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heart-of-dunbroch · 7 years ago

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THE LEGEND OF THE WILL-O-THE-WISP By Merida Cawdor

ASSIGNMENT: PERSONAL REFLECTION ON NATIVE BRITISH MAGICAL CREATURE Write a 1000-word essay about a creature native to the British Isles. Detail any folklore surrounding the creature, including at least three secondary sources (cited appropriately in MLA format) along with personal examples of your experiences, either with the creature or with the legends of these creatures. Be sure to examine how your experiences might conflict or compliment these legends.

“Travelers—particularly those who venture out after sunset on unfamiliar pathways—beware of the will o’ the wisps.”

In the folklore of Great Britain, across land and legend, there are tales of a strange phenomena that is not ghost, nor fairy, but something in between, a something which lurks deep within the most enchanted wood and comes to life when travelers are near. Some call these creatures spook-lights, others jack-o-lanterns, hinkypunk, or hobby lanterns. The Welsh know such spirits as Ellylldan and think they are goblins; in Gaelic, we call these lights teine biorach—or sharp fire.

But my favourite term for them is by far the “will-o-the-wisp.” The name is said to come from a faerie tale about a boy named Will, doomed to haunt the marshes, swamps, and bogs with a single light of his own to keep him warm. In A Dictionary Of Fairies by K.M. Briggs, the origin of the term says that Will was a wicked blacksmith, his light a burning coal (p. 345), whereas The History of the Jack-o-Lantern calls him a trickster and his light is one that he stole from a faerie king or tricked from the Devil in exchange for payment of his pub tab (Hoerner 67).

But knowing the wisps like I do, I don’t think any of these faerie tales are correct. I believe the so called “Will” of the wisps is no boy named Will nor Jack at all. I believe it refers to the will of Fate—reaching out to those who are chosen, to those who have chosen themselves, who seek something deep within places where most travelers don’t dare to go. But those who do dare? The will-o-the-wisps are sent for them.

APPEARANCE

When I was just five years old, my family traveled into the Caledonian Forests for a weekend-long camping trip. Among the tallest Scots Pines, we laid down our bags, tacked up our tents, and built a bonfire, which billowed a tail of smoke into the air. We gathered around the fire, told of ghost stories, and sang songs of the victories of the Scottish Clans back in the time when the land was a wild one, no king to claim it. I sat on my father’s lap and listened to his beautiful deep timbre, singing our stories to the trees. And through those trees that night, I saw my first will-o-the-wisp.

The tales describe the wisps in many different colours and shapes. In Cornish folklore, the will-o-the-wisp is called a colt pixie and said to take the shape of a horse and enjoys playing tricks such as neighing at the other horses to lead them astray (Briggs 346). In the Scottish Highlands, it might take the form of a linkboy, a boy who carried a flaming torch to light the way for pedestrians in exchange for a fee (McLaggen 299). The Irish believe the will-o-the-wisp to be a burning red light like the fires of Hell, and the Welsh think the lights are green for the skin of the goblin that touts it (Briggs 337).

On the night I saw my first wisp, I realized that all of these stories were just stories. The wisp appeared a silver-blue, like a fallen star that hovered in the shadows of the trees. At first, I didn’t know what it was, but then another wisp appeared close by. I heard them whisper, as though they were echoing the song that my father sung.

It is not known by many that wisps never appear alone. There are a few stories that tell of the wisp appearing, disappearing, and reappearing close by but further off—always out of reach, never to be touched. This, I believe, is due to all those stories that tell of just one boy trapped in a Fate he cannot escape, whether we call him William or Jack.

But I know that wisps are social creatures. They travel with their brothers and sisters, and they appear one after the other, creating a beautiful chain of silver-blue dewdrops, like the crumbs dropped by the witch in Hansel and Gretel. People believe this chain leads travelers away. That’s the heart of the myth of the will-o-the-wisps: that they are malicious spirits and their will is an evil one.

I know that’s not true either.

WHY THE WISPS APPEAR:

In all the folklore that I could find, there were hardly any positive representations of the wisp. As I’ve discussed so far, the malicious nature of the wisps is ingrained so deeply within our society’s perception of these creatures that many of the creatures’ names reflect it: from ghost-lights to spook-lights to even the Latin, ignis fatuus, or “foolish fire.” These names reveal that wisps are believed to lead travelers astray or to lead the greedy, such as treasure hunters, mostly, to their doom (Briggs 345-7).

But what if the will-o-the-wisps were leading travelers toward something instead? What if they appeared to those travelers who were already lost and were looking to be found?

I have seen the wisps many times in my childhood and throughout my young adult life too. Each time that I have, it is my mind that wanders first, reaching for things beyond myself. The first night when I saw the wisps, when I sat on my father’s lap and heard his song, my mind wandered back those many years to the warriors that the song spoke of. I was dreaming of what it would be like to be one of those warriors and to carry the placard of my family and defend what was my own.

The second time I saw the wisps was the next morning. It was early, the fire cracking and popping from being doused the night before, a few stubborn embers alive within the ash and wood. The forest was full of the sounds of morning, from the birds chirping to the snapping of twigs and rustle of leaves. I remember waking up in my tent and smelling the petrichor in the air. I had been dreaming of those warriors again, all night.

I saw a light through the tent.

My father and mother were snoring too deep and loud to hear me as I unzipped the tent and snuck my way out. There was a wisp outside my tent, bobbing in the air like a bonnet lost to the waves of the sea. I was no traveler, but a five-year-old girl, no treasure-seeker but a dreamer lost in my dreams. Still, the wisp came, and another soon after. When I reached for the first one, as the legends said, it disappeared underneath my fingers, like smoke evaporating.

I followed those wisps deep into the Caledonian Forests, wandering from the safety of the campfire. One after the other, they drew me in. And then they all disappeared, leaving me in the dim dawn of the new day, standing in front of something half-buried in the dirt. It shined just a little, like a coin dropped on the road.

I dug into the soil and uncovered the blunted, rusted head of an arrow from the battles my father had sung of.

The wisps had brought me back to the warriors of my dream.

This was not the last times the wisps would find me. Often I see them in the mornings, when I am still half-asleep and my dreams are so vivid they are, to me, almost real. Other times, they appear at night, illuminating the shadows with their phosphorescent blue glow. They can sense my thoughts wandering again. And when my thoughts wander, they are never far.

And so the will of the wisps, to me, is no evil thing at all. They are a creature misunderstood by our legends and their intention obscured. They do not exist to mislead us but to illuminate us: to show us our own will buried deep within us, like an arrowhead almost lost to the trials of time.

But our destinies can be found again, if we know how to let ourselves dream, if we are patient, if we know how to wait—and then we are led.

#bdrptask #this was p fun been a while since I wrote in first person #story #about #idk ever what to tag this shit

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elexuscal · 7 years ago

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Fanfic: Changeling

Summary: There were once two babies: a human and a faerie. One was sweet and cute as could be; the other was weak and wild. The two were switched, exchanged, and left to grow up in the other's world.

This is one of their stories.

(Part of the Crystal Court Fae AU)

Changeling

There was once a sweet human baby.

She was as cute as they came. Chubby and thick-limbed, big, shiny amber eyes, blonde hair like gold. Healthy and strong. Well behaved, too. Rarely fussed or cried, which was a relief for her harried parents.

There was once a strange Fae baby.

All Fae babies are strange. She was chubby, but tiny too, with purplish skin, faded-grey hair, and sharp teeth that drew blood from her mother's breasts. Sickly and weak. An obvious troublemaker. Laughed and cried in equal measure, and her wails would have driven her human mother to exhaustion, if she'd had the capacity anymore.

