November 3, 2019 - The Secret Kiss

They only meet on occasion and always in secret.  The hidden birch waits quietly, while around her the riotous green growth of the other trees and plants dominates the landscape in a fantastic cascade of breathtaking being.  Then comes the masquerade ball where they all wear their most colorful costumes, and the band promises to play forever while they waltz away into the night, singing carelessly and childishly.  Yet still the birch waits silently and patiently.

But the band has not told the truth.  It does not play forever, after all, and one by one the guests leave, their costumes dragging behind them.  Each covertly holds the idea that surely this time they have gone too far, and atonement looms on the horizon.  There are no flowers to be found anywhere.  Now they fade off into obscurity and impoverishment.  Still the birch waits quietly for the fleeting moment, the secret.

Then the Sun hits a certain angle in the western sky as He arcs toward the Underworld, and finally the secret is revealed.  He bathes the birch in kisses of gold light that drip slowly down her trunk, and the two embrace in a passion of long lost love found once again.  The surrounding area is hushed in the brilliance of the embrace, watching a timeless and ethereal enactment of "I AM."  Then He dips quietly below the horizon, and the world falls quickly into dusk.  A cold wind picks up seemingly out of nowhere.  All eyes lower to the ground, and the birch waits silently and expectantly once again.

October 29, 2019 - Dear Annabelle

(I'm quite certain this letter could have been written by just about any old woman here in Maine.  Yes, I'm quite sure of it.  Enjoy the dark season we are slipping into, lovelies.)

Dear Annabelle:

I’m writing you this letter to let you know that I think I was wrong about not letting you borrow my doll.  You’ll remember the doll?  The little grey one on the mantel in the spare bedroom?  It’s the one you were looking at when you were here last October.  You had picked him up and said he looked like the ugliest little voodoo doll you had ever seen—whatever that is—but you wanted to take him home to scare the class bully.  I’m sorry about that razor blade that was behind him and how it cut your hand so badly.  Sometimes I’m so forgetful about where I put things, and they end up in the strangest places.  Anyhow, I hope your hand is okay now.

I just didn’t think it would be a good idea at the time for you to get any blood on him because he really doesn’t like that.  Lord have mercy, I’ll never forget that time when Robert from down the street—God rest his soul—got in that lawnmower accident.  It took his foot clean off in three seconds flat and scattered it in pieces all over the lawn.  There was blood everywhere, and his neighbor—old George—told me that’s why he shot himself in the head, after firing five shots randomly into the lawn.

Well, that Robert never was very smart, you know.  My poor doll got so much blood on him.  You’re probably wondering how that happened, but I guess one of my cats had dragged him over there.  I had put the doll on the windowsill when I was dusting the spare bedroom, and I think he fell right out the window.  But anyways, what a time I had trying to clean him up.  George says that Robert was trying to shoot the doll.  Now, how ridiculous is that?  But then I told you that Robert never was very smart.  He was a bully, too.  He’s the one who kicked my mailbox down.

And speaking of George, that man is just plain unstable.  Ever since his wife, Edna, died a few years back, he just hasn’t been right in the head.  Of course, there was a big scandal in the neighborhood when she had gone and set herself on fire at the base of that old apple tree.  Good heavens!  The gossiping went on for weeks!  I actually missed the event because I was busy making my apple pies to enter into the county fair.  What a mess my kitchen was.  Do you know that somehow I actually put my doll in the oven with one of the pies?  It’s true.  I had so many pies on the table that I didn’t know what was what.  One of the cats must have left the doll right by one of the pies, and into the oven it went!

Lord!  What a stench that was.  It was a good thing I was able to get him out of the oven in time.  I felt pretty bad about it for a spell, but with a little bit of water and a needle and thread, he was just fine.  Well, he has a little less hair, I’m afraid, but it couldn’t be helped.  Anyhow, did I tell you that I ended up winning all the blue ribbons that year for my apple pies?  Yes, sir, I sure did.  And it was the first year that Edna didn’t beat me in the pie-making contest.  Of course, she wasn’t in any shape to do so, being burnt to cinders and all.

