Water is the laughter of sun and air
That was laughed into existence
When the roots of the forest
Tickled the rocks

Hope and fear go hand in hand. One seldom exists without the other. To hope, one must acknowledge failure as a possibility. Otherwise it would be knowing, not hope. This time, the stakes are too high to tolerate the possibility of failure. With hope, the fear is palpable, slamming me in the face. Yet, I must walk through it to the place of knowing.

This I do know:

I take responsibility for the mess.
I take responsibility for the mess.
I take responsibility for the mess.

There is no savior who will save me. There is no boat that will carry me away. The people in power now are you and me. Although we may be speakers and poets, scientists and lawyers, economists, and clowns, we are not oily sharks with teeth, skilled at doing battle with same. Yet, we are all we have.

Whatever other worlds may exist, wherever else we may have lived, whoever may occasionally visit us from Elsewhere, for now there is only this world and all the life upon it. These are the days I have, and these are the tools I am given to work with. So work I must.

I am terrified and exhilarated.

Wings transparent, timelessness in flight
bear me upward, toward the face of night
As shadows fall, the universe unveils
a starry sea afloat with silver sails

Where will we live when the wood is gone?
Where will our hearts reside?
Nothing to hang our hats upon,
No river to sit beside.

Between the dwellings were many trees
Between the trees, were creatures living
But now they're gone,
Yet the land goes on
Broken breath, no more life giving

People sicken, some may die
And somehow never fathom why
a heart displaced
from a land defaced
May find it difficult to fly...

If I listen carefully, I can hear the water laughing. After a hard rainfall I will sometimes go to the front yard just across a narrow street from a little creek -- it makes a happy, lively sound like many voices, and in the background of that, sometimes there is laughter. I often wonder what this stream was like before the city was built around it:

A stream flows gently near my door
I sometimes hear its water laughing
Flowing over rock and root
to water summer's greenwood leafing
Who walked this earth before my kind?
I asked the stream, awake, yet dreaming...
Many creatures young and old
The stars, the fish, the sunlight beaming
And those who walked upon two legs
yet never fouled my sparkling waters
They knew, you see, I was their life
to me belonged their sons and daughters...

I'm using the term, "The Starlit Ones" to refer specifically to Elves and Sidhe who have come here to live among humans as mortals in this world. I did not use the term "Otherkin" because it is too all inclusive and would take weeks to write. "Starlit Ones" narrows the subject down to Elves or Sidhe, but distinguishes these beings from the ones who live beyond the veil. To further narrow it down, the Starlit Ones refer to a particular type of Elf or Sidhe who is of the Earth, yet also of the Stars, and is aware in both the terrestrial and celestial realms. "Stars" also refers to the stars within the earth - the power within the land, which is visible to those who are able to perceive beneath the surface of the world's manifestations to their true form and core existence.

My belief is that the Starlit Ones can be made so by several pathways. One is the pathway of blood. It has been said that the Elves and the Fae beyond the veil have come to this realm at times and have interbred with humans. Those descended from their offspring may possess certain abilities and affinities that are not found elsewhere, such as the ability to See beyond the physical. It was said in times past that in order for a monarch to become King, a queen of the faerie lineage would first have to make him so by sacred rites of communion.

Even farther back than this, seekers were able to partake of the "Trees of Life" at the Groves of Eloah/Asherah (and the equivalent in other areas of the world). I believe this goddess (and other "deities" of the world) may have been representatives of the Sidhe seen through the filters of the time, and that they had the ability to extend lifespans by giving mortals the 'fruit of the trees of life' to eat. There are many theories as to what this fruit was, but given the designation of the priestesses as 'harlots,' my feeling is that it was Asherah herself or a representative who was related by blood. I suspect that certain types of tantric practices with a Sidhe from beyond the veil would extend the lifespan of the seeker, explaining the fantastically long lifespans recorded in some accounts.

In later times this practice was abolished and its practitioners killed. Without the renewal of the Trees of Life (the Sidhe and the Singing Groves), the lifespans of the descendants of the Sidhe (the Starlit Ones) dwindled and became comparable to other mortals.

The second way in which a Starlit One may come to be in this realm is by reincarnation. If by some means an Elf beyond the veil (on this world or another) meets with an unfortunate ending (such as what happened to certain of my friends), they may reincarnate here. I have never been able to understand, though, why such a being would not simply reincarnate in his/her own world. There must be some other reason involved. There is the possibility that an Elf or Sidhe beyond the veil would actually *choose* to reincarnate here. Given their nature, this seems much more likely to me. However, what puzzles me is, why? This question leads to the third way in which a Starlit one can come into being (in my opinion).