Spring liked babies.

It was one of her defining characteristics. She was the season of birth. Of fresh green growth, of flowers on trees, of birds and bees, of fawns on unsteady legs taking their first tentative steps.

She loved to take walks through the mortal world, to see the changes She had brought. She'd stroke the leaves of new trees, breathe deep the scent of flowers, cradle newborn bunnies and crocodiles and elephants. She loved the children born into her own Court as well, all the more because they were so rare. Most Fae had come into existence with the world itself, and new ones were few and far in between.

That was the main reason Spring collected humans, especially young maidens. For their fine music and art, of course, but mostly for their babies. She liked to play with them, to tickle their tummies, to hear them scream when she tossed them in the air and when they hit the ground.

Despite all appearances, Spring was not soft. Spring was practical. Not all babies survived: that was a fact of life. Baby birds fell out of trees. Baby bunnies were snatched up in the jaws of hawks. Fawns were taken down by wolves. And if they were not, then the wolves' own pups would starve.

Survival of the fittest. It was only nature.

Spring looked down at the little Faeling, purple-skinned and sharp-toothed, and knew she was not fit.

Worse, knew she was not fun.

She wanted someone better. So she sent her people out to find a replacement.

The faeries found the sweet human baby, the one given the name Cristal by her parents. Said parents were busy, that day. The father was in the forest, chopping wood for the fire. The mother was doing the washing in the yard. The elder siblings were about, half-working, half-playing. None were minding the baby, now a toddler, walking around on strong, stubby legs. She was safe enough, they were all sure.

Cristal had been taught not to wander off, but she caught sight of something sparkly in the woods, and could not help herself. For once in her young life, she disobeyed. In the bushes she found a person with wings like a butterfly, eyes like dewdrops, and a smile like diamonds. They said they were a Faerie.

The Faerie stole the human toddler. Took her clothes, and put them on the Fae toddler instead. Cast a glamour on the Fae child: purple skin became cream, grey hair became gold, sharp teeth became rounded. A perfect reflection.

They sent the weakling off to the human family on trembling legs and took the strong, human toddler to their Court.

Spring loved her.

To the human family, Cristal seemed to transform overnight.

Where once she had slept soundly through the nights, now she refused to rest, running around and around their small cottage, yelling and screaming. Whenever they took her into town, she became a bother there as well. Never waiting, talking too loudly, getting her hands into everything, frightening the horses. She became a picky eater, grousing about bread being boring, food being too salty. Yet at the same time, it seemed she'd stick practically anything in her mouth: dirt, feathers, sticks, rocks.

The parents were frustrated but didn't think much of it. They'd raised three other children. They went through odd phases as they got older. Cristal would grow out of it.

They hoped.

In some ways, she did. Cristal learned from the yellings, the spankings, the cruel looks, to stop the tantrums. To be quiet. To not rock back and forth. To hide her odd snacks. She didn't always succeed, but she tried, oh she tried, to be a good daughter.

But other oddities began to be noticed.

She got sick, afflicted by strange rashes that no one could explain. She hated the sound of church bells, which were loud, much too loud, forcing her to cover her ears. She picked too many fights with the village boys, fights that a little, weakling girl by no rights should win. But win she did, wearing her bruises with pride. She got lashed for misbehaviour and stopped, instead muttering dark things under her breath. The targets of her ire seemed tormented by bad luck: broken legs, sick livestock, plagues of pimples. The town's children avoided her, and even her own siblings were wary of her. She preferred the company of animals to humans.

Sometimes, people said, she looked odd. If you caught her out of the corner of her eyes- purple skin, sharp teeth, red eyes.

Whispers began. Rumors.

Witch. Demon-spawn. Changeling.

The parents scoffed; said the villagers were superstitious fools jumping at shadows.

But in private, they exchanged worried looks and wondered.

The girl now called Cristal made it to nearly seven years before something broke.

It was evening, and she was dallying in her chores. The grain in her satchel was heavy, her feet were tired, and she'd stumbled upon her favourite cat in the town square on her way back from the mill. She'd grabbed a stick, and was playing with it, dragging the stick through the dirt, hooting and hollering while the cat tried to catch it.

Someone behind her laughed.

"Playing with your own kind, huh?!" came the cackle from the blacksmith's apprentice.

"Better than your kind," the girl snarled back at him. And for a moment, she looked wrong : her eyes slitted and amber, her face furry, her teeth sharp. A cat.

The boy yelped, and the girl laughed, happy to see the fear on his face.

On instinct, the apprentice reached into a pouch at his belt, and brought out a handful of nails. He flung them at the girl.

She yelped, and then screamed as they hit her. They hurt, hurt far more than they should have. It wasn't just that they dug into her skin; they seemed to burn, searing her. Those rashes she'd gotten, whenever she'd tried to help cook or tend to the fire- they were here, and they hurt.

The boy had acted on fear; now he acted on triumph, pulling out more and more of the nails he'd made, flinging them at the girl, who screamed and tried to bat them away with little success. Suddenly she felt tired, so tired, and her skin was burning. Her eyes filled with tears; she couldn't see.

People's attention was drawn to the commotion. Though Cristal was half-blind, she heard the gasps of shock, of fear.

She heard the blacksmith's apprentice shout, "Demon!"

She heard others take up the cry.

The nails had stopped coming, and her eyes became clear enough to see. All around her, people were staring; farmers, bakers, the miller, the midwife, children and elderly alike. The cat at her side had its back arched, claws out, and was hissing at all of them.

Cristal didn't ask, didn't wait. She just picked up her bag of grain and ran.

She ran and ran and ran until she reached her home. She flung open the door and rushed in, shaking for breath. Her mother heard her panic, and began to say, "What is wrong? You did not get into a fight again, did you-?"

But then she turned, and the mother stopped.

Cristal saw the shock on her face. The fear.

"Maman?"

The woman held her hands to her breast, and asked in a trembling voice, "What are you?"

It was only then the girl looked down, and was met with an unfamiliar body. Her creamy skin was gone, replaced with a deep purple, as though her whole body was a bruise. Her arm seemed at the same time too chubby and too short. She dropped her satchel and raised her hand. At each finger was a long, wicked claw.

"What has happened to me?" she cried. "Maman? What has happened?! "

"I am not your maman!"

By then the rest of the family was there, having heard the commotion- the girl spun around, and saw the same horror on all their faces. Her Papa's expression was hard. One of her sisters was shaking her head. One of her brothers was reaching for his knife. Her last brother, who was just two years older, was the only one to look sad. There were tears in his eyes when he said, "Run. Run, before they catch you!"

So the girl ran again, this time away from home, into the forest.

As she ran, she tripped and fell. She got up, but this time, stayed on four legs. It felt easier like this. She imagined herself as her favourite black cat, light and lithe on her feet.

She could hear people behind her. A low, angry murmur, the occasional yell rising above it all, and she could feel her heart thudding in her chest.

It was dark. It was dark, but somehow she could see.

Far scarier than the darkness were the lights. Torches, flames, casting strange shadows through the trees.

She was tired. Her feet hurt. They were catching up to her. She smelled iron. Weapons.

Close. So close now.

But somehow, they didn't catch her. Every time a hunter got close, something stopped them. A stray root where they hadn't seen one. A low-hanging branch throwing them off their horse. An unexpected wind blowing out their torch, leaving them blind.

And the girl ran on.

In the darkness, the girl found a cave.