Pastor Brown was judging the contest that year, and I heard that he darn near choked to death on something he was taste-testing.  Somebody did that Heimlich maneuver thing on him, and don’t you know that a huge piece of an apple came flying right out of his throat?  It was the strangest thing.  Anyhow, I had just finished sewing up the hole in the doll and taking the pin out of his neck just before I went down to the fair to see why all the ambulances were heading there, and that’s when I heard about Pastor Brown.  Between you and me, I never did like that man.  Imagine my surprise when he gave me the first-place blue ribbons.  You could have heard a pin drop.

And speaking of pins, I only just remembered when your mother came to visit me long ago.  She must have been about your age at the time, and isn’t it such a coincidence that she used to call my little grey doll a voodoo doll, just like you did.  Like mother, like daughter, I always say.  I’ll never forget the time I caught her stuffing that poor doll right full of pins.  When I asked her why, she said she was pretending it was Joey Adams from school, the one who had shoved her down in the mud and ruined her dress.  Can you imagine that?  I told her it was just plain silly.

He wasn’t much trouble anymore, though, after he had caught the small pox.  That boy was covered from head to foot with blisters and scabs.  It’s a good thing we had all been immunized against it.  His parents must have forgotten to bring him to the doctor for that shot, but what do you expect from a bunch of ne’er-do-wells?  Come to think of it, they were related to Robert from down the street—God rest his soul.  Nothing but a bunch of pointy, sharp thistles growing on that boy’s grave now and no one to do the mowing anymore.  What’s the world coming to?

But anyways, your mother always was an impulsive girl.  She went ahead and married your father against the will of her mother—my sister, Myrtle, your grandmother.  I’ll never forget how angry Myrtle was.  She just raged back and forth for days up in that spare bedroom, which used to be her room before she passed away, screaming and yelling at the top of her lungs, she was.  Because you see, they had eloped.  Myrtle never would have allowed that marriage.

And that reminds me of the oddest thing.  I had been out at a church meeting late one night when I came home and saw the strangest light ever glowing from Myrtle’s window.  At first I worried that there was a fire, so I raced up to the room.  Fortunately, there was no fire, but instead Myrtle had been throwing things all over the room.  What a mess!  My poor doll had landed on the lamp and got his whole face roasted on the hot light bulb.  It’s a good thing I got there when I did because there probably would have been a fire.

Myrtle did calm down quite a bit when you were born, though.  Of course, we were all very sad about the welding accident your dad had down at the plant.  He had taken his mask off just for a second, which he shouldn’t have done, but one second was enough to roast his eyeballs and lose his sight.  Myrtle thought your mother might divorce him then, but with you on the way, that wouldn’t have been a very good idea.  I never did count the months between their marriage and your birth, at least not out loud and never in Myrtle’s presence.

She certainly did get uppity and moody as she got older, though.  I wonder sometimes if her mind wasn’t going at the end.  You know, she used to tell me that this house was haunted and that there was a terrible “presence” in her room.  Now, have you ever heard anything so silly?  And coming from a grown woman who ought to have known better, no less.  Still, I should have watched her more closely.  If I had, she might not have fallen out the window and cracked her skull wide open on the sidewalk below.  What a mess to clean up!  And my poor doll was stuck underneath her until the ambulance crew lifted her up.  I swear those darn cats are going to be the death of me.  Always going after something that doesn’t belong to them and dragging it away to the oddest spot.

Anyhow, I’ve thought good and hard about it, and I think you ought to borrow my doll for a while.  He might cheer you up.  You must promise me that you’ll place him in a room where he can look out and see everything, and if it’s close to a window, even better.  Oh, you probably think I’m foolish worrying about an old doll and all.  But when I got this doll, I was asked to do the very same thing and I’m glad I did it, eventually.  I thought it was foolish then, too, but sometimes old customs have their reasons even if we don’t know them anymore.

I’m sure you know—or maybe you don’t?—that this doll was given to me by old Elspeth, that midwife who used to live in town.  What a character she was!  My father said she was not to be trusted, but he was quite wrong.  She was the one who told me that his ship would sink on his last voyage out, and she sure was right about that.  Mother was heartbroken, and old Elspeth felt bad and gave me this doll so I wouldn’t cry so much.  I didn’t listen to the instructions and I used to sleep with the doll stuffed tightly under my pillow.  What a kind lady old Elspeth was.  It’s too bad she suffocated when that mine shaft caved in on her.  What she was doing in a mine, I’ll never know, but mother said that herbalists sometimes use crushed gems in their potions.  She sure was crushed, all right.