I believe that a Starlit One may come into being by Contact. Contact with other Starlit Ones in this realm or with the Elves and Sidhe beyond the veil may increase one's affinities to the point where there will occur an 'awakening' of sorts. If there is any fae in there whatsoever (no matter how little), it will 'wake up' and will begin to influence the individual in a way that the person's affinities may start to shift toward a greater perception of the whole and its underlying connectedness. That person will, in turn, shift other people, and so forth. This may be one of the reasons the reincarnated ones chose to come here: to affect others in this way. The more people are affected like this, the greater the chance that the critical mass necessary for a massive reality shift will be available. This is not about revolution or taking up arms. it is about affecting something or someone in just the right manner to ... Shift them. And if that Shift occurs in just the right way, then reality may begin to follow it...

One of the greater affinities possessed by the Starlit Ones that I've met is a deep love of wild, untouched nature, both on earth and in deep space. This translates to a lot of pain when confronted with destruction on a mass scale. This sensitivity to the Wild is at the core of the abilities that many Starlit Ones have -- even if they seldom walk in the woods. Even the most urban of them sometimes claims a tiny patch of weeds somewhere in a forgotten corner of a parking lot. The abilities of the Starlit Ones are focused on restoring the harmonies that exist in this world. Yet, there is more to it than that.

The Starlit Ones are often involved in activities like gardening, permaculture, library science, education, caregiving, computing, etc. Many of these pursuits have to do with creating networks and connections -- between people and people, people and nature, people and information, people and the substance that supports them, etc. All of these, in turn, underly an overarching effort to reunite the realms -- this realm and the realms beyond the veil. Perhaps "Reunite" is the wrong word - they were never separate. It's more of an effort to "Harmonize" the two realms, so that we can access all realms with ease and will not harm them. Thus, those from other realms can once again co-exist with us and we with them.

All of this is of course my conjecture only. Whatever the reason is that the Starlit Ones have come, I hope they are able to fulfill it, and if they leave, I hope they don't leave me behind...

When listening to nature rather than interpreting it, one may begin to catch the notes of a Song. It is an all-encompassing song, and it is interwoven of many individual sounds -- There are the sighs of winds in the branches of trees, the birds trilling for a mate, dogs barking or people talking in the distance, and even the sounds of motors. The rivers of ancient sunlight that are the concrete road systems crisscrossing the land, as well as the metal beasts that roll upon them, their not-quite-living exoskeletons allowing the lifeforms within to better match the insects, add to the hum, which encompasses everything and leaves nothing out. The Song ebbs and flows, and is reminiscent of the sound made by the ocean as it sings together with all the creatures within it. After a time, it will begin to sound like breathing -- the breath of the world.

Refocusing now upon the Small, the minute details of the ground come into view. The dirt is never solid and even -- it is porous and irregular -- chaotic. The dirt is pockmarked with holes where all manner of tiny creatures live and make their homes. Leaves, tree seeds, mushrooms, and flowers adorn the dirt, spreading their life along the tiny ridges, and sprouting in a wild array of life. The life breathes... The breath of the large and the small puts water and oxygen into the air refreshes it.

The land itself breathes and sings, but the green things on the land help it to breathe better, and perfect the exchange between the ground and the air. The green dances together with the tiny creatures and the mycelia at their roots... These allow them to absorb food they couldn't possibly otherwise use. They breathe out the water, which comes back to them as rain, which waters them and waters the streams that support them. The rain goes into the ground. and the green things grow...

Thus, the land breathes in and out... If we assist the land to breathe and sing, it is good.

I realize that the people who used to be the sole inhabitants of this continent were not perfect. However, I think they recognized the cycles of the breathing land better than our own people do.

There is an area of the United States called "The Breathing Land". At least it was called by this name several hundred years ago. Now it's called Rockcastle County, Kentucky, but underneath the veneer of 'civilization', the land still lives and breathes...

The natives of this land gave names to places and natural landmarks that described their prominent and beautiful features. For example, "Allegheny" meant "tall mountains," "Appalachia" meant "the land of tall trees," and "Ohio" meant "beautiful river" in the languages native to those areas. The tribes of Applachia gave the name Kain-took-ee (The Breathing Land) to a certain area of the Appalachian mountains where there were many caves with the unique quality that they would ... breathe.

