I wrote this on my old blog a couple of years ago......I decided to repost it with a couple wee changes and some images. I am busy working in the studio but didn't want to leave my blog so unattended. I adore all of you and it is in your visits and comments I take great pleasure. Soon I will have some art to share as well as some news and of course time to see what's happening in your worlds. In the meantime I hope you enjoy this wee story and have a most pleasant day!!!
There on the beach, the waves lapping against the sandy shore it could be seen like a mound of sea kelp.
Treading lightly toward it leaving footprints along the way the heart begins to race. What is it? The closer you get the more it becomes evident it is nothing like you’ve ever seen before. The colors are luminous and glisten around what is now clearly a cocoon. Wrapped in what appears gauze-like its shape is perfect and oval and glowing. You stand motionless with the knowledge somewhere deep within that you shouldn’t touch it or move it or even stand too close. You see the sun is beginning its descent and in the twilight the cocoon begins to move ever so slightly. Standing back yet not completely afraid you watch and you wonder what could possibly have created this. The only sound at first are the waves as they come in and recede again wetting your toes. Then suddenly there is even more movement and in the air, the still night, beach air is the sound of the most beautiful piano music you have ever heard. It’s hypnotizing and it brings you to tears but you don’t know why.
You are transfixed and you are weeping and you feel the shake of your shoulders as the weeps become sobs. And still you have no idea why.
The cocoon is opening in front of you. From this oval
splendor rises one wing at a time….the beauty of the wings is indescribable.
They unfold up, up and suddenly completely unfurled you see her underneath
them. She rises slowly as if to unlock each vertebrae and hands like fine bone
china stretch towards the sky as she stands. The piano music is louder now and
its cadence is quicker and the notes more defined. She raises one leg with toes
perfectly pointed and steps on to the sand, gently raises the other to fully
release herself from the cocoon. She turns slowly and with calculated motions
walks toward the waters edge.
The sun is gone and the moon is full and casting beams against the incandescent wings. She starts to step, one knee bent the other leg in front of her she takes a miniscule leap…one then the other in time with the piano. Her hands are moving and sweeping in the air above her head, behind her back, out in front of her. She continues leaping and prancing along the sand and the wings move slowly in time with her movements. She bends and reaches for something you can’t quite see at first until she turns and with one in each hand she swirls sea kelp as though they were silken ribbons. She makes them twirl and she makes them dance as she leaps, toes pointed. She herself twirls and it’s as if the very air is lifting her. She takes a series of short, quick steps forward as she bends at the waist and up she rises again, she bends backwards and in the air the kelp ribbon is moving in its own dance. She crosses and uncrosses them and she reaches with them and she curls up with them. The piano music is soft in some moments and more dramatic in other moments as you watch this seaside ballet. You don’t speak and she does not acknowledge you. She runs in to the water and out again many times. She is wearing a long and loose fitting garment, the sleeves are long and draped and although the moon dances with her it never illuminates her face. All you can see clearly are her tiny feet and delicate arms and hands. You feel like an intruder in a cosmic recital never intended for an audience but you can’t look away.
Suddenly she stops as quickly as she began and she
releases the kelp ribbon in to the sea and the piano music is softer and her
shoulders look hunched as if a weight had been placed on them. Her pointed toes
now drag in the sand as she walks and you have the urge to run and aid her. The
pianos last note resonates as she reaches the open cocoon and steps inside, one
leg then the other. The wings, the hauntingly beautiful wings, fold in to
themselves resting against her back. She rolls forward as she had rolled upward
when she first appeared. In the fetal position she coils herself inside and the
gauze wraps around her and around her and around and yet it seems to be getting
smaller. You watch listening to the sound of your own heart beat as the cocoon
nearly vanishes.
It is then you move, it is then you find yourself stepping
gingerly closer and there on the sand is a sea shell, the kind where you can listen to the sea. The water had washed away all her dancing
foot prints. The clouds moved in and before they could block the moon entirely
you bend and pick up the shell and place it in the palm of your hand and close
your fingers over it.
You know you will never be the same yet you don’t
know why. You somehow know life as you knew it would be forever altered. You somehow know your
very being, your inner soul, your humanness has been raised to a level you
never fathomed. It’s a power that has come from this magical witnessing of the
dance. But what was the dance? Who was she and where did she come from? Why
were you allowed to see it? It occurs to you the answers will most likely not reveal
themselves immediately.
Hours later in what seemed like fleeting moments with no rhyme and no reason you stop and look back one more time. The sun is out and you feel a sense of inner synchronization you never felt before. You rub your weary eyes with your free hand while you feel a soft kiss in the palm of the other hand, a fluttery kiss.
You don't feel the hard sides of the shell anymore. In fact your hand looks strange and glowing and at first you want to open and drop the shell but you don't. You stand there and just watch your own hand as if it were not attached to you. You feel more flutter on your palm and without your will your fingers begin to unfold slowly. When your hand is fully open you see it.......the most beautiful butterfly you've ever seen has replaced the shell. Its wings are incandscent and familiar, you are certain they are just like hers were as they unfolded from her gauze cocoon and shone against the moon.
You don't know if it's your imagination or all that you witnessed, but as it flies away there is the softest strain of piano music drifting on the ocean breeze.
You sift the sand through your toes as you finally have the strength to walk towards the water and you continue to watch her flight out to sea.
You know you are changed in some way. You know you feel a lighter spirit. You know you feel strangely unecumbered. You even feel you have your own wings with which to navigate the rest of your life.......
As you get to the edge of the water and feel the ocean waves tickle your feet you leap in to dance......
a cosmic dance.......
and it's filled with possibilities the likes of which you are only just beginning to feel.
Love,
Lisa
XOXOXO
