page one:
A Creaky Old Tower
once upon a time....
there was a woman who lived in the top of a tall windy creaky old tower.the tower was surrounded by a moat of murky water, and the only way to approach the entrance door was to cross a thin frail slippery bridge made of reeds, and crossing that bridge was, to say the least, unpredictable. if one did get across, on either side of the entrance door were the guardian figures Psyche and Eros, who captured their prey by mesmerizing them. very few ever made it to the entrance door.
if one had been able to cross the bridge and get past the guardians, they then had to climb many many flights of a spiraling staircase that was badly in need of repair, full of cobwebs, and dangerous to the climber as some of the steps would fall away into the depths below, other steps were entirely missing, there was nothing to hold on to, and total darkness enveloped the way.
adventurers had been told that the woman held something of great value but no one was sure what it was. at the top of the staircase the heavy door into the top chamber was padlocked shut. adventurers had been told there was a magic charm that would unlock the padlock and this could be accomplished by just the right song.
meanwhile the woman who was in the chamber at the top of the tower wasn't really there. her spirit had been padlocked behind the heavy door, but in actuality she lived in a town and was trying to lead a normal life just like anybody else.
the universe sent her messages about things she needed to do. these seemed random and at times not too logical, but she knew that she had to accomplish various tasks before her spirit could come back to her.
her spirit was learning lessons from the attempts that were made to find the magic charm that would open the padlock. each time she heard footsteps on the spiraling staircase she hoped that the courageous person would have their feet on solid stair steps and not fall through a hole into oblivion.
at first the only inhabitants in the creaky old staircase part of the tower were spiders who spun beautiful elaborate webs. the woman wondered why there were only spiders within the tower and no other animals, like those that roamed the grounds below. she longed for the day when the padlock might open and she could join the wonderous and beautiful animals she had watched from her window near the top of the tower.
why there were only spiders and no other animals was not the only thing she wondered. she knew that some important reasons for the existence of the tower and a song that might open the padlock were being kept from her view, and she hoped that in time she would understand the whole picture. in the meantime she learned what she could and hoped that she would be prepared for the day when, as she hoped and trusted in the universe, the padlock would be opened.
this tower and the woman's spirit locked in the top chamber had existed for a very long time. at first the staircase was empty except for spiders and their webs. adventurers heard about the woman who held something of value and the padlock that required a magic song for the lock to open. this seemed like an unusual challenge, and adventurers would imagine the woman and write songs from the inspiration. what each adventurer saw was in their own mind's eye, and the woman enjoyed seeing the pictures that arose from their imagination.
that was at first, when things were simple.
the songs began to have scenarios where the woman was interacting with the singer and sometimes trouble arose. the main snag in this was that the focus seemed to be forgotten.....the focus that the woman held something of value and that a magic song was required to open a padlock. once the focus went into imagined interactions, both positive and negative, the original beautiful exciting and unusual quest that the universe had offered seemed to be forgotten by most adventurers.
the woman hoped that the adventurers would stay on focus because that was the only way that hopefully some day someone would be able to open the padlock. whatever pictures the artists imagined of her, positive or negative, she didn't mind because that was part of the journey, and after all, it was her spirit and not really her that was in the top chamber. the trouble was that when someone imagined some sort of role playing interaction, and then went off on a tangent with it like when couples choose to endlessly bicker over miscommunications, then an actual creation would arise. each time that happened a "strawman" would be created, which is when a fallacy is talked about as if it's real.
the trouble was that when the adventurers were climbing the spiral staircase with the songs, a "strawman" was not just a concept defined by logic or illogic. the "strawman" actually took on a life of it's own, and in the creepy old tower a strawman became a greyish ghostly creature about the size of a porcupine but built like an insect with six legs and was able to fly around with small wings that were inadequate for navigation. the strawman creatures bumped into each other and into the staircase.
once a few of these strawman creatures had been created, the woman understood why there were spiders and their elaborate cobwebs.....eventually a strawman would land in one of the cobwebs and get recycled into wherever it came from.
that worked pretty well at first, but over the years the number of strawmen flapping around in the tower got to be pretty extreme and many of them learned to avoid the cobwebs. the woman had trouble sleeping at night because the volume of brushing, flapping, and bumping had become a constant din. the strawmen would bump into things and break off more pieces of the staircase which would go clanging down into the depths below.
the woman was able to talk directly to the universe, and her first request would always have been to be freed from the chamber and be able to frolic with the wonderful animals in the beauty of nature. she acknowledged the inevitable that she had to be where she was for the time being. she had learned that the universe did respond and interact with her, so she decided to ask for something practical. she requested that, since the number of strawman creatures had grown far beyond what the spiders and their webs could handle, she asked that some cats be allowed to live in the tower and help monitor and clean up the after effects of the songs and adventurers who created misconceptions that became reality.
yes, the universe granted her this wish and several beautiful cats were sent to help out in the tower.
to be continued.......
page 1: Creaky Old Tower
page 2: White Buffalo Woman
page 3: The Legend of Atlantis
page 5: The Perfect Sound
page 7: The Keeper of the Sinkhole
page 9: The Rider of Light
page 11: Finding Nature's Balance
page 13: A Change Of Plans
page 15: The Intellect
page 17: The Thesis
email: dawnstar@starofjoy.com
©anita klinger 2006
