Entries tagged with “heroes journey.” from Blog Write

I heard the sound again tonight. The sound that is not only sound.

It woke me at 3 am. Although I am lying here half asleep, I am aware. Aware that something had disturbed me. But I know. It was that sound. The one that has been haunting me for twenty years

I first heard it when I was 33 years old. It comes in cycles. I can hear it every night for a couple of weeks, then not for a year or more.

The first few times I heard it I tried to follow it to its source. But... but I got scared by what I saw. What I felt. I lost courage and gave up the search. I have tried many times since then to track that sound to it's lair. Sometimes, I knew I was close. But the nearer I got, the further it slipped away. Like a gossamer spider web, borne on a summers breeze. It was if it was something that you could not look at, nor listen to, directly. You had to come upon it obliquely, out of the corner of your eye. To be seen or heard only through a mist of not-quite-awakedness.

I know others hear it. They have told me so. And some -- like I -- have tried to find it. I have found their tracks. Vague footprints in the shadows. Some have left scraps of written information and maps. I have seen where they have given up the chase, or discovered where they have come to grief. Like shipwrecks washed up on a skeleton coast. Stripped of all flesh. Staring, empty eye sockets and bleached, dismembered bones.

Some have found it. Of that I'm sure. There have been rumours. Some - a few - have returned and told their stories. Fantastic stories. Their tales were of unbelievable things -- riches beyond gold and great treasures. But people said they were mad.

I have heard the sound in many places. All over the world. But this last ten years it has been here. It lives here. In the middle of the great, dark, ancient forest, which waits, just beyond my garden wall.

What is this sound that is not only a sound? It is a cry on the wind. A wail. Keening in the night. It has the resonance of a church-bell -- with harmonics -- heard through rain. Or the rhythmic clanging of a halyard as a boat rides the waves, gently at anchor. It is numinous. It engenders in me a portent of danger, as does a foghorn heard over a dark and reef-ridden sea. Yet sometimes, it is the sigh of a woman soft in my ears. Whispered after -- or promising -- lovemaking. It is the cry of an infant heard in half-sleep, pulling me by the heart from slumber.

The sound comes again. Rising quickly, I go to the window, looking at the night sky. The moon is on its back. Horned. A pale and cream thighed goddess, traipsing over the tree-tops.

The boughs of the trees at the edge of forest are gently swaying, their leaves trembling.

I dress, and with torch in hand leave the house and walk into the woods.

Following a well-trodden path I head towards the centre of the forest. I turn right at the standing stone, and left at the fallen, mistletoe-covered oak. I climb over the wall of the old ruined church and go down into the mist-shrouded valley. I hear the stream ahead and follow it's flow down into the marshy ground where the fungi glow. Treading carefully to avoid the bog, I push through the thorn-bushes. The trees are so dense here. The trunks and branches look sculptured -- by some chaotic hand  -- into grotesque sentinels. Beards and raiments made from lichen and moss. Their twigs look like grasping, arthritic fingers. Touching, leading each other in a macabre, primeval ballet. I've lost the stars and the light. It is dark and eerie here, and the air is dank and heavy. Laden with malevolence.

I stop for a rest and to gather my courage. I've managed to get farther  into the wood than before.

The wood's at it's darkest now, as is the night. I can see the beasts in the shadows. Their hungry red eyes, gloating. Fleeting shadows, shades and phantasms. They have no power over me now, and they know it. Off to the right I see a faint lightening in the shadows. I follow the light. The wood is thinning and the dawn is coming. Ahead of me, a sunbeam penetrates the canopy, and illuminates a clearing.

In the clearing is a pool, silent and deep, and at the edge of the pool is a hazel tree. The nut-laden branches are drooping to touch the water. I sit under the tree to take a drink. A nut falls and hits my head. It bounces and plops into the water, causing ripples to form, spreading through the water, and shimmering through the air. I turn to look into the pool.

It was as if I stepped out of myself and stumbled through a rent in the world. I am suddenly reeling, spinning around. The light is so bright. The scents are overwhelming. The taste of the water in my mouth is like nectar.

I can hear the sound. I can feel it vibrating through every atom of my body. It is everywhere. It is all around me. It is in the trees, the air and the sun. It is... it is, in ME! The sound is coming from me. I am the sound. I can feel it, hear it, taste it and smell it.

Suddenly, I understand it. I know what it was that was calling out to me. I have answered the call.

I look to the pool, and sitting, waiting there, I come across, me.

"Hello" the figure says.  " I have been calling to you for so long."

"Come and sit beside me, I have so much to tell you."