Not far from here, there was a garden encircled by a stone wall. Lacing through the middle of the garden was a healthy, productive Grapevine. In this garden, songbirds laid their eggs in nests constructed from pieces of vine that they had clipped with their sharp beaks. 

The mother and father songbirds both worked hard, protecting the eggs that housed their baby birds. They would keep the eggs warm until they hatched, and then they would continue to provide warmth, love, and food until the babies grew old enough to fly away and eat the grapes on the vine without help. 

Now there was in this same garden, a Fox and a Snake. Fox was tricky and fearful, but Snake was cunning and evil. Although the Grapevine had never failed to produce enough grapes to feed all the animals in the past, Fox was afraid of scarce resources. He worried that someday there would not be enough grapes. The old Snake was everyone's enemy, plotting in the hope that he could one day utilize Fox's fear to consume the songbirds.

Now, Snake was more crafty than all the animals that lived in the garden. One late night, while the garden slept, Snake brought Fox some fermented grapes to eat. While Fox ate, Snake uncoiled an evil plot. 

The songbirds knew that Fox and Snake were not their allies, but they did esteem their worldly wisdom. They knew that Snake could perceive when frosts were coming and that Fox was full of gossip about events happening in distant fields. So when Fox and Snake went to the songbirds heralding impending destruction, they listened from a distance at what they had to say. 

Snake explained that an expected frost would kill most of the Grapevine, while Fox warned that there would not be enough grapes to sustain the flock in the spring. The songbirds knew that the Grapevine had never failed to provide everything needed for nesting and food. Even in the cold months, the birds could eat the plentiful insects in the fallen leaves and fruits. However, Fox and Snake spoke with conviction, so the songbirds listened to them. A seed of anxiety was sown.

Time in the garden continued as it had. The sun rose in the east and traced a happy arch across the sky, before melting into the arms of the soft summer nights in the west. The enlivening afternoon rains fell on all the animals whether they were wise or foolish, evil or good. In all this abundance, the songbirds forgot to remember to be afraid of scarce resources.

By and by, Snake warned the songbirds again that if they did not leave the garden and go into the fields, there would not be enough food. While the songbirds continued as they had been, laying eggs and building nests to protect them, they were uneasy. Snake knew that, if he wanted Fox's seeds of anxiety to sprout into fear, he would need to water the threat with more deception. 

Again, evil enlarged in darkness. At night, while the songbirds were sleeping with their eggs, Fox disguised his voice to sound like an owl. He ventriloquized, "Who? Who -who? Who will adventure with me to the hills? Who will go out into the fields to gather better food?" 

Some of the father songbirds heard the owl call and left. Some of the fathers left because they were impressed by the wildness of the mysterious owl. Others left because they believed that they would have better opportunities if they abandoned their eggs. Some fathers deserted because they saw the others forsaking their families and felt compelled to imitate. But still, the mother songbirds remained with their eggs, alone in the quiet darkness.

Although the tricksters had caused significant damage, they were not satisfied. Their ultimate goal was to own the entire Grapevine for themselves. Again, in the night, under the deep shadow of the stone wall, they applied the final coating of corruption to their deceit. 

Fox found the deserted nesting mother songbirds in their individual nests. While they were isolated he whispered in soothing tones, "Give up your egg mother songbird. The Grapevine will not produce, and you will starve alone." Then, Fox took each abandoned egg and gave it to Snake, who greedily swallowed it. In the barren darkness of night, Fox and Snake knew they had to act quickly. There would only be a few hours in which the mother songbirds would be bewildered and isolated enough to allow the Fox to take the egg. If they waited until morning, sunlight would illuminate the garden, and the mothers would not forfeit their egg. 

Fox and Snake went from nest to nest, reaching in and taking eggs from the most vulnerable of the abandoned mother songbirds. In the morning, when the sun rose, the songbirds who had allowed Fox and Snake to take their eggs were very sad. Some of them left the garden to see if maybe there was indeed something better out in the fields. Snake openly congratulated Fox on his trickery. Secretly, he planed on swallowing Fox when he grew large enough from egg gluttony. 

That day, in bright sunlight, the songbirds decided to resist. That night, when Fox and Snake went from nest to nest to consume the eggs, all the remaining mother and father songbirds began to sing. They sang an ancient song- a song that was even older than Snake. They sang about the priceless value of new birth and of the treasure of an indestructible marriage. They sang about the certainty of right and wrong, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. 

As the songbirds loudly sang these ancient truths, a curious thing happened. Everywhere that the birds had cut off the vine branches to build their nests, a bushel of grapes grew out. The momentum of the explosion of new growth knocked down the stone wall, which tumbled down on top of Fox and crushed him underneath. Snake fled into the fields to await another opportunity. Not one stone in the wall was left standing upon another.

At night, if you hear a songbird singing, sing along.  You know that the songbirds are fighting the old Snake. Make the Grapevine grow by lifting up your own song. 

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. 

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"It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order."

― Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern 1979 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction for exploring mathematical relationships in creative processes.

Akedah's eyes slammed open into a body filled with pain. Moiety was crying, or more accurately, weeping hysterically with snot free-flowing from her nose. 

He coughed. His mouth and nose were full of cottony silkworm thread.

"You came back!"

As Akedah pushed through the layered wrappings of silk threads, he felt the pins and needles of blood flowing back into his small capillaries. It made him sneeze.

Moiety was trying to hug him. He stiffened. For a brief moment, he considered utilizing her repentance and joy as a way to gain the upper hand in the relationship. Now that she wanted him, he could manipulate her more easily into being compliant. He would be able to use his approval or disapproval of her as endless currency to get what he wanted out of the relationship. He gave her a cold, distant look.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

Akedah continued in silence. She still looked like a wet cat. He remembered his half-finished book in the high mountain city and the importance that it had placed on his motivations above his actions. He considered the fact that the quality of his life would hinge not on what he accomplished but his motivations underpinning his accomplishments.

All Akedah could think of was her back to him, sailing away in his boat. He wanted revenge on this woman for the way she had unfairly treated him, but he also knew from looking at his life book, that it did not matter. He would only be right in the end if he was able to forgive her. No one in all eternity, especially not the old Morning Star, would ever care if his personal grievances were resolved to his satisfaction. The thing that would give his life meaning would be his ability to overlook the insult, to despise Shame, and choose love despite spite. 

Akedah again laid it down and let it go. He would be doing a lot of that.

The North Wind was long gone now, a soft, warm sunset had taken her place. Akedah stood up and promptly fell back down. Moiety rushed to help him. 

"You have been asleep for three days," the Leviathan informed him. "Your strength will return." But to Moiety, he said, "Do not cling to him. He has not finished the transformation. You cannot help him in this, Princess. You must allow him to gather his own strength, or his vitality will be stunted. He must generate his fortitude from within right now, or he will forever be dependent on women for succor."

With considerable effort, the Viking pulled himself up to stand using a low tree branch for support, "What is that clicking sound?"

Moiety listened. She could not hear anything but ocean waves and the residual breezes left behind in the jungle canopy from North Wind's impossibly long hair. Then, she noticed it, not so much as a sound but as a nagging feeling of urgency. Softly, the feeling reached her senses as an irritating sound. The muffled metronome was present and persistent, as persistent as time. It was sending out vibrations through the jungle soil like the concentric ripples on still water when a thrown rock breaks the surface tension. 

The Leviathan settled his considerable size next to the epicenter of the disrupting sound. He pushed aside some jungle hummus and found the Chameleon's mechanical heart still clicking and whirring away into time immortal just as she had promised it would. Dirt fell from the machinery smoothly - as if it contained something internally that repelled earth at a fundamental level. It looked as new and shiny black as it did the day it was first propositioned to her. 

At the sight of the cold, unflinching metal, Moiety remembered the mechanized birds and lizards swarming her body and drilling holes into her chest cavity. She shuddered a cold sweat at the helplessness of that repulsive night. The piece of Shame's tongue that had remained stuck to her ankle throughout her adventure began to heat up and pull towards the mechanized heart. Moiety backed away, "Throw it away!" she cried to Leviathan.

Leviathan peered at her thoughtfully with massive eyes, "Man is warped by mortality yet has eternity woven in the weft of his heart; therefore, he regards time not as a mercy, but as a horror." He smiled compassionately, exposing his dangerous teeth. He handed her the thing she most loathed, "Let us see what we can make of it before we throw it away." 

The dragon sacrificially laid the pearl in the ground where he had extricated the mechanical heart and pushed the hummus back over the top of it. The Leviathan, the Princess, and the Viking waited, watching the ground for signs of life. Only minutes passed before the damp soil rumbled into an explosion of growth. A hulking grapevine flourished, and spiraled its way out of the loam, twisting itself up into the canopy. 

A cordon stretched out from the vine's trunk and reached for the mechanical heart in Moiety's hands. It began to coil its tendrils around the magnetic heart. Around and around, it twisted, sending curling growths into every cold crevice, until it looked more like a sturdy nest built by a meticulous bird than a complicated metal pump.

With this explosion of growth, Moiety could hear the melody again -the song that is inherent to the breath of life, and implicit to the calling forth of the cosmos slowly became audible just as the rising sun becomes gradually visible on the wings of the morning.

The sunrise moves its reaching light

like a curious, gentle wave

washing and revealing

the land that night had claimed

.

She graces through the grasses

like a watercolor brush

leaving wet drops to dry

In the still and sleepy hush

The water flowed from the roots of the vine and up into the leaves. Molecule by molecule, joined by loose hydrogen bonds, the stream wound its way through the vine and out into the atmosphere. Its thin tiny current spiraled through the tendrils that had secured themselves in coils around the anemic heart, creating in the surrounding area, a variant type of magnetic field. 

She reaches further onward

untangling shadows from the trees

waking their nightly residents

snuggled beneath the leaves

.

The morning moves on yonder

pulling on lighted breeze

the mighty sun up from her chamber

to traverse the canopy

The heart came alive. It was not ticking anymore. Instead, a vibrant, resonant rhythm aligned its cadence with the universal sound. 

The sun commands in rapt attention

each photosynthesizing leaf

they bow warm heads as she exits

like a sword into its sheath

The dead leaves that were scattered on the forest floor around it stood up and moved -like iron shavings around a bar magnet- into a snowflake style arrangement. River rocks waddled like round penguins toward each other, balancing themselves one upon the other into tall rock cairns. Loose branches wattled themselves into beautiful homey dwelling structures, and even the light surrounding the heart haloed itself into a perfect rainbow. In the background, the Universal Sound continued.

Evening descends and drifts along

with ghostly creeping grace

He calls to twilight as she goes

and kisses her turning face

.

She leaves the delicate lightning bugs

to twinkle in the grasses

he unrolls the shadows through the wood

deepening as he passes

Akedah thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Moiety was exhausted from exertion and trauma. She observed with detached diffidence. 

Evening descends and drifts along

with ghostly creeping grace

he calls to twilight as she goes

and kisses her turning face

.

She leaves the delicate lightning bugs

to twinkle in the grasses

he unrolls the shadows through the woods

deepening as he passes

Another cordon reached out from the grapevine's mainstem and coiled around the piece of Shame's tongue. It fell off of Moiety's ankle, severed as effortlessly as brittle plastic, and was drawn into the heart's magnetic field. Once the tongue was inside the vine's power, a strange thing happened. 

The angry tongue thrashed side to side like a serpent with a severed head. It coiled and expanded, thrashing as though in a fire. When it finally came to rest, it looked like a flat coiling of copper wire. It was rolled into a spiral snail shell shape, not unlike the ones that children make when playing with clay. The Universal Sound continued,

The owls arrive to call their news

from glen up to the ridges

while bats stream out like pouring rain

from under darkened bridges

.

And now the cold sunrise

winks a playful eye

to see the things the night has done

while she was on the other side

"This is your compass, Princess." the Leviathan explained. He picked it up and gestured for Moiety to take it. The compass looked tiny and earthly, common, in his claws. Moiety turned it over in her palm. A month ago, she would have passed over such a simple item in search of some other bling. Today she was thankful and loved it. 

"The compass will become warm in your hand whenever you are facing true North. It will glow when you are being lied to, and it will strike a flame when you are cold. However, it will only work for its holder every turn of the earth. It must be passed back and forth, woman to man and then man to woman. If you cling to it beyond your allotted time, it will lose all power and be nothing but ordinary copper."

The woman and the man knew that they would have to work together, each yielding one to the other to make it back home. They would continue to be completely different, yet if they would retain the power in the compass, they must stay as entirely equal. 

The Viking and the Princess left the Leviathan on the island deep in the grapevine jungle with the loadstone heart. Moiety looked over her shoulder at him as they were going. He was coiling himself around the heart's weavings amid the highly ordered garden getting ready for another thousand-year nap. He yawned a great yarn. His tongue, sentried by rows of violent teeth, curled up at the end like a tired puppy's tongue. He winked, and Moiety could hear his voice in her head, "You will surely die on your way to life."

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"We don't feel fully known, understood, or valued by others or even ourselves—that's why we labor to prove ourselves, to get people to notice us, to make a name for ourselves, or try to be someone else. Imagine how in Heaven, all this gets replaced with an unbelievable clarity of who God created you to be—fully yourself, fully unique, for a unique relationship with your Creator."

― John Burke, Imagine Heaven

Akedah began to die as he absorbed the chameleon's curse from Moiety's body. The glowworms surrounded him. 

"We cannot stop the curse from killing you, but we can slow it down so that you will not immediately die." 

Akedah felt the venom spreading through his limbs with an unmitigated crushing pain. The glowworms were overflowing with their organic juices. They carried the Viking into a spreading Live Oak tree and began working quickly to encapsulate him in silk, a process that would curb the rise of death's steady tide. 

The last thing the Viking saw was entitled princess Moiety, disembarking in his boat. Akedah closed his eyes and slept. His spirit awoke and walked through his dreams.

He was in a crowded city, surrounded by masculine women and feminine men. The landscape was defined by hard angles and stone. People walked into and out of each other's personal space without greeting. There were few children and even fewer aged, only a sea of family-less persons moving without eye contact like cold fish in dark water. Every person had a number attached to them.  

Akedah wandered through these streets until he saw a woman standing outside what appeared to be a tavern. She was clearly upset, and clearly in contrast with the rest of the stoic environment. She did not have a number and was therefore not allowed inside. She had two small children, a girl, and a boy. 

Akedah went inside the tavern to see what was wrong. Inside the dim lounge, there was a bath occupying the majority of the room. It was lit from the inside with a bluish light. It was surrounded by tables where patrons were drinking. It would not have been so strange if it had not been full of wiggling scarabs. Some of the patrons were stuffing the scarabs in their pockets and bags. Some of them were up to their elbows playing with the bugs. Others were sitting neck deep in the bug bath. 

Despite his disdain for these curious habits of the natives, the Viking, was intrigued. While Akedah watched, a beautiful woman brought him a drink. He drank. The mother outside continued to pound on the glass window. She seemed to be calling out to a big man who was happily up to his beard in the bug bath. The man was numbly ignoring her.

Midway through his drink, Akedah realized that he was not feeling half as repulsed by the scarabs as he had been. In fact, they were quite mesmerizing. Some of them appeared to be made of gold. Now he understood why the patrons were putting them in their pockets. The smiling woman reappeared with another drink. He had not even finished the first drink. Something about the woman banging on the glass out front made him distrust the women inside.

He finished the first drink, while he watched the scarabs glistening valuably in the blue light. They were so smooth. He wanted to take some with him. Akedah imagined he might be able to trade some of them for other goods on the journey home. He approached the blue-glowing bath for a closer look. Akedah realized that the bearded man was not wearing clothes. The woman outside was his wife. "Please come home!" she cried, "It has been ten years, and we need you." 

"If you would just go to the council, get a number, and come inside, you would not be alone," he retorted. He called another woman to join him. She took off her clothes in plain view of everyone in the tavern and climbed into the bug bath. No one seemed to think this was strange or embarrassing. The woman received only cursory glances, and the man received no rebuff. Everyone was numb.

 Akedah realized that the more the patrons drank the beverages at the tavern, the more the scarabs appeared to them to be made of gold. He spewed the lukewarm drink out of his mouth. It was then that Akedah realized that the bugs not only were not gold, but they were also slowly eating the people playing with them. The man in the bug bath pulled himself up to resituate, and Akedah saw that his body was a corpse, full of infected holes tunneled out by the wretched insects.

He staggered out of the tavern. The woman stopped banging on the glass and calling to her husband. She left. He hurled curses at her as she walked away. The evil stopped at the door and fell lifeless to the floor.

Akedah continued to walk through his dreams. The water in the city, which had been scarce began to dry up. The people feared. A Great Leader arose. He spoke eloquently, as if in the tongue of angels, but he had no love. He spoke of unity and having all things in common. He heralded a new classless, raceless, genderless society where everyone would be the equally same. He used his beautiful words to unify the people in a great project to dig down into the water table and bring water up to the surface so that everyone would be able to share it in common. Never again would a person be able to have more water than his neighbor. Everything would be equal. Every scrap of currency in the city was used for the Great Leader's project. 

Akedah watched the project completed. The water flowed up out of the ground and spilled into the waterways of the city. The people were satisfied for a time. The Great Leader made sure that everyone received no more than what he determined was fair. 

After a time, the Great Leader grew old, and the water stopped flowing. A handful of water was sold for homestead, and men began to eat mud. 

Grey men in grey clothes came into the city, claiming that the gods were angry. They said that everyone is born with living water inside of them and that once you found the living water that was already inside of you that you would never thirst again. They sold books with blank pages and said that they could only be read by the enlightened. 

People bought the books, and although a few people admitted to not being able to read them, most people said that the books told them how to find the living water. They looked in the mountains, near the sea, and in universities. No one could agree on what the books really said. People started to say that whatever your book told you must be right for you personally because your truth was beautifully unique to you. 

This did not satisfy the people's need for water, but still, men continued.

Akedah continued to walk through his dreams. The hard angular dwellings crumbled into a desert. Men and boys who were old enough to hold weapons gathered into gangs, and women mostly disappeared. Children appeared on the roads. They were hungry, with wild eyes communicating profound agony. Where once was a cold indifference, there was now pervasive violence. Gray langur monkeys wandered wherever they willed, taking as their cravings saw fit. No one opposed them because they were considered to be holy - the ghosts incarnate of ancient ancestors - and not to be displeased. 

Akedah roamed disconsolately through this future wasteland for what felt like months. Finally, he came once again to the living breathing ocean and its guiding stars. A hush fell across the galaxy as if the conductor had appeared on the stage. Then the stars began to sing. It was the most creatively coherent piece of music that the Viking had ever heard. He felt that he had always known it, but years later, he would struggle to remember the tune, only the sense of the deep satisfaction that it elicited. 

All the stars joined into one bright morning star, and a voice like rushing water told him that he was in the country of his fathers. 

"Welcome home Akedah, you are accepted to enter into joy." The violently burning star spoke in a still small voice.

Akedah looked further up and farther in, past the stars, and saw a city built into a range of mountains. He realized now that all the hills that he had ever known were just crumbled down shadowy carcasses. He understood why men intuitively give each peak a name. When a mountain is what a mountain is supposed to be, it is a dynamic organism that supports a peopled city the way a body supports a soul. Every one of these mountains was alive. 

The speaking star became a man, and Akedah was standing with him in -of all places- a library. The man was plain, not unlike himself in stature, but entirely unlike him in presence. He pulled a book from the shelves. The man smiled at the book as though it were a great masterpiece.

"Who wrote this book?" Akedah asked the man. 

"You did." The man replied.

Akedah looked in the book and saw a chronological record of his life. It included illuminated illustrations and an appendix that listed his motivations. Akedah was not even consciously aware of most of the unflattering contents of the appendix, but he had to admit, it was accurate.

He felt embarrassed that the man had access to read this book, and that it was in a public library. The man offered no condemning judgment.

"If you are ready, you can stay. You can also go back. I offer no promise that going back will be free of suffering, but I can promise that you will ease the suffering of others, thereby giving meaning to your own pain." 

The Viking looked in the back of the book. There were blank pages. Not even half of the book had been written. He felt sad to think that it might not contain the words that it could have held.

He looked out at the living mountains and the city growing on it. There were adventures here, unlike any he had ever known. There were things to learn and places to create with unlimited resources for advancement in science, art, and dance. The people were healthy and vibrant. He felt like he was home- like he was resting at a blazing hearth during the winter festival.

