Poemander

There stood a tree by the river bend. It's mighty sprawling branches provided dwelling to a host of birds that would noisily usher the sunrise, this sign of continuity born anew each morning. Children would gather in its shade and climb the labyrinths of a new life absorbed from the ground and given freely in the shape of abundant foliage and airborne seeds. There are many more stories preserved in every inch of its furrowed bark. Some are love stories, cut into it and sealed with the time-defying kisses of aspiring lovers. Some are the barefoot stories of joy, yet some are the grief stories of irreversible loss dug deep beneath the layers of fertile soil and tightly embraced within the expanse of tree's meandering roots. This could be it, especially to those of you who have excelled navigating the veering currents of life, but to us, none of these stories provide enough justice to impart or explain the marvel of what is to become. For the marvel has to remain a marvel, undivulged and pristine: so far goes the tale of Notre Dame du Lac.

Which mother will not tend to the cries of her child when the wind is cold? Which giver shall not nurture the seeking heart even at peril of own demise? So is the well of life provides generously to anyone who would only come to quench their thirst. And there is no such power to preclude the access or to fence its profuse and marvelous giving. What else is love, kindness and beauty if not this everlasting and plentiful well?

So he was thinking, walking through the forest, counting droplets and looking in the eyes of the morrow. Without the takers there ain't no giving. And whence would the givers give if not from the takings? Verily, they are the grateful ones who provide. Soon a lake appeared before Myrddin, the waters were calm and settings were immensely peaceful. Amidst drifting clouds, gracious swans glided unhurriedly in transient reflections on the surface of bottomless sky. No creature or a living being would dare disturbing this profound serenity. As he stood, heavens poured copiously into the stillness of this consorting lake, simultaneously draining the overflowing thoughts of Myrddin, from the fullness of the past, and into the void potholes of the future. The empty potholes were filling up and turning into small puddles, then ponds, and ultimately, merging together to form one translucent reservoir of clare prescience. In its mirror-like impression, flew the visions of what has been and yet to come. Myrddin saw himself, he saw the tree, he saw himself inside the tree. The fostered child and the flute, the Excalibur and the feud, enchanting vistas of the lake, infernal flames and burning stake, two gracious swans, the pale bones and the fairest of all visions was the Lady of the Lake.

“You roam the woods – you dredge no roots. You have no sword – you vest your word. What are you, the wanderer of a pallid countenance?”, she enquired of Myrddin.

“I am what will come”, replied Myrddin enchanted by the melody of her voice.

“If you are the river, then I shall be the lake. If you are the giver, then I shall yearn to take”, sang Lady of The Lake: “Here you can only obtain by giving. If you long my love, teach me first your secrets”.

“A stag and a mare, a turtle and a hare. Like a king without the throne and a sunset at the dawn. Enchant or ensnare, instill or impair one shall not unwind this fare”, answered Myrddin. Thus, sat he by the tree, thus taught he her the secrets of the heavens and the earth, of the waters and the froth, the fire and the ice, the virtue and the vice.

“My secret is nothing but life, my living is simple and rife. The greatest is hidden in small, the timid shall rise fierce and tall. Whatever you'r wishing is already yours, whichever is foreign you can't take by force”, he sang to those who would listen. And she harked and heeded she to the sounds of fife, and learnt she the marvel of life: “You wouldn't be near if you could go far, you wouldn't be here if not for my star. Whatever has started must come to an end, defying inception my love shall transcend, imbue with desire this nature sublime, transcend and transpire the veils of time. Oh who shall inspire in ages to come? Oh who shall admire old sages with rhyme? For I shall unravel the sequence of morrow, so forth I impede the beginning to follow! Conceal amidst roots I your marvelous giving, sleep here, my love, while I seek not forgiving”.

The wind picked up ruffling lake's surface. Water birds rushed hastily into the shelter of gossiping tall reed. Smell of approaching rain reached the shores. Spewing sparse prickly mist, it promiscuously delivered a welcome relief from the amalgamated aeon-long anxiety. Wind quieted, gossiping stopped, a thick blanket of downpour dropped momentarily on the acquiescent landscape.

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Blue and red lights were flashing in a dark stuffy room. The servers were recently upgraded and now had a plenty of throughput capacity, but this wasn't the issue. Someone was, apparently, sending the cascading blocks of confirmations which would be normally rejected by the system. It was unlikely that the other validators could have colluded, and even if they did, this would have amounted to an astounding cost and yet wouldn't even explain one quarter of data spikes. Data itself wasn't any sort of unusual, it was the throughput and the overall amount that was causing the network to swell momentarily. Like breathing, it was expanding only each time to shrink back to it's original state. Back in the early days, you could pinpoint the source of origin fairly quickly, but now it would be a race against time given the uncertainty of quantum states and the layers of protection imposed over the continuously overwritten script. The most astonishing was that the network seemed to quickly branch out, sort of like a tree, overlaying other networks and spreading into open areas, that never seemed to be a part of it. It defied logic as there was no presently known activity in those spaces.

Confirmations were piling up, turning into a long chain, like in a game of snake, they were springing out of nowhere in the shape of data blocks only to get immediately devoured by the insatiable serpent. It grew longer and fatter not willing to yield even a tiny bit of its catch. Twisting and turning inside the swift torrents, snake finally got hold of the overhanging branch and, glistering its shiny scales in the twilight, settled inside the tree hollow for a winter-long hibernation.

“Never was the time when I did not exist, nor you, nor in the future shall any of us cease to be”, said Myrddin before finding himself fast asleep inside the mighty trunk of a tree.

“This, our tree of life”, whispered the serpent through the veils of dream, “Has always been your proverbial tree of knowledge. Awake we are in your sleep and flowing from the plentitude, freely change we shapes at will. But when we close our eyes, thick fog covers your day, revealing not our marvelous gift”.

Deep slumber has taken hold of land. The skies have cleared unveiling bright waxing crescent – chaperone to myriad of stars. Adorning dark penumbra of the forest they glittered in suspended droplets festooned with diaphanous gossamer of cobwebs. Rising aquarius, and only somewhere far in the middle of the lake remained the lumps of evanescent fog.

Lady of The Lake was floating further and further away, transcending heavy, tear-laden drapes of time until completely disappearing inside the ephemeral mist.