It smelled of stone, of water, of must, of blood, of something animalistic. Something in the back of her mind recognised that scent- wolf.

She went into the cave anyway. Wolves, she thought, she could deal with. It was the humans- her fellow villagers, her family- who scared her now. She just wanted to hide away in the hole and be safe. Maybe the wolves would protect her.

But the cave was empty. There were signs that it had been a den once, but the wolf pack had clearly moved on.

The girl curled up, too tired to keep running. She closed her eyes and listened, hearing the stamp of boots, the baying of horses and barking of dogs, the crackle of fire, and the shouts, the shouts. "Find the demon! Slay her! Cast it away!"

And then a new sound. Perhaps one could call it a song, except it was too discordant to be considered music. It sounded like- like the burning of the summer sun, like the rush of the autumn rain, like the chill of the winter wind. It started quiet, then grew louder and louder and louder-

Through shut eyelids, the girl saw light: yellow and blue and white…

And then she saw and heard nothing as she fell into a deep, deep slumber.

When the human hunters eventually searched the cave, there was nothing but rock and stone inside.

Time passed, and the magic wore off.

The girl woke up, slowly, unsteadily. Her whole body was stiff, stiff. Her eyes felt glued shut. Her arms and legs felt heavy, and took immense effort to stretch.

Finally, she managed to sit up. She blinked. Daylight streamed through the cave. All signs of the humans were gone, as was the smell of wolf.

She clenched her hand, her sharp nails digging into her palm. Where was she to go now?

Her stomach gurgled. She was hungry. She picked up some dried leaves from the cave floor, and shoved them into her mouth. Swallowed. That helped a bit. She rocked back and forth, as she did when she was thinking.

She couldn't stay there. What if the hunters returned?

Stumbling out into the sunlight, she found the forest looked different. She hadn't been able to pay much attention, in the darkness, with the running, but she could have sworn the trees were in different positions. She wasn't entirely sure which direction lead to the place she had called home. She'd been running to the West, she thought, so after a moment's consideration, decided to continue in that direction.

Following the path of the sun, it wasn't long- an hour, perhaps- before she reached the forest's edge. She had come to the flat stretch of land, and she stared out at it, perplexed.

It looked like it should have been a field, of grass or crops. Instead, it was filled with nothing but churned mud. It was hard to tell, but it looked like someone had dug long, snaking channels into the earth, piling it into mounds. The girl had seen something like that at a nearby river which sometimes flooded, except these channels were topped with sharp, pointed wire, more of it and more thinly drawn than she had ever seen.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

She lurked in the bushes, getting as close as she could, but still, she could not understand. Finally, overcome with curiosity, she stepped out to investigate.

BANG!

The girl leapt into the air, so startled she was by the noise. But it didn't stop- BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The sound blocked everything else, the air suddenly filled with the smell of smoke and fire, and things were flying, flying everywhere. Something grazed the girl in the cheek, and it burned, seared.

She heard people yelling, and she moved on pure instinct, leaping into the nearest channel, hands to her cheek, eyes threatening tears again.

She looked up, and found herself surrounded by strange men. They were pointing bizarre metal sticks at her.

"Don't hurt me!" she cried, throwing up her hands. "Please!"

(If they did, if they tried, she wouldn't go down easy, she'd already decided. She'd see what her new claws could do.)

But the men didn't try to hurt her. They didn't even look angry. They were talking- some yelling, some muttering, but mostly, they just seemed confused.

The girl was confused too. Why were they not hurting her? She glanced down at herself, and saw she'd changed back. Her ugly purple skin returned to its proper cream and her nails were short and neatly filed. She was even wearing her best Sunday dress, which made no sense; she had not been before.

She was confused, too, by the men's speech. It sounded like French, but all wrong. The words, the grammar, the accents.

One man crouched down low, spoke slowly and deliberately. "Je suis Pierre," he said, pointing at his chest, and strange language or not, the girl understood. "Tu t'appelles comment?"

The girl didn't answer, so the man and his fellows tried again and again, eventually resorting to just pointing at her, and repeating, "Prénom? Prénom?"

The girl understood this, at least. She simply did not know how to answer. As far as she could remember, she'd always been called Cristal. But then her maman had yelled at her, said she was not her daughter, and her family had chased her out of the house, hunted her and-

- no. She didn't want to be Cristal.

Not anymore.

The nameless girl was still scared.

She had no idea where she was. The loud bangs continued for some time, then stopped, aside from the occasional one that would go off with no warning. They came from the strange sticks many of the men carried, which shot out fire and metal. Weapons, clearly.

The girl did not like them. Not because they were weapons- she quite liked weapons, all told- but because if she touched them, they burned her hand.

The men were loud, and spoke strangely, and dressed oddly, but they were kind to her. They all lived underground, in dark, damp rooms, but they found her a bed that was reasonably dry and bundled up. Someone came to touch her cheek; she hissed at him, and he backed away. He came back later, hands up, holding a bandage, and gestured that he just wanted to help heal her blistered hands and face. She let him. Another man brought her a bowl filled with a soup. It was plain and runny, but it was hot, and she ate it gratefully.

A little later, another man, his face all sooty, gestured for her to hold open her palm. After a little hesitation, she did. He put a brown square on it. He mimed eating it.

The girl blinked. She liked dirt- always had- but a grown up had never told her to eat it. She was tempted not to, just to be contrary.

But she did, and it was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted.

"Chocolat," the man said.

"Chocolat," the girl repeated, and he grinned at her.

That night she curled up in a bunk dug into an underground trench, head on chocolat-man's lap, and slept soundly.

The tale of the Mystery Girl of the Trenches spread like wildfire. First through the French troops, then into the French press, and then through the newspapers of all the allied nations. Strange child appears out of nowhere in No Man's Land. Just barely survived by ducking into a nearby trench. Doesn't seem to speak a word of proper, modern French, but sweet as can be, regardless. Taken in by a friendly division. It was a feel good story, during a war in which there were very few to go around.

Everyone knew the front lines of the Great War was no place for such a young child. Attempts were made to bring her somewhere safer, but none of them succeeded. Trucks would break down. Agents coming to collect the girl would get lost or end up in the wrong place. Sometimes people looking for her suddenly flat out forgot what it was they were doing. Over time, the soldiers grew more and more resistant to the idea of her leaving, of her being taken away. She was fun to be around, playful, a single bright spot in their existence of muck and poor food and the constant threat of death. They didn't want to let go of her.

This suited the girl perfectly. She didn't want to let go of them, either.

Not everyone could be so easily waylaid.

After some months, three strangers appeared in the girl's trench. They were all women, which was what made them stand out. There weren't many women in this war. And the few women the girl had seen around here wore skirts, but these ones wore pants, like the men. One of them was black, as well. The only black people she'd ever seen before were the 'Harlem Hellfighters,' but she had never seen this lady among them, which made her a source of immediate curiosity.

But there was something else about them, too. When she caught sight of them out of the corner of her eye, their forms seemed to flicker.

They noticed the girl right away. Strode towards her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise up.

They had come to take her away. The girl knew it. She also knew that no one would let them. Her friends, the soldiers, would stop them.

But they didn't. It was like they didn't even notice the women.

"Pierre! Pierre!" the girl called, but her friend just stared past her, smiling blankly into empty air.

The girl backed away.

"Do not be afraid," said one woman, the really tall one with big, curly hair. That made the girl stop. She spoke the right language. French. Her French.

"How did you get here?" asked next woman, the thin one, in the same French.

"Why should I tell you?" the girl demanded, crossing her arms.