Akedah turned around and looked back on the stars. The little blue earth looked like a small candle flame in a sea of other lights. Its little glow hardly seemed to have a chance with the evil darkness pressing in all around it.

"What will happen to us?" Akedah asked the man.

"Look at the field," the man replied, and he pointed to a wheat farm on earth. Akedah could see the field and the laborers at this distance as if he were standing right next to them. 

"This is a disaster. There are more weeds than wheat growing. I am sorry, sir. I would have alerted you sooner, but when they sprouted, they looked exactly the same as the wheat sprouts," the dark brown man with leather hands was a laborer, but he hardly looked different than the field owner a man who also appeared to be acquainted with struggle and sweat. "I just don't know what happened. I was sure that we planted good seed. I inspected it myself. I accept full responsibility."

"My enemy has done this." The owner replied. "Not you, my friend."

"Should we burn the field and start over?"

"No. I had anticipated that this would happen, and I am ready."

"My men and I could work overtime and pull up the weeds," the laborer offered. 

The field owner thoughtfully looked over his property. It was his father's field. The laborer's offer was tempting, "No," he finally replied. "We will let the weeds grow up with the wheat. The wheat will be ready to harvest right before the weeds are ready to release their seeds. At harvest time, we will gather the wheat into the barn, and we will bind the weeds together and burn them."

Akedah looked back at the star man. He was the same man as the field owner. He looked back to the earth and saw Moiety. She was returning from her own battle and looking for him in earnest, the first glimmer of caring about something beside herself was just now opening her eyes. She was alone and needing to cross an ocean to get back to a place that was not even a real home. 

Akedah did not need a reason beyond knowing that it was the right thing to do it. He knew he would return home to the mountains again one day.

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The Viking and the Princess

The Leviathan and the Princess have discovered several things in the great trench in the deepest ocean: the roots of the World Tree, the Nidhogg wyrm, and the gates of the Abyss. The Nidhogg wyrm is a giant tapeworm sucking the energy out of the roots, and the ocean floor is slowly seeping into hell. The Leviathan uses his comparatively smaller size to infect the Nidhogg at a cellular level. Moiety has discovered that she can stop the influx of the universe into her black hole heart by utilizing the creative energy of the Universal Vibration that surrounds her. However, she has lost Odin's Scroll of Poetry, and the pieces of the wyrms tale that she cut off have come to life and are attaching themselves to the World Tree in a new effort to drain the World Tree of its gratitude.

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened."

-CS Lewis, The Great Divorce

"Please tell me more about what is in the abyss," Moiety inquired of the Leviathan.

"It is the waterless places," replied the Leviathan

"The waterless places?"

"The void, the nothing, outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It is the fire that is never content with wood, the ground that is never filled with water, and the eye that is never satiated with seeing, and it is full of the spirits who are never grateful for being."

"That sounds terrible. Are there really beings that are doomed to live inside of it."

"Yes. But not in the way that you might think. The gates are locked from the inside. There is no one there who has not chosen to be there. 

When they first get there, they just walk in, because it has a comfortable familiarity - the spirit can walk back out, but it will not. The whole earth is filled with the Creator's glory, leaving no room left over for self-glorification. Instead of joining into its Universal vibration, cursed spirits choose to engage in self-aggrandizement, shutting themselves out of the cosmos. The Creator, in mercy, allows them to abide in the outer darkness."

Moiety thought about her mother's sisters, who spent much of their time together bickering. At any time, any one of them could just get up and leave, but they seemed to thrive on the intrigue generated by their scandals. No wonder the Abyss is made of fire and full of malice. Without wood, the fire goes out. Without words, there is no gossip, and without malice present, there is no consuming hatred. 

The Leviathan was listening to Moiety's thoughts. "A great chasm was set between the Heavens and the Abyss for that excellent reason. The saints would delight in extinguishing the Abyssal fire, and the Abyss dwellers would utilize that sentiment to lure them in and entrap them."

Moiety and the Leviathan searched along the roots of the mountain. The Abyss continued to consume the seafloor and release its pressure on the surface in the form of volcanic activity. 

Moiety could hear the malodorous thoughts of the Abyss dwellers, "It's all your fault!" A woman's voice screamed. "If you would have just listened to Me!" A man's voice thundered. "That is Mine!" "I have a right!" "This is my property! Get off My land!" "Get out of My way!" The mob's cry perspired from the crack in a sulfuric stench.

Finally, the Leviathan spotted the tip of the glowing scroll peeking out of the silt. It was slowly inching its way towards the fissure. There was no way to reach it in time. It was being sucked down into the Abyss. Moiety felt terrible. The one valuable thing that she had, she was losing, and only as soon as she realized that it had any value at all. She put her head down on the Leviathan's back, closed her eyes, and wanted it back. 

Moiety remembered some farmers in her kingdom who had spent everything the owned to sow crops for the year for their families. One day the community woke up and found that locust had eaten everything. She did not think much of it at the time, but now she knew exactly how they must have felt. And as she remembered, the suction started again.

Moiety was wholly discouraged and did not even open her eyes. She just let it happen, but this time it did not consume at random. Instead of the Leviathan, silt, rocks, and roots flowing inside, the scroll responded to Moiety's intake. It dislodged from the sediment, the seal broke, and the meticulously inscribed runes peeled themselves off the hand-sewn pages. They floated like a bloom of jellyfish in a swell and flowed into her chest, sealing her skin behind them as they entered. The words entwined with her blood and opened her mouth.

The reason the word "read"

Is the backbone of "ready"

Is why words are the rudder we need,

 To sing our own song,

 To make our soul strong,

On currents where the mind sails steady.

The people in the Abyss were screaming now. "No." They howled. "Sing a song about Me. Sing about My glory and My ability to reproduce!" 

Do not let the tossing waves define-

Know which wind you harness.

Steady your course to balance your mind.

 The blacker the night,

 The brighter the light,

Of stars to steer you in darkness.

"Curse the stars. I have never seen a star. They not exist! Who are the fools who believe in stars?" The screams were a terrible discordant crescendo. "Keep your heads down. Do not look up!" they clamored to command each other.

Choose your words and reading

Like a captain would choose her sails

Anchor your gaze where Morning Star is leading

 His ancient book above all

 Through tempest and squalls

Carries your soul like a solid hull to prevail.

"I Will, I Will, I Will!" was the last coherent thing that Moiety and the Leviathan heard out of the Abyss before the weeping and gnashing of teeth deteriorated into animal-like yells, yips, and yowls.

Know that discipline equals freedom

For those who intrepidly train

But entertainment causes people to be dumb

 With brains malnourished

 And bodies like porridge

Blaming everyone else for their pain. 

The segmented pieces of wyrm tail that Moiety had flade with her blade began to fall off the roots. One by one at first, and then in a swarm, they convened in front of the Levithan. They swirled and flashed in a tornado-like mass. "Give! Give!" they cried and then began to bite and devour one another until they were consumed, and there was only one left.

Ready your book by your hand,

And ready your hand hard to the wheel.

Lean starboard for the fatherland

 Keep it your vision

 To gain a heart of wisdom

To balance your life on that courageous keel.

"You will surely die on your way to life," the Leviathan said. "The old things are passing away. Look! The mighty have fallen, and all things are becoming new."

The last little wyrm had died and rounded from its consumption, it calcified into a beautiful luminescent rosy pearl. But not a perfectly round pearl. It had a small tail that reminded Moiety of the first root of a sprouted bean. The Leviathan held it in his five-clawed paw. It continued to glow a soft rosy light.

Moiety and the Leviathan ascended up out of the abyssal trench, through the midnight and twilight zones, and then finally back into the sunlit water.

The world did not look much changed on the surface, considering the complicated developments that had just transpired at the World Tree roots. You would have to have eyes to see and ears to hear to notice any real difference. Moiety thought that maybe the actual change might reside inside of her own perceptions. The island was still covered with water, but the trees and animals continued as though nothing had changed. The birds were still flitting amongst the branches but in slow underwater motion. The Leviathan brought Moiety to rest in an underwater copse of trees not far from her encounter with the chameleon. 

An icy wind began to blow on the surface. The North Wind was back. She pushed the water up and away from the trees, and dry land began to appear. She circled the island once and then twice, round and round the island in ever diminishing concentric circles until she had gathered up all the water concealing the island. Moiety pressed herself into the Leviathan as the North Wind swirled all around them. Moiety could hear the North Wind humming her song as she worked. It was a cold ghostly reverberant tone. Moiety grew quiet inside the storm. She could hear the wraithy words echo off the water like thick snowflakes landing on deep drifts. 

Where the snowy banks increase

In ferocious quiet of untamed peace

And Magi come wondering from the east

The heart of the divine comes unleashed

.

And the North Wind blows

Ruffling the feathers of the alpenglow

Dispersing the rimy glacial floe

Underneath her snowy undertow

.

Her spirit ranges and heavy hovers

Over the face of the Arctic waters

Creating the cracking icy cover

Reflecting frozen faceted colors

.

Up in the boreal Siberian heights

She is raising up the Northern lights

Like children lifting handmade kites

The prayers of Himalayan flight

.

She is the strong peace of wind

That enlivens, freshens, and seasons the skin

Uncovering Christmas carols covered within

Heralding the evergreen spirit again

.

Scattering frosted luminescence

Harkening Yuletide in winter's presence

From the manger stalls up to the heavens

It's born again without senescence

.

Fashioning waters into glaciers

Those winter wandering wisping wayfarers

Cutting their course like titanic razors

in a sea of silent, silver sailors

.

She is the fierceness of the ice

That pride in the polar bear's prowling life

Where none approaches without fang or knife

And nothing's gained without sacrifice

.

But calling all her faithful children

Wherever she puts her hands to build in

To explore and forge like intrepid pilgrims

To be the citizens of Empyrean pavilion

The North Wind gathered up the waters and carried them north with her, where she finally laid them to rest as emerald green icebergs.

The beautiful tropical island lay exposed at sea level as it had been the day she arrived.

In the center of the trees, was an unusually large tree with thick limbs that reached upwards and then lazily laid themselves back down to the ground where they rested for a way along the earth before lifting back up again toward the sun. This green tree was draped all over in woven patches of silk that swayed in the current like white prayer flags on a snowy mountain. Where the great trunk of the tree separated into several of these reaching branches, it created a resting place large enough for...]]>0647b306-96c8-4c88-a902-f4f1e040aa3aThu, 06 Feb 2020 07:00:00 -050015:02nofull113Moiety had been so firmly calcified into a selfish princess, that it took the heat from the gates of hell and the pressure of the deepest trench in the ocean to soften her soul enough to be released from its binding mold. In so doing, she had, with the help of her friend, the Leviathan, defeated the ancient Nidhogg Wyrm, the titan tapeworm responsible for draining the roots of the World Tree of gratitude. However, we must not forget that the only reason that Moiety is still alive and having this adventure is that the Viking volunteered to take her place, absorbing the wrath of the chameleon's curse. In chapter thirteen, we go back in time to follow the Viking's Vision.Amanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter ElevenChapter Eleven The Viking and the Princess The holes that the Chameleon’s zombie army had drilled into Princess Moiety’s chest would have killed her if the Viking and the glowworms had not intervened. The princess -in tune with her character- demonstrated her gratitude to the Viking for his sacrifice by stealing his boat and fleeing the island. She would have sailed home quite happy with herself if she had not had so much trouble with the holes. The holes exposed the world around Moiety to the negative pressure inside her chest. Quite a few random objects and an ocean giant were sucked inside of her to establish equilibrium. On top of that, the mermaids were attacking. The only thing the princess could think to do was to light Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire to fight them off. This caused a tsunami. Moiety also discovered that in the light of the poetry scroll, things -such as mermaids- could be seen for their true nature.&nbsp; When the tsunami from the burning scroll covered the island, Moiety was sure she was going to drown. Job’s Leviathan came along at the last moment and saved her from drowning. The Leviathan carried her down to the deepest part of the ocean to the base of the island. There they meet the Nidhogg, the organism infecting the roots of the World Tree. The Nidhogg attacked Moiety and Leviathan, and while the Leviathan was reeling from the blow, the Nidhogg looked for a way to enter into the princess’ chest cavity. ____________________ “With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.” “A book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” -Madeleine L’Engle ____________________ Moiety called out to the Leviathan again. “How do I fight this?”&nbsp; Her mustard seed of resistance to the darkness was enough to pierce through the current and find the dragon’s mind. Hope sliced through his despairing thoughts. The child was finally fighting. God does not give us meaningless dreams. “Tell a story,” Leviathan commanded and began to muscle himself, tiredly, toward her.&nbsp; The Nidhogg had disengaged his considerable length from the root system and was hovering above the current rushing into Moiety’s chest cavity.&nbsp; &nbsp; “Tell a story.” Moiety balked. Why? What story could she tell when all the world was rushing into her black hole heart? “What do you mean?” “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” The dragon’s words crackled into her head like a flurry of sparks jumping from a smoldering log. Maybe the Leviathan was right, and the only way to fight against the depression of consumption was through the joy of production. Perhaps the best way to fight pain was to use it to her advantage, to harness the power of the chaos around her, and use it to produce something of value. Moiety inhaled and listened. She exhaled and repeated the rhythm that she heard around her: “The ladybug is done. It splits its ruddy mold, Splaying tiny fly wings Unfurling from their fold.” The current flowing into her chest cavity slowed ever so slightly, imperceptible to anyone but Moiety. Moiety again opened her mouth to translate the universal vibration that she heard in the ocean around her. “A still small voice Is only loud to quiet ears, Tiny drips dropping Flood a city after years.” The current slowed even more. Moiety closed her eyes, a redundancy in the stygian darkness, but somehow necessary to creation. The poem continued to reveal itself. “Marching ants move Like a military fleet Tiny blades of grass Are splitting concrete. Quiet, gentle zephyrs Turn the clouds into rain. The beach expands by sand: Grain by grain.” The current in Moiety’s chest stopped, and the water in the trench returned to its regular flow. The Nidhogg, fearing a <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>Chapter Eleven

The Viking and the Princess

The holes that the Chameleon’s zombie army had drilled into Princess Moiety’s chest would have killed her if the Viking and the glowworms had not intervened. The princess -in tune with her character- demonstrated her gratitude to the Viking for his sacrifice by stealing his boat and fleeing the island. She would have sailed home quite happy with herself if she had not had so much trouble with the holes. The holes exposed the world around Moiety to the negative pressure inside her chest. Quite a few random objects and an ocean giant were sucked inside of her to establish equilibrium.

On top of that, the mermaids were attacking. The only thing the princess could think to do was to light Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire to fight them off. This caused a tsunami. Moiety also discovered that in the light of the poetry scroll, things -such as mermaids- could be seen for their true nature. 

When the tsunami from the burning scroll covered the island, Moiety was sure she was going to drown. Job’s Leviathan came along at the last moment and saved her from drowning. The Leviathan carried her down to the deepest part of the ocean to the base of the island. There they meet the Nidhogg, the organism infecting the roots of the World Tree. The Nidhogg attacked Moiety and Leviathan, and while the Leviathan was reeling from the blow, the Nidhogg looked for a way to enter into the princess’ chest cavity.

____________________

“With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.”

“A book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”

-Madeleine L’Engle

____________________

Moiety called out to the Leviathan again. “How do I fight this?” 

Her mustard seed of resistance to the darkness was enough to pierce through the current and find the dragon’s mind. Hope sliced through his despairing thoughts. The child was finally fighting. God does not give us meaningless dreams. “Tell a story,” Leviathan commanded and began to muscle himself, tiredly, toward her. 

The Nidhogg had disengaged his considerable length from the root system and was hovering above the current rushing into Moiety’s chest cavity. 

“Tell a story.” Moiety balked. Why? What story could she tell when all the world was rushing into her black hole heart? “What do you mean?”

“The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” The dragon’s words crackled into her head like a flurry of sparks jumping from a smoldering log.

Maybe the Leviathan was right, and the only way to fight against the depression of consumption was through the joy of production. Perhaps the best way to fight pain was to use it to her advantage, to harness the power of the chaos around her, and use it to produce something of value. Moiety inhaled and listened. She exhaled and repeated the rhythm that she heard around her:

“The ladybug is done.

It splits its ruddy mold,

Splaying tiny fly wings

Unfurling from their fold.”

The current flowing into her chest cavity slowed ever so slightly, imperceptible to anyone but Moiety. Moiety again opened her mouth to translate the universal vibration that she heard in the ocean around her.

“A still small voice

Is only loud to quiet ears,

Tiny drips dropping

Flood a city after years.”

The current slowed even more. Moiety closed her eyes, a redundancy in the stygian darkness, but somehow necessary to creation. The poem continued to reveal itself.

“Marching ants move

Like a military fleet

Tiny blades of grass

Are splitting concrete.

Quiet, gentle zephyrs

Turn the clouds into rain.

The beach expands by sand:

Grain by grain.”

The current in Moiety’s chest stopped, and the water in the trench returned to its regular flow. The Nidhogg, fearing a missed opportunity, quickened his approach, seeking a new entry point. If he could not possess the princess, he would consume the woman. Moiety continued,

“Slowly seconds slip

Into many hours,

A prince who has no people

Commands no mighty power.

All silent choices

Do a lifestyle make

Merging and diverging

Into that which death will take.”

The Leviathan was also on the move. He was moving faster and growing stronger with the presence of creation’s vitality invigorating the tidal flux.

Every little wave

That comes gliding into shore

Makes the solid highways

A little less secure

Moiety was now neutrally buoyant, hovering a fathom above the floor. Her face was alight in the darkness. The current in her chest reversed. Instead of consuming, it was now a free release, transforming everything it had held on to as it released. 

The first thing set free was the rope from the boat rigging. It flowed out from the holes in her chest. It did not come out precisely as a rope. The line was still long and thin, but it was hard, like the World Tree roots. It curled out like a grapevine, coiling itself into a flat disk of three coils, all radiating from a center point. It increased in sturdiness and solidified into a triskelion shield with the ‘F’ shaped Ansuz rune at the very center. Moiety hoisted it up onto her forearm.

“The eye is full of looking

But it is too big to see

The smallness of importance:

Of restrained ferocity.”

Moiety released Aipaloovik. He flowed out of her chest, not as a giant scoffing narcissist, but as a cyclonic cloud of thousands of tiny bioluminescent seahorses. They were glowing blue with bioluminescent light. They were altogether adorable, and they were all growling aggressively at the approaching Nidhogg. 

“The fury of a pheasant wing,

The insect’s compound eye,

The force of fishtails flitting,

The ladybug lifts to fly.”

The Leviathan arrived. Massive to Moiety and a mere mite to the Nidhogg, he appeared to be completely unaware of the size discrepancy. He positioned himself valiantly between them. The cloud of tiny seahorses congregated in a supportive echelon wedge formation around the Leviathan. 

Next, the anchor came out, now transformed into a sharp white glowing blade. Moiety felt very light. She grasped the handle and continued to translate the music around her into more words.

“All these tiny things

That we may or may not see

Tell us little stories

About life’s brevity.”

The enemy halted and considered them. Its eyeholes gaped. It exposed its rancorous mouth and, from deep inside its throat, unfurled a flower of malicious hooks - its grapnel for anchoring itself to prey. 

The Leviathan stood firm, “You cannot have her.” 

The Nidhogg closed its mouth, halting his advance. The water around them grew colder. “We already own her.”

Moiety continued her rebellion.

“Ladybug is done.

He flies away home,

And I am left to wonder

To let my blood roam.”

“Ahhhiiiiiiiick.” The Nidhogg screamed. “No wondering. No creating! Make her put her head down and go eat something.”

Moiety held up her new weaponry and started hacking at the wyrm’s segmented tail. The square pieces fell off effortlessly as if they were designed to detach. She thought she must be doing quite well in the fight. It did occur to her that it was strange that the Nidhogg had not come to the aid of its tail.

The Leviathan, flanked by the glowing blue seahorses, swarmed into one of the Nidhogg’s eyeholes and disappeared.

“What would ladybug say

If you could hear him speak

What large wisdom

Flows from tiny beaks?”

The square tailpieces that Moiety had been diligently cleaving and allowing to free float to the ocean floor were coming to life. Slowly at first, and one at a time, but then quickly, and in hordes, they came to life like zombified manta rays. They lifted and attached themselves to the World Tree roots. 