Oh, by the way, this is the second time I’ve tried to send this dear little doll to you.  The first time was a couple of months ago when I had placed him in a little box with just a tiny note.  I was in a hurry that day so the mail lady said she would bring it to the post office for me.  Of course, none of us had any way of knowing that she’d get in such a terrible accident that day.  The truck was completely totaled, and just about everything in it was utterly destroyed beyond recognition, including the mail lady.  They found my little package, though, right on the floor on the driver’s side.  Now, how lucky is that?

So you do as I say and take good care of the doll.  Let him breathe and give him a nice spot to sit.  I’ll be coming down for a visit in a couple of months—God willing and the Devil don’t take me first.  If I don’t make it, though, give my apologies to your mother and father and tell them not to worry about Myrtle’s rambling letters from long ago.  After all, she was senile and fell right out of a window.  And don’t you worry about that old bully at school, because these things have a way of working themselves out.  I’ve learned that if you want something badly enough, you’ll get it for sure.

Hugs and kisses,

Great Aunt Greta

October 26, 2019 - Requiem

“Lo, in the orient when the gracious light lifts up his burning head, each under eye doth homage to his new-appearing sight, serving with looks his sacred majesty . . .”  So begins Sonnet #7 of Shakespeare, and I know it only too well.  In fact, I cannot ever forget it. 

The sun, which just a few days ago seemed to be so high and strong in the sky, now sails on its journey at a much lower and painful curve in the sky.  Each day it rises a bit later, arcs a bit lower, and sets a bit sooner.  The all-powerful Sun God now suffers His immortal wound.  Is He leaving me again?  His glances are more fleeting, His touch not as warm . . .  And He is preoccupied, marching back and forth like a soldier with thoughts only for the coming battle.  The crows fly higher in the sky now, mocking.  It is just a matter of time.  He knows this.

Now it seems that everyone looks the other way, as Shakespeare so eloquently pointed out.  No one wants to admit the end.  Endless distractions are employed yet again, and I find myself worn out by the effort others make to avoid reality.  It seems they will go to any length to pretend that the banquet is eternal and that the end can be forestalled forever.

But I will stand alone as I have always done.  I will witness His demise yet again.  I will stare it boldly in the face when the time comes.  I am not afraid of the soft, cold darkness.  Being far too fair of skin with light green eyes, I was never made for the Sun and His powerful energy anyway.  My skin always burned; my eyes always hurt.  But I did love Him in secret.

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I had misbehaved yet again.  This was not remotely out of character for me, since I was well known in the family as the rowdiest and rudest among all of my siblings.  Also, I had a terribly smart mouth, and I am afraid that has not changed very much over the years.  In any event, my punishment this time around was to choose one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, memorize it by heart, and recite it to my father within one hour.

To be sure, my father used his belt on me a lot, too.  He would snap it in the air, and you never saw four children run faster in four opposite directions.  For those who are shocked by this, remember that it was a different time then and there were different rules.  Somehow we all made it through just fine, though.  But this time around there was surprisingly no belt.  Instead, I had to memorize a sonnet, and I fulfilled my part of the deal within the hour allotted me.

Sonnet #7 is Shakespeare’s poem about the sun.  It is not only about the sun in the sky, though, but about the rising, soaring, falling, and dying in our own lives, and ultimately how we live on only in and through our offspring.  Man too rises, soars, falls, and dies.  Without his children, he perishes.  Without their father, they cannot be.  Each sunrise and sunset depends on the former and places its hope in the latter.

Now the sun is low in the sky.  The days will grow ever shorter and darker, and the ice will begin to advance again.  The Lord of Winter watches greedily from the field.  He knows His enemy is fatally wounded and that I am coming to Him yet again for shelter in His icy grasp.  I do not fear.  Someday in the future, I will owe no more to this Archetypical realm in which I find myself and will be just a woman again.  But today is not that day.  Soon the crows will laugh in the sky, and the mournful dirge will be sung out yet again:  “The King is dead.  Long live the King.”