From http://www.rkci.org/library/gsp/rvb/1967_05.htm (edited for English and comprehension):

South of the Ohio River on the western slopes of Appalachia was an area of land that was considered to be common hunting ground by the nearby tribes. The tribes referred to this territory as "The Breathing Land". In one language native to the area, this area was called Kain-took-ee. The air moves in and out of these caves in such a way that the earth seems to breathe.

This air movement occurs when a cave has two or more entrances at various elevations. The temperature within the caves varies from forty-four to fifty degrees Fahrenheit, while the outside air temperature varies from one hundred above to twenty below zero.

The minimum outer temperature (-20F) causes the air inside the cave near the upper entrance to cool and move downward from the higher entrance to the lower one at approximately six miles per hour. The maximum outer temperature (100F) reverses this air movement. As the air inside the cave warms, it moves from the lower entrance to the higher one. When the outside temperature equals the mean temperature inside the cave, the breathing stops. The air movement is related to gravity, air volume, and temperature, and the height of one entrance relative to another. Colder, contracting air moves downward with gravity, and hotter, expanding air moves upward against gravity.

The moving air is laden with nitrates, which are deposited over a long period of time on the floor of the cave and along the "arms" of the cave. High concentrations of nitrates are found in most of these caves. Caves that have only one entrance have low levels, as do very wet caves (from which the nitrates are leached out).

The breathing land... How much more beautiful that name is than "Blow-holes" (which is the name the settlers gave the same caves). I truly think that our people need to become a bit more poetic... And to do that they must begin to listen to the breathing land.

The following is a poem from From http://www.thylazine.org/archives/thyla9/thyla9b.html by someone who was very distressed by what he calls "Disappearing Landscapes". Whereas the Native Americans were distressed by the abuse of areas like "The Breathing Land", this person is equally distressed by the loss of his ancestral farmlands.

"Exploring

Not the mountain ranges
or the ridges the explorers followed
in the major scales of things.
But the humbler folds and creases,
the unnoticed rises and falls.

I'm talking of the rise and fall of the breathing land,
the sub-soil, small faults,
the subtle falls across the lawn,
this is where the pine tree grew,
the line of sight to the sea.

You could be the first person to dig here,
this dark soil may never have been uncovered,
mounds raised for dams and diggings survive,
new trees grow, a shape is unearthed,
suddenly you know something
you didn't before,
in the minor range perhaps
moody, almost nostalgic,
but still can't explain."

The best some of us can do is to resurrect the breathing land where we live - to allow our surroundings to breathe as much as possible, to sing and flow as much as it can under the circumstances.

Kathleen Mcdonagh Stardancing

Dancing in the shadows of the land,
The land of the shadows of the moon
Where the sky is the earth
and the land of the man is far below
I sing the path of the worlds
as a prance and a spin and dance
As I follow the myriads of chance
to the one that sings the weaves to life
I see her in the light of the moonlight sight
A picture of the web of life
a singing call is in my soul
A wandering living breath
I see the silvery skeined helath
I sing to her:

Blessings to the way of the Path
to sing the life we lead
To tread the dance we weave
To bless the barith
We shall walk, sing, dance, and seal
singing of all joys we savor
Give the live of the dancer
And sing of the joy of life
Sing of the song of the waves of lineat

===The Path, by Rialian

At first glance, rocks seem to be nothing more than chunks of planetary matter whose molecules have crystallized into rigid structures. They also seem to be relatively permanent, inanimate features on the landscape. Having observed the rocks in my yard for over ten years, though, I've noticed that they're by no means permanent. After several months, they dig little pockets for themselves themselves to rest in, and each year they slowly sink deeper into the pockets until they entirely disappear from view.

I've also observed a tendency of rocks to drift to new positions in the yard, especially after a severe storm.

Both the sinking and the drifting occur with the help of water, wind, and plant life. The water softens the earth, allowing the rocks to sink under their own weight. The wind buffets the rocks, perhaps moving them a few feet, especially if there is a heavy rain creating rivulets of water to further propel them. Vines grow up around the rocks, pulling them toward the earth.

It's probable that much of this activity is the result of random interactions between elements. However, sometimes the interactions between water, wind, plant life, and rocks seem to be a dance, inspired by the nature of the participants.

Rocks are among the oldest structures on earth, and are composed of hard elements and compounds, including silicon. Silicon is an excellent recorder and storer of information. Many rocks have been in existence for billions of years, and if they are able to record as well as I think they are, they will have stored a vast amount of information during that time. I believe that given enough time and enough information, anything can achieve sentience.

Rocks do not all have the same feel. To me, some feel "sentient" (not in the sense we understand sentience) and some do not. The ones with the sentient feel may be quite plain on the outside, or they may have intricately irregular surfaces that are twisted into interesting shapes.