“These dots, they aren’t my eyes

They are my gilded thorax

Those things, they aren’t your life

They are your little knick-knacks.”

Moiety, like any sincere poet, wondered where from whence her words had originated. It was not what she had been originally thinking; it just sprang forth like Athena out of Zeus’ headache. It seemed to bother the wyrm but had done no lasting good. The problem had multiplied by reproduction. She had a blade and shield now but had lost Odin’s scroll of poetry. At least she knew how to stop the dispassionate influx of the universe into her chest cavity. 

The Nidhogg shook its head violently, whipping back and forth and banging himself on roots and rocks. Then it suddenly went rigid. Its eyes lit up. The point of the wyrm’s body where Moiety had stopped cleaving settled on the floor. The Nidhogg looked precisely like an underwater lighthouse. 

The poor tubeworms peeked nervously out from behind the rocks.

Leviathan spoke to her from inside the wyrm’s head, “When we cease to classify things as right and wrong, the only way to appraise them is whether or not ‘I want.’”

“What is wrong with that?” Moiety asked, already forming the beginning of the answer in her mind. 

The Leviathan floated out of the lighthouse light that used to be an ancient wyrm eye. “Wants are only valued by their emotional strength.”

“And emotions are the plumb line of instability,” Moiety returned the thought.

“Yes. A kite cannot anchor a boat.”

“Kites are fun, and if used as a sail, are valuable for moving you in a direction, but they are not good for stability. A boat needs an anchor and a sail.”

Moiety recalled the incident of the kite and the Northwind and finally understood the meaning of that moment. It had made no sense at the time.

“What did you do inside of the Nidhogg?” She asked the Leviathan.

“We infected it,” he said. Moiety looked confused. 

“Specifically, we increased the permeability of the schistosome membrane for calcium ions, which caused contraction and paralysis.” The Leviathan laughed. “Bad things can infect good things, but good things are infinitely more effective at infecting bad things. Darkness can do nothing but allow the light in once the lamp blazes.” The seahorses swarmed in gamboling delight inside the empty head cavity.

The Leviathan continued his explanation, “Denial of the concept of a universal right and wrong causes a heightened emotionality. Logical incongruence makes an organism easier to infect because resistance to truth lowers all resistances, including the immune system. Also, the heightened emotion, hatred, in particular, makes the creature susceptible to a wealth of pathogens as it has the added benefit of disrupting normal neural pathways, thereby making the host stupid.” 

“Now, we need to deal with all of these loose proglottids floating...]]>40b83c95-e3e1-4de2-836e-a77646c05ab8Thu, 30 Jan 2020 07:00:00 -050015:08nofull112The Leviathan and the Princess have discovered several things in the great trench in the deepest ocean: the roots of the World Tree, the Nidhogg wyrm, and the gates of the Abyss. The Nidhogg wyrm is a giant tapeworm sucking the energy out of the roots, and the ocean floor is slowly seeping into hell. The Leviathan uses his comparatively smaller size to infect the Nidhogg at a cellular level. Moiety has discovered that she can stop the influx of the universe into her black hole heart by utilizing the creative energy of the Universal Vibration that surrounds her. However, she has lost Odin's Scroll of Poetry, and the pieces of the wyrms tale that she cut off have come to life and are attaching themselves to the World Tree in a new effort to drain the World Tree of its gratitude. We return to Moiety and the Leviathan as they search the floor for the lost scroll and discuss the nature of the Abyss.Amanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter TenChapter Ten The Viking and the Princess If Moiety had understood exactly what her problems were, we could say that she had been running away from them; however, the princess was only just now learning to call things by their right name. The tsunami that resulted from lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire washed the misandrogynous mermaids away but it also flooded the entire island. The weight of the giant and the anchor inside of her was pulling her down despite the scroll’s magical ability to provide some buoyancy. Job’s Leviathan has been tasked to carry the princess down into the deepest part of the ocean to confront her final dragon. “When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.” -Ellie weisel “What is this place called?” Moiety asked Leviathan.&nbsp; “We have traveled up the river Gioll to the headwaters, Hevergelmir, in the Nifleheim realm.” “Nifleheim?” Moiety asked, picking one of three words she did not know. “The frozen mist, the valley of the shadow of death, and the land of the dishonored dead. The River Gioll is the current flowing through this trench - the heart of Nifelheim. It is the boundary between the living and the dead, and here at its headwater, Hevergelmir, you will meet your third and final dragon, the wyrm, Nidhogg.” Leviathan exhaled a breath of light and Moiety watched the seafloor continue to creep down under the wall. “What does this mean?” she asked. “We are at the base of the World Tree and nearby are the gates of Hel. Listen with the light of Odin’s poetry scroll.” Moiety grew quiet in the darkness and for a moment heard nothing. And then peacefully a still small voice reached her ear. It was a quiet command coming from the current directed to the fires just below the surface, “The seas have lifted up their voice The flood lifts up the pounding waves ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further:&nbsp; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.’ When sorrow of death encompasses And torrents make you afraid Walking through fire you will not be burned The flame will not set you ablaze.” So it was the peace in the current’s song and not the water itself that was holding back the hellfire below the surface.&nbsp; “There is more that is born in a birth than a baby, more than sound that is sung in music, more than oxygen that sustains in the breath,” said Leviathan. “And more than the wetness in water that quenches the coal,” Moiety finished the dragon’s thoughts. Moiety and the dragon continued to follow the trench against the current in the darkness. Soon Moiety began to see what looked like thick branches and fallen logs suspended in the current. Moiety saw more branches as they traveled. The branches moved fluidly with the water. They were not, in fact, branches; this was an underwater thicket of loose hanging roots. She was impressed at how the massive Leviathan was able to lithely maneuver through the underwater canopy.&nbsp; As the leviathan slowed his pace, Moiety was able to get a closer look at the roots. New tendrils were sprouting off from larger ones every second. Each one ended with a small loop encircled by a larger loop. The tendrils were very small, but they grew quickly. Moiety was able to feel a warm grateful vibration when she touched them.&nbsp;&nbsp; Intricate as coral, and moreso. Moiety could see that only some of the roots were free floating in the water. Most of the roots were knitted up in complex and creative looped cables like the sailor's woolen tunics of the far northern islands. New root systems joined old root systems to make new designs and old root systems split apart to follow new paths. The whole system was a living, moving, changing canvas of decorative knots. As vibrant as it was, something was not whole about the root system. Some of the roots were blighted and flaccid, uninvolved <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>Chapter Ten

The Viking and the Princess

If Moiety had understood exactly what her problems were, we could say that she had been running away from them; however, the princess was only just now learning to call things by their right name. The tsunami that resulted from lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire washed the misandrogynous mermaids away but it also flooded the entire island. The weight of the giant and the anchor inside of her was pulling her down despite the scroll’s magical ability to provide some buoyancy. Job’s Leviathan has been tasked to carry the princess down into the deepest part of the ocean to confront her final dragon.

“When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”

-Ellie weisel

“What is this place called?” Moiety asked Leviathan. 

“We have traveled up the river Gioll to the headwaters, Hevergelmir, in the Nifleheim realm.”

“Nifleheim?” Moiety asked, picking one of three words she did not know.

“The frozen mist, the valley of the shadow of death, and the land of the dishonored dead. The River Gioll is the current flowing through this trench - the heart of Nifelheim. It is the boundary between the living and the dead, and here at its headwater, Hevergelmir, you will meet your third and final dragon, the wyrm, Nidhogg.”

Leviathan exhaled a breath of light and Moiety watched the seafloor continue to creep down under the wall. “What does this mean?” she asked.

“We are at the base of the World Tree and nearby are the gates of Hel. Listen with the light of Odin’s poetry scroll.”

Moiety grew quiet in the darkness and for a moment heard nothing. And then peacefully a still small voice reached her ear. It was a quiet command coming from the current directed to the fires just below the surface,

“The seas have lifted up their voice

The flood lifts up the pounding waves

‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: 

and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.’

When sorrow of death encompasses

And torrents make you afraid

Walking through fire you will not be burned

The flame will not set you ablaze.”

So it was the peace in the current’s song and not the water itself that was holding back the hellfire below the surface. 

“There is more that is born in a birth than a baby, more than sound that is sung in music, more than oxygen that sustains in the breath,” said Leviathan.

“And more than the wetness in water that quenches the coal,” Moiety finished the dragon’s thoughts.

Moiety and the dragon continued to follow the trench against the current in the darkness. Soon Moiety began to see what looked like thick branches and fallen logs suspended in the current. Moiety saw more branches as they traveled. The branches moved fluidly with the water. They were not, in fact, branches; this was an underwater thicket of loose hanging roots. She was impressed at how the massive Leviathan was able to lithely maneuver through the underwater canopy. 

As the leviathan slowed his pace, Moiety was able to get a closer look at the roots. New tendrils were sprouting off from larger ones every second. Each one ended with a small loop encircled by a larger loop. The tendrils were very small, but they grew quickly. Moiety was able to feel a warm grateful vibration when she touched them.  

Intricate as coral, and moreso. Moiety could see that only some of the roots were free floating in the water. Most of the roots were knitted up in complex and creative looped cables like the sailor's woolen tunics of the far northern islands. New root systems joined old root systems to make new designs and old root systems split apart to follow new paths. The whole system was a living, moving, changing canvas of decorative knots.

As vibrant as it was, something was not whole about the root system. Some of the roots were blighted and flaccid, uninvolved in the dancing momentum of creative growth with the system. Some sections were ischemic and coming unraveled. 

Moiety held up the scroll for a closer look. The roots appeared to be roots. They had thick places for storing nutrients and circular grasping tendrils for anchoring the plant above.  

“What are they?” she asked the Leviathan.

“They are people’s gratitude,” the Leviathan slowed a bit so that Moiety could get a closer look. “The body and soul are afloat on the surface. Their roots of gratitude grow here anchoring them to immortality.”

“So the roots are gratitude?”

“The body and the soul is the person itself, the roots are the subterranean representation of the person. They are strengthened in gratitude.”

“Humans are as much a natural resource in the World Tree as water and soil itself. People are created for a purpose and each individual has a purpose. That purpose is fulfilled according to the strength of their root. To each one is done according to their measure of faith. It takes faith to believe that the universe is abundant already provided you with enough; therefore, gratitude is preceded by faith. Just as plants are not stronger than their roots, people are not stronger than their gratitude.”

Something big was in the water nearby. Moiety could feel its vibration in the water. Odin’s scroll of poetry began to glow brighter and steadier as the presence grew stronger. The tubeworms withdrew themselves protectively inside of themselves and the roots of the World Tree recoiled in revolt.

The presence was close. It seemed to surround them, filling the entire trench. Leviathan exhaled red light. Moiety could see what looked like a dark prolate chamber inside of a glassy white orb. She and Levithan were perfectly reflected on the wall of the chamber. Moiety could see how large Leviathan was next to her. Her bed chambers would not fill the dragon’s chest cavity and its head was larger than the Chameleon’s whole extended body. 

Leviathan exhaled another flash of red light. The darkened chamber reflexively shrank to a third of its original size. It blinked closed and opened again. Moiety waved the scroll light in front of it, trying to get a better look inside. In the scroll light, it appeared to be a window. The light that was inside of it was dark, deep darkness. It was an eye. Moiety recoiled and tried to get a perspective on the entire animal. The head flowed congruently into the rest of the animal’s body, which was a long thin segmented ribbon entangling itself throughout the root network. She could not see the end of the wyrm’s body, it extended far out into the distant blackness of the immense trench, but the segmented pieces appeared to become less friable, stronger and thicker toward the distal end. It’s face was a reflection of pure filth. 

The Nidhogg advanced its quaggy head gracefully, smooth as silky snot. Moiety could now see it had four gaping eyes arranged equidistantly around its circumference. It encircled the pair with predatory affection.

“Oooo. A juggernaut carrying a jar of clay. Not every day do I see this. What’s inside? Treasure or dead man’s bones?” The Nighogg’s voice was a slow sucking sound. It had only talked to and about itself for millennia and was not about to change its habits for a guest. 

“Delightful. It is female. Let’s find out if she is a fool. There is no more delectable way to rise and fall in the world than being a foolish little girl. Ah, yes. Beauty and foolishness, what a delicious disaster.” When the Nidhogg spoke, Moiety felt a cold indifference to her surroundings. Her mind flickered drearily knowing not what or why. She dreamily tightened her grip on the scroll. 

The Leviathan kept Moiety out of snatching range. Why wait for the serpent to strike when it is already rattling it tail? The Nighogg sensed the Leviathan’s prudence and went back to sucking on the roots of the World Tree, always watching her with one of his four eyes. Moiety watched the wave of peristalsis start of the Nidhogg’s neck and roll down the length of it's tangled body.

“What is it doing?” Moiety asked the Leviathan.

“Why does it wonder, I wonder,” wondered the Nidhogg, “Would it not rather simply watch and absorb. Why would it expend its resources generating something new if it could consume what already exists.” A batch of braided roots fell limp as the Nidhogg finished with them and slimed itself into a new patch.

“We are doing very important work here,” the Nidhogg said to himself, “the World Tree is miserably infested with a fecundity of humans.”

Our duty is to keep the humans from overrunning the World Tree and we do it right here at the base of the tree. Sucking gratitude out of their souls.

“How does that work?”

“The less gratitude they have, the less freedom they have, and the more they will fall in line to the metronome of materialism, nihilism, and narcissism and then finally the easier they will be to control. They will bow to every new false god in the queue. As their convictions corrode their spines will slump until they will tolerate every sort of abomination. The only thing intolerable will be intolerance itself.”

The Nidhogg finished another braid, it fell from his mouth, a misshapen chaos of well seeming forms. He never made eye contact. He continued to a fresh patch. 

“And once we have a generation that is ever always pursuing the amorphous promise at the rainbow’s end -not knowing that it is the rainbow itself that is the promise- we will have a boxed generation, completely controllable. They will work in boxes, live in boxes, travel in boxes, eat out of boxes, and entertain themselves incessantly with tiny little glowing boxes. All of their information will be fed to them from boxes. No more growing in stature and in favor with God and men. Every man will keep his head down.”

“That could never happen,” 

“It is true.” the Leviathan agreed, Leviathan never took his eyes off the Nidhogg. The Nidhogg could strike in a breath. “If people recognized the abundance that they already had, they would take their eyes off themselves and notice each other. They would notice the stars. They would simply stand up, leave their slavery, and go home to their families.”  

“If only we could sterilize the human virus… but no, the ancient edict, ‘Be fruitful and multiply,’ stands as a law of the universe. We must be content to restrain its ferocity and creativity. We have failed in our efforts to disinfect the Tree, so we must focus our efforts on regulation and management.”

“So thanksgiving in all circumstances symbolizes human freedom?”

“No. It is freedom.” The Leviathan said, “People with gratitude will not be controlled. They play and abide. They refuse to credit themselves for their successes and they will not blame others for their failures. They cannot be easily stressed for they have an ability to see the wyrm’s efforts for what they are.”

The wyrm buried its face in a tangle of roots. Peristalsis rolled down its length.

“But if you are trying to protect the World Tree, why are you sucking the life from its roots. It seems to me that if human gratitude is the root of the Tree, then humans must have a symbiotic relationship with the tree, and you are just a common parasite.”

The Nidhogg finally addressed her, “Silly child. This is only one of the three root systems. You know nothing. Mortals dare not question titans. We are the ancient malice striker. We are the god of consumption. You are just like us. What is that negative pressure in your chest? Your heart is a black hole, it will never be satisfied. You can never get enough of what you do not want.”

And with that, the Nidhogg locked the darkness of all four of its eyes on Moiety and struck.  

The Leviathan dodged with a mercurial flurry, whipping his body in between the striking wyrm and his small princess. She startled, dropping the scroll. The darkness settled in, but even worse, the suction in her chest jolted back to life. 

Moiety clung to the Leviathan’s back. All the world was cold and violent movement. A rushing current flowed all around her as she gripped onto any hold she could find on the Leviathan’s armored flesh. His scales fit perfectly together and she could not find a place to hold onto. She fell to the ocean floor and settled on the silty trench bottom in an unbearable pressure in the consuming coldness. 

The Leviathan was drifting in the current. He had absorbed the full wrath of the wyrm’s killing strike, and it's injected malice was quickly draining his own gratitude. The Leviathan fought hard to right himself against the whelming depression. He knew the time was short. His mind could only maintain Moiety’s vitality if he could stay connected to her - if he could maintain a sentiment of putting her interests before his own. The malice strike was weakening his resolve to do so, but he still fought.

The bottom of the trench was still slowly flowing into the abysmal fissure in the earth’s crust and Moiety’s body, like a tumbleweed, was flowing right along with it.  

Moiety called for the Leviathan. Her chest was burning with the negative pressure. It was seeking something to consume. The muddy silt was freely flowing inside. 

The Nidhogg could sense an opportunity. He would be delighted to enter into to the princess. He might have to share the space with some other spirits, but the Nidhogg had no doubt that he would be the majority of the legion. He imagined the influence he would wield with the prestige of owning his own human body, and not just anybody, but this one was heir to a kingdom. The Nidhogg began to unwind his segmented body from the tree roots to allow for a smooth entry.

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facebook: 9f4292d8-e43c-4c94-99a3-062a39eed525Thu, 23 Jan 2020 07:00:00 -050017:19nofull111Job's Leviathan meets the Nidhogg Wyrm at gates of Hel at the base of YggdrasilAmanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter NineChapter Nine The Viking and the Princess The Princess had stolen the Viking’s boat and left him on the island. Honestly, she did not feel too bad about the decision. That is until she discovered the holes that the chameleon and his zombified army of automatons had drilled into her chest. Unfortunately, the Princess’s chest was full of nothing, and that nothing created a negative pressure gradient which threatened shrink and suck anything around it inside of it. So far, it had inhaled an anchor, a rope, and Aipaloovek the ocean giant. This was only part of Moiety’s struggles. The mermaids had also returned. Moiety accidentally summoned a tsunami by lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire which washed the mermaids away, but it also flooded the entire island. The scroll which she had carelessly lit turned out to be a light that revealed the true nature and character of the objects which were illuminated by it. “It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”Elisabeth Kubler-RossMoiety was left standing on the water above the island. She was peering down through the clear water full of salt and light - a skin diver’s delight. There were none of the expected clouds of murky silt, everything was as if it had settled that way an eon ago as quiet and observant as dinosaur fossils pressed down beneath the burden of light like a dry autumn maple leaf resting in the hymnal pages.&nbsp; &nbsp;Moiety had the sensation of spinning like a pot on a potter’s wheel. She had been here before, but she had been a different shape. Somehow she felt that she would be back again, but not in her present form. Everything changes as it stays the same.&nbsp; The scroll was keeping Moiety on top of the water, but the weight of Aipaloovik, the boat anchor, and its rigging was starting to pull her slowly beneath the water, the heavy negative pressure was still inside her chest. Quiet. For now. Moiety was buoyant, yet irresistibly sinking.&nbsp; Moiety tried to stay afloat. She tucked the scroll into her waistband and pumped her arms and legs, but the inexorable heaviness in her chest was drawing her below. The danger pressed in all around, and yet Moiety could not help but notice how exorbitantly beautiful it all was. She was hovering above the island treetops, and schools of flashing fish were darting through the trees like silver shooting stars. River beds, like rocky highways into the hills, lay exposed. Giant reaching octopus and eels, freed from the boundaries of the estuary, were ascending the heights along these river bed paths, exposing their treasures. They coiled and expanded, rolled over the rocks, reaching higher with childlike intelligence. Shy seahorses, fastidious shrimp, and all manner of colorful reef fish were darting through the jungle foliage that lay closest to the surface. The island was fecund, teeming with vibrant beauty, but it was the filtered sunlight that brought it to life. Curtains of lightrays shimmered freely in and around the rocks and trees. Nothing was hidden from its joy. Everything became alive in the illumination, eerie and innocent, boldly camouflaged. Moiety felt helpless to be drowning amidst such a strong life force. She took one last breath and slipped below the waves….. Something immense erupted up from the illuminated bottom. It churned the depths like a boiling cauldron. It torpedoed through the water next to Moiety’s sinking form leaving a glistening wake of white bubbles behind it. Moiety tumbled in the water, losing her breath. The creature was coming back. Moiety could see its eyes were as red as a sunrise. It snorted a flash of light, descended, and then scooped her up on it's armored back. It rose back to the surface. The monster did not have scales, it had shields,... <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>Chapter Nine

The Viking and the Princess

The Princess had stolen the Viking’s boat and left him on the island. Honestly, she did not feel too bad about the decision. That is until she discovered the holes that the chameleon and his zombified army of automatons had drilled into her chest. Unfortunately, the Princess’s chest was full of nothing, and that nothing created a negative pressure gradient which threatened shrink and suck anything around it inside of it. So far, it had inhaled an anchor, a rope, and Aipaloovek the ocean giant. This was only part of Moiety’s struggles. The mermaids had also returned. Moiety accidentally summoned a tsunami by lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire which washed the mermaids away, but it also flooded the entire island. The scroll which she had carelessly lit turned out to be a light that revealed the true nature and character of the objects which were illuminated by it.

