Should a winged horse fly by within your reach, made of the stuff that makes our walls alive, do not hesitate to ask him a few questions. Does he dream of us, and if he does, would he like to share a few of our privileges? Are we also for him subject matter for a fable ? If your horse likes talking, listen to him carefully, for he is an animal of wisdom.
We know nothing about the "top" or the "bottom". We'd better be careful with that scale, caught in a web of echoes : let us remember the story of the young girl who lost the crooked bone Venus had given her and, after hesitating a moment, cut her little finger and used it as a key to the glass castle.
You have met me under the guise of a deer, skinned for seeing a bathing Goddess in all her Glory, of a dragon providing beneficial rains, or of a drop of blood shed by a wild goose on the snow,
or flower and phallus both, a red and white palette, and of a horn disembowelling a hound.
You might meet me as a tree, growing from one story to the next, leaving my seeds in the womb of the women asleep in my shade.
I can smell your perfume, a mix of freshly-mown hay and of a moony maid. I can see at a glance the dignity of your melancholy. Your sweet eyes from a distance drive me crazy. But if I let my mind wander, it is the white and warm skin of your belly that I see in my dreams. The bird watching over you is trying to protect you from the realm of passion. Like him, I can do away with poisons, filter humours, neutralize wickedness and recognize the fangs hidden in the fur.
But I know nothing yet of the eyes of your assassin.
Beside their fabulous powers, symbolical and cosmic, things, plants and animals, from the simplest to the most elaborate, often have a function that may seem prosaic but is nevertheless of importance : a number of their organs, fluids, leaves and roots, are absorbed for therapeutical purposes, and are ingredients in mixtures of practical use. We must be careful for we often deal with real substances which are granted supernatural origins by tradition. Besides, a same word can apply to different substances, which can make them difficult to identify.
West of the Mount of Promises lies a lake that spreads over hundreds of kilometers. In that lake, one can find six-legged and four-eyed turtles that increase their life span thanks to breathing exercises. On their backs is the drawing of the constellation of the seven secrets. On their bellies is the picture of the five mountains and of the four rivers. They sometimes appear on the rocks : when you look at them they sparkle like a handful of stars.
You know, there are monstrous turtles that look like islands. Their shell is covered with trees and shrubs ; if you are bold enough to wander on such treacherous ground, you may lose your life when they sink into the waters.
The horse is born from the ocean's mist : he paws the ground with its hoof and the foam surges up. He doesn't belong to the earth, or only flutteringly. His first exploit, when he was born, was to fly away towards the shores of powerlessness and darkness, to bring the gentle fertilizing dew that he offered to the first seed he met. Where did he find it? In the gold of sunset ? In the breast of a virgin maid? Nobody knows.
There are seasonal mutations as the years go by, beings gradually change and their appearance is more or less altered.. A thousand-year-old rabbit loses its ears to grow horns, an old carp turns into a hunter who, in order to find protection from the witch's tricks, loads his gun with rubies, emeralds and sapphires., and a prince – having to spend the night in the forest- finds himself with the faculty of the lion to smell the lioness's infidelity . We could add more examples : any being is likely to turn into something else, given certain circumstances, and can even go from one reign to another.
You want to protect yourself from your fragility, but at some point, you will be bitten. Your body slightly moves, a bit out of time, or backwards, or sideways. The fable has its own geography, its own space. It makes you think that in the midst of appearances, there is a gap, a void, a tiny something that echoes with what, within you, for yourself, remains an enigma. |