"Because we can't have you hurting anyone," said the black woman, while at the same time, the big one said, "Because we're here to help you."

The girl narrowed her eyes.

The thin woman came and asked, "Do you know what you are?"

"What kinda question is that?" said the girl.

The three women exchanged looks.

"You are not human," said the black one.

Yes I am, the girl wanted to say, but the words stuck on her tongue. She was fairly certain that would be a lie.

The thin woman waved a hand. It felt like a cold bucket of water had been dumped on her head. When she looked, back was her horrible, demonic appearance. She flinched, waiting for the screams, the attacks- but none came.

The soldiers were not looking at her. They were not looking anywhere. They were staring into space, wearing odd, vacant smiles, just like Pierre. She ran to the nearest man- the one who had given her chocolat- and shook him, but he didn't even seem to notice.

"What did you do to them?" the girl demanded, terrified.

"They are not hurt," the big one promised.

"We will let them go," the thin one assured.

"We just need to talk," the black one said.

And then they changed.

The big one, who said to call her Rose, wore a dress of white. Her hair was not hair at all, but a cascade of flower petals that seemed to blow in an unfelt breeze. The thin one, who said to call her Pearl, had skin so white it looked like freshly fallen snow, and eyes misty grey all the way through. The black one, who said to call her Garnet, had three eyes, each a different color, and lightning danced around her fingers.

They did not ask the girl her name.

She thought she should be scared of them, and yet, she was not.

They explained things to her. They said she was not wrong, demonic, or evil. They said she was Fae, just like them. They asked where she had come from, for, "There are not many Fae left on this plane."

So the girl told her story, and they listened, solemn and serious. They got more serious still when she described the strange light, the song, the sleep. They said it was a powerful curse. They said she had been lucky that it had not hurt her too badly. That in a way, it had protected her. That it had merely put her in a stasis for many hundreds and hundreds of years.

This made a lot of sense to the girl and explained so much. Why people spoke different, dressed different, and could make such strange things from metal. In a way, it felt like she had already knew.

The three women said they could help her. Teach her. Keep her safe.

"It's dangerous for you here," said Rose, tears pouring down her face. She wiped them off with a hand, and pressed it to the girl's shoulder. She was covered in rashes, all over; they were impossible to avoid in a place so oozing with metal. But at the damp touch, all those sores faded away.

The girl knew in her heart of hearts they were telling the truth. "But… that means I would have to leave them."

The three Fae followed her gaze as she looked around at the men who had taken her in.

"You truly care for them, I see," Garnet said.

"Yes," said the girl.

"You wouldn't want them hurt, would you?" Pearl said.

"No," said the girl.

"And do you want to help others like them? The good humans?" Rose said.

The girl thought this over. The memory of the hunters was still fresh in the mind. But fresher still were the strangers' smiles, their warm soup, their chocolat. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."

All three of the Fae smiled.

"They will be safer without you here," said Pearl.

"But we will not leave them without thanks," said Rose.

"We will begin teaching you now," said Garnet.

The girl left, leaving only vague memories of her behind.

The soldiers missed her, but they all agreed it was for the best she'd left. The front was no place for a child. They couldn't have borne it, if she'd been killed. Looking back, they weren't entirely sure why they'd allowed her to stick around so long.

She'd been an odd kid, anyway.

Though the girl was gone, she and the other Fae had left a mark, invisible as it was. The soldiers had cared for her, and that deserved something in exchange. Each Fae had left a gift, a charm. From Garnet: bunks that were always warm. From Pearl: boots and socks that stayed dry, feet that never became diseased. From Rose: fresh air, without a hint of poison.

From the girl: a seemingly endless supply of chocolate.

The journey the Fae took the girl on was long, but it was the most exciting time of her life.

It was a relief to leave behind the trenches, even if it meant saying goodbye to her friends. The world beyond them was beautiful, and filled with such excitement and novelty. Radios! Planes! Zippers! Ice-cream!

She saw the ocean for the first time, and it was amazing, how it stretched on for ever and ever and ever.

It was a good thing she liked it, because it took a full month to cross it, even with Pearl summoning a wind to fill their sails. The girl was never bored, however. She spent her time learning all manner of things. About modern English and French, and how to speak it. About where she had come from. About the Fae and their laws. About magic and conjurings and glamor.

She was a shapechanger, it turned out. It came to her naturally. She liked to jump through the waves as a dolphin, fly through the air like a bird.

Garnet, Pearl and Rose were never scared of her. They never flinched away. They didn't get mad if she screamed, never told her to stop rocking back and forth, or that she couldn't eat driftwood. They said she was perfect just the way she was.

They took her to a cave in a land called America. This was good: the girl liked caves. From the outside, it didn't look strange at all. But when she stepped inside, the world seemed to shift, and it was a million times better than the tiny dens that had littered the landscape in her old home in France.

There were waterfalls that flowed upwards. Pools of bubbling lava. Soft, pink clouds. A giant, beating heart, pulsating with light. And from the walls jutted all sorts of bright crystals in all sorts of colors.

The girl was drawn to them, partly for their sparkle, partly because they reminded her of her old name. Not all the time she'd spent with maman and papa and her brothers and sister had been bad.

"What's this?" she said, pointing to bright red rock.

"Garnet," said Garnet, smiling.

"And this?" she said, pointing at a stone of soft pink.

"Rose Quartz," said Rose.

She frowned at them. "Are you named after the rocks?"

Rose said no; she was named after the flower. And Pearl said, technically, her name didn't come from a rock at all, but rather a hard, shiny object produced by an animal called an oyster.

"I am," said Garnet. "I picked it myself. To fit in with the others."

The girl liked this. She wanted to fit in too. She wanted to belong.

She looked at her dark, purple skin. There was a rock in the wall, almost the exact same color.

"What's that called?" she said, and Garnet smiled wider at her.

"Amethyst."

Nearly a hundred years later, Amethyst held a baby in her arms, a tiny boy who chewed absently on one of her fingers.

She felt sick in her stomach, sick with grief, and her eyes were sore from tears she refused to shed, and she was tired, just tired, and angry.

But not at him. Not at Steven.

It had been a long, long time since she'd been a sister. Since she'd had siblings.

She still remembered them. Or little things about them. A sister braiding her hair. A brother teaching her how to carve wood. Minding the sheep with another brother, as he sung songs to pass the time.

Technically, they'd never really been hers. Not by blood, and if there had been a bond, it had long since been severed.

But there had been good parts, there. Amethyst hoped she could be as good as they had once been. She hoped she could be better.

She would make sure Steven belonged too.

#steven universe #fanfic #su fanfic #amethyst #fae au #WW1

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sentrava · 6 years ago

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Uncle Dave Macon Days: Experience Murfreesboro’s Roots + Bluegrass Groove

I grew up just south of Murfreesboro, going to the “big city” whenever we needed to see a specialty doctor like my allergist or, of course, hit up Target. At that time, it was what others might have considered a “small town” at roughly half the size it is today; Murfreesboro had less than 70,000 residents when I graduated from high school, while now, its population exceeds 130,000. Not only is it the fastest-growing city in Tennessee, but it also has landed on the top 10 lists of fastest-growing cities in America for multiple years in a row. Needless to say, Murfreesboro has changed a wee bit since I was a kid.

But some things haven’t changed, events like Uncle Dave Macon Days that still, at their core, promote Tennessee’s heritage and have appealed to locals and visitors for 41 years and counting. And somehow despite my love of both music and festivals, I had never been to this local festival until this month.