October 23, 2019 - Huginn and Muninn

Lately, I have been thinking a great deal about Odinn, the great All-Father of ancient Norse/Germanic belief.  There is something about him that is ringing true for me, that has been nagging me, and I find myself wondering just how much of a “myth” his existence actually is.

Odinn has two ravens who sit on his shoulders, named Huginn and Muninn.  They are actually an extension of Odinn himself.  The name Huginn means “thought,” and that translation is pretty direct.  But the name Muninn is a bit more complicated.  There is no direct translation for it, but it carries the concepts of “thought, desire, and emotion.”  Muninn is often translated as memory.

So the two ravens sit on Odinn’s shoulders, and they whisper into his ears.  Very early every day, Odinn sends Huginn and Muninn out to fly over all of Midgard (the world we humans live in) and bring information back to him about what is going on in the world.  In this way he keeps abreast of what is happening and makes his decisions accordingly.

But, you see, Odinn has a problem.  He’s worried, and he’s becoming more worried every day.  Odinn says in Grímnismál, a poem in the Prose Edda book, the following:  “Huginn and Muninn fly each day over the spacious earth.  I fear for Huginn that he come not back, yet more anxious am I for Muninn.”  He is worried that he will send his thought out and it will not come back, but he is even more worried that he will send his memory out and it will never return.

These are his faithful messengers, and yet he is very worried that they will leave him one day and never come back.  Most especially, he fears for Muninn, his memory.  But why would they leave and never come back?

Some scholars have compared the idea of sending Huginn and Muninn (thought and memory) out as a sort of shamanic practice done in a trance state.  The idea is that there is always the danger that the shaman cannot return from his journey (many cultures used drugs to induce trance).  But I don’t think that’s what it is.  I think it’s a little simpler and more practical.

We are nothing without our thoughts and memories.  They make us who we are.  If you lose your ability to think, then you lose your ability to plan and reason.  If you lose your memories, then you’ve lost all the experience upon which you would have based your plans and reasoning in the first place.  So yes, it would be worse to lose your memory than to lose your thought.

Yet daily around us, if we are watchful, we see the hidden hands constantly reaching out to steal our thoughts and memories.  Foolish distractions, irrational fears, mounting terror, gluttony, sexual perversions, electronic toys, etc., all try to steal our thoughts with their icy hands.  But the worst by far, I think, is the rewriting of history that is going on around us.  The distractions and fears, etc., attempt to steal our thoughts, but the rewriting of history attempts to steal our memories.

And what is history?  It’s a just a record of what happened in the past—a memory.  But whose memory is it?  Well, we are told that history is written by the victors, so that memory is pretty subjective.  Since World War II we have had a slow but continual erosion and rewriting of history.  At first it was subtle, but the effects were cumulative as time went on.  In the past decade, however, it has picked up speed at an alarming rate.  If you are old enough, you will know what I am talking about.  It was a different world 30 years ago, and I am not talking about electronics.  The world itself was different.  And 30 years before that, it was even more different.

Many people are walking around scratching their heads, wondering if everything they learned when they were young actually is wrong, and the new way of thinking and believing is actually the right way.  If you are doing this:  STOP NOW.  You are giving Muninn away.  You are giving the most precious part of yourself away, and you don’t even know it.  Muninn is your thought, desire, and emotion all rolled up into your memories. 

They are YOUR memories, and I don’t care who the victor is, you don’t have to lose Muninn.  Worse, you don’t have to willingly give him away.  So please pay attention.  If something gives you a bad feeling or stops you in your tracks or just doesn’t sound right, THAT IS MUNINN.  He is whispering in your ear.  He is reminding you of what is real.  PAY ATTENTION.  Trust yourself.  Do not waiver from what you know is right.  When you do this, Huginn will return.  What good is thought without memory?  Our propagandists and merchants know this only so well.

Lastly, remember that Odinn the All-Father was a death and battle God, and ravens are carrion birds.  When you properly place yourself into an “Odinn frame of mind,” you will utterly eradicate and destroy the enemy.  Give no thought to mercy.  Annihilate the enemy completely.  Then let the ravens feast.

