Ticket to the Moon

Pics: Kinga Chałas
Edit: me

Loreley

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The Loreley
by Heinrich Heine



translated by Ernst Feise:

I do not know what haunts me,
What saddened my mind all day;
An age-old tale confounds me,
A spell I cannot allay.

The air is cool and in twilight
The Rhine's dark waters flow;
The peak of the mountain in highlight
Reflects the evening glow.

There sits a lovely maiden
Above so wondrous fair,
With shining jewels laden,
She combs her golden hair.

It falls through her comb in a shower,
And over the valley rings
A song of mysterious power
That lovely maiden sings.

The boatman in his small skiff is
Seized by a turbulent love,
No longer he marks where the cliff is,
He looks to the mountain above.

I think the waves must fling him
Against the reefs nearby,
And that did with her singing
The lovely Loreley.

Pics by Kinga Chałas

The Meadow Story

Once upon a time there lived a girl. She wasn't typically pretty but had this special charm that made people attached to her, trust her and ask for advice. The community accepted her just as she was, with all the weirdness in the aura that was surrounding her. There was something familiar and intimidating in her at the same time, something people couldn't fully understand.

Her hair was carbon black like the feathers of a young crow. It was the deepest shade of black, which seemed to change into blueish purple when late summer sunrays were touching it tenderly. She lived in a house near the large meadow on the edge of a forest, and was welcoming each day joyfully with her arms wide open. Her heart was full of love, she enjoyed long walks among the wild flowers and the way the world smelled at sunset.
She didn't like to talk about her "powers," she preferred to call them "the natural bond with all beings," because she was sure not everyone would have understood the connection she had with the world. The girl had the special ability to make people happy, and influence their feelings in other ways, but that was the one thing she has never done: she always wanted to see the world with a sincere smile on its face.

The girl was a witch.

But soon something happened; summer came to an end, and so did the girl's joy. She became trapped by her own feelings, trapped in her own magic. The girl has fallen in love. Uncontrollably, the feeling crept up her spine blooming with thorns, and rooted itself in her heart. Lovesick, she became bitter and unable of thinking about anything other than her own suffering. Autumn came quickly this year; it covered the world with cool, damp mist and spiders' cobwebs. It covered the girl's heart with dust. She has never felt this empty in her entire life, and she knew that the hole in her soul would never heal.

Slowly, her powers started to decay. Her hair was no longer soft and her white became torn to shreds, just like the girl's soul. But she still had the spark inside her; unrequited love didn't change her into an evil being, she did not sadness overwhelm her. She was still enjoying walks, when the meadow was sleeping under the cold autumn mists. She found comfort in the landscape of dying world. On the first winter morning she passed away. Peacefully, knowing that she will find tranquillity, she remained forever on the meadow where it all began.
If you ever find yourself wandering among the fields in late Autumn, on the verge of the forest you can find her in the mist, dancing in her white dress with raven black hair and a sad smile on her face.
Leave her be, just think of her sometimes and shed a tear.

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Samhain

“In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil
that hangs among us like thick smoke.”

from “Samhain” by Annie Finch.
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Dance of Druids

In this time of transition, of dying, passing away, she became one with her spirit animal, the doe, and bathed herself in the last golden sunrays in the middle of the dew-smelling forest, among fern and ivy and immersed herself into this precious moment.

The doe means gentleness, being in touch with life's mysteries, innocence and inner child. She needed it at the moment, the ability to regenerate. She has never felt she belnged to autumn. She has always been the creature of summer, but this year everyting was different. She was melancholic and the smell of decay suited her, she almost felt at home sensing that the cycle of nature was coming to an end, that the world was going to sleep, just like her soul.

She was passing away.

She felt the presence of the doe, she knew it was her last sunset; the day after she was gone. The fern and ivy were still there, swaying softly in the wind. Nothing has changed, but the world knew that she was going to come back when nature decided to wake up once again, to live all the joy of the world, to experience its beauty only to reach the disappintment and decay in the end.

That was the circle of life, the balance of autumn gold and winter's chill; of spring's bloom and summer fever.
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