PRINCESS WILLOWMENA, THE SNOW KING AND THE GREAT RED STEED

Ever have one of those days where everything sort of slips sideways and you feel like you've walked through the glass with Alice? I've been so worried these past few days. It's probably part of getting older. I've been feeling like the world doesn't make sense to me anymore. Everyone is so angry, so filled with venom. I've been loosing sleep, trying to understand it. I just don't seem to have the ability anymore to hold the pain that other people feel away from me. And then I walked out the door this morning and followed a rabbit, down the hole into the world the way it's supposed to be.

I went down the hill and slipped off the edge, into a place where all the lines were muted. The "uglies" were gone, covered up and asleep. And I could hear the trees talking, moving slowly together at a pace we usually can't hear or see. And the animals were in charge. Time was "now". There were no debts, no little numbers taking the wild places away. The loud noises and smells were at an end and we were all children together, living in that place where time is suspended. All of the guns were quiet and the angry people were at peace.

The smallest details were as relevant, as rich, as important as any of the "big" things or the "big" places. Everything counted. The quiet snow, endless snow...the cool, grey skies had no edge. The light was alive, moving with the thousands of little flakes, every single one of them different and alike. And all the individual flakes that had gone over the end of the hill with me, that used to be ordinary drops of water, came together and made it perfect. They all came together and tucked the world to bed with a blanket of white. And then the snow kissed us and told us it would be OK. That we would all be fine.

You know, it's not that I'm loosing my mind. It's more that sometimes I just have to let go of the tether and allow myself to follow the quiet. I need that comfort. I have to find my way back to the places I went when I was very young, when time stood still. I go to the world that lets the animals talk to me. And I love their voices too.

There is no subtrifuge, no story that isn't real. They don't gossip or complain. Instead they teach me, lead me, back to who I am. And they remind me of what the world is meant to be, what it really is. There are no radios, TV's with talking heads, no music that hurts to listen to. Instead, there's a place where my mind can wander and they go with me.

Today I left the place we all "think" is real and went to my own Wonderland. I remembered how to laugh at the way snow feels when it goes down your neck when you make snow angels. Lucky took me there. We, both of us, rolled in the snow today.

I followed Apache in to his places, where ancient sunflowers turn into strange creatures with snow caps on and fence lines are irrelevant.

The snow was his disguise and the paths he took me on were places that I'd never been before. He was the Snow King, a magical steed who has the ear of the Gods.

And a little donkey became Princess Willowmena, heir to the Throne of Oakland. She was carried away into the world of the Mundanes where she found a Fairy Godmother who saved her and granted her every wish except the one she wanted most.

And a great and magical steed, red like the fires in the Spring, came to her and said " I will take you to your wish. I will give you your dreams. But will you take your Godmother with you, over the Edge and into the land of the Snow King? Will she follow you?"

And the Red Steed took Princess Willowmena and her Godmother with him to the land of the Snow King, where the skies never end and the Edge is always there, waiting for you to walk over.

And when they came to the Snow King, he gave them a task to do before he could grant Princess Willowmena's wish. He told them, in his terrible and wonderful voice, "You must cross the sacred Ocean and find the Butterfly Queen. Her wings have never fluttered and she is in despair. Bring her to me so that I may heal her and take her pain. Then I will give you your wish."

And so their journey began, into the place that is over the Hill, off the Edge and into the world where time has stopped and Snow Angels speak to the trees.

We're on a road that takes us only forward and sometimes sideways, but never back.

We're in the world of Heart and Desire.

I am, ever yours, Nancy, dreaming