Occasionally, I encounter rocks that appear to have faces, most of which feel quite sentient. Usually, a rock will have more than one face -- they've had enough time to develop many personalities, after all. The image below is a rock on the surface of Mars, which has remained undisturbed long enough to develop a rather interesting personality...



Whether these faces reflect the internal personality of the rock by some intentional dance between the rock and other elements, or if they are just the chance result of eons of erosion, is hard to say. Whatever the answer may be, I've kept a few of them with me for many years. One in particular (a little pinkish-white rock), has multiple faces. On one side, it's angry/scary but winking at the same time. On one side, it's sad. And in profile, it's laughing. I call it my laughing rock.

To the left is a picture of a bigger rock with many faces (not someone I know)... These rocks seem rather curmudgeonly, but then, what would one expect from someone over a billion years old.

The faces probably do not reflect any emotion I am familiar with, though, because a rock is not a warm-blooded, mobile, mortal creature with mammalian emotions. It is just a very, very old aggregate. On the other hand, they're born of the same earth that we are, so maybe there's more of a similarity than I'd initially suspect. Many of the rocks with faces come from the banks of the tiny creeks running through Maryland's wild places. Perhaps the water and the rock danced together to reflect the endless cycles of light, dark, and water that the rock "saw" for billions of years. Whenever I am in a wild place, I am the most fascinated by the deposits of rocks by the creek beds, where the rocks with faces like to dance with the water...

Some people believe that these are "Spirit Stones" (that nature spirits inhabit them). Maybe... But I think it's the intelligence of the rock itself, which is the intelligence of the earth. After thousands of years of information gathering, a rock may sink back to the earth's crust and return to the larger aggregate.

But before it does that, it may smile, frown, wink, or laugh in the direction of those who chance to see it...

I tried to find a picture of this interest, but it has thus far eluded me. Nobody seems to wish to take a picture of bare, brown, dry ground upon which some of the pebbles are tiny crystals, glinting in the sunlight. The crystal shown at the left is spectacular, but is not at all what I'm thinking of. I only included it because it showed a crystal, and I'm sure it would glint if it was on the ground in the sun instead of in a crystal cave. However, it is way bigger than the tiny pebble I'm envisioning.

I was socially awkward in school around people, but rocks had a way of putting me entirely at ease ;). In any case, I've liked rocks from a young age. When I was a child in Greece, while all the other kids were playing during recess, I would go off to one side of the lot and begin searching the ground. Every so often, I would spot something flashing in the sunlight, and could be seen picking something up.

The terrain in Greece is very rocky and has a lot of quartz crystal, some of it clear. The telltale flash in the sun would indicate that I'd found one of the little clear pebbles, which I would then collect. I never kept any of them. The object of the game was to see how many I could find and then I'd put them all back. I found this to be much more fun than ball or jumprope or other conventional competitive sports that involved interacting with people. None of the teachers objected at all to my eccentricity. I don't believe they even noticed.

When I played this "Game", I wasn't even competing with myself, really. I wouldn't record the score, or try to beat it later. Yesterday's handful may have been more or less than today's - it didn't matter. I'd admire them and show them to others who would admire them, and sometimes they'd show the ones they found to me. It wasn't a pastime that took all our time -- but it was there.

There was something about the quality of the sunlight in that part of the world -- it seemed brighter and more golden, and the sky often seemed to be a deeper blue than the sky we see here. The little bits of crystal would flash in the sunlight, and their tiny flashes could be seen easily from across the street. It's one of the things I miss about living in a drier, more rocky part of the world. Although the ground was brown and dry, if you looked a little more closely, the browns of the dust and rocks would resolve into a multitude of colors. Each pebble on the ground was a slightly different shade of dusty green or brown or brick or even bluish. The best kind, though were the clear ones -- those were the prize.

Now that I don't live in the rocky places any more, I make up for it by going on walks in the woods and picking up pretty crystalline rocks I find. There are usually many of them by the creekbeds, and sometimes little beaches form consisting of tiny pebbles. I never find clear ones, though... For that reason, I also buy rocks at the store, which somehow seems a little odd, in the same way that buying water seems odd. Perhaps there still exist places on earth where crystals are everywhere on the dry, dusty ground, and the rocks and the water are free...

Edit: This is humorous. I'm editing this from the perspective of May 2009. When I wrote this, I did not live in the rocky places anymore. Now I do. And guess what.... There are crystals here. I can dig in the garden and find a crystal! It is fantastic. I see glinting on the ground once again.