WOOD CRAFTING: Installment #5 "Destiny's Mates"

The tale of WOOD CRAFTING resumes with the stitching together of two beings from opposite sides of the cosmos. The installment that follows reveals the character and grace of these beings and weaves as well the signs and indications of space out of balance. Elders will share clues to the changing reality and destiny will proceed with the sharing of a meal.

Since this venue of publishing leaves an opening for me to speak to my reader as if we were chatting in a sort of book-club, I will tell you (if you have a thought to question this) this novella/fairy tale was not outlined and thought out before hand instead it was as Jane Yolen writes on her blog/notes to writers,

I generally do not think out plots or characters ahead of time. I let things roll along. Organic is the word I use for this. But actually I do it because I am a reader before I am a writer. I want my own writing to surprise me, the way someone else's book does. If I think out everything ahead of time, I am--in Truman Capote's words--"Not a writer but a typewriter."

To the outside eye this may seem a lazy way to write. It drives anyone I work with crazy. But I have learned to trust those intuitive moments when stories seem to leak from my fingertips.

This story did pour through me like warmed chocolate.-MC

WOOD CRAFTING

Written by Mokihana Calizar
Copyright, 2009

Please enjoy the tale for your own pleasure,
but do not reprint it or copy it for any other purpose without permission from the author.

(see the sidebar for my contact info)

Destiny’s Mates

Back at the meadow where my mother and father shared their first meal, the morning light and the energy of growing love fed the bond between Freeilll and Shemaladia. Bidding each a knowing nod, Oona tipped her head in Somaia’s direction and the new friends flew off to Oona’s treetop to leave my parents to their destiny. Time passed without notice as Freeilll recounted his message from the great sea turtle. Shemaladia listened with concern as she realized the signs of change. Warming oceans, tiny hatchling and indications of tidal upheavals meant life as Wood Crafters knew it would become different. Her life as huntress of lost souls with hearts darkened made her intimately aware of those who had eaten of riches at the expense of another, with no permission sought, love felt or prayers in offer. Freeilll Noa of the Islands subtly inhaled deeply and shifted his messages from conning to voice and asked his beautiful companion, “I know nothing of your story, nor your crone’s premonition. Will you tell me?” My mother looked across the space that separated her from my father, breathed in a slow deep breath and began with the telling 'Aina the Old had given her not one moon rising ago. Shemaladia of Osprey recounted the slip of her traditional song’s ending that altered the collection of stardust. Like shavings of your Great Planet’s metal attracted to a magnet, the usual three-part cant had changed just enough to attract my father. “I am a Grey, like you marked at birth to be an agent of Reassembling. Like you my destiny escalates one hundred fold when my life includes a mate. It is the way I have been taught to remember, and now you are here.” Shemaladia’s golden eyes sparkled with the dust of destiny as she paused from her story and looked deeply into Freeill Noa’s silver eyes. He was in love with the mate of his destiny, just as his tradition had promised, so in love it seemed, all objectivity vanished. A strange weight settled into him collecting in the tips of his talons. My mother continued, “I am a hunter of souls lost and in all my cycles of searching for the soul, your capture marks a change. You are not a soul lost in the darkness, and neither is your side-kick Somaia of the South.” Freeilll Noa chuckled at Shemaladia’s descriptive of his old friend. Somaia might object to this reference but the fishermen were in deed a well-suited and amiable pair, each enjoying the others company in all circumstance. “What I glean from the little we know of things in your covey I sense a trail of darkness that begins with the phrase, “The winds are very gentle and seem almost to be asleep else where.” “Freeilll Noa, how long has it been since the winds moved as they ought?” Freeilll took time to consider my mother’s question. My father rewound the cycles of `ole when he worked from the stump of palm reserved for his repairs and remembered the words shared between fisher folk. The utterances were as usual, a recounting of catches, prayers and promises exchanged signs of reef activity beyond the wall, usual fare. Nothing passed differently, except for the incident of balance for his young nephew Dontanea of Noa. “Four ‘ole cycles past something different did happen, and though no one paid it much heed perhaps …” My father’s voice trailed and instinctively he switched to silent transport and conned the incident in my mother’s direction. “Dontanea of Noa is one of our covey’s finest young fishermen. On the night of Mahealani Dontanea had reached his favorite netting spot on the far northern tip of the island chain.” My father paused to consider the detail he recounted, reserving the specific reef cropping unless asked. “Dontanea is a net fisherman and has precise and steady control on his balance and excellent perception of the ocean’s currents and movement. But on this night he told me a rogue wind blew from the south and sent him toppling off the reef, his net was torn loose and sank inordinately out of sight.” A fisherman’s nets are precious and not easily taken. The young fisherman’s story puzzled Freeilll Noa and when questioned, Dontanea could not explain the unexpected wind or the inability to reclaim his net. Shemaladia of Osprey listened for clues and breathed evenly as she considered. “Is your nephew recovered from the incident, fishing once again and no longer experiencing loss of balance?” “Yes, completely recovered.” “And his net, was that recovered … or replaced?” “The net was never found. His father my brother dove with his son to seek the net but nothing.” “So the young man now uses a second net to replace it and does so now?” “Yes, there is always a spare net, this one a net woven by his father Kaimalama Noa, my twin brother.”

