like silvery cream into the darkness of the deep source of Ever.

The Wind moves in constant motion throughout Ever, and on those ninetieth sunsets pairs of beautiful winged ones swirl into the silvery cream of star-dust in a dance that is like showering rain. Together the pair embraces in a love sublime stirred by the Wind an orgy of exquisite light grows within each of them a single beautiful pebble-size egg. Though tiny, the egg is heavy with the weight of wind that has come from the Great Planet. The combined memory of stardust and wind weight draws mated pairs to a particular place on the Great Planet, where the two great birds lay one violet egg a piece. In the beginning, the pebble-sized egg once laid grew to the size of a human woman’s fist. My parents’ Great Planet nest rested high in the crag of a lightening struck fir not far from a pond in the foothills near the Two Brothers a giant’s step from the ledge where a once-young couple pulled a wheeled wee wagon to make their new home. Could they have known that they were being called to such a place of power and Reassembling? I think it is possible the woman knew she was called. But, there will be time for that as the story grows.

My mother Shemaladia of Osprey was a woman of golden eyes and silver-black feathers that glowed iridescent by star-light. She was a great huntress with beak the shape of the moon’s first curved crescent. Cycles of sunsets and moon risings had passed before Shemaladia of Osprey took a mate. Her destiny of independence stretched the covey’s norm of pairing before one hundred cycles. But there were no rigid time restraints on the huntress and other talents endeared her to the covey and beyond.

One night a very long time ago, the covey’s sisterhood gathered at the edge of the Lid … a wall of stones that ran the length of their wood. Songs of the warming were always part of the full moon gatherings; trills and memory melodies sung one after another from dusk until first sun taught young, un-paired women the past and the future. The laughter, wisdom, mischief and adventures of Ever were part of the ruckus and all females relished the brilliance of the moon light and fueled them in their connectedness to All. “Shemaladia of Osprey,” Oona the Songstress called. “Would you be sharing a Song of the Hunt for these young ones tonight? Could you be convinced to tell the story of riding winds and hunting stray souls for us tonight?”

There was never a need to convince my mother to tell a story, to be sure. The gesturing query an invitation and long-standing protocol Oona and Shemaladia had enjoyed since they were children. “Oona of the Song, the story is ripe for the telling, never a need to ask me twice, you can be sure of that.” Shemaladia’s golden eyes twinkled as she flew to the center of the covey’s semi-circle the women of all ages whistled and cawed their pleasure as Shemaladia, “She” in this circle, perched lightly on the bough of a great cedar and began to sing a song of wind and hunt. She began with the high shrill call that is the marker of all Osprey ….“Kreeilll,” the sound filled what seemed the entirety of the deep sky and in fact that is what happened when Shemaladia of Osprey began all her full moon stories.

Though she was unaware of the special magic afoot on this particular night, there was a glow to her beak unmistakable to 'Aina the aging Owl who listened with her eyes closed. “She is laying a trail to her mate this night, she is,” Aina the Old thought to herself a smile hidden beneath her lidded eyes. “One hundred and one cycles is a very good time to begin a warming of your own, Shemaladia of Osprey, a very good time for warming in deed.”

Shemaladia began her story song as she had for nearly fifty cycles …

Into the night of the full moon bright

Sky filled with star dust, and winds just right

There is a telling of times that were pure

Neither wink nor shout the cure.

Babies and mothers

Brothers and fathers

Sisters and cousins

Blood that is common a clue.

Time was a keeper

Of this and of that

You can be sure

I have checked on the facts.

A night filled with moon

Is perfect for riding

The trails of the lost

Souls who have ‘capened

Just why would a soul

Be escaping you question?

Why take a trail that

Breaks hearts?

What is a heart?

A cup, bowl or cave.

Seen from moon

It beams crystal.

On a night when light

Is equal to sun’s bright

A hunter will see

Who rides darkly.

These are the souls

Who have eaten

Beyond all that

Is sacred.

Wind-stained and emptied

Dark souls stand ready

Open to fuel or be cloistered

She sings into the deep

A song that will tap

Into well moist with memory

The taste still familiar

The smell warm as tall wood.

These are the words

To the song that will

Capture the heart

Of a soul thought lost.

Sing loudly.

Sing joyful.

The moon full is precious.

Sing them here.

Sing them home.

“Kreeilll, Kreeilll, Freeilll…”

Shemaladia of Osprey bowed to the winged clapping of a thousand Wood Crafters and then flew to the logs below to join her sisters, cousins and crones for a feast of fish and sweet pine nuts. No one had noticed the new sound that ended the song that full moon night, 'Aina the old was right of course my mother had formed a new sound, one that fit the ear of a wandering Wood Crafter. Freeilll Noa of the Islands heard his name and turned as if this talisman of the wind was a noose held fast to his silver talons. He was captured.