hsphaven

Born of the blizzards, of blankets of white and of trembling water, she is both mesmerising and dangerous. Her world is desolate, and she is sad and lonely, especially as Jupiter Icewitch keeps her locked in a tower of ice.

One day, through the window of her prison, she spies a traveller from a faraway land. The fog is thick but she manages to make out the outline of a young girl. As the girl nears the tower, Juniper Icewitch’s daughter sticks her arm through the bars of the window and waves furiously. She then reaches into her hair of needle-leaves and extracts a branch for the traveller, dropping it through the window.

The young traveller makes her way up the tower, following a spiral stairway until she reaches the door of the prison. As no one ever visited these hostile lands, Juniper Icewitch had left the key in the door. The traveller turns the key and enters. She then returns the key to Juniper Icewitch’s daughter.

The young traveller comes from a land of flowing water and trees which reach for the stars. She is confident, popular and bursting with life. Juniper Icewitch’s daughter envies the girl, so she sprints for the door, slams it behind her and locks it. She then flees her dreary world and tells everyone a story of tragedy and triumph, of how, for years, she was locked in a prison but she managed to survive and break free. She elicits the sympathy and admiration of all who hear her tale. She is commended for her bravery, strength and dignity. None hear the story of the young traveller, who remains in that prison to this day.

I got to know her in Year 9, the year I was cruelly bullied.

We started to sit together in science class. She saw something in me, a kindness she had not known enough. A friend.

She was a peculiar girl, a sad girl, a girl who stabbed pens into the palm of her hand, something I only came to understand later in my life. I tried to take the pen off her.

She dressed in black and hung around girls who dressed in black. I didn’t dress in black, but my life was black and my year was black. I had no friends. She invited me to come sit with her’s, but I never really took her up on that.

One day I came into class in tears. Some girls in my class swarmed around me like vultures, like journalists, girls who’d never taken an interest in me before now warm and fuzzy. Sara warned me to stay away from those girls. She could read people like she read the periodic table, pointing out the dangerous ones.

Sara never faked kindness. What she did fake was coldness. Behind her “stay away” vibe she loved passionately and she hurt passionately. Her heart went out to me that day, probably because she knew the territory all too well. She took me outside and we hugged and it was exactly what I needed in that moment.

I ended up leaving the school, which Sara never really forgave me for. We lost contact, much to my regret. A year ago I tried to befriend her on Facebook but she never responded.

I was kind to Sara and Sara was kind to me in return. I wonder where I’d be if I had of stayed, and sat where I belonged: with girls who dressed in black.

White lady, radiating white light, spun from the dream spell of a harp.
White Tara, saviour, seer, she who has guided me among the waves of tumultuous emotion or is it Kuan Yin Chinese Lady of Compassion.

It is ten years since I have been in China, sitting on an ancient city hilltop on stone stools, sipping green tea and cracking open sunflower seeds.
A five year old girl dressed in red, her parents beaming with pride and love as she sings me an English song. I had come to ask if I could take a photo. It is my birthday.
Another lifetime ago I had celebrated birthdays here in this vast land. There are few memories, one is me as a young girl sitting in a garden and eating a persimmon.

I am glad Tara is here, Tibetan deity of compassion. I long to know the God’s again, to reach my own inner God.

Windows of the soul are open. I am surrounded by silence, shadow, grass, birds, water flow, nature opening the windows of vision. I am earthed and yet I fly inwardly.

I need to get to know you again, Tara, my starlight that holds true within my heart. Beat your rhythm like a singing bowl, sing to me so I may sing back to you. Beat, beat, beat sings the bird up on a branch, twit, twit sings a smaller bird. I am trying to find my song to sing, the inner heart song, the inner truth.