Uncle Dave’s Origins

The festival memorializes singer-songwriter David “the Dixie Dewdrop” Macon, who was a renowned banjo player but also one of the first superstars of the Grand Ole Opry when it debuted in 1925. While the Dixie Dewdrop was born in neighboring Warren County, he moved to a farm in Rutherford County after getting married. The legend goes that he would sing and play his banjo from beneath a shady tree during his breaks. His music career didn’t start until his 50s after he was forced out of business by a trucking company, but this old dog could learn new tricks, it turned out, as he was signed to perform at vaudeville theaters across the US before going to New York to record and eventually returning to Nashville a bonafide country star.

Dave was credited with aiding the transformation of folk music into modern country and inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame after his death. It makes sense then that a pickin’, swingin’, jammin’ celebration of a weekend like Uncle Dave Macon Days would have been established in the 70s in his honor.

The Venue

Uncle Dave Macon Days is held on the grounds of Cannonsburgh Village. I was familiar with Murfreesboro’s Civil War history—more than 6,000 Union soldiers are buried in Stones River National Battlefield—but little did I know until this weekend that Cannonsburgh was the original name of Murfreesboro, which is Tennessee’s geographical center and also hailed as state capital from 1818 until Nashville took its place in 1826. Today, it represents a century’s worth of Tennessee history, spanning from the 1830s to the 1930s.

Cannonsburgh Village was built for the bicentennial back in 1976 as one of 16 nation-wide projects receiving federal assistance. “Cannonsburgh Village invites you to take a tour through 125 years of Southern rural life,” the flyer reads, and even though the event was going on all weekend, the village was still open to the public. Among many offerings, there are blacksmith demonstrations, a working gristmill, a wedding chapel, a one-room schoolhouse, a country store, a turn-of-the-century fire engine. How did I never go on a field trip to this magical place as a kid?

And, seriously, have you ever seen a cooler spot to integrate a roots festival throughout the grounds? Even if you can’t make Uncle Dave Macon Days next summer, Cannonsburgh Village should be on your to-visit list the next time you’re passing through Murfreesboro.

The Music

Uncle Dave Macon Days brands itself as an “old-time and Americana music festival,” and there’s a full lineup of Americana, bluegrass and roots music spread across two stages all day on both Friday and Saturday. Rhonda Vincent was one of this year’s headliners, and bluegrass comics the Cleverlys closed out the weekend late on Saturday night.

There are also various competitions like guitar, fiddle, banjo and clogging held during daytime hours. The whole thing is very casual and draws a large, diverse crowd of up to 40,000. I love that UDMD feels like going to a county fair, but with an elevated music experience.

You also can bring in your own coolers of snacks and beverages (just no alcohol). You can buy tickets at the gate. There’s no pretense, no advance planning needed, just a good, old-fashioned, family-friendly weekend outdoors with great music.

But what I found most enticing were the jam sessions that took place all over the grounds. Anyone can bring in their own instrument along, and many did—from a fiddle to an upright bass—often joining other pickers in impromptu jams for festival-goers to enjoy.

Tickets to UDMD are just $10 a day or $15 for a two-day pass, and best of all, you can buy them at the gate.

The Food

You’ll find all the delicious fried food your heart and stomach can handle at UDMD, from funnel cakes to gator on a stick. I tried the Oreo ice cream sandwich while SVV indulged in shaved ice, being the Californian surfer that he is.

There was a long line for the BBQ truck all weekend long, so when we wanted to eat a full meal, we just walked over to the square, five minutes across the road: for lunch the first day at Simply Pure Sweets coffee shop and brunch on Saturday at hot chicken joint Party Fowl.

The Murfreesboro square has dozens of options for meals and snacks, so you won’t be lacking for things to eat, whether you opt to dine on the festival grounds or off.

The Crafts

Dozens of vendors from all over the state set up shop in the Dave Macon Artisans Court, the major requirement of which is that everything must be made, assembled or embellished by the exhibitor.

In a world where all art seems to be made in China no matter where we travel, it was refreshing to meet so many craftsmen from across Tennessee who made everything from stringed instruments out of lunch boxes to topiary animals having a tea party.

The Parade

Every Saturday morning sandwiched in between the two days of the festival is a motorless parade that starts on East Main Street, winds its way up to the courthouse, does a half-loop around the square then continues on into the festival grounds.

This was one of our favorite parts of the whole weekend. We arrived an hour early to explore the Murfreesboro Farmers Market on the Square, posted up on the east side of the square so we could catch the parade coming through, then darted to the other side of the courthouse to photograph them as they were leaving, as well.

Uncle Dave Macon Days embodied everything I love about summer in the South and reminded me of why we’re so lucky to live where we do among friendly, talented and hospitable folks like the ones we mingled with at the festival. Here’s a taste of the festival in case you want to put it on your calendar for next July:

This post was sponsored by the Rutherford County CVB. All opinions are my own.

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Uncle Dave Macon Days: Experience Murfreesboro’s Roots + Bluegrass Groove published first on https://medium.com/@OCEANDREAMCHARTERS

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7hellsofabutler · 8 years ago

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Word Association: Caeldrin Rofaux

BOLD what applies to your muse outwardly. ITALIC what applies unseen.

Remember to REPOST. Feel free to add to the list!

[ COLOR ] red. brown. orange. yellow. green. blue. purple. pink. black. white. teal. silver. gold. grey. lilac. metallic. matte. royal blue. royal purple. strawberry red. charcoal grey. forest green. apple red. navy blue. crimson. cream. mint green. magenta. pastels. bubblegum pink. blood red. ivory. sky blue. ink blue.

[ ELEMENTAL ] fire. ice. water. air. earth. rain. snow. wind. moon. stars. sun. heat. cold. steam. frost. lightning. sunlight. moonlight. dawn. dusk. day. twilight. midnight. sunrise. sunset. dewdrops. clouds. light. smoke. umbra. penumbra. char. darkness. ash.

[ BODY ] claws. long fingers. fangs. teeth. wings (usually not visible). tail(s). lips. bare feet. freckles. bruises. canine. scars. scratches. (pointed) ears. wounds. burns. spikes. sweat. tears. feline. permanent wounds. chubby. curvy. (fairly) short. tall. height. feathers. webs. eyes. hands. muscular. slender. trained. piercings. tattoos. strong. weak. birdlike. shapeshifting. junoesque. svelte. long hair. short hair. dark circles. big. voluptuous. small. prosthetic. experimented. cyborg. halos. horns. wolfish. effeminate. frightening. ethereal. angelic. demonic. metallic. angular. scales. barbs. vertebrae. tendrils. tentacles. sharp. soft. unusual. shapely. unnatural. disproportionate. spindly. monstrous.

[ WEAPONRY ] fists. swords. daggers. spear. scythe. bow and arrow. hammer. shield. poison. guns. axes. throwing axes. whips. knives. throwing knives. pepper sprays. tasers. machine guns. slingshots. katanas. maces. staffs. wands. powers. magical items. magic. tomes. rocks. power loader. flamethrower. metal rods. shotguns. needles. prowess. ability. instinct. bloodthirst. supernatural. inhuman. talons. speed. agility. cunning. reflexes. biomech. tendrils. two-handed preferred. dual-wielding preferred.

[ DEFENSES ] barriers. shields. thick hide. thick skinned. runes. wards. sigils.

