Island

This is Island, a continent surrounded by the sea. Around the edge of Island winds a great river, called Rhythmic. The Rhythmic runs wide, fast, and deep. It springs from the high most center of the continent, flows directly to its shore, turns and winds once around land’s edge, turns again and empties into the sea, into the path of the setting sun.

Near the source of the Rhythmic, atop High Center, stands Island’s only city. It is encircled with stones, placed there by its residents “to maintain the boundaries of our plateau.”

Island has a road. It travels faithfully beside the Rhythmic on its inland bank, crosses the spot of land where river empties into sea, bridges the river at its first deep turn and continues full circle around Island. Always there is movement upon this road.

While the dwellers of High Center, faces to the sky, piled stones around its edge, those who walk together followed the river below. The movement within this procession was always greater than its forward sweep. Forwards, backwards, sideways, yet forever in motion they moved as one. On they whirled and in their passage they inscribed the Great Road. This is the caravan, the wheel, forever circling Island and always in sight of its beloved Rhythmic.

Enclosed between the Rhythmic and the Great Road is River’s Bar, a slip of land joining the two on their tour around Island. Green, and open to the sky, River’s Bar is the shore to those who seek land, the watering ground to those who thirst. To the traveler who rests beside the Great Road, River’s Bar is the land of dreams.

Gentle slopes and many trees of one kind and another form a hoop around Island. One tree standing alone shelters. A forest conceals. Islands inner hoop is forested. It is concealed.

Beneath the needled boughs, between the massive trunks in a mist of ferns and moss resides a presence so vast the living silence is its companion. The lightest foot does not tread, the tiniest wing does not beat, the slimmest twig does not break in the Forest without the attentive gaze of a fathomless eye and the resounding hush of silence.

Everything gives way to something, even a primordial bower. Round topped trees with leaves that ripple in the wind slip out from beneath the tall evergreen spires and spill over the open field beside, blurring all distinction between the two. Here, silence is a stream, the stream of stillness between sounds.

And here stands the Woodlands, a place of roots and burrows and shape filled trees with leaves like wings. Warm, sun streaked colors and busy rustlings fill the gaps between their sheltering arms. Their trunks are the standing through which intricate layers of sound, scent, and motion burst and entwine. Their roots are the growing which prepared the soil for the forest to rise. A thousand eyes flutter through this wild profusion of foot, wing, and leaf, the shimmering eyes of the many-sighted spirit, the spirit of birth.

Beyond the outer banks of the Rhythmic, Island belongs to the moon. Twice every day, dim harbors and vague waterways disappear and reappear in the flooding and ebbing tides. Twice every day, the moon sends a slow wind coursing across Island into the face of the sun. Eastward every morning, westward every evening, the moon’s wind blows. Less than a whisper, unseen and unnamed, the moon’s wind blows.

Much of Island is yet to be seen. Much of Island waits for a name. Where imagination leads, memory follows and Island continues to emerge from the surrounding sea. Yes, everything gives way to something.

The Time Of One

This is Island, a continent surrounded by the sea. Those who live here, even those who do not know much of anything, know the woodlands is the birthplace of the Bird Of Life. And, most everyone knows if they, themselves, were born in The Time Of One or The Time of Two.

Each dusk, a tiny bird lifts above the trees. It circles inland, then turns and flies directly towards the sea. It flies across the bare field, over the river and disappears into the white fog expanding the reaches of Island's outstretched fingers into the sky.

Each dawn, the tiny bird reappears through its foggy gateway from some unknown world beyond Island, perhaps beyond the sea itself, carrying in its beak one tiny seed. The little bird flies back over the river, across the fields, into the trees and buries its seed in the woodland's floor.

After many years of planting, one of the seeds, only one, begins to grow into a tree. When its crown reaches through the protective bower of the woodlands into the sun, seemingly overnight, the bird builds a nest on its highest branch.

The next morning when it returns from its mysterious flight, the little bird carries not a seed but a tiny white egg and places it in the nest. That same day, from out of the whiteness which is like the whiteness of the fog through which the egg appeared, another little bird is born. Thus begins The Time Of Two, The Days Of Song. For many years, the two birds sing and fly together through the woodlands.

One dusk, the two little birds fly side by side into the mists. In the dawn, only one returns, carrying a tiny seed in its beak. Those few who have seen this solitary flight swear that this seed is planted with a tear so small there can be no smaller tear.

This is Island, a continent surrounded by the sea. The sea holds Island much like earth holds the sea and, in turn, much like sky holds earth. Everything gives way to something. Yesterday gives way to today, the day of the smallest tear.