“It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Moiety was left standing on the water above the island. She was peering down through the clear water full of salt and light - a skin diver’s delight. There were none of the expected clouds of murky silt, everything was as if it had settled that way an eon ago as quiet and observant as dinosaur fossils pressed down beneath the burden of light like a dry autumn maple leaf resting in the hymnal pages. 

 Moiety had the sensation of spinning like a pot on a potter’s wheel. She had been here before, but she had been a different shape. Somehow she felt that she would be back again, but not in her present form. Everything changes as it stays the same. 

The scroll was keeping Moiety on top of the water, but the weight of Aipaloovik, the boat anchor, and its rigging was starting to pull her slowly beneath the water, the heavy negative pressure was still inside her chest. Quiet. For now. Moiety was buoyant, yet irresistibly sinking. 

Moiety tried to stay afloat. She tucked the scroll into her waistband and pumped her arms and legs, but the inexorable heaviness in her chest was drawing her below. The danger pressed in all around, and yet Moiety could not help but notice how exorbitantly beautiful it all was. She was hovering above the island treetops, and schools of flashing fish were darting through the trees like silver shooting stars. River beds, like rocky highways into the hills, lay exposed. Giant reaching octopus and eels, freed from the boundaries of the estuary, were ascending the heights along these river bed paths, exposing their treasures. They coiled and expanded, rolled over the rocks, reaching higher with childlike intelligence. Shy seahorses, fastidious shrimp, and all manner of colorful reef fish were darting through the jungle foliage that lay closest to the surface. The island was fecund, teeming with vibrant beauty, but it was the filtered sunlight that brought it to life. Curtains of lightrays shimmered freely in and around the rocks and trees. Nothing was hidden from its joy. Everything became alive in the illumination, eerie and innocent, boldly camouflaged. Moiety felt helpless to be drowning amidst such a strong life force. She took one last breath and slipped below the waves…..

Something immense erupted up from the illuminated bottom. It churned the depths like a boiling cauldron. It torpedoed through the water next to Moiety’s sinking form leaving a glistening wake of white bubbles behind it. Moiety tumbled in the water, losing her breath. The creature was coming back. Moiety could see its eyes were as red as a sunrise. It snorted a flash of light, descended, and then scooped her up on it's armored back. It rose back to the surface. The monster did not have scales, it had shields, and each one was so tightly placed to the next one that water and air could not pass between them. Moiety was perched in between two ornate rows of shields stretching down the length of its back. 

Lately, Moiety had been exposed to so many various sources of terror, that terror was beginning to lose its terror. An ember of resiliency was flaring up with resolved energy. Still, she tried her best to ignore the beast. Maybe it did not actually see her.

“It does not do to leave a dragon out of your calculations, Moiety, for everyone lives near a dragon,” the dragon’s voice flooded up past her barriers directly into her conscious. Everyone seemed to know her name. 

The dragon was circling the watery island. It seemed to have forgotten her at the moment. Moiety gripped it's back. Of course, it was the most dangerous thing in the ocean, but it was the only solid and real thing she could hold onto. Moiety found that she could breathe under the water while holding its back. Moiety needed to be able to breathe under the water. Up and down spiraling through the lighted jungle trees, winding around the mountains, and scaling rock faces in a single breath Moiety and the dragon torpedoed through the water. 

The dragon, when it seemed satisfied with its patrol of the surface, began to descend to the roots of the island. Down into darkness. 

“Why does your brain go to so much effort to analyze its own conscious, when humans are the only animals who even appear to care that they are conscience?” The dragon posited the question directly to Moiety’s mind.

Moiety watched a silver school of expressionless tuna gliding in perfect unison away from the dragon. They momentarily sideswiped as one to avoid some unseen stimuli and then immediately veered back onto the original course.

“I guess because it helps us reproduce more effectively,” Moiety suggested, recalling the attitude of her tutors -a lifetime away.

“Tell me, what is the evolutionary advantage of having a soul?” The dragon’s thoughts popped into her mind like bubbles reaching the water’s surface

Moiety admitted to herself that she did not know, but it seemed that since so many people seemed sure of themselves that it must be somehow true. She realized that she would have to capitulate on long-held beliefs if she followed the dragon’s thought process to its logical conclusion. She decided to change the subject.

“Is consciousness a prerequisite for having a soul,” she asked.

“No,” the dragon answered, “Consciousness is a prerequisite for ultimate judgment. It is a byproduct of having a soul. 

“But why is this important? What good is a soul?”

“You would do better to ask, ‘Why is it important to have a body? What good is a body?’ You do not need one to exist. The body is the backdrop setting in which the soul hosts its dramas. The soul is important because it is the battleground between good and evil. Everything is important, but more importantly, everything has meaning. The meaning of existence is imperative. We cannot understand the meaning of existence without understanding the importance of our souls.” The dragon breathed out a flash of light and the depth darkness was illuminated with a bolt of red. “When you ask, ‘What good is a soul?’ I would answer that it is not -in fact- good. It can, however, change as it properly rejoices and properly suffers.”   

“How can you see to swim!” Moiety dug her hands in tight to the dragon’s horns. 

“I do not see with sight. I see with Vision.” 

“I do not understand,” the darkness increased with the pressure.

Vision is not the same as sight, it is the light of understanding by which true things are seen. Every step toward eternity is not the same as the one before. Seeing by sight alone leads you to interpret the present as absolute and anticipate the future based on past experiences. Seeing by Vision allows the seer to see the things true nature.

“When you say true nature do you mean the things that I saw when illuminated with the poetry scroll.”

“Yes, the world of objects is only what we see. Reality is much more complicated.” 

The coldness was increasing. If Moiety had not been in the dragon’s care, she would easily have been crushed. The last visible-light had glimmered out long ago, and the pressure was at this point a thousand times greater than it was at sea level. Moiety caught glimmers of rainbow light, internally generated by the ghostly deep dwellers that flickered in and out of view.

Leviathan continued, “When people make comfort their ultimate goal, not only do they miss out on their call to adventure, but they come to view suffering as a problem and not as a providence that deepens our Vision of the universe, our souls, and the relationship between the two. If you seek depth of character and strength of soul then seek suffering.”

“So the more you suffer, the more you can see?” Moiety asked.

The more you suffer properly, the more you can see. The est view dragons as lucky. 

The west sees them as a cause for dismay. Suffering is like a dragon because dragons represent chaos. It is what you make of it. Chaos can be molded into a meaningful form, or it can mold you into its own form. You get to choose how you suffer, you do not get to choose whether or when you suffer. Proper suffering burns off the deadwood and leaves the greenwood room to grow. The greenwood is what you are designed to be.

“What kind of dragon are you?” 

“If your tutors had been doing their job, you would know that I am the Leviathan. I am a real fire breathing dragon, and I represent the uncontrollable wild nature of God. Nothing on earth is my equal. I am a creature without fear. I look down on all that are haughty. I am king over all that are proud. Just as man must approach God in order to be whole, so dragons represent everything man is afraid of and everything that man needs in order to fix himself. The thing that you need the most, is where you most do not want to go.”

He continued, “I am not not-dangerous, but your salvation lies in finding that you are up to the challenge.”

The dragon was swimming along the bottom now. With every exhale, the Leviathan released a flash of red light and Moiety could see that they were accelerating through a vast trench and stirring up a path of silt from the murky bottom everywhere they went. They were making their way around a ledge of smallish volcanos that breathed out sooty gasses and scalding heat as they passed. Strange red and white fungi looking vegetation blossomed around the vents.

“The souls of lost sailors,” explained the dragon, “They are known as tubeworms. Led by lust, and now lost to the light. They feed on the noxious fumes released from the abyss.”

Moiety saw the ghastly mermaids and their clutchy fingers camouflaged in the rocks and craggy places of the trench. They peered out with eerie bioluminescent eyes and hissed curses from the safety of their hiding places before retreating into the deep shadow.

“They are accusers,” Leviathan explained. “They do not create lust. They amplify existing false desire, using it as a hook to peel back the surface flesh and expose the guilt underneath. Guilt is the weight that attaches these sailors to the seafloor. Grieve for them,” mourned the dragon, “Grieve. For all flesh is as grass, bending in whichever way the zephyr's tell them to bow.”

Moiety considered the weight of the anchor and the giant ocean troll inside of her. She would have been able to walk on the water in the light of the poetry scroll, but for the weight inside still pulling her inexorably toward the seafloor into the hands of the mermaids. Moiety also considered, with some abhorrence, that her life situation must be the direct result of the sum total of all her personal decisions, and not the result of a preordained cosmic dice roll as she had previously presumed.

Leviathan, hearing her thoughts, added, “It is more difficult to rule yourself than it is to rule a dragon, but you must. If you do not rule your self, your self will rule you.” 

“We are approaching the root system of the World Tree,” the dragon turned a corner at the base of the wall which Moiety had to assume must be the place where the island touched down on the seafloor. In the light of the scroll, Moiety could see that the seafloor was moving like a conveyor belt, slowly seeping under the mountain wall down into the abyss below. 

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The Viking and the Princess

The Chameleon, Shame, has damaged the Princess. Her body is full of holes where it tried to remove her heart. She is alive but dying and mostly zombified. The glow worms encased her in silk in an effort to slow down encroaching death but they cannot stop it themselves. In order to save the Princess this time Akedah must take her place. Akedah has lived up to his namesake. He has volunteered to take the woman’s place inside of the silk casing. Moiety will awake on the island alone for now.

“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”

― Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity

Moiety was dreaming lucid dreams. She was walking on a dark red marble floor with long veins of gold. The whole slab was a single cut placed in its entirety. A gray lighted pool steamed in the center of the room that was lit all around with beeswax candles. This was her childhood home, but she was not a princess in this house. She was there as a cleaning woman. She was trying to do her job, but she also did not want anyone to recognize her. The queen walked through the room, and Moiety turned away. The ocean giant, Aipaloovik knew she was there. He was looking for her, going from window to window and peering into the room. She kept moving. The water in the pool was sloping and heaving back and forth as if in an earthquake. Moiety felt no earthquake. She tried to stay hidden. Aipaloovik appeared in the window, behind Moiety. The windowpane was not glass, it was a laminar sheet of falling water. In her dream, Aipaloovik reached through the water to grab her with his huge yellow palm. Moiety gasped and sputtered awake into the reality of a wet humid jungle. 

The first thing Moiety knew was that her chest hurt. 

For some reason, she was wearing Akedah’s wet wool tunic. It was itchy and uncomfortable. She was holding a parchment with some barbaric runes. 

Moiety wanted to get off this creepy island. The last thing she remembered was speaking to a flashy lizard with a curious offer. Something about making her wise. What happened? Was she wise now?

Where was the grouchy barbarian?

Moiety knew that if she was able to make it to the coast, that she could walk around the perimeter of the island. She would eventually find the longboat. Maybe Akedah was still there. Maybe he had left her. Moiety would have left him.

Moiety started towards the light.

She came up close to the edge. It was a dizzying distance to the bottom. The waves lapped over the crags jutting out of the water at asperous angles. No one would survive that fall she thought.

Moiety made her way back to the boat and waited a full 52 minutes before deciding to set off in the longboat by herself. 

It was a beautiful day. Recent rain had pulled the edge of the heat out of the air and beautiful full clouds were lining up in rows like children waiting for a drink at the water fountain. Moiety was moving along at a quick clip and looking forward to a new adventure. Except for the deep digging pain in her chest, life seemed absolutely grand. Moiety sailed on to sunset feeling utterly self-satisfied.

The sun left its glow the western sky and the stars appeared, gently at first in the east and then swelling up the sky with blinking pinpricks of joy, they became the entire field of vision. A heat storm rose in the north. The billowing castles tossed plumes of lightning back and forth highlighting their architecture in waves of lucid red and giving the impression of a momentous royal celebration.

What was that pain? it seemed to be getting worse the further away from the island that she got. It was heavy. Moiety lifted her shirt to see if she could find clues on her flesh. What she found, dropped her to the floor of the boat. There were six round holes up the sides of her chest tunneling neatly into its interior. Each one was easily deep and wide enough to poke two fingers into, but the thing that was most disconcerting- the thing that dropped Moiety to her knees- was that each hole had suction. Sand and sea spray flew inside of her. Moiety pulled herself up to a seat and a coiled piece of boat rigging flew up and stuck to her side. It paused for a brief moment before shrinking just enough to slip into the hole and then it disappeared inside of her. Moiety jumped and tried in vain to grasp the end of the line before it went completely in. The boat’s anchor, a heavy stone lashed into a wooden frame, wobbled its way toward the princess drawn in by the negative pressure in her chest. Moiety pulled the wool tunic down and wrapped her arms tightly around her body. The anchor continued its advance. 

The wool tunic seemed to offer some filtering protection, but Moiety’s chest continued to pull air in through it. The pain was not unbearable, but it was steadily increasing. She closed her eyes and tried to swallow down the swelling panic. Nope. That did not work. She screamed as hard as she could, and screamed, and screamed. 

The suction in her chest grew stronger. It tore the tunic. The anchor flew at her body, shrank down to size, and was swallowed up into her chest. 

The gods do not give us meaningless dreams. Aipaloovik had indeed followed Moiety to the island. He did not have a need for the princess, but he did have a strong sense of entitlement to what he supposed ought to belong to him. Aipaloovik was determined to avenge Aipaloovik. 

What the yellow giant lacked in brains he made up for not only in size but also in sense of smell. Aipaloovik could smell a baby penguin in an iceberg in a hurricane with a stuffy nose, and he usually had a stuffy nose. Aipaloovik loved a good penguin egg omelet. “Mmmmm. Penguins,” he thought, “with manatee marmalade and a little bit of furry baby seal on the side.” 

Aipaloovik knew he was getting close. He could smell the princess. She smelled like female panic with a hint of lizard skin. He ducked below the waves. He wanted to sneak up on her and pick the boat up out of the water on top of his head. “That would be funny,” he thought. He thought he would keep his body below the water, and scoot her in her boat along the surface. He chuckled at his clever game. 

The bottom of the boat bobbed below the water like a duck butt. Aipaloovik felt particularly clever as he stealthily advanced on Moiety’s position. She did not seem to be steering in any particular direction. A cloud of bioluminescent comb jellies glinting like shooting stars encompassed Aipaloovik as he stalked the creaking wooden boat. It was beautiful beyond comparison, and any child would have been entranced at the sight. Aipaloovik swatted at them in annoyance and cursed under his breath, the familiarity of beauty had reduced it to nothing more than a common nuisance in the giant’s belly-focused mind. He rose up to bump the boat.

Moiety felt the boat lurch, but in her terror to protect her what was left of her heart, she scarcely noticed. 

Aipaloovik could hardly contain his glee at this clever prank on his new wife. He imagined her panic at the thought of a Great White Shark, or a Kraken smacking the boat. He could not wait to see her surprised face when he popped out of the water and yelled, “Just kidding! It's only me!” He did not think to consider that he, as a husband, was actually worse than both of those things put together. 

Moiety saw the nasty old ocean troll’s face pop up out of the dark water. She saw his sneer of mockery expand into a shrill scream, as he shrank to the size of a beach mouse, flew through the air, and then disappeared somewhere inside of her body. Moiety doubled over with pain, and then, suddenly, the suction ceased, and the world went on with its merry business of being rather pleasant.

The first thing that Moiety thought, was that her hair was a wreck, and then the next, surprisingly, was that she was going to have to think of something practical to do to help herself. She did not know when, if ever, the suction would start up again. Moiety wanted to be back on land if it did. She did not have a strategic reason, she just preferred the familiarity of solid land. She wondered why everything loose on the boat succumbed to the negative pressure in her chest except that peculiar parchment package that the Viking had been carrying. She picked it up and turned it over in her hand. It was the only thing she had. 

Mermaids are evil creatures, but just because something is evil, does not mean it will not present itself as attractive. The mermaids had also regrouped for a second attack. Having lost the princess at the first pass, they had communicated amongst themselves in their language of pops clicks and whistles. They could ascertain through vibration and smell that the princess was alone in the ocean, and had decided to coax Moiety down into their kingdom. They were circling the boat at a distance and spiraling in closer.

Moiety’s chest felt heavy. With the weight of Aipaloovik, the giant, inside of her chest, the boat was sitting very low in the water. The bigger waves were smacking over the side, adding to the internal load, and lowering the craft even further into the water. The boat was going to sink.

A webbed white hand with visible vasculature reached over the edge of the boat next to where Moiety was sitting. Moiety backed away still grasping the parchment under her arm. 

Great round black eyes, consumed a full half of the mermaid’s white face. Her white face was framed by a tangle of dreaded hair that flopped like shrimping nets onto the bottom of the boat. Another mermaid reached up from the depths to snatch the stern with sinuous hands. The bow rose high out of the water and Moiety tumbled backward. 

“Your breath is a frost that consumes you, and your throat is an open grave.” The black eyes of the mermaid were expressionless as she hissed her proclamation. “Only the water breathers will escape when the dry land is consumed by the dragon’s flame.”

“Come. Learn our flattering songs and be a hunter of men. Take your place among us and begin your collection of masculine bodies. You are already one of us.” 

Moiety felt cold in the marrow of her bones as the mermaid spoke the truth. She opened her mouth to deny it, but her voice froze in her throat. The mermaid held Moiety in her rimy gaze for an eternal moment before she noticed the lambskin parchment still tucked up into Moiety’s arm. “Fire!” She wailed. “Throw it out!” 

Moiety instinctively snatched the parchment away from the mermaid’s clutching fin fingers. More mermaids were circling the boat now. The darting shadows of their fins cut the blue waves like poacher’s knives. The mermaid at the stern shrieked hellish curses known only in Harpie tongue, and Moiety almost dropped the parchment as she reflexively protected her ears. 

Moiety would not have much noticed the parchment if she had continued to sail home unhindered. She would not have been curious enough to open it if someone had not been threatening to take it away from her. With iconoclastic flair, Moiety struck a tinder and lit the ancient magic scroll on fire. She had merely meant to scare the creatures back with the mechanical threat of burning their faces. 

A bright rainbow of light exploded out of the flaming parchment illuminating everything within 40 paces. The sun was still shining and the water was still water. The boat was still the boat, but where the light shined on the mermaids who had appeared to be so strong and strangely seductive they were revealed to be only dry brittle bones loosely held together by only a thread of remaining spirit. Their lame legs trailed behind like limp flotsam in the current.

When Moiety shined the light into her chest she saw a void, an anchor, a rope, and the giant Aipaloovek inside.

The explosion of visible light from the burning scroll was the only tip of the shark fin. The unseen energy released rumbled deep below the water’s surface disturbing the tension of the earth itself. Somewhere, in the near distance, a great wall of water rose up as it was displaced by the shifting seafloor. It advanced, steadily, innocuously slow and dangerously powerful upon the small craft. 

The mermaids continued to swarm the boat, they were no less dangerous than they had been, but now, with the light from the burning scroll Moiety could see them for the dusty death that they were. She grew more confident and fought with a new bravery that she had never had before. Moiety would not last long, however. The mermaids had more heart for the battle. They wanted her heart and they had already envisioned it in their hands. They had sent their spirits ahead of them. Moiety only had a vague idea that winning would be better than losing. Not good enough.