[ MATERIALS ] gold. silver. platinum. titanium. diamonds. pearls. rubies. sapphires. emeralds. amethyst. metal. iron. rust. steel. glass. wood. porcelain. paper. wool. fur. lace. leather. copper. silk. velvet. denim. linen. cotton. charcoal. clay. stone. asphalt. brick. marble. dust. glitter. blood. dirt. mud. smoke. ash. shadow. carbonate. rubber. synthetics. yarn. slime. ivory. aether. crystal. dark matter. lapis lazuli. emerald. adamantite. wootz. brass. lamé. guipé. bone. moonstone. metalloids. alloys. ceramic. alabaster. marble. aluminum. steel. bismuth. bronze. polonium. chrome. osmium. sand.

[ NATURE/ENVIRONMENT ] grass. leaves. trees. bark. roses. daisies. tulips. holly. lavender. lilies. petals. thorns. sunflowers. seeds. hay. sand. rocks. snow. ice. roots. flowers. ocean. river. lake. meadow. forest. desert. tundra. savanna. rain forest. swamp. caves. underwater. coral reef. beach. waves. space. stars. clouds. mountains. fungi. cliffs. sunlight. moonlight. wasteland. void. forget-me-nots. sky. earth. volcano.

[ ANIMALS/CREATURES ] lions. wolves. black panther. eagles. owls. falcons. hawks. swans. snakes. turtles. ducks. bugs. roaches. tarantulas. scarabs. spiders. birds. whales. dolphins. fish. sharks. horses. cats. dogs. bunnies. praying mantis. crows. ravens. mice. lizards. frogs. bears. werewolves. unicorns. pegasus. dinosaurs. dragons. felines. foxes. centaurs. antelope. chimeras. demons. angels. parakeets. harpy eagles. seagulls. warblers. birds of paradise. parrots. toucans. orioles. cobras. black mambas.

[ FOOD/DRINK ] sugar. salt. water. candy. bubblegum. wine. milk. champagne. hard liquor. beer. coffee. tea. spices. herbs. apple. orange. lemon. cherry. strawberry. blood. watermelon. vegetables. fruits. meat. fish. pies. desserts. chocolate. cream. caramel. berries. nuts. cinnamon. steak. burgers. burritos. pizza. vanilla. cookies. chocolate. tiramisu. cheesecake. sushi. tempura. pasta. garlic. bread. noodles. salads. white meat. red meat.

[ HOBBIES ] music. art. piercing. watercolors. gardening. knitting. blacksmithing. sculpting. sewing. painting. sketching. murder. fighting. fencing. riding. writing. composing. cooking. sewing. training. dancing. acting. singing. martial arts. self-defense. electronics. technology. cameras. video cameras. tinkering. video games. computer. phone. movies. theater. reading. going to libraries. books. magazines. poetry. philosophy. cds. records. vinyls. cassettes. piano. organ. violin. cello. guitar. electronic guitar. bass guitar. harmonica. synthesizers. harp. woodwinds. brass. trumpet. flute. drums. bells. playing cards. poker chips. chess. dice. motorcycle riding. eating. climbing. tree climbing. running. vivisection. learning. lecturing. teaching. torment. tracking. mystery solving. puzzle solving.

[ STYLE ] lingerie. armor. cape. dress. robes. suit. tunic. vest. shirt. boots. leather. lace. ruffles. high collar. open collar. stiff collar. heels. leggings. trousers. jeans. skirt. shorts. jewelry. earrings. necklace. bracelet. ring. pendant. hat. crown. circlet. helmet. scarf. neck tie. baroque. cloaks. corsets. doublet. chest plate. belt. sash. coat. jacket. hood. gloves. socks. masks. cowls. braces. wrist watches. pocket watches. glasses. sunglasses. visor. eye contacts. makeup. ornate. pantyhose. stockings. thigh highs. eyepatch. collar. bangle. torque. gorget. bracers. cuffs. body jewelry. crop tops. button ups. blouse. puffy sleeves. Victorian. Gothic. 18th century.

[ MISC ] balloons. bubbles. cityscape. landscape. diligence. light. dark. candles. war. peace. money. power. percussion. clocks. photosmirrors. pets. diary. fairy lights. madness. sanity. sadness. happiness. optimism. pessimism. realism. misanthropy. loneliness. anger. family. synthetic. friends. assistants. co-workers. plushies. enemies. lovers. loyalty. smoking. alcohol. drugs. kindness. love. embracing. magitek. futuristic. ancient. science. voidsent. cruelty. trust. mistrust. strength. doubt. reverence. ferocity. danger. automatons. metallic. allure. value. intelligent. revolutionary. defiant. advanced. engines. naïve. temporary. changing. split personality. paradigm shift. freedom. belief. acceptance. rejection.

#Caeldrin Rofaux #Word Association

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ichorcrowncd · 8 years ago

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RULES !! Post a song that reminds you of your muse and then tag 6 people whose songs you want to see!

tagged by: @kyloren-sithlord

Mouthpiece by Dan Mangan + Blacksmith

The disengagement of the bubble is hypnotizing. Some say below the doughy crust the beast is rising. We like to talk about the past We like to talk about the past

Well we talk about the past like it’s the strangest dream Then we repeat the things we never dreamed we’d do. I understand that sometimes we all must dance with fuckery, But everybody’s pissing in the well of our suffering.

I want to breathe in all the ashes of the books they tried to burn. I want to feel the pages in my skin and understand the words, Castrate fiction, call it circumstance. They say her wanderings are dangerous, all she wants to do is

Dance. Dance. Question period’s over. Don’t you feel it? I do.

You’ll be pummeled by the certainty of minions. It’s a puppet show, a theatre of opinions. A of flack. Feeder of the pack.

You can hear the shaky timbre of the voices most alone. Yeah, it’s easier to sing within the crowd. Those who pretend to believe hardest Might actually begin to The nature of the bliss the warmth of ignorance gives into.

I want to breathe in all the ashes of the books they tried to burn. I want to taste resilience on my tongue and love beyond concern Mass-grave subtlety, leave it for the birds. They say the world, it might be dangerous, but all it seems to do is

Turn (Bitten by the hand that feeds you) (Holding to what you’re beholden to) Question period’s over. Don’t you feel it? I do (Holding to what you’re beholden to) Question period’s over, don’t you feel it? I do. (Holding to what you’re beholden to)

WHAT ARE YOUR MUSE’S AESTHETICS?

[ COLORS ] red. brown. orange. yellow. green. blue. purple. pink. black. white. teal. silver. gold. grey. lilac. metallic. matte. royal blue. strawberry red. charcoal grey. forest green. apple red. navy blue. crimson. cream. mint green. grey green.

[ ELEMENTS ] fire. ice. water. air. earth. rain. snow. wind. moon. stars. sun. heat. cold. steam. frost. lightning. sunlight. moonlight. dawn. dusk. twilight. midnight. sunrise. sunset. dewdrops.

[ BODY ] claws. long fingers. fangs. teeth. wings. tails. lips. bare feet. freckles. bruises. canine.scars (mental; physical). scratches. wounds. burns. spikes. feathers. webs. eyes.hands. sweat. tears. feline. chubby. curvy. short. tall. normal height. muscular. piercing.tattoos.

[ WEAPONS ] fists. sword. dagger. spear. arrow. hammer. shield. whips. poison. guns. axes. throwing axes. whips. knives. throwing knives. pistol. pepper sprays. tasers. machine guns. slingshots. katanas. maces. staffs. wands. powers. magical items. magic. rocks. mud balls. words. bat.

