Cosmic Mushroom 4

Chapter 6 The Blood Moon
The moon was full and as Merlin opened his eyes, the soft silver halo surrounding it in the thin haze of the night sky began to break away. The sky dimmed as the light on the face of the moon grew dark, becoming a deep scarlet hue.
At first, Merlin couldn't understand what was happening. Why did time seem so static, the breeze so dense and opaque?
The stars seemed monochromatic by comparison to the last time he'd seen them, before he entered the cave of his dragon mother. He looked up at the total lunar eclipse above his head, the blood moon hovering huge and red over the treeline, like the moon Goddess bleeding between the legs.
Had he only slept an hour? He'd been preparing for this eclipse when he dozed off suddenly, now only a short time later, having lived what must've encompassed lifetimes in the forest beyond time-space. Now he was back in his treehouse, in what he once called the real world.
He'd hoped to be finishing a potion at the moment the eclipse became visible. He got up and looked at his ingredients, ready to be mixed but he had missed his chance to prepare the potion properly.
"I suppose it's to be expected," he whispered to himself, hesitant to break the silence of the night, “this potion’s effects would never have compared to what I just breathed into my soul.” Surely Cerridwen would forgive him.
The fire of his mother still burned in his heart, he could feel it reaching out to purify everything around him of hatred, despair, any pain or other misaligned energies that would interfere with the operation of this vessel, this dragon egg.
He breathed deep, his soul drinking the light of the blood moon and relishing the sacred disruption it heralded.
The time of an eclipse is a potent time for planting the seeds of change, an energy of destruction to all paradigms fills the atmosphere and rapid transformation yearns to be realized. An excellent time for magick, if the mage is fierce enough to brave the storms of the raw fury of nature.
Such is the way of the universe, the womb of life is most fertile when elemental forces tear asunder what was in the name of all that will be.
Looking over his ingredients, thinking about the spell he was planning to cast, it all seemed so insignificant now. What would be the purpose of casting a spell when he could simply reach out and shift reality with his will alone?
He could feel the plants wanting to be returned to the soil, to become a part of the forest once more.
His home was built into the thick branches of a mighty old oak tree, which he’d always imagined resembled the ancient tree of life whose acorns fed the cosmic salmon, back when he believed in such stories.
Only earlier today, now that seemed like a past life and he could clearly see the metaphor in the old stories and the way it related to the truth of the origins of this world but were still mere fables compared to the unspeakable reality.
He gathered his materials in the sack he’d brought them home in and climbed down the tree to the forest floor, hoping no bears were around but still too dazed from his dream to be afraid of such a distant threat.
He looked up at the sky in time to watch the last black arc of the eclipse disappear, leaving the radiance of the full moon smiling down at him once again. At that moment, the fiery streak of a falling star slashed across the face, getting larger as it descended to the Earth.
None of this could be a coincidence, he wasn’t sure he could believe in coincidence anymore after what he’d just been through. He knew in his heart that he had to follow this falling star to where it landed.
He didn’t know why but the fire in his heart was glowing brighter than the moon, hotter than the needle of flame left in the wake of the star, and it pulsed with every step as he walked to the forest in the direction of the meteor.
He could tell it was the middle of night because the star Sirius was at its highest.
As he entered the woods he could smell the trees. Taking in a long scent he felt energetic roots leaving his feet to intermingle with those of the trees, the moss kissed the soles of his feet.
Walking along a river he could feel the flow of life force streaming along with him. He dipped his fingers into the water and heard a giggle from the trees.
A tiny faery was sitting on a mushroom, watching him. He’d never seen one with his eyes like this. “Hello there,” he said, “how are you so clearly visible?”
She giggled again, then turned around and disappeared into the woods.
He jumped across the river, stumbling on a loose rock and falling halfway into the water. Without breaking a stride he kept running, intent on reaching his new faery friend.
As he ran through the dark he tripped on a fallen branch and when he hit the ground, a vision flashed in his mind, a woman with dark hair and darker eyes. He laughter rang out over the words, “we’re getting so close.”
He pushed himself up, frenzied now to reach the giggles he could still hear just ahead.
Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. He’d walked right into a faery ring, he could see the circle of mushrooms glowing faint gold in the dark. Other voices joined the giggles, a chorus of laughter around him. “Find the fallen star.”
A unicorn appeared in front of him, antlers like the oldest elk he’d ever seen with a horn the size of a sword radiating a silver light that illuminated the giggling faeries around him.
He’d heard tales that it was forbidden to walk into a faery ring, and he expected the unicorn was this circle’s protector.
It approached and sniffed him cautiously, then rubbed the side of its head against his, gently bumping the antler on Merlin’s head. Another voice in his head said, “Seek the circle in the square.”
The golden mushrooms began to grow, reaching above the trees as their light became so bright he had to close his eyes, the laughter echoed so loudly it became deafening.
That same woman flashed in his mind again. “The blood moon marks the end.”
Then everything was silent and dark. He was alone again in the woods, not sure where he was. Above him the sky was beginning to grow brighter as dawn approached. How had that much time passed already? It was midnight only a few moments ago.
He stepped out of the faery ring and slowly traced his footsteps back through the forest.
Several hours passed before he reached the river. He couldn’t understand how he’d run that far. The moon was behind the horizon now and he couldn’t remember what he’d gone out for.
Feeling through his robes he found his satchel of potion ingredients. Now confident he no longer wanted them, unsure even what he’d gotten them for to begin with, he placed them reverently on the ground where the first faery had been sitting.
Green lights flowed out from the plant clippings into the toadstool he’d placed them next to, life force returning to nature, and as he watched he could see it flow through the mycelia into the roots network underground, dissipating to amplify the whole.
He felt a rumbling beneath his feet and turned.
The woman from his visions was watching him from across the river, right where he’d stood when he heard the first giggling. She smiled. He smiled back.
“Greetings Merlin,” she said gently, “My name is Morgana.”

Chapter 7 Flowing Death
As life force flowing from the Tree of Life passed into our reality it became compressed so tightly it condensed into water.
In the process it became a mirror. Unwilling to let go of the true reality beyond, in the primal forest, it chose to hold an open window into the primordial source. Thus it became a reflection of each reality, a window through which each could see the other in itself.
As it descended through the various layers of divine consciousness into the physical world it retained this reflective property, allowing every aspect of duality it touched to witness itself within the mirror it provided.
When the water touched the physical world it encountered the duality of life of death. It had never experienced such a notion before, this belief that life cannot exist eternally.
The life of this world held the belief of its own mortality so tightly that its existence in the physical was only temporary. Soon it would relinquish what it thought of as its reality, and fade away into the spirit world to remember its immortality.
The consciousness of the primal waters was so fascinated by this concept that it became an embodiment of this duality, and thus mirrored it all the way back up through the higher realms until it reached a point from which even time could not be contained and all reality is one eternal Now.
The Now witnessed this death, this impermanence of life in the physical and was amused, and so it descended through the waters to take closer inspection.
It watched as life force accumulated within a physical vessel, only to disperse once the vessel became obsolete by its own reckoning. The life force returned into the forests, flowing like the waters through death and back into life, only to fall away again.
What the physical life did not see was that, just as it fed on itself to expand, so too did the life force amplify itself through this eternally echoing dissipation.
By embodying this energy, the water had taken on the same quality. When in the physical, water was a reflection of eternal flow through life into death and back again, amplifying its reality. It became a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds, a window through which each could see itself within the other.
Thus the faery world was linked eternally to the physical, able to see and feel it without touching, able to reach through as the spirits saw fit to touch the physical. Only the physical could not see this, it was so obsessed with its belief in mortality that it forgot all else and fell away from its own true nature, unable to see the spirit world.
When the life of the physical touched the waters it could feel this eternal flow, this life and thus it chose to believe that the water was a symbol of pure and eternal life, because it was, and forgot to look for traces of mortality within itself because it saw death only in physicality to which it believed itself confined.
The dragons could not bear witness to this duality without the enticing prospect of taking part in the charade. The descended through the Now and into the physical, into the sacred waters, into the vast oceans of life force in the forests.
Forever they have chosen, and forevermore will choose, to reach out across the waters and touch the face of impermanence with love, to change the destinies of those within and remind them of the eternal Now.