The wave advanced and overwhelmed the females mid-fight. Water exploded all around Moiety and her body tumbled and rolled with the current, Moiety held tight to the scroll which kept its flame, Moiety could feel that it was not just a wave, it was a chorale, it was energy, it was music. It was not singing, it was song, and as it rolled along, it left this ancient incantation like sea foam in its wake:

Set me as a seal upon thine heart/as a seal upon thine wing to wave

For love is as strong as death/jealousy, cruel as the grave

The coals thereof are coals of fire/which hath most vehement flame/

Many waters cannot quench love/neither can the floods drown it/

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love/it 

Would utterly be disdained. 

The mermaids, being held together by so friable a dusty spirit, dissipated into the living waters in the tumult of the raucous strain, but Moitey’s spirit, composed of flesh and blood continued to wrestle with the current.

Over and over and under and above. Exploding and slamming. The tunnel released it fury and then gently unfolded into a resonant rising tide off the coast of the mysterious island right back where she started from. Moiety reflexively held up the scroll to keep it out of the water and found that, in the light of the scroll, the water was something substantial that she could walk on. The water wall continued to advance on the island. It marched right over the beach where Moiety and the Viking had landed seemingly so long ago, It flowed over the jungle treetops and covered the highest peak. Only when everything was smoothed over with bright blue waves did the water cease its rising refrain. 

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facebook: sunshine satellite...]]>147485e9-1914-4add-ab91-9896ada21a51Thu, 09 Jan 2020 07:00:00 -050018:19nofull19The Princess had stolen the Viking’s boat and left him on the island. Honestly, she did not feel too bad about the decision. That is until she discovered the holes that the chameleon and his zombified army of automatons had drilled into her chest. Unfortunately, the Princess’s chest was full of nothing, and that nothing created a negative pressure gradient which threatened shrink and suck anything around it inside of it. So far, it had inhaled an anchor, a rope, and Aipaloovek the ocean giant. This was only part of Moiety’s struggles. The mermaids had also returned. Moiety accidentally summoned a tsunami by lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire which washed the mermaids away, but it also flooded the entire island. The scroll which she had carelessly lit turned out to be a light that revealed the true nature and character of the objects which were illuminated by it.Amanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter SevenIt turns out that a very normal looking tropical island is not what it appears to bel. Several tunnels inside the World Tree open out into various places on the island. The island is home to an evil chameleon wyrm with a mechanized zombified army of unfortunate creatures. It is also home to an ancient race of glow worms. The evil Chameleon wyrm was in the process of removing the princess’ heart of flesh to replace it with an eternal mechanical heart when the Viking found his way out of the World Tree and onto the stage of the Chameleon’s drama. He was able to defeat the wyrm, but a piece of the dragon’s tongue attached itself to Moiety’s ankle and would not come off. “Real magic&nbsp; can never be made&nbsp; by offering someone else's liver.&nbsp; You must tear out your own, &nbsp;and not expect to get it back.” ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorhttps://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/902304 (n) Akedah crouched to examine the oddity. It did not look as though it was hurting her, but it was stuck. He tried to slide it off. It was just tight enough to refuse to pivot over her heel.&nbsp; Moiety gave a slight moan. The woman was not dead after all. The Viking felt hope gaining momentum. She opened her eyes and rolled to the side. She vomited a heave of thin yellow bile. Akedah looked at her blank eyes. “Moiety,” he called “Princess.” Nothing, just a vacuous stare. She jerked like a string toy, stood, and began to lurch back into the forest following after the hoard of mechanized animals. Akedah followed. “Moiety!” he called again. Moiety’s body gave no discernible response as it continued striving through the forest and towards the sea cliffs. Her unclothed flesh stomped unhindered through thorn and mud, catching itself on low hanging vines all the while maintaining its mechanical march. Akedah was going to have to use force to intervene. The bright beautiful ocean loomed dangerously ahead. Akedah remembered the majestic but jagged boulders at the base of the cliffs. Moiety would be certainly dashed into pulp if she stepped from the precipice.&nbsp; Akedah stepped up behind her and bearhugged her over her arms, lifting her bloody feet off the earth. She did not fight. She did not resist. She did continue to mindlessly strive for the cliffs. Her body twitched side to side in tractionless gait with calm suicidal effort. Akedah thought he was going to have to tether her body to a tree. As he was wondering where he was going to find a suitable cord, a warm moist wind began to blow across the island. Akedah took his brown wool tunic off to clothe the woman. He had to pin her torso to the ground with his knee, as her body rhythmically pushed against the earth, attempting to right itself. He sat down under a broom tree and pulled her into his lap while he considered what to do. The wind was picking up. Akedah felt a rumble, that he supposed was thunder. The rumble grew stronger with the rising wind. The island’s atmosphere was absurdly normal for an epic. There was nothing on the surface that would indicate that it was a cosmic battleground, and yet here it was, complete with dragons, stars, and World Tree wormholes all set against the milieu of a normal ocean breeze and a common warm summer evening downpour.&nbsp; The downpour. It all seemed so suddenly meaningless. He remembered great warriors who had fought valiantly to win difficult battles only to die weeks later from infections. He also knew well the creeping depression that settled in amongst men after victory. A warrior cannot return to the family farm as a farmer. Wolves do not live in kennels. The warm, mundane rain was relentless. The woman’s body continued to jerk mechanically. Akedah looked at her. Her eyes were glazed. Her mouth was slobbering. There was nothing in her appearance that he would desire her. He was thoroughly exasperated and wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the annoyance. He pushed the feeling down. He felt very warm... <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>It turns out that a very normal looking tropical island is not what it appears to bel. Several tunnels inside the World Tree open out into various places on the island. The island is home to an evil chameleon wyrm with a mechanized zombified army of unfortunate creatures. It is also home to an ancient race of glow worms. The evil Chameleon wyrm was in the process of removing the princess’ heart of flesh to replace it with an eternal mechanical heart when the Viking found his way out of the World Tree and onto the stage of the Chameleon’s drama. He was able to defeat the wyrm, but a piece of the dragon’s tongue attached itself to Moiety’s ankle and would not come off.

“Real magic 

can never be made 

by offering someone else's liver. 

You must tear out your own,

 and not expect to get it back.”

― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Akedah crouched to examine the oddity. It did not look as though it was hurting her, but it was stuck. He tried to slide it off. It was just tight enough to refuse to pivot over her heel. 

Moiety gave a slight moan. The woman was not dead after all. The Viking felt hope gaining momentum. She opened her eyes and rolled to the side. She vomited a heave of thin yellow bile. Akedah looked at her blank eyes. “Moiety,” he called “Princess.” Nothing, just a vacuous stare. She jerked like a string toy, stood, and began to lurch back into the forest following after the hoard of mechanized animals.

Akedah followed. “Moiety!” he called again. Moiety’s body gave no discernible response as it continued striving through the forest and towards the sea cliffs. Her unclothed flesh stomped unhindered through thorn and mud, catching itself on low hanging vines all the while maintaining its mechanical march. Akedah was going to have to use force to intervene. The bright beautiful ocean loomed dangerously ahead. Akedah remembered the majestic but jagged boulders at the base of the cliffs. Moiety would be certainly dashed into pulp if she stepped from the precipice. 

Akedah stepped up behind her and bearhugged her over her arms, lifting her bloody feet off the earth. She did not fight. She did not resist. She did continue to mindlessly strive for the cliffs. Her body twitched side to side in tractionless gait with calm suicidal effort. Akedah thought he was going to have to tether her body to a tree. As he was wondering where he was going to find a suitable cord, a warm moist wind began to blow across the island. Akedah took his brown wool tunic off to clothe the woman. He had to pin her torso to the ground with his knee, as her body rhythmically pushed against the earth, attempting to right itself. He sat down under a broom tree and pulled her into his lap while he considered what to do. The wind was picking up. Akedah felt a rumble, that he supposed was thunder. The rumble grew stronger with the rising wind.

The island’s atmosphere was absurdly normal for an epic. There was nothing on the surface that would indicate that it was a cosmic battleground, and yet here it was, complete with dragons, stars, and World Tree wormholes all set against the milieu of a normal ocean breeze and a common warm summer evening downpour. 

The downpour. It all seemed so suddenly meaningless. He remembered great warriors who had fought valiantly to win difficult battles only to die weeks later from infections. He also knew well the creeping depression that settled in amongst men after victory. A warrior cannot return to the family farm as a farmer. Wolves do not live in kennels. The warm, mundane rain was relentless.

The woman’s body continued to jerk mechanically. Akedah looked at her. Her eyes were glazed. Her mouth was slobbering. There was nothing in her appearance that he would desire her. He was thoroughly exasperated and wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the annoyance. He pushed the feeling down. He felt very warm despite the downpour and the breeze. The world around felt distant and unimportant. He fell asleep.

Akedah dreamed he was drifting in a doldrum in a foggy ocean. He was looking for something that he knew was very close. He was trying to propel the boat by rowing. His arms felt heavy and the water felt thick. He was not moving. A ram with horns twice as long as its body surfaced on the water. It ran like a torpedo on top of the water, head down, and splintering the front of the boat, it charged out into the fog. Instead of sinking like a normal smashed boat, the boat shrank to the size of a piece of bread. The Viking stepped out of the boat onto the water, he looked down. The visibility through the water was better than a clear day on land, and the Viking could see 300 feet to the sandy bottom, and fish. So many fish. 

Akedah jerked awake with a disrupted sensation in his stomach. The twitching woman was gone. He had been aware of being soaked, but when he finally focused on it, he realized he was not wet with just water. He touched his hand to his chest and lifted off thick, viscous strings of some unknown fluid. He flicked it off onto the ground nearby. That explains why he was so warm in the rain. What is it? 

The best place to hide is always up high. Even the most observant people rarely look directly over the top of their heads. It took thick warm oozing mucus, to move Akedah’s focus above his head. When he looked up, he saw two giant glowing lavender eyes watching over him. The eyes were just the tip of an iceberg for they were firmly planted in the body of a glowworm that was easily the size of a blue whale. With the realization of the enormity of the surrounding presence, he fell backward into a seated guard position. The creature considered him. He saw his whole defensive body reflected and amplified in the deep black pupil of the one lavender eye. Akedah knew that the worm was not an enemy but he had to ask in spite of himself.

“Are you for us or for our enemies?” This is a good question. Neutrality is the main symptom of intellectual laziness. The mind is gray, but it is not designed to see things in shades of gray. 

“Neither,” The worm replied in baritone, “as commander of the army of children, I have now come.” A good answer to a good question. The fight that we see is only what is on the surface. There is a deeper cosmic battle going on behind the scenes at all times. The universe has magic, but it also has deeper magic. Those who are our enemies and not our greatest enemies. 

“You must be full to overflow.” The glowworm was indeed overflowing. Strings of warm thick mucus poured from its body with shimmering movement. The light rippled up and down the wet body like aurora borealis. The Viking had never witnessed anything of such heaving biological beauty. It was all at once repulsive and resplendent, refreshing and violent.  

“The only thing a man can be full of is food,” Akedah responded. 

“And what will you eat, Viking?” the quiet baritone made Akedah’s face vibrate. “Food is energy and water is movement. Will you eat food that satisfies, or will you labor only to drink stagnant water? Yes. Viking, you will be full of what you consume, to the point of overflowing.”

“What are men full of?” The worldly war-familiar Viking knew that people are only deluded into the belief that humans are basically good when they live in prosperous peacetime. He also knew that pastoral time periods are only vaporous footnotes in the tome of the history books. “I suppose you are going to say envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice.”

“Yes. But that is only the tension on the surface. Man is full of love, just as compost bins are full of compost. They are both completely rotten until they are spread out. Just as compost is useless rottenness in a pile, love will not cause any growth until it is spread out thin. In his most natural state man only loves himself.”

“Most people would say love is a good thing, and the more you have the better a person you are.”

“No. Love is like words or weapons, it is only good insofar as the person and purpose are good. Love in the heart of natural man is not good because he limits his love for things that promote himself. He seeks out associations with others based on their looks, wealth, and connectedness. Even when a man extends himself to a cause, it is only for the accolades that his virtue signaling accumulates. His love stagnates and festers around personal status and status symbols.” 

“The thing that makes man’s love such a deadly poison, is his false understanding of it. He believes he has an innate ability to project love onto others, but in his pursuit of self, he stumbles foolishly into and out of covenant relationships fully believing that if it feels good it is good. Man’s natural affections are a self-cannibalistic stagnation that consumes anything unfortunate enough to fall into it.”

“If that is the case, it is certainly better for a man not to marry.”

“The only thing that coaxes selfless love out of us is to be first loved selflessly by something greater than ourselves. Love is only true when it destroys the self. It is only alive when it is spread thin causing other things to grow. Love, made manifest, despises the shame and lays down and dies for the object of its affection. Tragically, the natural man cannot love unlovable things, and in this hoarding, he remains unlovable himself. Compost does not spread itself.”

The worm’s membranous body rippled with peristalsis, and from one of its body folds, it slowly excreted a large, oblong capsule. With an oozing tendril, she gently laid it onto the forest floor.

Akedah could see through the capsule. Princess Moiety was inside, suspended like a tadpole in a gelatinous yoke. She had ceased convulsing but the sliver of Shame’s tongue still gripped her ankle. She was also much smaller. She appeared to be the size of an 8-year-old child. 

“Is she alive?” Akedah asked.

“Her soul is still attached to her body,” the worm replied. “But it is only tethered to her as a kite is tethered to a child’s hand. She is observing herself from the outside.”

“What is wrong with her?” Akedah truly wanted to know. 

“She is disappearing. Her body is being pumped full of shame. The only way her body knows how to fight off the poison of shame is through self-absorption. Unfortunately, vainglory is a maladaptive process. The more self-absorbed she becomes the faster her body metabolizes the shame.”

“What should I do?” Akedah truly wanted to know.

“Shame is only defeated by those is to despise it. You should be who you are,” the worm answered. “You should fully manifest yourself. It is the only thing you can do. The opposite of self-absorption is self-expansion. You must expand.”

“Who am I?”

“I am a worm and not a man. You are a clay vessel filled with the energy that causes your choices,” the worm rippled with changing light. “You must smash the vessel so that the light inside of it shines out. Bring out the last of Asgard’s gifts.” 

Akedah pulled out Odin’s scroll of poetry. Again, it was an unassuming gift: old lambskin and some runes. It was sealed. The seal read simply, “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.” Simple enough, and stated with authority. 

“The only way to save the woman is to take her place,” the worm stated with simple authority. “You are Akedah.” 

“Take her place?” Akedah asked.

“Yes. The curse must be transferred to your body. You must take her death upon your body.”

“Where is the hope in that?”

“You will have the same hope as any grain of wheat falling to the ground.”

Akedah regarded the tiny woman in the jelly egg. She was growing smaller by the minute now. 

“She will soon be small enough to fit into the gates of Hell.” the worm said. 

Akedah knew what he had to do. He would do the right thing. With Vision, there is no free will, no choosing between right and wrong. There is only right and wrong. One choice is right and all other choices are wrong. This lack of free will freed Akedah to make choices in this situation when most would have had no direction. There was no faltering for balancing the degrees of consequence. There was only the right thing to do. 

“I will do it,” Akedah stated with simple authority.

_________________

Moiety was dreaming lucid dreams. She was walking on a dark red marble floor with long veins of gold. The whole slab was a single cut placed in its entirety. A gray lighted pool steamed in the center of the room that was lit all around with beeswax candles. This was her childhood home, but she was not a princess in this house. She was there as a cleaning woman. She was trying to do her job, but she also did not want anyone to recognize her. The queen walked through the room, and Moiety turned away. The ocean giant, Aipaloovik knew she was there. He was looking for her, going from window to window and peering into the room. She kept moving. The water in the pool was sloping and heaving back and forth as if in an earthquake. Moiety felt no earthquake. She tried to stay hidden. Aipaloovik appeared in the window, behind Moiety. The windowpane was not glass, it was a sheet of falling water. In her dream, Aipaloovik reached through the water to grab her with his huge yellow palm. Moiety gasped and sputtered awake into the reality of a wet humid jungle. 

The first thing Moiety knew was that her chest hurt. 

For some reason, she was wearing Akedah’s wet wool tunic. It was itchy and uncomfortable. She was holding a parchment with some barbaric runes. 

Moiety wanted to get off this creepy island. The last thing she remembered was speaking to a flashy lizard with a curious offer. Something about making her wise. What happened? Was she wise now?

Where was the grouchy barbarian?

Moiety knew that if she was able to make it to the coast, that she could walk around the perimeter of the island. She would eventually find the longboat. Maybe Akedah was still there. Maybe he had left her. Moiety would have left him.

Moiety started towards the light.

She came up close to the edge. It was a dizzying distance to the bottom. The waves lapped over the crags jutting out of the water at asperous angles. No one would survive that fall she thought.

Moiety made her way back to the boat and waited a full 52 minutes before deciding to set off in the longboat by herself. 

It was a beautiful day. Recent rain had pulled the edge of the heat out of the air and beautiful full clouds were lining up in rows like children]]>5ee09eaf-eced-40ea-b9ec-0de272a0fc3eThu, 02 Jan 2020 07:00:00 -050015:23nofull18The zombified princess is shrinking and will soon be small enough to fit into the gates of hell. The severed sliver of the tongue is still wrapped around her ankle. The giant glowworm explains to the Viking what is wrong with love, and the Viking must use vision to make an important choice.Amanda Louise VanStratumWarning This Is Not Your Typical Nativity StoryWhen the sounds of scuffling in the entryway of the inn surpassed that of the ruckus of the inn guests, the innkeeper knew he had to intervene. He was beyond exhausted, having worked two days without sleep to set up accommodations for travelers on a property that was not designed to be an inn at all, more of an expanded fruit-stand-way-station extension of his own home. He could hear a woman’s shrill hysterical crying, and the sound of a man’s head thumped like a melon against the stucco. “Great, another fight over a stupid whore. Not in my inn,” he vowed as he jumped down the stone steps ready to throw down on anyone. Well, almost anyone. “God don’t let it be a Roman soldier,” he swore under his breath.&nbsp;His wildest dreams never prepared him for the scene unfolding in his entryway. The huge stinking man looked like a highway robber. He held the innkeeper’s servant up off his toes, pinned with a muscled forearm against the wall. But that’s not what held his attention. What held his attention was a little girl, no older than his own 16-year-old daughter, swollen with pregnancy and pain. Her pale hands grasped the door frame in a desperate attempt to stand while the blood and water gushed down her legs. “No!” He shouted, “There is no room in the inn! She is unclean!” The Innkeeper had received large payments from prominent members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, their scribes, and their families. They would want their money back if they knew a girl was bleeding all over the floor. His guests would become unclean by association under the Mosaic law. The desperate burly man was nearly crushing his servant’s throat. Spittle frothed into his black beard as he spat the words, “There is no room in all of Israel!” The girl was on the floor now, a trail of tears cutting through the dust on her face. She rolled on her back in the puddle of blood on the floor the urge to bear down was primal, uncontrollable. The abstract shame of total exposure was nothing compared to the real fact of her dilated cervix. The innkeeper was a passionate man, but he was also a businessman, and he knew he had to find a solution to the problem before it engulfed him, before his paying guests witnessed the bloody scene. “Ok, Ok, I have one more room,” and to his servant, he said, “Get a large blanket from the dirty laundry. We will carry her out in it and still be able to wash in time to serve the guests the evening meal.” Mary felt the horribly unpleasant sensation of being carried out back into the dark lonely night. She shrieked.&nbsp;Joseph helped to carry her. What else could he do? Images of what the Roman soldiers would do to his Beloved if they were roused from their gambling and whoring in order to keep the peace, danced in his head like a bloody nightmare. The three men set her down as gently as they could in the dark. The servant hurried back with a dim lamp and a flask of water. “Sir, I am sorry, but considering these irregular circumstances…’” the servant trailed off mid-sentence as he averted his eyes, shook his head, and backed away. Joseph was vaguely aware that he was in a hastily assembled shack for housing beasts. The creatures who bore the weight of man’s burdens. This symbolism was lost on him until much later in life. In the dim light, he could see a pallid crown of curls emerging from the mother’s pain. This was the first he had seen Mary’s nakedness. Her utter vulnerability reminded him of his own failure to provide, and one last guttural sob escaped his throat as he called out to a God that he felt sure was so very very far away. The red screaming baby flopped unceremoniously into Joseph’s hands with a tangle of organic glossy umbilical cord. He knew he was supposed to cut it. Would it hurt Mary even more? Maybe he should wait. “God what do I do?” He cut the cord. She did not notice. Good. Mary took the baby from Joseph. She was flooded with endorphins after the relief of completed labor. She tried to nurse him. She... <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>When the sounds of scuffling in the entryway of the inn surpassed that of the ruckus of the inn guests, the innkeeper knew he had to intervene. He was beyond exhausted, having worked two days without sleep to set up accommodations for travelers on a property that was not designed to be an inn at all, more of an expanded fruit-stand-way-station extension of his own home. He could hear a woman’s shrill hysterical crying, and the sound of a man’s head thumped like a melon against the stucco. “Great, another fight over a stupid whore. Not in my inn,” he vowed as he jumped down the stone steps ready to throw down on anyone. Well, almost anyone. “God don’t let it be a Roman soldier,” he swore under his breath. His wildest dreams never prepared him for the scene unfolding in his entryway. The huge stinking man looked like a highway robber. He held the innkeeper’s servant up off his toes, pinned with a muscled forearm against the wall. But that’s not what held his attention. What held his attention was a little girl, no older than his own 16-year-old daughter, swollen with pregnancy and pain. Her pale hands grasped the door frame in a desperate attempt to stand while the blood and water gushed down her legs.