October 20, 2019 - The Fall of Fall

What?  Is it too much?  Be careful as you approach, if you can at all.  This was the reality all along, hiding under the counterfeit celebration, but you came for pretty colors and angelic butterflies with gossamer wings.  You came for sweet scents and soft winds and gentle rays of sunshine.  Because you wanted to keep the illusion alive, the vision of autumn’s splendor, the fool’s paradise of glutted satisfaction.

Is it too much?  Be sure to block your sight out with an iron nail driven deeply through the eye.  No amount of avoidance can be enough.  No amount of pain is enough so long as it blocks out the truth, right?  Go ahead and place the anointed and embalmed body in a padded coffin with lace and flowers.  Paint the macabre marionette’s face to make her look alive, so you do not have to see what has been waiting for you all along.

Is it too much?  Be sure to stain your vision red so you do not have to see the inky blackness.  Be sure to pretend the gaping dark precipice on which you stand is just the dirt under your feet.  But I have been here all along.  Before you were born, I was here.  After you have gone, I will still be here.  I am the cycle from beginning to end.  You came for lies, but I haven’t any to give you.  I have loved you more than your own God ever could.

October 19, 2019 - Persephone Descends

There was always so much to do, so much that needed her attention.  She let her mind wander just for a moment, took her watchful eye off her daughter for just one brief second.  ‘She will be fine.  I cannot do everything,’ she thought.  Even as she thought it, she knew it was wrong.  She knew she should have never let her guard down.  But she was tired.  And now the evidence was before her eyes.

There was a rot in the cornfield, leaves falling madly from trees, flowers bowing their heads in exhaustion, begging for sleep.  Here was the proof, and she did not have to check the meadow where she had left Persephone—for just one moment!—because she knew the meadow was empty.  The men had harvested the crops from the scorched and brown fields, and the crows were busy stealing the last morsels.  The small animals were frantically scurrying back and forth, fortifying their nests.  The end was coming.  Again.  She had lost her daughter, again.

At that very moment, Persephone was heading into a wooded area.  ‘Just for a moment,’ she told herself.  There was something in there she was supposed to get, but she could not remember what it was.  ‘Just a little further,’ she thought, ‘And then I will go home and be safe again.’  But it was confusing.  There were large shadows falling everywhere, and the sweet smell that used to emanate from the woods had turned sour and heady.  There was something about that scent . . . that decay.  ‘Just a little further . . .’

As she went on, she could feel eyes upon her.  She was being watched and she knew it, but she did not know who it was or where he was.  Every time she turned around to catch him, certain that he would be there, she saw nothing but leaves flying about in a cool wind.  The crows were mocking far up in the trees, and the buzzing insects had disappeared.  The songbirds were gone.  It felt colder in the woods, so she pulled her cloak around her and enjoyed the scent that kept pulling her forward.  ‘Maybe just over that ridge . . .’

Off in the distance, the great Lady had bowed her head and fell to her knees, crying in anguish.  The thousands of mesmerizing tiny bells that hung from the scarf on her hips now rang out a mournful dirge.  Persephone could still hear the bells—there was something about the bells—but she could not remember anymore.  She was confused.  Again.  And there was that other-worldly scent of fermentation calling her on.  ‘Just a few more minutes, and I will go back to the sad song of the pretty bells . . .’

Then she stopped suddenly and quickly, and it seemed as if the entire woods stopped with her, so silent it was.  There before her, as if materializing out of thin air, was a cup set deliberately on a large stone, offering the scent that tempted her.  ‘Come closer,’ she heard in her mind, ‘come closer . . . drink . . . eat . . .’  And the cup filled before her eyes with a reddish-black liquid.  Fruits she had never seen before in her mother’s garden suddenly appeared on a small silver plate.  They were so beautiful.  So tempting.

“I know you are there,” she said loudly and coldly, “Show yourself!”  She turned around quickly, again, but there was nothing there, again.

“I said, show yourself!  I will not eat.  I will not drink!  It is forbidden.  I can only have what the great Lady offers me.  She has warned me against your poison!” she said.  But even as she said so, she stared longingly at the cup and plate that tempted her.  She was hungry, and even as she said she would not eat or drink, she moved a bit closer.

“Can you speak so ill of my gifts?” he said.  She did not turn around because she knew she would not see him.

“Gifts?  Is poison a gift now?”

“What poison?  Did she tell you that I would give you poison?” he asked.

