Cosmic Mushroom 5

Chapter 8 Morgana the Fae

Dawn broke and as the first ray of light traced across the sky, it heralded the morning before the lunar eclipse.

A crow perched upon the tallest rowan in the region, cawing as she watched a distant falcon depart from the land. The clear-minded predator was leaving this land for the time being, and the wily scavenger was now Queen until the falcon returned.

As a trickster from the Otherworld, the crow was able to witness the unity of the physical and spiritual world. She was a sacred being from the faery world, capable of moving between it and the mortal world that viewed her as a harbinger of death.

She watched as a dryad dwelling inside the rowan fed its fruits to the underbrush, rejoicing as the animals fed on them to leave open space for the survivors to take root.

She prowled the woods, seeking something shiny to delight her eye and pass the time as she awaited nightfall.

As she travelled there were many curious fae who laughed as they watched her circling, waving hello with a friendly smile.

The woodland critters ignored her as they sought food, she watched them wondering if one would soon be dead and willing to leave the body for her lunch.

Occasionally she witnessed a peculiar wizard gathering herbs and mushrooms in the forest. She watched intently as he scoured the region for a particular seasoning. She knew what he wanted, and what he would find instead.

When she saw the wizard she cawed at him, and sometimes he would look up to smile back, never daring to guess who was watching. She wondered if he had heard tales of her exploits in the far off island where the people of Danu settled.

The wizard may not have looked like Lugh in the physical world but in the Otherworld he was every bit as radiant as the man who was once hailed as a son of the Sun. This body went by the name of Merlin but she knew him by many names and she looked eagerly forward to meeting him yet again by this one.

When dusk finally came, the crow settled in a hawthorn thicket and by the time light faded from the sky, a raven-haired woman emerged naked from the thorny perth.

Stepping gently to avoid hurting her bare feet, she prowled through the forest with perfect vision, lack of sunlight would never stop her from attaining her goals, no more than death could claim her from the mortal side of the veil.

She approached the edge of a clearing as waited until the wizard walked across into his home in the branches of a tall oak. When he disappeared from sight she sprinted silently across the grass.

Watching him through an open window she whispered a lullaby under her breath.

Wait and see little child, wait and hear little child
The night will drown you soon
And when the dream world comes for you
The gods will grant your boon

As she whispered she saw him grow weary after the long day’s effort, and the more she repeated her favourite nursery rhyme the heavier his eyes grew.

Soon he was fast asleep and she crept inside. First she took one of his robes to cover her nakedness in the cold air.

She dipped a nail in the pestle he’d ground his first ingredients in, laughing at the pile he hadn’t gotten to and wondering just what delightful fungi would feast on them when he returned them to the woods.

With a small sample of the mixture under her nail, she gently scraped his throat above the artery, just enough to break the skin and allow the herbs to work into his bloodstream.

“Seek the dragon’s hearth, dear brother,” she whispered into his ear, and he murmured something in response but only she could ever recognize the words.

She looked around at his home, quite shabby compared to the palaces they’d once shared in Avalon but they suited his needs and she respected his humility. She grabbed his sickle and disappeared into the night.

The moon rose above the tree line, rising big and bright into the sky. In a few hours it would be black as night but for now it was shining for all the world to appreciate, just loving its own glorious, gentle purity.

She stopped to appreciate it for a moment. So insightful, how it shows its light and its darkness, and beckons us to do the same.

She breathed in the light of the moon, feeling its brokenness as it approached the eclipse portal.

Disruption in long-standing patterns. Sudden destruction of a full and beautiful face, only to be reborn just as suddenly. That was what she was all about. Rapid transformation.

Death and rebirth.

That was what an eclipse heralded, and as a Goddess of Death in her region of fame, she remembered all too well the delight in a time such as this. It was her life’s work to embody it.

And what comes next? Even the fates cannot say with certainty.

Morrigan sighed her deep exhalation with a sense of impatience and futility, there was no need in rushing things forward and yet so little to do while waiting.

She moved on into the woods and, once in the darkness again, she remembered the joy to be found in the process of preparing for such a wonderful disruption. Would the moon enjoy her fullness without the work of moving from emptiness?

The faery portal connecting an ash to a willow, bound together with blackthorn, opened to receive her terrible countenance with a contented smile and a feeling that all would be right soon enough.

The world of the Fae is an ever-shifting realm that evolves and grows, solely for the sake of doing so. It thrives on balance and disruption, chaos and order, life and death, light and darkness. It loves all aspects of life on Earth, because it recognizes their innate sanctity.

Even when welcoming in a harbinger of death, the only unwelcome disruption was the iron sickle she brought with her.

A product of the contaminated physical world, it had been torn from the loving bosom of Mother Earth and corrupted with rust, thus corrupting its energy on the other side of the veil between worlds.

It would require purification in her temple before she could use it for something as sacred as a sacrifice to the eternal.

She had a world of pain in store for her beloved brother.


Chapter 9 The Veil

The crow has long been associated with death, not only because of its joy in feasting on carrion but also because of its intense spiritual vision.

Able to move freely in both worlds, it shifts between one and the other at will. In the Otherworld there are many things easily seen, which cannot be touched in the physical. Thus, the crow and the raven have always been able to know things beyond the sight of mortals.

Both a knight and a ferryman, the raven cackles as it watches us attempt to wrap our minds around that which boggles it. It will guide us there when it is our time, but until then it has the gift of being able to enjoy the humour in our attempt to unravel the plainest mysteries.

The veil which separates ours from the Otherworld is the mist which lifts in the moment of death, to reveal the reality that we lost sight of so long ago. This is the blanket in which a corvid finds so much comfort and ease.

There is after the end a new beginning, each cycle feeding another. The cycles of time reach around to devour their own tail, never certain where they began or where to seek to go, only certain of the now in which they currently reside.

These transits are the lifeblood of our existence, the ebb and flow of the tides which govern our emotions, our beliefs, our way of life, rise and fall just out of sight yet ever within grasp of our eternal and temporarily amnesic souls.

At the moment of unveiling, these tides will seem like a familiar friend, like a scent half-remembered from a distant childhood. And yet they will seem so very unfamiliar, having shifted and changed from the moment of our last witness borne.

It is the trickster spirit of the corvid, the ebb and flow of the veil itself, which beckons us closer to the elusive mystery of the unknowable.

As it knows, and we do not, it seeks to enlighten us by fogging our vision with the mist from which they watch. From such clarity, it seems impossible to be confounded by the fog and yet we find ourselves clutching at the uncertainty of our state as if it would be dangerous to realize we do not fathom our own nature.

Because Death awaits our joyous reunion with the truth, mocking us lightheartedly as it welcomes us to the unknown depths of reality within ourselves.