“No!” He shouted, “There is no room in the inn! She is unclean!” The Innkeeper had received large payments from prominent members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, their scribes, and their families. They would want their money back if they knew a girl was bleeding all over the floor. His guests would become unclean by association under the Mosaic law.

The desperate burly man was nearly crushing his servant’s throat. Spittle frothed into his black beard as he spat the words, “There is no room in all of Israel!”

The girl was on the floor now, a trail of tears cutting through the dust on her face. She rolled on her back in the puddle of blood on the floor the urge to bear down was primal, uncontrollable. The abstract shame of total exposure was nothing compared to the real fact of her dilated cervix.

The innkeeper was a passionate man, but he was also a businessman, and he knew he had to find a solution to the problem before it engulfed him, before his paying guests witnessed the bloody scene. “Ok, Ok, I have one more room,” and to his servant, he said, “Get a large blanket from the dirty laundry. We will carry her out in it and still be able to wash in time to serve the guests the evening meal.”

Mary felt the horribly unpleasant sensation of being carried out back into the dark lonely night. She shrieked. Joseph helped to carry her. What else could he do? Images of what the Roman soldiers would do to his Beloved if they were roused from their gambling and whoring in order to keep the peace, danced in his head like a bloody nightmare. The three men set her down as gently as they could in the dark. The servant hurried back with a dim lamp and a flask of water. “Sir, I am sorry, but considering these irregular circumstances…’” the servant trailed off mid-sentence as he averted his eyes, shook his head, and backed away.

Joseph was vaguely aware that he was in a hastily assembled shack for housing beasts. The creatures who bore the weight of man’s burdens. This symbolism was lost on him until much later in life. In the dim light, he could see a pallid crown of curls emerging from the mother’s pain. This was the first he had seen Mary’s nakedness. Her utter vulnerability reminded him of his own failure to provide, and one last guttural sob escaped his throat as he called out to a God that he felt sure was so very very far away.

The red screaming baby flopped unceremoniously into Joseph’s hands with a tangle of organic glossy umbilical cord. He knew he was supposed to cut it. Would it hurt Mary even more? Maybe he should wait. “God what do I do?” He cut the cord. She did not notice. Good.

Mary took the baby from Joseph. She was flooded with endorphins after the relief of completed labor. She tried to nurse him. She was so scared that her milk was not coming in. What if it never did. The darkness pressed in around her, like a yawing dragon maw seeking to swallow her whole family. The baby bounced its open mouth against her breast, he did not seem to understand how to latch on. Finally, he seemed to figure it out, but Mary was so tired. Her breasts stung like fire from the effort. Joseph tore strips from the Innkeeper’s blanket and Mary wept as she wrapped the baby in the filthy rags. She put him down to rest in the food trough. There were mice in this shed. She could feel them writhing in the fodder. Joseph was so quiet. “He must be angry with me for making a scene. I’m so sorry.” As Mary tried to think of what she could say to smooth things over between them, she heard excited voices speaking in a country dialect. “Y’all boys come over here. It’s a shed. I think there’s a light.”

Joseph could make out the straight back form of five men. They looked like working men. Joseph could tell by their surefootedness in the dark that they were outdoorsmen like himself. “Now what?” he wondered. Joseph was a quiet man by nature and he had in this night had to speak with more people than he would have liked to in a month. Wasn’t it bad enough to be sitting in this infested straw without having witnesses to the fact?

“We are looking for a baby.” The shepherd was a rough-looking character. Joesph considered his own appearance. “We were told we could find the savior of the world lying in a food trough.” Joseph kept a straight face for about five seconds before the ridiculous irony of the situation overwhelmed him with queer relief. “And you believed that,” He started laughing. The motley crew of shepherds started laughing too. Comradery settled on the world-weary men like softly falling snow.

When the shepherds saw the exhausted girl huddled in the straw still bleeding from the legs, they were all business. Years of striving with the flocks in their seasons of lambing had taught them postnatal care better than the best midwife that money could buy. The shepherds could see the terrible risk for infection if the dirt was allowed to remain in her birthing parts. They worked as a unit, building a fire and boiling water. These men were no stranger to the blood and organs of birth. They were already unclean under Mosaic law and gave no second thought to scouring away the dirt with their own hands. Joseph made no protest until Mary balled in pain when the shepherd began to massage her stomach. “This will stop the flow,” the shepherd explained. As Mary’s pain eventually slipped away in their capable hands, her heart fell into a peaceful sleep wherein the silence of her soul a still small voice said, “ The darker the night, the brighter the stars shine.”

In the cold night, the brilliant stars fought bravely for the territory that was rightfully theirs by the Law of Creation against the fallen third of the stars who threatened to claim the power of the air which was rightfully theirs by the Law of Conquest. The bright morning Star had infiltrated enemy territory and neither side was seeking a truce. Game on.

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The Viking and the Princess

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

Lately in our story, stiff-necked Moiety has been getting jerked about quite a bit. Akedah, the Viking, has had to be on his toes to keep up with the amount of rescuing the independent princess has been requiring. She had been in trouble with her mother, an ocean giant, mermaids, and even the generous North Wind. 

So far the Viking has been able to keep Moiety alive by using gifts given to him by the gods of Asgard, but when he beached the longboat on a tropical island to make repairs, she wanders off on her own. While in the jungle Moiety encountered the Chameleon, an evil lizard who is building an army of half-living half-dead mechanical-biological automatons. The princess is just what she needs to complete her menagerie of zombie foot soldiers. She has paralyzed the princess and is planning on replacing her flesh heart with a mechanical one made out of loadstone.

Akedah is also deep in the jungle looking for Moiety. He has encountered the natives, ten-thousand-year-old glowworm children whose job it has always been to wrap the newly born stars in a protective casing of silk to preserve their songs as they travel into space. The children bring him to an entrance to the World Tree where he encounters Vision inside, the triune sisters Past-Present-Promise, inside one of the tunnels in the World Tree.

When we left Akedah he had gone through Vision and was nearing the exit point of the tree where the Chameleon’s army was preparing to perform their grisly operation…. 

And so begins Chapter VI

Moiety was supine in the hollow of the dead tree. She would have noticed that the inside of the tree opened up to a tunnel of considerable length if she had been able to explore, but Moiety was in too much danger. She was conscious but unable to respond to her surroundings. Only her eyes moved, and she watched as the hoard of tiny mechanized beasts swarmed over her body and began the process of slowly boring into the spaces between her ribs. They were tunneling cavities into her chest to her heart, presumably to replace it with something else. Moiety felt the pain, but it was so intense that she also felt that she was outside her body, hovering over it, watching in suspended horror. There was not much blood, but there was the terrible smell of electrocauterized flesh. She vomited. She lay in it.

---------

Akedah was coming to the end of the tunnel, and he saw what he thought looked like large ants on a dead bear. He balked with abhorrence when he realized what it was. He froze while his brain whirred in an attempt to categorize the abomination. All at once he lurched, laden with emotion, at the horrific scene batting and swatting at the tiny monsters with frenzied effort. He unthinkingly beat at her motionless body. When he was able to get a grip on her drug her out into the acrid red light. The automatons followed slowly, steadily, gripping, and climbing his leg. Then, suddenly, as if a poisonous gas had taken them, they all dropped, lifeless, to the ground. 

Akedah assumed that Moiety was gone, but he picked her up to carry her just as he would have carried any battle-fallen warrior: with strength and sorrow and deep conviction. This is the power of flesh. Flesh only yields to a machine in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, flesh and spirit are stronger than any machine. Broken human hearts keep beating, pumping right through the greatest spiritual injuries 

A strange thing happens when they are broken. A broken heart creates a rift through the realms for God to come near to the brokenhearted. It cuts right through the fortified walls of materialism and amour-propre. They explode into the universe, reverberating out to the edges, and their unspoken prayers are heard all over the heavens with ringing clarity. They demand a response from God the way the peculiar primal wailing of newborns demands a response from a mother. God is just as much a wild untamed female as he is a strong and steady male. Prayers from bathroom floors have already arrived in heaven while cathedral prayers are still bumping against the stained glass windows. Flesh is a seed, if it dies it has the potential to bring forth much fruit. When machines break, they are broken. 

Akedah did not see the Chameleon but he felt its presence three seconds before the muscular spring-loaded tongue sprang from its cold mouth. It was just enough time to drop into a roll. He narrowly escaped the trap but lost his grip on his little friend. The tiny automatons sprang back to life, and turning as one, they began advancing on her body. 

The Chameleon’s crest was aglow with UV light, and the long flat layers of ghostly white peeling skin gave her the appearance of a specter in the process of morphing into real life. She was thoughtfully opening and closing her stiff frowning mandible, and Akedah could see a curious bulbous tongue between its non-existent lips. Her tail, held aloft, was coiled up into an elegant Fibonacci spiral. Her skin was streaked with all the colors of the visible spectrum and some of the colors that fall outside spectral vision. Her elbows and knees bent outward, skewing her appearance. Time slowed. Akedah felt that he was on the outside of reality looking in. He was certainly not surprised when the hag spoke. Her voice was sweet and too sweet; strong and foul.  

“Give it up Akedah, your dry mind knows that there are no real metaphors in this wasteland. Nothing in the physical world symbolizes anything in the spiritual world. There is only the harlequin, chance, utilizing all as jesters on a cosmic stage. What can righteousness be compared to? It is only a lonely field atop a rocky mountain, littered with the bones of its climbers, And who are you? Just a man, bearing no image except your own, and that is only what you make of it. Rise up in your power, Man, and craft images in your own likeness. You shall be a god. Do you seek a compass? You are your own compass. Just as truth is only what you decide it to be, so also all directions start and end in you. You are the alpha and the omega.” 

All the while the Chameleon was droning away with tedious dialogue, the automatons were jerking and janking, wiggling and whirring back into motion. They carried the mechanical heart atop their tiny shoulders the way a procession carries a hero. They were coming back.  

It seemed to Akedah that the eviler the adversary the more verbose the diatribe. He did not understand what the Chameleon was saying, and this lack of higher education served him well, for when stripped of its flowery flowing language the Chameleon was obviously just plain old nasty and Akedah wanted nothing to do with it or its obscure bargains. He purposefully placed his body protectively between the enemy and the woman. 

Is it really said by the ancients, ‘A little child shall lead them?’ Do the twinkling stars really hear the wishes of children? They are like grown-ups full of lust and greed yet unable to disguise it. Outwardly, they are full of breath and water, but inwardly they are full of the same dead bones as the whitewashed tombs. I alone am the desirable one. I own by right of conquest and no one opposes me. To me, this forsaken world is a woman abandoned by her husband with her valuables fully exposed. I grow ever wiser, drinking the blood of the stars. I have already swept a third of them from the sky with only my tail. I raise up kings, each one becoming a mighty horn on my face. Do you see these four horns, they are the kings of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Their strength and splendor are renown to the end of time. Do you not understand what I offer you? You shall sprout up like a horn between my eyes. I will be your power, and all the princes of the earth would come to lay their wealth at your feet. You will be like a great tree spreading its branches over the whole earth, unifying and protecting all the nations. You shall be wise. Give me the princess and all these mighty works shall come to pass, only bow down to me and call me Good Teacher.”

Blah blah blah. The Viking wondered if the length of the tongue always corresponds to the length of pompous narration. This animal seemed to believe that the Viking was interested in its entire memoir. Pride goes before the fall, and the proliferation of prose goes before a thoroughly disinterested audience. Brevity characterizes humility, and Akedah was to the point, giving no response but to draw his seax (sacks) from his hip. The Chameleon balked at the offense, and with perfectly poised stillness flung her deceitful tongue forward at Akedah with the force of hellfire. Akedah stepped to the side and sliced the end of the tongue. It was not a clean-cut and the lump still hung onto the rest of the coiled sticky tissue. The Chameleon slowly reached a pincered claw up to her mouth and pulled the broken part off. She released it neatly over on the ground where the motionless Moiety lay still exposed in the dry grass. “I have come that you might have death, and have it more abundantly,” the hag growled and where the old tongue lump had been there sprouted two separate smaller growths, the bifurcation giving her the true appearance of a red dragon.  

The automatons had limped up to Moiety’s feet. Akedah continued to kick them back, all the while keeping an eye on the old sack of lizard flesh. Two of the automatons made their way past Akedah’s feet and reattached themselves to her chest. They were systematically reinserting their metal proboscis through her intercostal spaces. Akedah again batted them back with his foot. 

Fortunately, the dragon was not a skilled fighter. She had always preferred to paralyze her prey with the poison of palavering flattery, and flashy, glinting skin shows. Indeed, even the dragon’s most robust opposition could typically be dissuaded by the simple fact that her seemingly soft skin, with it's intense chromaticity and dynamic fluctuating display seemed to most, too precious to pierce. Akedah continued to advance on the dragon’s position, the dragon continued to cycle through its multiple color phases. She opened her mouth wide and swayed spastically. Her torso heaved heavily atop her bent appendages.

“What is this woman to you, man? Is she really worth protecting? Surely your own blood is more valuable. Every woman has two legs and a path to her womb. There is nothing unique here. Better women than this await. Turn away, Viking. Dip your hand into my treasure hoard. Return to your homeland safely with gifts of my gold, and know yourself to be my distant ally.” The Chameleon’s eyes darted and shifted with every word and with every word the great lizard’s skin flushed a different color. 

“Why was the woman worth protecting,” Akedah wavered in his mind. “What was her name?” For a moment - looking at the ever-changing reality of the dragon - he could not even remember what was actually true. The nonsensical pseudologic oozing from the dragon’s tongue was clouding his ability to remember the past. He could not make a clear decision for the present, and therefore the promise seemed to be fading. The automatons were swarming her. Something smelled like vomit. He remembered something his father told him about how spiders when consuming their prey, secrete their digestive juices into the unfortunate bug and then suck their insides out. Was that was these unliving birds and lizards were doing, dissolving her flesh heart so they could turn her into one of them? 

“No!” Akedah viscerally reacted to the subliminal rancorous undertone of the atmosphere. With this resistance -no matter that it was slight- the red light faded out for just a moment and the Viking’s Vision returned. He could see the stars in the sky. Yes, they were always moving, but not with the terrible chaos of the dragon’s lies and darting eyes, but always precise, moving in measurable degrees so as to be navigable. They had safely brought him thus far and they were still there waiting to guide him home. With a perfect balance of change and stability, they symbolized the wisdom of the intelligence guiding creation. Akedah was strengthened by their presence. “Moiety.” He said out loud. “Her name is Moiety, and she needs me. Whether she cares or not, I will fulfill my obligation. I will not abandon the woman I have committed to my care. The only reason I give you, dragon, is the only reason that is necessary: It is the right thing to do.”

“She has no loyalty to you, man.” The Chameleon was breathing heavily, her spiny rib cage protruded with every exhalation. “Fool. She will refuse you.”

“You are evil,” Akedah spoke the truth. 

“Why do you hate me?” The chameleon asked “I am not all bad. I have good intentions. Just because I utilize something bad for a greater good, does not make me evil”

“You are a liar.”

“Hating is wrong. There is no season for hating or war,” the Chameleon lied.

“There is a peace, that is only obtained on the other side of a war. Hating what is evil is the same as loving what is good.” 

The Chameleon began to shrink, and Akedah realized that the power of calling a thing by its right name was as potent as the most ancient incantations. “You are a liar, and you come only to kill and destroy.” The more that Akedah spoke the truth the more apparent the song of the stars became in its steadfast resonation. 

What will the living creature be called?

What will be its name?

Give it the breath of logos,

Truth that cannot be changed.

What do you speak into existence,

With the value of the words you say?

What do you loose on heaven and earth?

Choose you what you serve this day.

Do you lie or will you live?

The power is in the word.

To shape the life around you

To be solid or absurd.

So call it by its right name

And don’t dilute the truth

For lies entwined with facts

Are palatable and smooth

In the end, is bitter poison

They bite like uncharmed cobras

They take up the mantle of death

That decomposing persona

The truth will bring you trouble 

But in faith the trouble is good

For the trouble is the key

To release the fetter of falsehood

Speaking truth is speaking life

For life is the word of creation

Speaking lies is speaking death

For]]>c9ee97e6-29cd-4fdf-956e-9241ce5a931cThu, 19 Dec 2019 07:00:00 -050020:39nofull17The Chameleon rehashes and regurgitates the same lies that she has used since the Creation and The Viking must intervene to stop her from adding the princess' body to her undead army.Amanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter Three “Great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.” -George MacDonald At the Back of the North Wind To all appearances the gods had deserted the viking in his need. In his frustration, Akedah fired that same arrow at the moon. “Take it back!” he growled. The arrow hit the moon and sent up a spray of shining moon dust with the impact. Perhaps, in some cases, the viking’s instincts were smarter than his brain, and perhaps this actionable lack of philosophy is what we could attribute his good fortune to in many cases. Perhaps, his willingness to take the next step, any logical next step, protected him from the overwhelming stagnancy that overtakes men like moss overtakes a stationary stone. Peers had sometimes accused him of brash and unsafe action, but no one ever accused Akedah of lackluster procrastination - which is - the greater evil. The arrow returned to Akedah’s hand fully drenched moon poison. This poison is released from the moon every 28 days when it is in full bloom, that is to say, when it is a bright perfect globe like a white-seeded dandelion. When the world was young, people knew about moon poison, how it drifts its dusty seeds out into the solar system on lunar flares. Today, after landing on the moon and scientifically evaluating its surface and finding mostly igneous rocks, modern man has disposed of any new speculation concerning moon makeup, however; if the astronauts had taken up residence and observed the moon first hand through its cycle they might have reported otherwise. It is important to remember that all things magical or miraculous, are made of the same atoms and elements as the rest of the universe. Water can be turned miraculously to wine but first it has to flow through the Vine. There is nothing strange about that. And so again without prelude of excessive forethought, Akedah fired the loaded arrow at the guffawing giant.&nbsp;This time when it hit its mark the moon poison dissipated into Aipaloovik’s blood stream. -- In his youth, Aipaloovik the Terrible had grown fat munching on eskimos and picking his teeth with narwhal tusks. These days, he fancied himself a snowbird, relocating in his middle age to the sunny mediterranean. He would still visit his mother up north, and she would chat with him about what she wanted him to get her for her birthday, or nag at him for never being able to maintain a marriage. Sometimes she would put the two together, “Oh my little Snuggymumps!” She would announce as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Did you know my birthday is this spring? Maybe you keep your next wife without taking a bite out of her. Then maybe you could visit me with sweet little baby grandstinkies on my birthday.” Aipaloovik thought that maybe he would like to have some little stinkers to carry on the terrible heritage of the Aipaloovik namesake, but self-restraint is not something any child learns when they are catered to by doting mothers. This is especially true in the case of children who are the size of several elephant seals. So Aipaloovik’s well-meaning mother had spoiled her son and in the process spoiled any chance at hearing the thumpity-thwap of little grandstinky footsteps in her home.&nbsp; Aipaloovik was really intending to actually entertain the thought of perhaps not taking a bite out of this wife. He was going to try to save this one for his mother. Well, maybe only one small bite. It was just that whenever he tried to only take one small bite he always wound up eating the whole wife. He did not think this was any fault of his, it was just that it was a shame to let the rest of the wife go to waste with profuse blood loss. If they would just stop bleeding, he would not have to finish them off.&nbsp; All these thoughts evaporated from Aipaloovik’s conscious mind as the poison crashed it way into his brain like an explosion of light. He felt as if the full... <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>

“Great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.”