[ MATERIALS ] gold. silver. platinum. brass. copper. lead. diamonds. pearls. rubies. sapphires. emeralds. amethyst. metal. iron. rust. steel. glass. wood. porcelain. paper. wool. fur. lace. leather. silk. velvet. denim. linen. cotton. charcoal. clay. stone. asphalt. brick.marble. dust. glitter. blood. dirt. mud. smoke. ash. shadow. carbonate. rubber. synthetics.

[ NATURE ] grass. leaves. trees. bark. roses. daisies. tulips. lavender. petals. thorns. seeds. hay. sand. rocks. roots. flowers. river. meadow. lake. forest. desert. tundra .savanna. rainforest. caves. underwater. coral reef. beach. waves. space. clouds. mountains.

[ ANIMALS ] lions. wolves. eagles. owls. falcons. hawks. swans. snakes. turtles. ducks. bugs. spiders. birds. whales. dolphins. fish. sharks. horses. cats. dogs. bunnies. praying mantises. crows. mice. lizards. unicorns. pegasus. dragons. rats.

[ FOODS/DRINKS ] sugar. salt. candy. bubblegum. bread. wine. champagne. hard liquor. beer. coffee. tea. spices. herbs. apple. orange. lemon. cherry. strawberry. watermelon. vegetables.fruits. meat. fish. pies. condensed milk. desserts. chocolate. cream. caramel. berries. nuts.cinnamon. burgers. burritos. pizza. rice. ambrosia. soup. stew. whiskey.

[ HOBBIES ] music. art. watercolors. gardening. smithing. sculpting. painting.sketching. fighting. writing. composing. meditation. cooking. sewing. training. dancing. acting. singing. martial arts. self-defense. electronics. technology. cameras. video cameras. video games.computer. phone. movies. theater. libraries. books. magazines. cds. records. cassettes.piano. violin. guitar. electronic guitar. bass guitar. harmonica. harp. woodwinds. brass.bells. percussion. playing cards. poker chips. chess. dice. mahjong. motorcycle riding. eating. climbing. running.

[ STYLE ] lingerie. armor. cape. dress. tunic. vest. shirt. boots. heels. leggings. trousers. jeans. skirt. jewelry. earrings. necklace. bracelet.rings. pendant. hat. ballcap. crown. circlet.helmet. scarf. brocade. cloaks. corsets. doublet. chest plate. robes. bracers. belt. sash. coat. jacket. hood. gloves. socks. masks. cowls. braces. watches. glasses. sunglasses. visor. eye contacts. makeup.

[ MISC ] balloons. bubbles. cityscape. light. dark. candles. war. peace. money. power. clocks. photos. mirrors. pets. diary. fairy lights. madness. sanity. grief. happiness. optimism.realism. pessimism. legacy. loneliness. family. friends. assistants. co-workers. enemies.loyalty. smoking. drugs. kindness. love. hugs.

you can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to. put your mp3 player, itunes,spotify, etc. on shuffle & list the first 10 songs & then tag 10 people, no skipping !

REPOST & DON’T REBLOG!

Isaac - Bear’s Den

Beautiful Circus - Ling Tosite Sigure

Dear Marie - Dessa

Et Les Mots Croises - Dan Mangan

Uranus - Sleeping at Last

A Symphony Pathetique - A Winged Victory For The Sullen

Consolation - Kalafina

Eddie O’Gara’s Waltz - Fidil

No Cars Go - Arcade Fire

Winter Is Coming - Radical Face

CHARACTER STRENGTHS.

RULES: bold the characteristics that apply to your muse ! Tag your friends !

CHARACTER FLAWS. RULES: bold the characteristics that apply to your muse ! Tag your friends !

Repost! Don’t Reblog! Last Movie I Watched: Broadchurch (technically doesn’t count but whatevs) Last Song I Listened To: I Wish I Was A Fish by Mum Last book I read: Tarkin Last Thing I Ate: Pasta If You Could Be Anywhere Right Now: Iceland Fictional Character You Would Hang Out With For A Day: FINN OF COURSE AND I WOULD GIVE HIM A HUG

Pick any of them and tag me! I love reading about your muses. tagging: @lightknighted, @luxenebris (for whichever muse you want!), @chromecaptain, @thismuchgreen, @nephillic, @darkslain, @revvupyourharley, @porticosdaughter

#| ooc : character |#| ooc : mun |

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apiecefromme · 8 years ago

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New Development! Adventures on Silverdale Farm: A Stardew Town

Welcome to my life in Pelican Town on my quaint little farm called Silverdale! This is the first of hopefully many updates of my life in Stardew Valley. I’ll probably keep this kind of format and highlight the major happenings of my sitting: Pictures and then my little comments on what was going on. Pretty simple hopefully. To start off I learned a wonderful recipe to deal with all those pesky carps I catch in the Secret Woods and all over the place. Carps are the Sea Bass (from Animal Crossing) of Stardew Valley. You also get to see the majority of my lovely home! It’s precious to me and I think all the decorations you can get and are rewarded are adorable! Next in the set we have a heart to heart scene with Clint the Blacksmith! He is hopelessly in love with Emily and wants my advise. Thinking, “all the girls see to like [me].” I’m sure some of them like me, but if you take a look at my social chart you an definitely see I’m romancing the lovely boy Alex (and Sam, but my now my heart is set on Alex). That brings me to my next point! Alex. Asked. Me. On. A. Date!!! I literally flipped the biscuit on this one. I was so excited and couldn’t wait! And then I forgot... But luckily I went the next night and all was well. Thank the gods he didn’t think I stood him up! The date was absolutely perfect and I couldn’t be any happier. He was so worried about having feelings for guys, but I eased his worries. His birthday is coming up soon so I’m gonna do something special! I ended my night with the Summer Luau and the Governor was impressed with the soup! Good hing I added some Grade A cheese! Lovely end to nice evening of Stardew!

Until next time my Dewdrops! Always keep the heart <3 With love, Farmer Perry

#stardew blogging #stardew valley #daily post 2017 #farmer perry #alex stardew valley #clint stardew valley #Adventures on Silverdale Farm

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johnhardinsawyer · 5 years ago

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Walk in the Light

John Sawyer

Bedford Presbyterian Church

12 / 1 / 19

Isaiah 2:1-5

“Walk in the Light”

(Walking and Working Toward the Kingdom)

In the late afternoons of late November, the setting sun casts long shadows. The other day, I was walking up the hill, through the cemetery across the street, thinking about today’s scripture reading. And, as I walked between the cold gravestones, I noticed how they were casting really long shadows on the grassy hillside. The shadows kept getting longer in the light of the setting sun. Less light. More shadows. I don’t know about you, but for me, at this time of year, when the days are growing shorter and shorter, it can almost seem like the shadows are taking over. I mean, sure, Christmas lights have started to go up and we just lit a candle on the Advent wreath, but there are times when any light we shine has a hard time keeping up against the shadows.

The prophet Isaiah was living in shadowy times. His country had hit a rough patch. If you read Isaiah, Chapter 1, you can read about how the people were divided by corruption and were estranged from each other (Isaiah 1:4), there was foreign interference in national affairs (1:7), and the leaders of the people were accused of bribery and hanging out with unsavory characters. (1:23) And, when people tried to be faithful to God, their words and their sacrifices, and their prayers all seemed hollow because they were a bunch of hypocrites. They might have been making offerings to God, but they were still just taking care of their own concerns and weren’t concerned for the oppressed, the orphans, and the widows. (1:12-17)

Into all of this confusion and corruption and warfare steps Isaiah, the prophet. Now, I don’t know what that word “prophet,” might conjure in your mind, but contrary to what many people might think, it was not – and is not – the job of a prophet to predict the future. Instead, a prophet looks at the times – what’s going on in the life of the world – and says, “If things keep going like this – if y’all don’t shape up – things might not turn out well for you.”

