Thursday, May 19, 2016

May 19, 2016 - The Enchanted Pool


Every once in a while, the clouds will set in low over what we call “the pond” (a dammed portion of the ocean between two peninsulas in Harpswell).  If you look closely at the photo, you’ll the see that the clouds seem to echo the shape of the treeline, or is it the other way around?  I can’t be sure.  A row of green clouds; a row of grey clouds.  What does it matter?

Narcissus waits.

Not to be outdone or overshadowed, the water then echoes perfectly the world above it, or is it the other way around?  Again, I can’t be sure.  A couple of times a day, the water becomes as still as a mirror, saying, “This is the magic time.”  Like Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephissus in the Greek religion, the Earth creeps to the shoreline to gaze at her own beauty.  Will she fall in love with herself as Narcissus did?  But we all know that ended tragically with Narcissus’ death.  Let’s hope the Earth can resist.

At the very place where the land meets the water, a clear line can be seen.  It is the line of demarcation, the line that says you may not pass.  This line separates two worlds that, for now, look exactly the same.  But they are very different worlds.  Attempting to jump from one to the other would not go well for the creatures that dwell on either side.

If you could nimbly pull the line apart like a giant zipper, each side would spill off in its own direction, very much as a coat does when unzipped.  And, like a coat, once unzipped it would reveal the being who dwells beneath the protective covering.  The face of the Great Alchemist would at last be revealed.  Or . . . have you already fallen into the enchanted pool?