“She never said anything about you, but she said not to eat or drink anything offered to me.  She said it would be poison.”

“And does it look like poison to you?  Does it smell like poison?”

“No,” she faltered, “But . . .”

“But?  You are hungry and thirsty.  This I can see.  Take a rest and drink.”

What could it hurt to drink just a few sips?  To eat just a small amount?  When was the last time she had eaten or had something to drink?  She could not remember, and she could not remember why she had come so far into the woods either.

‘Just a small amount, then,’ she told herself, ‘Just a small amount.  Because I am tired.  Because I am thirsty.  Because I am hungry.  Just a small taste . . .’  She looked at the beautiful reddish-black liquid as it swirled in the cup.  It was so tempting.  ‘What could it hurt to have just a little?  The Lady will not be angry with me.’  Even as she thought it, she forgot what the Lady’s face looked like.  That was a long time ago.

She sat down and took a sip from the cup.  ‘That scent . . . that flavor . . .’  And then she stood up quickly and turned around, her eyes large and wary.  She had suddenly and immediately remembered who she was.  Before her was the root ball of an upended tree that must have fallen in the storm that had raged a few days earlier.  There was a small hole at its base.  She went closer, the cup still in her hand.  No, it was not a hole.  It was an entryway.  Now she could see it clearly.  There was a tunnel, and so she descended.

Because it was time to descend, and this was what she had been born to do.  How could she have forgotten?  Back in the woods, the Lord of Winter sat with a self-satisfied grin.  He knew she would come back.  He had known all along.

October 13, 2019 - Hunter's Moon

Now rises the Hunter’s Moon in the sky tonight (also known as the Blood Moon), shedding its full light on the animals of the woods, and the ancient and timeless ritual begins again.  The leaves turn a shade of blood-red in anticipation of the hunt, and the small creatures hide in their dens.  No mercy is sought, and none is given.  All eyes are on the hunter.

He tracks his prey along the deer paths of the forest, learning their habits, consuming their scent.  He will creep and crawl and slither along the floor of the woods, and even the snakes will bow their heads.  It is time for the blood, and every animal feels it.  The peace and plenty of early summer, the heat of the dog days when Sirius rose high in the night sky, and the gluttony of early autumn now give way to the reckoning.  No debt in the world ever goes unpaid.

Every bit, every morsel, every drop of water is extracted in payment now.  The herd offers its sacrifice, and the hunter accepts his portion.  Balance is critical and crucial, and those who stay within its boundaries live life on their own terms and die in dignity.  Most of modern mankind, however, has forgotten this, but the debt continues to mount.  Restitution is inevitable for the masses, yet the hunter does not concern himself with this.  He does not cast his pearls before swine.

But he, too, amasses obligation and will make restitution soon enough.  The Hunter’s Moon of October will give way to the Snow Moon of November, when the hunter becomes the hunted.  The Lord of Winter advances in leagues now.  The hunter will resist to the end, which is always nearer than he supposes.  Sunt lacrimae rerum.

October 5, 2019 - Gold

They’re giving out gold in the woods like there’s no tomorrow.  That’s the word on the street—as much gold as you can carry!  It’s all there and it’s all free.  You just have to go and gather it.  Of course, I had to check it out for myself, and lo and behold, there was gold as far as the eye could see.

There were the golden ferns, those ancient of plants, teeming with brilliance now throughout the woodland floor.  Laughter could be heard as the ferns posed for a photo grinning from ear to ear.  What once was curly light green fiddleheads thrusting upward from the Earth in the Spring, then became lush deep green and graceful fronds fanning the undergrowth in the Summer, and then finally became the keepers of the forest’s gold in the Fall.

There were trees hidden here and there, displaying magnificent leaves of solid gold in the dappled sunlight that somehow found its way into the forest.  They were dripping with wealth, the remaining birds all singing in their boughs and getting ready to fly south following after those that had already done so.

There were the secret magic mushrooms sprouting from old dead tree stumps, giving form to death once again as they hover between the two worlds—neither plant nor animal.  There were the large and golden toadstools springing forth from the bases of more dead trees.  Death everywhere you looked, with golden life oozing out of it.

