21/03/2024
I dreamt, many years ago, thar I had been visited by the goddess Rígantona/Rhiannon. This set me on a path of an interest in Brythonic ancestral customs and their religious practices. Do I believe in powerful entities that act as gods and goddesses? No. But I do believe in my ancestors and what they believed in is special to me.
I pay reverence to the people whose entire being us now lost to me, me who lives in a culture where we don't even know who our great grandparents were let alone our forebears from 10,000 years ago.
So, as I learn the druidic tradition, I pay homage to those who have gone before me and no assuredly look to my daughter as the linchpin of their line.
When I awoke from my all too real dream, I was compelled to write the following. The tale of my dreaming.
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Sparkle on her toes
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One night, while deep in dream, I got up from my armchair and heard a call just for me. I was in a place I thought my own, a cottage by the sea, a place where the sea was paint of royal blue and waves were brush strokes of some great artist. As the early morning sunrise reached through my kitchen window and touched my face, I felt as though I was living a cherished memory from long ago.
Again I heard the call, a soft whisper but from a distance, just on the edge of my hearing. A woman's voice. At first it sounded like a woman giggling until I heard my name. I stepped out of the back door and onto cool, damp early morning grass, feeling the dew between my toes. I began to walk towards the faint sound, down the path to the beach. An eagerness pulled at me as I had been waiting for this all my life. This sound promised an end to all my woes and more.
Leaving the coarse and pebbled path I stepped onto the broad beach and stared into the distance as it curved to the right a few miles away. There was no one to be seen. Leaving prints in the sand I walked slowly towards the reaching waters edge. The thin surface of water was in darkness as the sun had yet to rise over the headland. I sat on the sand, mournful and with a feeling that I was late for the sole meaning of my life. I pulled my knees into me and gripped them as if they alone could replace the hollow I felt within. Then, as the sun breached the headland bluff and bathed the beach, I heard the sound again. The voice of a woman searching for someone. A call for someone special. A pleading against loneliness. I felt the sun on my back and could see the water brighten. As I raised my head I saw the most delicate toes, one foot crossed slightly over the other floating a few inches above the surf now gathering around me.
The sunlight glittered and sparkled around her toes as it struck the water.
I looked up at a woman graced with a serene beauty as she floated just in front of me. She had a long white summer dress the colour of the surf which seemed to float in a slow grace. Her softly curved hips narrowed slightly at a belt of sea shells and then rose across her form and up to her soft and supple neck of alabaster to a face i knew but couldn't place and then onto her hair which at times was deep chestnut but would shift across all the shades of auburn and brown depending on how the sun blessed it. Her full locks would drift in the morning air with an appearance almost of being underwater.
I was fixed by her eyes, ancient yet full of understanding. A deep green stolen from some sacred grove. She gazed at me lovingly and sympathetically and felt my longing as it matched hers. As I stared at her I realised why she was so familiar, I saw facets of all the women I have loved and lost. A curl of hair from Emma, a freckle from Sandra, the fullness of Rachel's lips... I saw them all in her. She was of my making. With this revelation, and in full acceptance that she was nothing but a creation I wept.
I felt her hand on my head. Caring and deeply saddened by my pain. She lifted my chin and she gave me a sweet and knowing smile and kissed me on my lips. She rose up and turned away. Just as I was about to sink into my despair through loneliness I caught sight of something new. A certain alluring glance as she turned. A part of someone I didn't recognise. Someone new. Someone I've yet to meet. My love carried on her turn and facing the sea walked just above it and into the distance until she faded away.
I awoke with a feeling of hope, a feeling that some one is waiting for me and I've yet to meet. I don't know who or where she is, but when we meet I'll know her by the sparkles on her toes.
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