-George MacDonald At the Back of the North Wind

To all appearances the gods had deserted the viking in his need. In his frustration, Akedah fired that same arrow at the moon. “Take it back!” he growled. The arrow hit the moon and sent up a spray of shining moon dust with the impact.

Perhaps, in some cases, the viking’s instincts were smarter than his brain, and perhaps this actionable lack of philosophy is what we could attribute his good fortune to in many cases. Perhaps, his willingness to take the next step, any logical next step, protected him from the overwhelming stagnancy that overtakes men like moss overtakes a stationary stone. Peers had sometimes accused him of brash and unsafe action, but no one ever accused Akedah of lackluster procrastination - which is - the greater evil.

The arrow returned to Akedah’s hand fully drenched moon poison. This poison is released from the moon every 28 days when it is in full bloom, that is to say, when it is a bright perfect globe like a white-seeded dandelion.

When the world was young, people knew about moon poison, how it drifts its dusty seeds out into the solar system on lunar flares. Today, after landing on the moon and scientifically evaluating its surface and finding mostly igneous rocks, modern man has disposed of any new speculation concerning moon makeup, however; if the astronauts had taken up residence and observed the moon first hand through its cycle they might have reported otherwise. It is important to remember that all things magical or miraculous, are made of the same atoms and elements as the rest of the universe. Water can be turned miraculously to wine but first it has to flow through the Vine. There is nothing strange about that.

And so again without prelude of excessive forethought, Akedah fired the loaded arrow at the guffawing giant. This time when it hit its mark the moon poison dissipated into Aipaloovik’s blood stream.

--

In his youth, Aipaloovik the Terrible had grown fat munching on eskimos and picking his teeth with narwhal tusks. These days, he fancied himself a snowbird, relocating in his middle age to the sunny mediterranean. He would still visit his mother up north, and she would chat with him about what she wanted him to get her for her birthday, or nag at him for never being able to maintain a marriage. Sometimes she would put the two together, “Oh my little Snuggymumps!” She would announce as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Did you know my birthday is this spring? Maybe you keep your next wife without taking a bite out of her. Then maybe you could visit me with sweet little baby grandstinkies on my birthday.” Aipaloovik thought that maybe he would like to have some little stinkers to carry on the terrible heritage of the Aipaloovik namesake, but self-restraint is not something any child learns when they are catered to by doting mothers. This is especially true in the case of children who are the size of several elephant seals. So Aipaloovik’s well-meaning mother had spoiled her son and in the process spoiled any chance at hearing the thumpity-thwap of little grandstinky footsteps in her home. 

Aipaloovik was really intending to actually entertain the thought of perhaps not taking a bite out of this wife. He was going to try to save this one for his mother. Well, maybe only one small bite. It was just that whenever he tried to only take one small bite he always wound up eating the whole wife. He did not think this was any fault of his, it was just that it was a shame to let the rest of the wife go to waste with profuse blood loss. If they would just stop bleeding, he would not have to finish them off. 

All these thoughts evaporated from Aipaloovik’s conscious mind as the poison crashed it way into his brain like an explosion of light. He felt as if the full spectrum of the rainbow was glowing over his head and emanating all the way to his sacrum. Open mindedness nestled in like a deer tick. A thought of vengeance against the viking for robbing him of his entitlement entered his mind. He did not evaluate the thought as being good or bad but simply let it exist in his conscious alongside his inner self. Then a thought of hunger, and then a thought of his armpit itching traveled through his consciousness. Aipaloovik let each of these thoughts pass through his mind without latching on to them, and as he ceased to attach meaning to his thoughts, he slipped deeper and deeper into a trance-like state at the bottom of which he found an all encompassing empty ignorant bliss.

The viking and the princess were not aware of the details of Aipaloovik’s stroke of mindfulness. They only saw his jaundiced eyes roll back into slightly smiling skull as he slipped calmly below the rolling blue waves.

“Come on, jump into my boat!” Akedah was completely aware that the moon poison had a short half life and would soon clear itself from the giant’s bloodstream, even quicker given the amount of seawater he was most likely swallowing.

“I most certainly will not do any such thing,” Moiety retorted, disdainfully emphasizing each word. Besides the fact that this viking had spoiled her pity party, the haughty princess was suspicious of anyone military (or masculine) looking as being patriarchial. At the very least they were sure to insist on telling her what to do. She had always fancied the company of slight, unimposing men, attributing it to her artistic tastes. The real reason she liked feminine acting men was because she was so heavily ensconced in narcissism. She could not imagine being attracted to anything that looked very different from herself. And oh boy. This broad chested beaded abomination fit the bill of every toxic thing that Moiety did not like. He probably hunted deer too. Just for fun.

She crossed her arms and flopped herself violently down into a seated position in the bottom of her flowery craft. Moiety thought she came across as dignified and smartly decisive with her cool refusal. Akedah thought she looked like a funny little wet cat.

Whatever their initial impression, the necessary action was for the princess to climb into the vikings boat. Her soggy raft was now barely buoyant. Akedah imagined that it would not be a difficult thing to pick her up by her hair, but dismissed the idea as not practical in the long term. She was sure to be one of those women whose cooperative disposition was inversely related to proper hair arrangement. Proper introductions would prove to be more fruitful than a fistful of hair. 

“My name is Akedah,” the viking began

“Akedah!” Moiety snorted. “What kind of name is that for a viking? Are you some sort of half-breed?”

Akedah could not help but feel the humorous irony of being taunted by this little woman in a sinking ship. He remembered his father telling him that he should not fight anyone who was not bigger and or tougher than himself. “Only a coward would kick at a three-legged dog.” He did not think this was what his father had in mind. He laughed despite the insult.

Moiety did not take the viking’s mirth to mean anything except disrespect. 

She may have looked exactly like a wet cat but she was not quite as helpless as a kitten. She still had a few tricks up her sleeve, or more specifically; she had a large kite in her backpack. She hooked her feet into the chrysanthemum craft and unfurled a lightweight rainbow shaped sail. When the wind filled it it was so large a plow horse could have easily walked under its arch. “I cry out to you, Northwind, if ever you have mercy on maidens, to carry me away.”

For quite a few ridiculous moments nothing happened. Soggy Moiety glared angrily at her bemused rescuer. The smack-smack-smack of the rhythmic sea energy was the only noise that passed between their impasse. Then, in the sky, a cloud that started out as small as your fist, steadily mushroomed into a cumulonimbus, spreading it’s ominous shade over the waves rolling ever insistently through the depths. 

A bright wind rocketed along the surface cutting an obvious straight and narrow path through the darkened waters. As it passed Akedah’s longboat, he was sure that he had caught a

glimmer of a giant translucent woman whose impossibly long black hair glinted with bioluminescence in the stormy sky. The ghost was gone as quickly as it came. It exploded into the princess’ tiny kite spiraling her up in a skyward arc and gusted her out into the deepest blue waters where the tallest of the Lapland trees could stand one upon the other many times over without summeting the water's surface. 

“Women,” The viking grumbled his thunderous viking grumbles, and began pursuit. Akedah did not feel any love for this woman. But he did feel that the operation provided him with a sense of purpose he had not felt since the battles of his youth when he and his men had secured the farmland borders. Because their fierce reputation was renowned in the northland, his people had enjoyed an unprecedented peacetime in which education and religious art was just beginning to flourish. Akedah did not feel even slightly romantic to this rogue woman who seemed not to notice the world beyond her nose, but he did feel that he had a job to do and he certainly could not go home happy until his mission was complete. 

Akedah knew the Northwind was a tricky spirit to deal with. She was not an evil spirit, she was very specifically a good and righteous spirit. However, Goodness has a strong potential to manifest itself as destructive and violent. One could not depend on the Northwind to be safe, but you could depend on her to be doing the right thing. Northwind was always faithful to her mission. She did her job, whether she was called upon to free a stuck bumblebee from a closed tulip, or sink a gold laden Spanish galleon, she was always right on task.

Moiety, in the clutches of all that violent goodness, was terrified. The Northwind that she had expected to coddle her and set her down gently on a beautiful beach, was whipping her about the sky in a manner that Moiety had felt was most wicked and certainly undignified treatment of royalty. She expected a carpet ride on the zephyrs, but this was more like riding a waterfall. Moiety had lost control of her body and screamed to be released. She did not understand that to be safe with Northwind one must go with the Northwind and not just be in the Northwind. If she could have allowed Northwind what the Northwind willed she would have been quite at peace. Not comfortable, mind you, but at peace, which is never the same thing.

The Northwind would not purify the princess against her will, and so she allowed Moiety to struggle loose from her windy tendrils. Moiety plummeted like a ragdoll into the gaping ocean.

Akedah’s craft thumped down over the crests of the waves. He had followed faithfully with the Northwind’s receding vespers, and saw the princess’ falling form trailed by her flowing gown plummet unceremoniously into the water.  

Moiety almost felt repentant, as the viking maneuvered his longboat in for a second rescue. At this point he was effectually the last man on earth and she reached out for the threefold cord he extended to her. 

A dark ominous shadow passed between Moiety and the longboat. The viking blinked hard. “Hurry Princess,” he urged.

“Or else what, you’ll poke me with your sword?” she retorted. 

More shadows flitted in the blue waves. Moiety grabbed onto the cord and Akedah started pulling her in hand over hand. A fluke-shaped tail tossed a spray of water behind the princess who was completely unaware of any danger. 

Mermaids! The viking well knew the daughters of the Valkyrie and the Harpies “Give us the Beauty” they screeched. “Beauty! Beauty!” The empty disk of their black eyeholes glinted in round bloodlust. Their desperate infernal chant resonated into the wind and Akedah abhorred the day that their wish was granted. Their feminine features were gashed with a gaping mouth that stretched from ear to ear; a maw full of perfectly serrated tiny triangular teeth, 

The vikings knew of the peculiar dietary habits of mermaids, from their skirmishes in sharing the seas with these slippery foes. Mermaids are flesh feeders, but not just your typical, common man-ivores. When they feast on young women’s flesh they become beautiful for a short time. They use their beauty to lure foolish men down to the bottom where they roast them in the geothermically heated water that arises from the fissures between Earth's tectonic plates until they turn into giant tube worms.  

The mermaids knew that if they were to consume a princess, her flesh would make them amphibious; at the same time her youth would be locked up inside their rotten bones for all eternity. They would then be able to move among men with the appearance of real women. 

These mermaids would bear children with men and craft deceptive runes. The more mermaid blood intermingled with man’s blood, the more man would cease to be. In his place would arise a hyper-feminized race of men that would turn their backs on the craft of hunting, exploring, weapon-wielding, and other deeds of renown. Even men with no mermaid blood in their heritage would fall under the rune’s sway. Eventually human women would have to desert their children to mass childcare as they attempted to fill the void created by dwindling masculinity. 

One of the mermaids had a fist full of the princess’ hair. Her life energy was draining out into the mermaids face contorting it into a mockery of beauty. She sneered vanity. Moiety fought like any bruin deprived of her cubs, but the desperate mermaids knew the Fates would never deal such an opportunity again.

The Princess slipped under the blue veil. Akedah knew he would have to dive for her. He grabbed Idunn’s heavy orange bag and secured them to his belt for a sinking weight to speed his descent in time to reach the mermaids in their retreat.  

Thin rays of sunlight penetrated the pressing icy water like candle light on black stained glass. The viking sunk death-ward, and he feared she was lost. He did not know why he cared for surely her troubles were not his own. Deeper and deeper he sank, pulled by the gravity of his quest into the pulsing blackness. The viking touched the bag of oranges on his belt.

The peel seemed to dissolve under the pressure of the depth, revealing a luring luminosity of glinting gold. The light exploded into the black depth like a hellhound. They were not actually oranges, but Idunn’s golden apples covered in an orange peel that dissolved and floated away under the salty pressure. 

Then - there they were in all their splendorous wicked terror. The mermaids with the drowning princess, snapping at the apples with their graceful claws. Even the princess, her terror momentarily suspended in the light of Idunn’s apples, gaped and grabbed at the prize. The viking loosed the apples from the bag and they tumbled down through the thermoclines towards the inky bottom in all directions. The mermaids grappled with one another in their haste to reach the metallic fruit, even the Princess despite her condition, was willing to sacrifice life to gain the prize. Akedah -not entirely accidentally- punched her in the stomach to drag her back to the surface with him.

She collapsed sputtering with no air for tears in his longboat.

That’s why she wrapped them in a peel. Akedah thought to himself. Idunn knew that the apples turn to dust when they are given away by someone other than Idunn, herself. She was more clever than Loki gave her credit, the Viking mused. The mermaids were surely howling in rage at the loss of both princess and immortality apple in the same five minutes. Now what to do with this difficult...]]>5e58ed7f-ce7a-4526-a5e0-a26ba43caa5aThu, 12 Dec 2019 20:00:00 -050023:51nofull14In our first two podcasts we met the viking, Akedah, a basically honorable man with good intentions, yet without a quest. The Snow Queen had taken an interest in him. She wanted to add him to her collection of frozen man souls. When the viking prevailed, the gods of Asgard noticed him. They gave him a quest to find a compass on the island of Atlantis. We also met the Princess Moiety, a beautiful young lady whose attractiveness was only skin deep. She was in the process of allowing herself to be sacrificed to Ipaloovek, an ugly ocean giant, when Akedah rudely interrupted her grand plans. Akedah tried to kill the Giant with arrows that Thor had given him. The problem was that the arrows, which were wrought from the same type of silver as Thor’s hammer, boomeranged back into the quiver before doing any real damage to the intended target. In this episode the princess decides that she also would not like to be rescued by the North Wind and winds up falling in with the Misandrist Mermaids.Amanda Louise VanStratumThe Viking and the Princess Chapter Five“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” ― G.K. Chesterton _______________________________________________________________ The light music grew heavier. The viking thought he could smell bread baking, or maybe it was lamb meat roasting. Then he realized it was neither. The music had grown so real that he could smell it too. It smelled like a childhood memory. It smelled like home. If home was more of a home than home had been. Like the happiness of a deeply rooted family during a winter solstice festival, it smelled good. The viking plunged his hands through the water’s surface and pulled his body underneath.&nbsp; The glowworms moved in a cloud of current like floating lanterns under the water. Every light was unique and beautiful, a note in the Universal Sound. Their silk trailed behind them -echoing reverberations in the flow.&nbsp; &nbsp; Akedah floundered and gasped, but then found it easy to breathe in the water. It was as if he was not breathing on his own, but was a part of a breathing organism.&nbsp; &nbsp; “She is here at the womb of stars. She is the ancient red dragon poised to consume the child of the laboring woman clothed in the sun.” “Stars are songs, and lies are discordant interruptions in song reverberations.” “The princess is here. She has brought her heart with her.” “She has already swept a third of the stars from the sky.” Akedah could hear the soundless voices of the shining viscid children around him like thoughts bubbling up in his own mind. “Who is she? Who is the red dragon.” Akedah wondered to himself. In unison, the voices, rolled into his head, like rushing water.&nbsp; “The void.” “The nothing.” “The always winter and never Christmas.” “The waterless places.” “The outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The viking heard all this and comprehended in a moment’s breath. “She is the fire that is never satisfied with wood.” “The ground that is never satisfied with water.” “The eye that is never satisfied with seeing.” “The spirit who is never satisfied with being.” “The consumer.” “What does she consume?” “Love.” “Joy.” “Peace.” “Patience.” “Kindness.” The viking felt a tremor of horror in his spine despite his lack of understanding of the implications of this idea.&nbsp; The current was winding through an open kelp forest. Great green stipes rose to the surface like giant beanstalks, anchored and buoyant, while the sandy white bottom rolled ever on like a submerged desert. The children and the viking swirled round and round. Up and over the kelp passing seals, rockfish, and even a grey whale&nbsp;hiding from killer whales until they stopped by a round wooden door lying exposed in the drifting sand. Akedah grasped it by it’s heavy metal handle and hoisted it open. Akedah could see a stone stairway. It was lit with torches and spiraled steeply down into the earth. Akedah had to pull himself through the water’s surface tension into the tunnel with the same force that he used to enter the water. It was not difficult, just surprising.&nbsp;A cold thermocline blasted Akedah in the chest. Akedah was not at the top of a stairway. He was at the bottom of a stairway sitting on top of the water: the base of a deep well.&nbsp; _______ Moiety was lying without defense at the threshold of the enemy, and the enemy had exposed her. The Chameleon was crouched in detached cold blood at her feet, her belly dragged the ground. Her eyes moved. They darted and bounced in the dim like red dice on a green casino table.&nbsp;Her sides heaved, and like blacksmith bellows they blew heated air into the acrid night. “si-moom si-moom si-moom,” her dry inhalations and exhalations chanted, and with this sound a fecund hoard of biologically mechanized bloodless birds and lizards swarmed into the Chameleons clearing. They rattled and rasped advancing in rank. A life that is half a life is ever so... <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.”

― G.K. Chesterton

_______________________________________________________________

The light music grew heavier. The viking thought he could smell bread baking, or maybe it was lamb meat roasting. Then he realized it was neither. The music had grown so real that he could smell it too. It smelled like a childhood memory. It smelled like home. If home was more of a home than home had been. Like the happiness of a deeply rooted family during a winter solstice festival, it smelled good. The viking plunged his hands through the water’s surface and pulled his body underneath. 

The glowworms moved in a cloud of current like floating lanterns under the water. Every light was unique and beautiful, a note in the Universal Sound. Their silk trailed behind them -echoing reverberations in the flow. 

Akedah floundered and gasped, but then found it easy to breathe in the water. It was as if he was not breathing on his own, but was a part of a breathing organism. 

“She is here at the womb of stars. She is the ancient red dragon poised to consume the child of the laboring woman clothed in the sun.”

“Stars are songs, and lies are discordant interruptions in song reverberations.”

“The princess is here. She has brought her heart with her.”

“She has already swept a third of the stars from the sky.”

Akedah could hear the soundless voices of the shining viscid children around him like thoughts bubbling up in his own mind. “Who is she? Who is the red dragon.” Akedah wondered to himself. In unison, the voices, rolled into his head, like rushing water. 

“The void.”

“The nothing.”

“The always winter and never Christmas.”

“The waterless places.”

“The outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The viking heard all this and comprehended in a moment’s breath.

“She is the fire that is never satisfied with wood.”

“The ground that is never satisfied with water.”

“The eye that is never satisfied with seeing.”

“The spirit who is never satisfied with being.”

“The consumer.”

“What does she consume?”

“Love.”

“Joy.”

“Peace.”

“Patience.”

“Kindness.”

The viking felt a tremor of horror in his spine despite his lack of understanding of the implications of this idea. 

The current was winding through an open kelp forest. Great green stipes rose to the surface like giant beanstalks, anchored and buoyant, while the sandy white bottom rolled ever on like a submerged desert. The children and the viking swirled round and round. Up and over the kelp passing seals, rockfish, and even a grey whale hiding from killer whales until they stopped by a round wooden door lying exposed in the drifting sand. Akedah grasped it by it’s heavy metal handle and hoisted it open. Akedah could see a stone stairway. It was lit with torches and spiraled steeply down into the earth. Akedah had to pull himself through the water’s surface tension into the tunnel with the same force that he used to enter the water. It was not difficult, just surprising. A cold thermocline blasted Akedah in the chest. Akedah was not at the top of a stairway. He was at the bottom of a stairway sitting on top of the water: the base of a deep well. 

_______

Moiety was lying without defense at the threshold of the enemy, and the enemy had exposed her. The Chameleon was crouched in detached cold blood at her feet, her belly dragged the ground. Her eyes moved. They darted and bounced in the dim like red dice on a green casino table. Her sides heaved, and like blacksmith bellows they blew heated air into the acrid night. “si-moom si-moom si-moom,” her dry inhalations and exhalations chanted, and with this sound a fecund hoard of biologically mechanized bloodless birds and lizards swarmed into the Chameleons clearing. They rattled and rasped advancing in rank. A life that is half a life is ever so dead a life. They swarmed over the princess’ flesh and pulled her to the inside of the dead tree. The Chameleon’s outer layer of skin was growing whiter and lighter - a filmy transparency. She was growing.

