The Column of Light and the Song of Stars

A Live Storytelling Piece, Written for Two Narrators:

A:        Under the bright blue canopy of stars.

C:        The twinkling cresent of a moon held over head.

A:        The young man staggered, turned, and dropped to his knees.  Exhausted.

C:        The young woman, tugging at her now tattered skirt, took a seat. Exasperated.

A:        They were lost.

C:        Or more precisely: 

A:        He was lost.

C:        And she was lost.

A:        And neither of them had any idea the other existed.  Separated by hundreds.

C:        Thousands of miles. 

A:        They had a hunch, mind you.  That there was another half to their quest also out searching.

C:        The kind of hunch that comes from being born under the same star. 

A:        At the same hour.

C:        And set off by mysterious circumstances. But that kind of hunch doesn’t do one much good when you’re lost in the depths of a swamp.

A:        Or stranded on the top of a mountain. 

C:        No, not much does you good in a situation like that, does it?

A:        I dare say not. 

(Turning to audience) Oh, hello and forgive us.  Welcome, one and all to the infinite cross roads.  The place of eternal return.   Our wafarer’s inn for travelers on the inward journey.

C:        A place to warm our feet, our hearts, our bellies. Please forgive the mess.  These old trinkets.  It’s rather busy through here. For we offer an inn not just in space but also in time.

A:        It’s not much to look at I suppose -  a little fabric here, a pot, a boot, some pillows.  But it’s not so much the what of what’s here, but the where….This spot, or rather that spot right over there (pointing), is where every journey leaves from, and to which every journey returns.  Which can get a little confusing, we’ll admit.

C:        But not as confusing as being totally lost, mind you.

A:        Which reminds us of our Story…

C:        The Column of Light

A:        And the Song of Stars

Story:

C:        Some time ago, though time is relative in places like this, there lived a young woman, a princess growing up high atop the highest mountain peak in the land – in an elegant castle made of crystal, woven as if from spider’s silk in a way that would make your heart melt. As she looked out from her exquisite window, over the world below her she took in the land, the valleys, the hills, rolling as far as the eyes could see, hiding rivers, swamps and fertile land in their basins.  She wondered what adventures lay down below, what creatures, and people – lives that she would never get to experience – lived down there.

A:        Down, deep, in the lowest of these valleys a young man, was looking out from where he worked, gathering firewood in amongst the old swamp.  He worked on this day in an open stretch near the banks of the river, where above the old gnarled trees, he could see all the way up to the peaks of the hills.  As he watched the castle of the kingdom sparkle, and wondered what life was like for those who lived up there.  He could only imagine how elegant the life was – people never had to collect and carry firewood up there. 

C:        Both young man and woman had a feeling in their hearts – a feeling of longing, for a life outside of the life that they had known.  For the adventures, and the experiences of the great unknown. 

A:        As dusk fell both stared long and hard into the distance.  For tonight was no simple day.  Tonight was the eve of each of their 13th birthdays – and they were both caught thinking about what growing up meant, and what waited around the corner. 

C:        As the light fell, both had to return from their thoughts to the world around them.  The princess heard her guardian calling, readying her for the evening’s dinner – in celebration of her special day.  While the young man hurried to fill his bundle and head back to his home before darkness set completely – that he might get to rest a little earlier, that he could wake up early to celebrate his special day for a few moments by the river – before the workday began of course.  In their hurry, neither stopped to notice the beauty of the full moon that rose opposite the sun as it set.  

A:        Now, noticed or not, the full moon exerts its pull on us, just as it exerts its pull on the tides, the blossoming of flowers and the hum of bees.  On this night, the moon’s mischievous glow had designs on the two young people, about to turn 13, and made its presence known through a dream. 

Where each of the two slept – deep in the buzz and slosh of the swamp, or high up in the crystalline breeze of the mountain peaks – they each dreamed a miraculous and amazing dream. 

C:        They each dreamed the same dream.

The dream began with a song – a song which was the hum of the moon and the stars.  A song which was the reception of the moonlight on the tree branches, and stones of the earth.  A song, strung on starlight, stretched down from the heights of the blue-golden stars which shimmered far overhead. 

A:        Don’t ask how, but out of the shimmering, strumming, stretching chords of the dream – a golden web began to be weaved.  A map, of creation, unrolled in glorious harmony.  The strands wrapped themselves about one another, following the delicate melody, and each dreamer felt that somehow their own attention to this weaving, to the song that sung the golden fibers into being, was a necessary part of the web’s coming to life.  It felt as if the golden threads passed through him, and through her, curling into hidden forgotten corners of their being, and opening, awakening something deeply essential.

