Sunday, June 4, 2017

The Changelings





  Life takes energy! Great energy. The devil’s details can keep one from dreaming.

  Our sight can be compromised by the minutiae.  At least this is true for me, all too often.

  How can it be before I became a grown up and life’s beginning that all those fairies and magic things that I so fervently believed in have gone missing? Or have I gone to sleep?

  Twice in a weeks time I have encountered changelings.

  “A Changeling is a creature found in folklore and folk religion. It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child.” (Google definition)

  If these two randomly encountered girls, who because of their natures beg to referred to as lasses, were not changelings, then 
they were earth angels charged with the work of bringing enchantment. And enchant me they did.

  They did not come to me in a forest or under a full moon but in 
the most ordinary of circumstances.

  The first for the sake of the story, I shall christen her Fiona. I encountered her in a historic barn at a local park. Though there
are many alternative displays, every time I go to this park, like a migrating bird. I immediately go to the barn, where I immediately 
go to the stall with the cows.

  I love cows, the brown of their eyes, the placid sound of their moo and their bells. I love them so that whenever I see them I tell them right out loud how I love them so and then I commence to moo to them.

  So I am there, mooing and this 11 year old sprite of a girl with a mane of curls seems to manifest from nowhere and begins mooing. She is mooing with enviably great skill.

  I inquire about her mooing skill. It seems her mooing is one of her many skilled repertoires of animal sounds.  She proceeds to give me an improvisational concert of geese, cats etc. resonated in the amber hues light of the barn.

  Though delighted by this spontaneous performance, the mom, teacher Border collie of me looked around to ascertain “Who were her grownups?”  I looked about to see if any family groups were attaching themselves to this child who had begun to tell me of her dreams of being an actor.

  No one seemed to claim her, so I inquired where is your family? Seeming not to hear she made a lovely pigeon sound she turned and headed to the other end of the barn her longs curls bouncing a farewell.

  I watched like a sentry for her to find her grownups. She is a child alone in a very public place, vulnerable. She skips away towards the summer light of the barn door and disappears in the lights rays.

  I disappear to some state of wonderment, just glad to have been joined in the mooing and the pondering the brief foray into the mystical realm…

  But she and the memory fade like an apparition and I return to life and all the ceaseless noise of my mind.

  I never knew what a clamorous place my mind really was until I began to mediate. What I never noticed that there were particular frequencies that my thoughts alighted on over and over. On this week of the fairy child, money was the fear that would not shut up in my head. Money, weight, other people, my mind had the making of a crack den where a drift of fear or the negative could get me smoking and my mind would become like a corrupt radio with only one frequency. 

  Due to effort and age, I am at the “enough already” chapter of life. By the 6th decade, I know I will not end up on the dole, that things have always worked out and have had enough glimmers of serenity that I can at least identify fear or noise when I hear it. One of my life mottos is if I can name the beast I can slay it.

  My financial fear though had been triggered by a huge “elective” expense and a few surprises. Of course just like I did as a kid, when I was certain my brothers would steal my sweets so I ate them all in one sitting, I had a habit as an adult when looking at lean times, I would compulsively fill the larder. So knowing this big expense was coming, and that I would need to tighten the proverbial belt, I bought a few pretties. Perhaps a few too many…

  Another of my favorite adages is the lyric from The Eagles Hotel California, … “we are all prisoners of our own design.”

  I tell you all this to set the stage for the second encounter with a changeling.

  Walks for me are medicinal; they help put me in my right mind.

  Since I was out of my mind worrying about money, I needed this walk. In my chattering head I tried tempering the fear by repeating positive affirmations,  “ I am abundantly blessed.” Additionally, I had vowed not to spend any money unless absolutely necessary. All this sound very ordinary, except it was like a skirmish between light and dark, and for me a very redundant one. I’d been troubling about money since I was a kid and we were the charity, food stamps family.  (Which makes me speculate whether fear is born or bred?)

  So I am strolling through my neighborhood with this mental volleyball game going on, when I am charged by a changeling of joy. A mop top of curls 8-year-old girl bounces towards me, chanting, “today is your lucky day.” (I immediately count my the day lucky to have been distracted by the reverie in my head.) “ I have a special treasure for you,” she chants.

  I assume that this dollop of joy girl is a direct manifestation of thought. I had been affirming prosperity and now she has chosen me, of the many pedestrians out for a walk to gift with the treasure, She hands me a My Little Pony chalkboard, and almost singing it, says "here is your surprise."

  Captured again by a changeling, I inquire her name. This one chooses to tell me. “Alley Cat” she purrs and proceeds to sing me
a song. Right there in the middle of a very ordinary street on an ordinary I am given a surprise gift by the ever so surprising Alley Cat.

  She turns and prances away to the melody and I am left to ponder…. the magical and mystical and perhaps that is more ordinary than I remember. Perhaps these two muses have come to alert me, awaken me to that which I have forgotten.











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