_______

It seemed to Akedah that he had been climbing the stairs for hours. They were vaguely lit by an unseen source that seemed to be coming from somewhere above. At first, the steps had been close together, then they became further apart from each other so that he had to jump from step to step. The step were now so far apart that he was having to pull himself up onto each step with outstretched arms. He hoped he was nearing the top, the light was growing brighter as he climbed. 

.

Akedah had to leap to grab the next step and pull himself up on it's ledge without the aid of his feet touching something solid. The next step was almost too high to reach, even by jumping. He scrambled to reach it and thought he would have to turn back, but as he pulled himself up on this next level, the ground became a straight and level path. Akedah thought he must be near the surface now. The stone lined walls of the tunnels had gradually changed into a root system. These roots were not an organic tangled mass clinging to the earth with gripping fibers, but were knitted in an organized pattern. Now that the light was brighter the viking could make out intricate loops of root looped into other loops making an organized system of cables. Akedah thought that the tree itself, from which the roots had sprouted, must be a skilled weaver, for the entire length of the passageway was adorned in this intelligent design.

.

Here also, blinking thoughtfully, was the source of the light. The eye filled the height and width of the passageway. The one eye contained three dark round pupils each of the same size as it's sisters. It was lit from inside like a lamp giving it's three irises the reverential glow of stained glass. “You are in my path,” Akedah stated.

.

“Yes.” The eye agreed. “If your path is already clear, you are on someone else’s path.”

“How do I get past you?”

“By not being in the past.”

“I am, of course, living in the present.”

“Just because your body occupies a certain space in time does not mean that you are there.”

“I am, of course, where my feet are.”

“Are you?”

.

Akedah could see his own face reflected three times in the triune pupil. The first pupil reflected him as a child holding a blanket woven for him by the mother he never knew. His aunts were delighting in the labor of agreeing on the various facets of her peculiarities and failure to conform to their expectations, enjoying every unflattering agreement in their discussion like tasty morsels. Akedah could see that the lonely boy felt a heavy fire of sadness pressing down on him. 

.

The second pupil reflected his face as it was, streaked in dirt and determination. His eyes were tired and his beard was a bit grayer than he had thought it had been. 

.

The third pupil in the center of the other two showed his face covered in blood and wearing a crown.

.

“Who are you?” Akedah asked.

“We are Past, Present, and Promise.” The eye replied. “Together we are called Vision. You must go through me to get to your compass.” The eye was not menacing, but it was obviously dangerous. “Come closer, and drop your guard.” The eye commanded. The eye caused that which it commanded. Akedah dropped his guard and realized that he had always been perfectly loved, even when he had felt abandoned, even when he had relished killing his enemies. Every breath had been graciously supplied as a gift.

“Come closer,” Vision insisted.

Akedah was so close to the third pupil that he could see past the end of his nose. His bloody reflection met his gaze. Akedah could see the crown encircling his head was made of grape vine heavy laden with fruit. It had roots. The roots were buried in the blood draining from his scalp, obtaining their sustenance from his life blood.

“To obtain freedom you must being willing to release your slavery,” the pupil called present said. “What fool would hold onto slavery?” Akedah wondered

“Slavery offers many benefits to slaves,” Past replied, “not the least of which is that the slave has no responsibility for his actions. Anything you do but do not want to do has mastery over you.”

“What about duty?”

“What about duty?” asked Promise with omnivorous attentiveness to any challenge. Ask Past where lies the headwaters of the river of duty.”

“Past has a chronological snobbery,” said Present. “She loves old dusty books.”

“There is nothing that puts life into new ideas, quite like the wisdom of the past.” explained Past.

“Without the anchoring wisdom of the Past, the Ideas of the Present are at best like a wave at sea, tossed and blown by the wind,” said Promise “and at worst, if allowed to reach reproductive maturity, it will certainly give birth to death.”

Present chimed in, “Morality cannot be capriciously determined, because when goodness is striped away all that remains is desire, and desire is only measured by its intensity.”

Past agreed, “This is why the first order of business for any tyrant is to separate a generation from the wisdom of past generations. Whether it be by burning books or by drowning out truth with a flood of misinformation, the end result is the same: the child is isolated from the values of the great grandparents and the wisdom of the ages is restricted. The wisdom of the present is only the wisdom of a brief desire as it corresponds to immediate gratification.” 

“She who holds the access to wisdom, has the power to mold the generation,” promised Promise.

Past’s pupil shone, “It is well when the wisdom of the day is grown out organically from the naturally selected surviving wisdom of the ages. 

“For when lies transgress the land, the remnant of humanity may escape, but only as if by fire,” said Present, “Only the light that is inside of you, has the power to push back the darkness that surrounds you.”

“And so I ask you, Akedah,” concluded Promise ‘What about duty?’ You desire to do your duty and well you should having been charged by the gods, for what God demands He provides the joy to do so, but mark well when you desire to do evil for the gods will not go with you. They are not such slaves as to descend to earth to help your scratch your crevices. ”

The light inside of Vision was nearly blinding. Akedah could see nothing else. Vision was expanding. She expanded to surround the viking, and as he was inside of her, he heard her three voices say, “I am the ability to understand what a concept means when it is carried out to its logical conclusion. I send my spirit ahead of me to accomplish what I desire. I am the speed at which light becomes time.” 

When Akedah came out of the other side of Vision, the tunnel was unchanged. It was still dark and lined with woven roots, but Akedah could see it on his own now. The eye itself was gone, but Akedah now understood that Vision is like the sun, it is a light, but more completely, it is also the light by which all things are seen. He knew what the ancient proverb meant in saying, “Without a vision, the people perish.” It means that Vision is the light in the eye that is the lamp of the body, that light - without which - the whole body becomes dark.” 

As Akedah traveled on, the nauseating smell of skin slough, began to plier its way into his nose again. The rotten ecdysis had soaked itself into the tunnel walls. The walls were no longer a knitted network of root loops. They had morphed into rough lined dry wood. Akedah was inside a tree. “This part of the tree must be dead,” he thought and pushed on with the light of vision. A sinister red light smouldered ahead. Akedah was getting close but to what he did not know. 

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“When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin

___________________________

“No! You can’t tell me what to do,” Moiety fussed. “And if you would have just listened to me, and taken me home, instead of messing around with those mermaids, my father would of had your boat fixed already.”

“Your mother was trying to ‘marry’ you to an ocean troll! You can’t be serious.” 

“Well, I am serious. I am going to go find someone to help us.”

“Haha,” the viking laughed, “the gods go with you,” and he compartmentalized his thoughts back to boat repairs, as the Princess Moiety paraded off into the jungle. 

Time dragged. Moiety felt that she must have been plodding along for hours. The interior of the island was a dark tangled jungle. The ground was soft with gripping sucking black mud, and the princess, who was quite up to her knees in the sticky stuff, had a mind to go back and tell the viking what she thought about his lack of initiative in assisting her in her escapade. So far Moiety’s mind had been bouncing up and down on a carousel of similar thoughts. She had not noticed the thick silence asphyxiating the jungle air. Moiety turned abruptly. It occurred to her that she might not know the way back to the beach, and her stomach jerked in protest as she suddenly became aware of the sucking silence permeating the foliage. “Hello!” she called out. Her voice sounded alone.

Moiety turned again. The jungle could not be completely devoid of life. It was a jungle. This time scanning her environment she noticed a lizard, who, as soon as she saw it, lost its grip on the tree and plopped like overripe fruit onto the path. It laid on its side, twitching. Moiety then fully opened her eyes to her surroundings, and saw that she was surrounded by birds and lizards - each one as silent and cold as silverware - each one watching her with unblinking, unseeing orange eyes. Moiety tried to remain proud. “I’m ok, I think the beach is back this way,” she told herself.

Moiety was doing fairly well at remaining calm, and was making some progress out of the jungle, until she saw the monkey. The monkey was only about a meter in length, and was hanging passively upside down on a grape vine. When the monkey saw that Moiety had finally noticed her, she widened her eyes, and smiled a grotesque counterfeit smile, flashing a mechanical maw full of thousands of thin medical needles. She calmly advanced on Moiety’s position. Terror detonated in the princess’ mind. 

Moiety backed up and fled towards what, she did not know. Nighttime fully gripped the island and Moiety’s resolve to be brave. Moiety was in full panic, but still vaguely aware that if the monkey had wanted to catch her, it would have done so by now. She continued to push through the muddy brambles, spiraling ever deeper into the bowels of the jungle. 

Suddenly, as if it had been spontaneously created, a bright clearing appeared ahead through the tangled vines. It glowed red with an acrid phosphorescent light, and Moiety was drawn in to it like a shrimp to an angler fish.  

The clearing was larger than it had originally appeared, it's red light seemed to billow out past where Moiety assumed the ocean should have been. The ground was dry and covered with wispy grasses. A skeletal tree protruded from dead center in the parched ground, its brittle branches scratched the stark sky. The thing that captivated the senses was a dinosaur sized chameleon lazily poised amongst the limbs.  

The great lizard was pinching the tree with rounded claws, and the princess felt sure that the tree should be collapsing under her scaly weight. Its face was stunningly large and Moiety was nauseated at the thought that her whole body could fit inside that cavernous dragon mouth with room to move. 

The chameleon opened and closed her mouth thoughtfully, revealing a muscular lump of tongue between her expressionless jaws, “I have been waiting so long for you” her musical voice resonated in the back of the princess’ skull. The ugly chameleon’s stunning voice made up for what she lacked in beauty and the princess was captivated by its tone. How could something be bad when it sounded so good? 

“Maybe I, maybe there is no danger here,” Moiety vacillated in her mind. “How did you know I was coming?”

“I know all things wise; and you princess shall be a queen of great wisdom.”

No one had ever complimented the princess on her wisdom, and Moiety was intrigued “Great Wisdom,” She murmured and enjoyed its music.

The chameleon’s eyes moved quite independently of its head and of each other. She tossed her glance towards Moiety while the other eye pierced the forest then up to the sky and then back to Moiety again in rapid succession. Twitch. Twitch, twitch.

“Of course, you are already very, very wise,” the chameleon sang.

Moiety did not feel wise at all. She felt sleepy and warm, in spite of her pounding heart. “What do you want with me?” Moiety was suspicious with an awkward sense of growing comfort.  

“I only want to give you eternal life. I am a brilliant light and a wellspring of generosity. The more I give myself away the brighter I become.” The chameleon’s music was starting to sound more like a gonging, clanging cymbal in Moiety’s head. Something was telling her to resist but the nauseating sleeping feeling was growing stronger.

“What do you want from me?” She asked again now thoroughly alarmed .

“I will take your old heart of flesh, and I will put in its place a new heart. A mechanical heart. A heart that will never die. Your flesh may fail but your heart will continue to click throughout the ages into time immortal.”

“Don’t you mean beat?” Moiety murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.

“No. I mean click. Beating is weak. Blood is weak. I will animate you and give your body a power causing your body to soar past the grave,” the chameleon raised a pincher hand to reveal the heart. It was a shiny black whirring tangle of tiny gears, clicking valves, and spinning springs. The heart was entirely fashioned from loadstone. If someone had brought her the heart while she was at home in Atlantis, Moiety would have loved it. It would have held her attention for at least a solid hour, before she lost it in the piles of other presents and bribes she had received over the years. However, tonight Moiety did not respond to the gesture. She was sound asleep with the monkey biting her heel and pumping her body completely full of anesthetizing venom.

Akedah had finished making repairs to his longboat hours ago. Being on the beach with the rolling waves, he also had missed the clue of the island’s queer silence. Now as he paced on the sand he knew that too much time had elapsed for the princess to return out of boredom from her march. Some other sort of problem must have waylaid her. Akedah imagined that her dress might have become stuck in a bramble and that she did not want to cut it. However, when the Viking penetrated the jungle veil he realized that something much more vile than oily mud and brambles was infused in this forest. The silence carried itself on a pungent stench that Akedah at once recognized as ecdysis, the slough of shed reptile skin. The island was either full of reptiles or home to a giant reptile. Akedah did not want to consider the possibility of both. The thickness of the night poured in around his heart. 

Despite the princess’ obvious lack of charm, the viking felt deeply responsible for her safety. At least, that’s what he told himself. He did not want to entertain the thought that he might actually like the objectionable little female. He did not want to admit that he cared what she thought, and he certainly did not want any of these ridiculous feelings getting in the way of performing the job that he had to do. 

As the night grew darker, the stars seemed to grow brighter and closer, sparkling with an eerie blue light. He stopped to attempt to understand his cardinal directions and was irritated to realize that the stars on this island were not the same as the stars in the real world. There was no Great Bear, no Hunter, no Rabbit, no Dog, no Cassiopeia only a hodgepodge of completely unfamiliar constellations of…. “Wait, by Asgard, is that star dripping strings?” Akedah balked. It was true. All the “stars” were dripping thin luminescent strings. The stars were not stars at all, at least not the kind that lives in outer space.

As Akedah sat in wonderment, a segmented glowworm the size of a 5 year old child lowered herself down to his eye level on a gossamer slime string. She blinked bulbous eyes and giggled. 

“Boo!” she shouted in delight.

Akedah was a comical sight jumping in surprise in all his leather armor with his raised bow in hand. The glow worm was a larvae - of course it was a child. “You can call me Lucy, or Luciferin for long.” the wiggling glowworm announced with another half stifled giggle.

“Don’t you mean, you can call me Lucy for short?” Akedah asked.

“No. Why are you in such a hurry? Love is patient. Call me Luciferin for long.”

A patient child, the island seemed to yield no end of ironies. The viking, ever at a loss as to how to relate to children, resorted to his favorite question to ask small people, “Where are your parents?”

“I do not remember well. I am only ten thousand years old.” The glow worm’s lavender eyes shone. “I believe I remember something of my mother. She was there before the mountains were settled into place. She was the compass He used when He drew a circle on the face of the deep. We brothers and sisters are stardust: The eternal children. We wrap the newborn stars in silk casing to protect their songs as they are being born. This island is the womb of the constellations. We have lived in the caves beneath the island for millenia, but we had to move out to live in the trees when the Monster came.”

“What Monster?” The viking asked recalling the stench of ecdysis.

“The Monster is forged from false breath. She is man’s empty praise. She is the Word, twisted into lies, made into flesh, and dwelling among us.”

“Where did she come from?”

“The power of her life breath comes from the vacuum, the negative energy that is introduced when lies are planted, and watered with belief.”

“If she is such a powerful evil, why is she not ensconced in the ghettos of cities? Why would she be operating out of a beautiful island in the middle of the blue ocean.”

“Much evil can be found in beauty, because it desires beauty, but is not creative. It cannot create its own beauty, and therefore seeks to conquer and consume it. Evil deconstructs beauty. Evil is a fowler delighting to rip the head off the bird, or joyously breaking the neck of the deer. It is the pimp exposing the child. It is an invading army burning the grain fields. Evil desires beauty, but it adds nothing to it.” 

“Evil is chaos, then?” Akedah -like most adults- was quite out of his league in debating philosophy with a child.

“Not entirely. It also comes in the guise of order. It is as complex as imposing law where freedom is sufficient, or as simple as working when you should be playing.”

“So you are saying evil is an imbalance of chaos and order. Does evil it owes its existence to chaos and order?”

“Partially, evil is the energetic emptiness that hijacks what is good and makes it meaningless.” And with that she looked him up and down and said, “Maybe you know too much for a mortal now. Wasn’t it the wisest of your kind who said, ‘In much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge, increases sorrow.’” more luminescent string poured from her pores and she continued, “Yes. It will only expand its kingdom at the expense of what it has already conquered. Truth and goodness have their own life energy rooted in the fabric of the universe. They fall for a time and then they grow again, and evil will always be found grasping at the heel of goodness because it cannot exist on it's own.”

“If both chaos and order crumble because they are unsustainable, what keeps them so strong?”

“Lies are only sustainable insofar as people are willing to lie to sustain a lie, and lies will be latched onto the jugular vein of truth because it cannot exist of its own volition. This is why a truth that is half a truth is the most deadly lie.” 

“What is truth?” asked Akedah in such a way that it was clearly understood that he did not really think there was a good answer for such a fundamental question.

The kind glowworm humored him, understanding that grownups tend to be brittle when it comes to understanding basics. “Truth is not an accident. It takes practice to hit a mark with an arrow. Truth is accuracy.” The thick glowing mucus puddling at Luciferin’s feet began to pulsate with light so that the viking could almost make out a rhythm in its cadence “Considerable effort goes into what is called ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’ and a sharp mind like a double edged sword is necessary to flesh out the lies that hinder and so easily entangle.”

For one brief moment in time the universe granted grace to the viking, breathing its vis vitae into his senses. He realized that there was no difference between the light that causes us to see and the physical presence of the thing seen. He could hear the light and the sound of colorful music that causes things to be created. It was as if his eyes and ears became one organ and he could hear the song that was in the light, and see the light that is in the song. He realized for just one breath that stars were not just combustion gases, and how deep the truth of the childish story about wishing on a stars when starlight is the byproduct of demiurgent creative energy. He felt at the same time the depth of his own dischord and the scope at which he had the terrible responsibility of transcending that depravity. 

“Mortals are not omnipresent but they are present. Mortals are not omniscient, but they are sentient. Mortals are not gods, but they have the breath of God….” Luciferin continued to drone on about something inscrutable, but Akedah was starting to understand on his own as he listened to the sound the light made. 

This is what he heard:

Love is patient, Love is kind

Takes its tempered time

To slowly quietly unwind

All the things we cannot hold

To break them from our ridgid mold

Love knows no envy

Yet still flows with plenty

But to the pride...]]>bd21012a-dbfa-453d-a4c3-66bc6ff9fc3eFri, 06 Dec 2019 07:00:00 -050024:24nofull15In our first three chapters Akedah the viking was given a quest by the gods of Asgard to find a certain compass after defeating the evil Snow Queen who had wanted to add him to her collection of frozen man-souls. The gods gave him three magical gifts to aid him on his journey. Thor gave him silver arrows, Idunn gave him a bag of oranges, and Odin gave him a scroll of poetry. The viking was supposed to be able to get the compass from an Atlantean princess. However, when Akedah found her drifting out to sea as a human sacrifice, she was not exactly amenable to being rescued. He used his silver arrows from Thor to defeat a fat foolish giant, and the oranges -which turned out to be golden apples- to defeat some misandrist mermaids. The viking was ready to turn back for the north, but he first had to stop at a mysterious island to make repairs to his boat. In this episode Princess Moiety gets lost on the island and discovers an ancient terrible evil hiding in the jungle. The viking sets off to find her, and receives help from an unlikely source.Amanda Louise VanStratumTrailerWelcome to the Sunshine Satellite Story Podcast. The Podcast that brings you a FREE new modern mythology mashup story every Thursday morning at 7:00am. I am your host Amanda Louise VanStratum the registered nurse turned full time story teller and founder of www.sunshinesatellite.com a free online story and poetry base for a growing tribe of people who want to live for something braver and fiercer than material prosperity. Every week you will be inspired by a hero who lives beyond what is merely visible and reaches for what they were meant to attain. This short form show typically runs 10-15 minutes. If you would like to support this free show, please subscribe and leave a review. Also, please visit the website SunshineSatellite.com. I look forward to hearing from you! <a rel="payment" href="https://paypal.me/SunshineSatellite?locale.x=en_US">Support this podcast</a>Welcome to the Sunshine Satellite Story Podcast. The Podcast that brings you a FREE new modern mythology mashup story every Thursday morning at 7:00am.

I am your host Amanda Louise VanStratum the registered nurse turned full time story teller and founder of www.sunshinesatellite.com a free online story and poetry base for a growing tribe of people who want to live for something braver and fiercer than material prosperity.

Every week you will be inspired by a hero who lives beyond what is merely visible and reaches for what they were meant to attain.

This short form show typically runs 10-15 minutes.

If you would like to support this free show, please subscribe and leave a review. Also, please visit the website SunshineSatellite.com.

I look forward to hearing from you!