C:        As it opened, as their hearts and minds opened – the space within the weaving expanded,  first encompassing their bodies, and growing further.  Stretching high up above them and radiating outwards in circles - until they stood in a high room, echoed in gold and white.  Shimmering with the breath of each chord and spelling out mysterious, enchanted, wordless stories.  Their gaze followed these strands until it landed, across the space, settling on their counterpart, also standing in this glowing golden room – his eyes alighted on her and hers affixed on him.

A:        And the room sung to them, as they stared across a limitless space that was no bigger than the head of pin.  In marvelous, delicate tones it sung to them the story of where they had come from and how far they had travelled, of all that they had been in other times, and all they were yet to be.  And all this without the awkwardness of words, or pictures.  Somehow it was all held in the golden thread that sung about them.   

As it sung it sung too about their connection, to one another, and to a third place somewhere far off.  It sung of the space that lay between them, of a journey that they might take to find one another.  And in the last moments of the dream, as the space around them continued to glow, and grow louder, the long column of light extended itself all the way up through the stars, traveling towards the brightest star in the sky, a deep blue-golden beacon that pulsed with a wisdom neither had seen.  And as they made contact with the star, the dream and the golden column of light with it, disintegrated into shimmering particles, trickling downwards and scattering with the first contact of day.  The pale dawn sky echoing the blue of the star.

C:        Blinking, at the power of the dream, the young woman, now 13 looked down to find clutched in her hands a shimmering blue orb – a crystal, which pulsed in her hand, the same way the golden thread had, in her dream. 

A:        Down deep in the valley, the young man awoke, the light dim from the canopy of trees overhead – and found in his hands a similar crystal.  As the full moon set, just before the sun rose in the east – the two orbs shone brightly, and began to sing, softly in the blue light of the morning.

C:        Now don’t ask what overtook these two – from such different places.  Perhaps it was the freedom of entering into adult hood, and their teenage years.  Perhaps it was something that had been building for a long time before.  Or perhaps it was, simply, lunacy – the inspiration of our mysterious grandmother moon.  But in equal rights, each young person knew that the crystal had already begun to lead them on that journey toward the place where that column of light lay – and to the mysterious other they had seen in that space, and had been so moved by. 

A:        And so they set off – each of them facing their own fears and heistations.  He didn’t know where the journey would lead, and what if he met others on the way – he didn’t have money to pay for assistance, or anything other than his strength to trade.  And she, though she held position of prestige, with as much gold as she would need, was concerned about leaving her family, and the safety of the castle.  Both knew that they had to go, but a litany of reasons of why such a journey was foolish swelled up before them.  Not least of which was that they had received a mysterious singing crystal from a dream… Who would believe that? 

C:        But, in each of their pockets, the reassuring glow of the crystal took over and began to lead.  The song from their dream began to lead them slowly and gently from far off… With a gentle insistence, akin to the feeling of falling in love – both of them knew that they could not deny this force that drew them.  As they looked around their respective rooms it was clear that the path life had laid out for them no longer resided where they had lived for so long.

A:        Curiously, cautiously the travelers packed their possessions and slipped out, following the gentle refrain of the song, even before the sun had risen.  From that moment forward, the song became their guiding star.  As the travelers turned themselves towards the direction of the song, the song grew slightly louder, and more lilting as if it was giggling with joy and excitement, and when they turned away, the sound wore off, as if fading away in the wind. 

So, following the sweet song, she began to pick herself down the mountain carefully descending the peaks.  While he began to trudge slowly up from the muddy shores of the swamp towards higher ground…

C:        And here, dear listeners, is where adventure intercedes.  Even with the infinite time within this beautiful cocoon of ours, we don’t have enough to recount the deviations and rambles of their journeys – winding up mountains, down mountains.  Back and forth.  His run in with pirates, her taming a flock of wild horses, his adventure on a flying carpet ride, her run in with a serpent the size of a whole mango grove.  Indeed the directions that the singing stones took them were unexpected to say the least.  And as he picked his way slowly up the mountain peaks, she journeyed downwards.