Freeilll Noa considered the implication of these answers, and of course so had my mother. She had more questions. “Since that incident have the winds been …” Before she could finish my father finished for her. “The winds have been asleep elsewhere.” The winds of Ever have been known to take brief holiday, gathering energy or enjoying the company of a particularly delicious placement in the Cosmos. But those holidays are predicable and never long enough to cause harm. “When did you and Honu notice the ocean had become warmer than usual?” My father replied without hesitation, “The full moon following Dontanea’s fall.” Somaia and I were already in flight when Honu called from the black lava tide pools of her birth. Rarely will she summon, and never had Freeilll Noa been called to the Black Pool. “Mother, the night passes beautifully and always it is a pleasure to spend time with you. How does the night pass with you?” The elder of oceans was always pleased to hear her favorite grandson’s thoughts. Through the ages, turtles and birds have shared an uncommon bond and a coil of genes allowed a blend of heritage with a small band of Wood Crafters. Linked as they were by that gene, my father never questioned Honu. Few of the young Wood Crafters of the Islands remembered how the blood flowed or shared the common gene with turtle. To preserve their relationship and their connection, my father and my great-grandmother never referred to their kinship in the company of the covey, the exception was Somaia who knew everything about Freeill Noa. “The night passes beautifully for me as well grandson. What concerns me is the feel of the water beyond the reefs of this Black Pool. The ocean beyond the reefs is warm, warm enough to turn the limpid green limu yellow as if heated upon sun-baked rocks on a low-tide. The tide as you know is at full-flood. The winds from the north are absent, missing a better word. The surface water has remained unstirred for more than twelve sun rises.” “Missing? You believe the winds from the north are missing?” “That is why I have called you. Soon there will be more answers. Yet, before more answers there will be even more questions. An unlikely someone will aid you and there will be greater changes than the warmer ocean. Be prepared grandson.” My great-grandmother paused and took in the whole of my father’s being, embracing his soul she charged him with the love of all that has been and opened coils of his muscles with the power of unfoldings. With that done, Honu nudged at Freeill Noa’s chest looked once more into his eyes and retreated into the deep black pool.

Shemaladia was entranced. The teachings of a Grey were broad and unique to each strand of covey throughout Ever. Special connections such as Honu’s lineage with the Wood Crafter Noa were not unheard of, though it was truly uncommon. For a very long time my mother looked silently at the man whom destiny had selected as her mate. Freeill Noa accepted the long assessing look, assured in his soul, and appreciative of the magnificent being who would share the rest of his destiny. Shemaladia absorbed the outer look of Freeilll’s body beginning with the crown of feathers that grew tight almost scale-like against his broad high forehead. The tips of his ears rose from the feathers in sharp contrast to the bill that dropped from his face … a silvery spoon of a bill. She tried to imagine the twins who would come from their mating. Strong wing feathers and the broad chest of a Grey tapered to a narrow tail. His talons were exactly the same color as his bill with claws covered with the tightly grown scale-like feathers as on his head. By this time, my father could not resist being the one with questions, “Shemaladia of Osprey have you assessed to your satisfaction? Are there questions that go unanswered?” Without a skip of the heartbeat She asked, “How does your coil of the Honu remain with your physical body?” My father’s answer was quick; no hesitation passed as he lifted his wings and drew them forward. As if witnessing a magical conjuring Shemaladia watched as Freeilll Noa canted the words that shifted his wings into the great flippers that mark the ocean’s diver of the deep. The silent prayer converted my father’s physical being further as my mother watched in reverence; the swallow like ears compressed into barely visible orifice and the silver talons drew into body leaving each claw barely visible in artful camouflage available for grasping. “In this manifestation, my lungs which you cannot see without dissecting me or viewing with the eye of Ever, become those of my great mother. I am able to swim underwater leagues at a time on one breath and though I am not graced with a shell like the great mother, a Grey such as I will not loose body heat while submerged, the feathers of my body calcify like shell and protect me from the unpredictable, and the ears of re-known remain capable of hearing thoughts as well as song.” “Wonderful,” my mother said as she walked proudly into my father’s unfolding wings. Freeilll Noa of the Islands welcomed his destiny and they embraced for the very first time.