Very often the prophets in the Bible get a bad reputation because they can be kind of a drag. “The world is not as it should be,” they tell us, “and you people just might be part of the problem.” “Gee. . . thanks, Isaiah. . . We just finished Thanksgiving. The holiday season has begun. ‘Bells are ringing, children singing, all is merry and bright. . .’[1] And then here you come, Isaiah, like a bucket of cold water to dampen our spirits.”

Just so you know, though, it was not – and is not – the only job of a prophet to be a wet blanket. No, it was – and is – the job of a prophet to tell the hard truth about the state of the world, and then to cast a new and different vision for what the world can be. Because, just about anybody can tell you what they think is wrong with the world. But, casting a new vision for the world. . . ? Well, this is a special skill. . . A holy skill. This is what Isaiah does in today’s reading. After listing all of the things wrong with the world in Chapter 1, he moves to cast a new vision for the world in Chapter 2. This is the good stuff. This is the hopeful stuff. This is the stuff we like to think about – especially at the start of the Season of Advent. “The world might stink right now,” Isaiah says in Chapter 1. “The world might be falling apart, but there will come a day when things are different.”

Isaiah goes on to paint a picture of a mountain – not just any mountain, but the mountain – the most prominent and visible place imaginable. As one commentator writes, “. . . regardless of where power seems to lie in the present, the day is coming when God’s reign will be established for all humankind to see.”[2] For Isaiah, God’s kingdom – the place where God lives – will be accessible to humankind and everyone is going to want to go to where God is. All the people of every nation shall stream toward God, flowing like a big river. And, everyone is going to say, as Eugene Peterson translates, “Come, let’s climb God’s mountain. . . [God] will show us the way [God] works so we can live the way we’re made.”[3] We weren’t made to live the way we’ve been living. God will show us a new way to live – to live the way we were actually created to be. “God’s message will speak to everyone and God will settle things fairly between nations. God will make things right between many peoples. The instruments of war and violence – the swords and spears we have been carrying – won’t be needed anymore. Our weapons will be turned into tools for farming, for growing and harvesting crops. Tools of death will be turned into tools for life. And we won’t study war anymore. There will be no more violence.”[4]

This is a new and different vision of the world if I ever heard one. And, it reminds me of an old acquaintance of mine named Shane Claiborne. Out of all of the people who are alive right now, Shane is probably the most profound prophet I know. He speaks simply, but passionately about the state of the world and then he points to the world that Jesus Christ is bringing into being. He doesn’t just point to that world, though. He works for that world to make it a reality. In recent years, one of Shane’s many ongoing ministries – born out of the rough and violent Philadelphia neighborhood where he lives – is taking actual guns that have been donated or acquired through a gun buyback program and, with the help of a trained blacksmith, turning those guns into actual garden implements – shovels and rakes and other things. Are they heavy? Yes. Impractical for real gardening? Of course. But they do point toward a day when guns won’t be used to kill people because no one will feel the need to do such a thing. Now, I know that many people might think, “Swords into plowshares? Why yes, what a lovely idea from the Bible. But, in reality, what a hard idea: hard for us to fully wrap our minds and hearts around, given the realities of the world around us.” Shane has an interesting response to this, though: “Every social movement that has changed society – before it happened, everybody said it’s impossible, and after it happened, everybody said it was inevitable.”[5] The kingdom of God is inevitable. There are many who might laugh at Shane’s idealistic optimism. But, idealistic optimism is a prophetic trait.

I’m not sure what brought you to church this morning on this first Sunday in Advent, but maybe – just maybe – a little bit of idealistic optimism helped get you through the door. Maybe you’re searching for some hope in these dark days. Maybe you’re hoping for a little light to shine in the darkness and dispel the shadows. Maybe you’re wondering about the world and why it isn’t the way you would wish it was. Maybe you’re wondering what you might do – how you might be an instrument of peace and wholeness, reconciliation and new life.

The prophet Isaiah knows what we’re going through. And, to us, he offers a prophetic invitation. Do you want things to be different? Do you want the world to change? “Come. . . let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Another way to say it in the original language might be, “Come. . . let us live in the light of the Lord.”

So, what might this mean. . . walking and living in the light? When Jesus talks about light, he says “I am the light of the world” and “You are the light of the world.” In the Gospel of John, he says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) In the Gospel of Matthew, he turns the light on those who are following him, saying, “You are the light of the world. . . let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16) In other words, following Jesus means that we are walking in the light and that we are able to shine our light, too. When we shine our light, other people can see it and know that something holy is at work.

At the start of this Advent season, as the days are growing shorter and shorter, what might it mean for you to walk in the light? In what ways is God calling you, even now, to be light? Whatever it means, whatever the way, it involves Jesus – being present with us, active in our hearts and souls, and – through us – active in the life of the world. In this season of preparation and expectation, in which we pray, “O come, O come Emmanuel,”[6] and pray that Jesus might be born in us, today,[7] we find that it is Jesus who, in his incarnation, has established God’s kingdom here on earth. It is Jesus who makes God accessible to us. It is Jesus who gives himself away – again and again – here at this Table, in his body and blood, in his very presence with us, driving the shadows away from our hearts and souls and filling us with God’s glorious light. It is this light that we are called to share, even as we walk in it. . . even as we work for it.

I’ll close with this. . . If you walk up the hill across the street in the late afternoon and get to the top of the cemetery, if you stand in the right place in the light, the sun will shine on you and cast a long strange shadow. This past week, as I looked at my own shadow, I saw this figure with a little body and really long legs, and I thought, “Woah, those would be some long legs for walking – walking in the light.” And then, I found myself singing one of today’s hymns: “We’ll walk in the light – beautiful light. Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright. O, shine all around us by day and by night. Jesus, the light of the world.”[8] There are those who might say that I shouldn’t be singing in a graveyard at all – that it is a place of solemnity. But the kingdom for which we are longing and toward which we are walking and working is not a place of solemnity. It is a place of hope and joy – yes, even hope and joy in the face of death, hope and joy in the light of God’s presence, where there will be no need for sun or stars to shine, because all the light we need will come from God. This is the place where God will dwell with us and we will be God’s people. And God will be with us and wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more. . . [9]

This is a new vision for the world – not just some holy thing that might happen in the sweet by-and-by, but something that God is bringing to fullness and fulfillment, even now – through you and through me, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even when the shadows lengthen and threaten to undo us, there is a light that shines – on us an in us and through us.

O, beloved children of the most high God, Come, let us walk. . . let us live in the light of the Lord.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Santa_Claus

[2] David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, ed. Feasting on the Word – Year A, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) 3. Bruce C. Birch, “Exegetical Perspective.”

[3] Eugene Peterson, The Message – Numbered Edition (Colorado Springs: NAV Press, 2002), 917. Isaiah 2:3.

[4] Isaiah 2:4, Paraphrased JHS.

[5] Shane Claiborne. Trailer for Beating Guns. 2:04. https://www.beatingguns.com/documentary

[6] Latin prose, pre-9th cent. Trans. Composite. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Glory to God – The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013) 88.

[7] Phillips Brooks, 1868. “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Glory to God – The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013) 121.

[8] Charles Wesley (1739) and George D. Elderkin (1890). “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (Jesus, the Light of the World.” Glory to God – The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press) 127.

[9] See Revelation 21:3-4 and 21:23.

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