Once upon a time, there was a being that lived in between two worlds. Or rather, one foot in one world and one foot in another world. How to describe the two different worlds…I will try with much zest. One world…like the moist soil-filled forest, oak trees rising up for many feet toward the potent stars, busy worms diving in and out of mountainous acres, all things performing on an ecstatic stage we would call life. And, did I tell you about the reishi mushrooms puckered up, gleaming red-orange, on fallen logs, the snails prancing swiftly on the burdock, the nettles swaying and swinging like a tango, occasionally boosting one bold leaf stalk into the air, sailing for miles and miles to implant a new mark in the ongoings of life, a new constellation in the happenings of Earth. Oh, how beautiful, how much like a dance, a song, a galactic movement, this world was.
Now, onto the next world. The next world was beautiful too. It had many gears to the overarching functioning. There were faces and names. One shape, one main shape, one main species of beings. There were abodes and rituals. Ones that stayed together, ones that drifted through space like a lost bird. Ones that sang the song of the evening doves, ones that croaked the tones of the overconfident cricket. Ones that, like Nettles, said nothing at all, but rather acted with stillness, and then movement, moving with intention yet openness, curiosity yet determination and force. Playful, yet goal-bearing. Aiming to create form itself, aiming to make magic out of magic. Ah, I got lost in the first world I spoke of again. Back to this next world. There were rules and if you did not follow them, there were consequences. These consequences were quite serious, you see. They were not the simple death and rebirth of a leaf in the soil, no. They were a loss of imagination. These beings, they forget that becoming open and boundless like a song, a dance, or a story, is the way. They forget that that is what life has asked of them. Instead, they close up yet continue on, they forget the existence of the other world. A world with nettles and burdock and snails and worms and oak trees and constellations and reishi and soil-filled forests. They forget that the other world can touch them, can remind them, can hold them. Plants can affect us? No, they retort.
Now, is this world completely all out of whack, you ask? What of the abodes, that seemed so cute, so comfortable? The rituals, that filled them and their environments with whispers of the forest. The packs, the gatherings, the ties, the bonds, that complicated, yet rooted and still, were. The faces and names that felt both worlds, or that were walking with one foot in each world. The faces and names that belonged to a grandmother and her lineage holder two offsprings down the line, as they sat by the fireplace drinking kava tea, drums and rattles surrounding, the crackle of the fire amongst the whispers of the forest and the whispers of the stars. The moonlight streaming in through the window as the two beings cackled and then sat in silence, then danced, then sang, then existed together, thinking of the forest and the ocean and the soil. Ah, so I guess it wasn’t all too bad.
—Girl who walked in between two worlds with her Grandma