A:        Now, dear listeners, if this were a conventional story – somewhere in the middle, on a plateau, is where the two star crossed wanders would meet, yes?  At the half way point… But this is not the story we have to tell.  Indeed, through the cunning, and curious intelligence of the song, the two were led to the same high mountain pass.  But where her song wound her to the west side of a giant crag, his wound him to the east – and the two passed within 10 feet of one another, save for the giant slab of granite between them.

And as days gave way to weeks, and weeks to months – the situation changed.  As they each picked their ways farther and farther from home – they got turned around in their journeys.  What started as a jovial romp, became more and more work.  And it became clear to both of them that there was no easy way to return to where they started from – their homes more and more distant a memory. At this moment, grim determination set in.   A focused pursuit, that led them each to question their sanity.  If going home wasn’t an option, than they must, each of them, find the column of light, at all costs!  As they had traveled now for almost 13 months, they had no other choice.  Though the song that accompanied them was louder than ever before, and suggested that they grew close to discovering… Something.

C:        And so it was that the young man picked his way higher and higher and higher up the mountain cliffs.  While the young woman pursued her song deeper and deeper and deeper in to the depths of the valleys – finding her way to a cave and into its mouth.

A:        The farther each traveler went the more insistent the song became.  The young man almost sprinted to the top of the peak he was traveling up, scrambling and scraping his shins on the incline – certain that at the top of the peak he would discover the column of light once and for all!

C:        In the depths of the cave, her song grew stronger as well.  Hearing the song get lounder and louder – she began to almost run, picking her way through the darkness faster and faster until in a moment of carelessness, she tripped, and the crystal flew out of her hand, tumbling through the darkness…

A:        While he at that moment reached the top of the peak to find… Nothing!  A yawning chasm lay ahead of him, with a sheer drop of hundreds of feet on either side. He looked all around him, and couldn’t believe his   Clearly the column of light was no where to be found.  He was exasperated beyond belief, and stared at the stone in his hand.  It glowed and shimmered – as it were laughing at him.  Feeling his frustration grow inside him like a hot fire, he was furious.  Furious at the crystal, furious at himself, and without a second thought he hurled the blue stone over the cliff.

C:        While hers went thudding to the ground of the cave and cracked, its light seeping out of it.  Darkness, and silence taking over in the cave.

A:        In that moment they were each completely alone.  Totally and completely lost…  With no one, and no where to turn to.  There was no hope left to retain.  

C:        And in that hopelessness, that silence, they rested for a long, still moment.  Knowing that if this is where their journey had led them, it held no purpose at all.  No purpose further than the breath in their lungs, and the blood pumping in their veins.  And in that stillness they stopped to listen. 

A:        He listened as the wind whistled throught he mountain peaks, the sunset sky sparkling lound and clear about him.  Over off in the distance the first blue star could be seen.

C:        While she heard deep in the depths of the earth the groan and creak of the stone around her, its strength, its silence, its beauty.  The low rumble of the earth pulsing… distant echoes of those golden threads…

A:        And he the whistle of the starlight… almost as if in the dream.  Listening to the light striking the mountain top about him as if it were sweet golden raindrops falling about him.

C:        And something happened in that still moment, in the heights of the sky and the depth of the earth.  Each could swear that those familiar strains of the song they had been following for so long could be found – not sung from some mysterious crystal, but held in the depth and breadth of the world around them.  The drip of water hitting the cave floor.  The buzz of insect wings in the tall mountain heights. 

A:        And, as the shimmering light of the full moon began to peak its head over the mountain cliff, moments after the setting of the sun. A familiar feeling began to over take them.  This intricate harmony of starlight, and moonlight, of stones, and plants, and the hum of bees began to weave around them.  The melody of the golden threads – they were certain of it.   Only this time not in a dream.  This time it was all based on how deeply into the sounds they were able to seek – feeling them open chords in their hearts, and minds and somewhere deep inside.

C:        They each closed their eyes to give the experience the greatest attention they could and as they did they found themselves, standing once again  - instantly in the column of golden light. 

A:        In that moment it became clear that the column had always been with them.  That it had simply been waiting for this moment of stillness to show itself again.  And in that moment they both realized that this column would always be with them.  A space they could return to at any moment.  From any place. 

C:        And it did become a space that they would return to, frequently.  To sing songs with the golden threads and learn from them.  To record the stories of travel outer and inner.  And, on days like this one – when the moon is new – they gather to welcome good friends, and to share of their own experiences.  As the song taught them to do.