Listen to me read this Spider Queen Report »
“I like to type,” said the Spider Queen, “my eight legs are the weavers of the story this way.”
Listen closely to me. My sweet. My dear. My fearful one.
Look and listen for I have a story you are hungry to hear:
There was a wall as high as they could see. Far and wide, and thick as could be
They wondered who made it? How old? What for? And with all their questions unanswered, it stood there formed unknown.
No one touched it, there was a moat of water between the land and wall. The water grey and stagnant. The children were warned, “don’t go too close, it’s poisonous.” The stories grew as time went by more gruesome and loathsome and so then there was a fence that was raised with warning signs to keep a farther distance. The trees they planted grew tall and the wall faded as the life was lived on and on at a distance. Soon it was a forest and the tales were scary and old, the creatures that lived there fearsome and bold, to be left alone.
So it was.
For a long time. Generations. There would be tales of those who entered the woods and never returned, “eaten, slaughtered, stolen” they would say without even going into the woods looking.
Then one day you came along.
Yes, you, my love, you came along.
You were told all the tales, sold all the lies, and even though you listened, you knew what you had been told, you knew what you were supposed to do and not do, it did nothing to quiet the Calm and steady song you heard inside you coming from the edges.
And so one day you left and entered the woods, walked deeper and deeper where nothing but birds and forest creatures crossed your path. A skittish sound here and there would make you squeal but still, you carried on. The trees thinned and there was a fence, overgrown with vines, “Danger. Do Not Cross.” You looked up and down, no gate to walk through so you ably climbed, and there you were but feet away from a still waterway. As you looked across you saw the base of a wall. Slowly your eyes raised, it seems to go as far as you could see, is that wall or sky? You tell me. No one could see, the hawk I’m sure could but the bird that high disappeared by the eye. Stopping there you breathed. Heavy. Remembering all the lies you had been told about the forest and the fences. The things that could not be bore, and there you stood, well and warm.
Stood there remembering all you were told and then all believed, and then with profound clarity, all you had seen. They were so incredibly different. Entirely – see.
So you stood there breathing and looking deeply.
Was it a glisten in your sight?
An echo in your ears?
A shift in the smell of the air?
Was it a taste across your tongue?
A deep belly knowing throng?
A momentary resounding of profound knowing?
Was it all of them and nothing at all?
You decided, “what else was I told that was wrong?”
And you stepped one foot in the warm water at hand.
Low and behold it wasn’t deep, it was hard packed grey sand. The water was thin, only looked deep and grey from above, you took four steps out and looked around. Still solid enough to walk on, sure thing.
So you crossed the distance, this moist wetland, and as you approached the wall you reached out your hand.
Were you surprised, no not really at first, when the wall you reached to touch could not be felt.
Stepping boldly, it was cool, wet, mirage, a mist, this wall was evaporating water, pure bliss.
This wall was the gyser, from the sand, this sweet earth, the water a shower of wind, a kiss.
Feeling bubbles and sand moving underfoot your heart song called you on, and you walked into the mist headlong.
You turned only once to gaze back from whence you came, and you knew no one would believe you, that no one could fathom what you would name, they wouldn’t join you when you asked them to see for themselves and in that moment you knew what all the “missing ones” had gained, where they went and why they never came back again.
Walked on, you walked on, breathing in the sweetest water air, until the ground began to harden and then you were there.
On the other side of nothing stopping you from here
But stories of what would happen to you if you went through there
Emerging there was beauty, and feeling more than you could bare
For no one would ever lie you in a cage like you had grown up in there
It was different, you could breathe and now would from here
And you have now, friend, arrived in this fresh fresh air,
That wall you are fearing,
Isn’t even there.