I went with the intention of gathering as much gold as possible.  Then I would be rich!  Then I would be prosperous!  But when I pulled out my sack to fill it up, the squirrels all pointed and laughed at me.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked.  “Can’t you see all around you the golden wealth?”

“Indeed, foolish human, we do see,” they said.

“Why are you not gathering it yourself?”

“We already have!”

“So your nests,” I ventured, “are lined with gold?”

“Oh, indeed,” they said, but they looked down their noses as they spoke.

Did they not realize how important gold is in this world?  Did they not know the value of the precious metal?  And as if they could read my mind, one of them responded to my unasked questions.

“Can you eat gold?” he asked.

“Well, no, but I can buy food with gold, and I can certainly eat the food I buy,” I said.

“What if there is no food to buy?  What will you eat?  Can you eat the gold?”

“No, but . . .”

“And water,” he said, “what if there is no water to be found or to buy?  Then what will you do?”

“That’s not going to happen . . .” I said, but really, I didn’t know that for sure.

“My nest is full of acorns and sweet nuts,” he said.  “It is full of dried fruits and berries and sweet grass.  There is a little stream nearby that runs from the Fall rains, and in the Winter the snow provides sweet-tasting water.  I’ve lined my home with fragrant, bright-colored leaves, and I’ve stuffed myself all Summer, adding all the fat I will need for a lean Winter, when I like to sleep most of the time anyway after a Summer of work.  What do humans do with their gold?”

“Well, we put it in a bank for safekeeping.  We buy some of the things you mentioned, things of comfort and warmth and sustenance, but we put most of it away—that is, if we have any of it left over after we buy what we need,” I said.

“Why would you buy something that is already here?” he asked.  “Food is everywhere.”  And, of course, that is true, although most people don’t realize it.

“Well….” I said, not feeling very confident at all anymore, “We work for gold to buy the food.  I guess we could just grow and gather the food, but we don’t usually do that—and there are laws that try to discourage people from doing so.  We work for the gold and then buy the food and other things with it.”

“Who do you buy your food and other things from?” he asked.

“Well, we buy it from merchants who have gotten it from other people who have worked very hard to get it.  In return for their work, they get some gold, too, but not very much because the merchants keep most of the gold for themselves.”

“Can the people who work hard eat the gold?”

“No,” I said, “They have to buy food and other things as well.”

He looked at me for a long time, considering what I had said.  Many times it seemed as though he would say something, but then he just set his head from right to left and considered again.  He considered and he considered.  Finally, he spoke.

“I am very wealthy, although I have never had this ‘gold’ of which you speak,” he said.  “I have food and a warm home.  I have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  I have birds for music and a sweet stream for water.  I eat and sleep in comfort, and yes, I do work for what I have.  It takes work to gather all of my food and belongings, although I have a very long season to just eat and rest afterward.  It doesn’t make much sense to me to turn around and give away your wealth just for gold as humans seem to do.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’s not even gold anymore that we strive for.  It’s just paper money that supposedly represents gold, or at least it used to, but really now it’s just old wood pulp.  If I had told him that, he would have laughed and spit on me, and rightly so.

I put my sack away.  I didn’t gather the forest’s gold.  I decided to leave it where it was, shining and beautiful on the forest floor where all the animals laughed as they finished their winter preparations.  Sometimes it is enough just to see the golden light of the comfortable forest creatures, and today was one of those days.

I went back to my home and had a small dinner.  I have often thought about the riddle of gold and what constitutes true wealth, because gold and wealth are two very different things.  Sometimes we get caught up in the hype of the world as it presses in on all of us, hypnotizing us with shiny baubles and endless numbers.  We count them and count them, and they lead us nowhere.  I try to remember to not let the merchants fool me.  Some days I do better than others.

In a small cupboard in the back room of my old house, there is a collection of acorns.  I gather them one by one here and there as I walk.  If an acorn looks especially handsome, I’ll pick it up and bring it home and put it with the others in the cupboard.  Each acorn reminds me of a special walk and a happy feeling.  But I decided today maybe they shouldn’t be in the cupboard anymore, so I put them in a bowl and placed them in the living room as a reminder.  The cat will guard them from the field mice who try to sneak in at night.  All is well in my house, and though I haven’t got any gold to speak of, I am very wealthy, indeed.