The Hunter’s Gloves

I wrote this for my father. 

There was once a Hunter, living high in the frozen north of the world, who had never taken off his gloves. It was the custom of his tribe to sew thick mittens on the hands of their children, to protect them from freezing winds and snow that never fully left their lands. But the hunter had become separated and lost from his clan in a blizzard when he was still a child, and with them he had also lost the chance to remove the thick furs. He had grown up, surviving by the indifferent acceptance of a wolf-pack, forgetting much of his former life, unaware of who or what he was. He had even forgotten what lay below the bulky skins wrapped around his hands; believing them to be no different in nature to the paws of the animals who were his company.

As he grew, the gloves, which were large and baggy when first put on him, had become tight and constricting. Yet despite the restriction and reduced sensitivity of his hands, he had become skilled and dextrous, and able to do all he needed. His life seemed as it should be and he was unaware of the un-natural lack of contact he had with his surroundings. So much so that he would have continued this way had he not one day come across a tree, still burning from the strike of lightning.

At first cautious and unsure the hunter found himself drawn close to the fire by his little challenged curiosity. He put out his hands to touch the shimmering flames and watched in fascination as they melted the tips of his furry limbs. When the gloves started to burn, the hunter was more bewildered than worried. In fact he enjoyed the gentle heat that came through his thick layers. By the time he felt pain his hands were too well aflame to be easily doused.

A terrifying scream ripped through the forest as the hunter entered a world of agony unlike any he had known. In a mad frenzy he danced and jumped, wailed and raged; his face twisted in the torture of the burning, his mind contorted with fear and despair at his ignorance of what to do. So complete was his innocence of fire that he had suffered a long journey of anguish before the flames finally exhausted their fuel. The hunter, weak from the torment he had endured, staggered back to his shelter and fell into a sleep of many days. As he slept he healed, and as he healed he dreamed.

His dream was a curious one: in it he found himself looking into the Sun, feeling its heat on his face. As he watched it pulled and lifted him from the ground, drawing him spinning and falling towards it. It grew hotter and larger as he fell so that soon he could feel its heat - first against and then within his body. He saw his flesh, blacken and smoulder, melt and crackle, and finally fall away in lumps. There was little pain though, and what there was fell away with his burning flesh. More curious though was that despite this his body became no less - he felt the stripping, yet still he was whole. As the hunter looked at his new limbs and body he saw them filled with a light and brilliance that seemed to thrive on the Sun’s heat in a way that empowered and renewed it. In his dreaming the hunter, who did not understand, wondered that if he was still whole, what could it be that had burnt away.

Awake, the hunter sat up and shook his head clear - the dream faded. He quickly became aware of his damaged hands, and looking down saw the tattered remains of his mittens. He gently pulled at the fur, both marvelling and fearing at how easily it came away, and when it did he stared in amazement at what lay beneath. Seeing for the first time fingers and knuckles unlike any he had known on the wolfs or other animals. He wriggled them in wonder. He cupped his palms, then spread his fingers wide, and laughed with delight when he discovered the game of moving each finger individually. All this he discovered with joy and child-like surprise until - startled by a bird’s cry - he touched something. His hand had fallen on a jagged stone and he jumped back from the unfamiliar feeling - further increased by the sensitivity of his tender skin. The hunter trembled as he reached again for the stone, gripping it in his new-born touch, and lifting it in his palm. He held it lightly, feeling the rough contours and edges, then gripped it hard, knowing the prick of those edges in his skin. With a cry of pure wildness the hunter began the game of feeling.

The furs he wore and slept on, told him about softness and warmth. His shelter, the smooth surfaces of the cave he’d made his home, spoke of cold hardness and strength. Outside, pushing his fingers into the snow, he discovered with shock the freezing bite he’d long been protected from, and going further he felt the cool streams, knowing their purity and the renewing cleansing offered for his damaged skin. In the trees and plants sticking through the thin summer snow, he found a myriad variants of smooth and rough, tender and strong, delicate and hard, all whispering to his senses of worlds yet to be discovered.

Slowly but with eager wonderment the hunter learnt of that world, searching out each new sensation, each new pleasure; discovering all until his hands fell, perhaps by accident, upon the most amazing and depth-less wonder of all - his own face.

The Third Mirror

This was written for a unhappily married daughter, requested by her mother. 

One day a young princess set out on a journey. Her mother, the queen, had years before lost a magical mirror and now that her daughter had come of age, she had been sent to search for it.

“Look for a beautiful meadow by a stream in the middle of a forest,” the queen had told her. “I rested there when travelling to this place, and I’m sure that’s where I lost it.”

The princess left happily, eager to be outside in the sun. She walked swiftly too, skipping over fresh grasses with abandon. Don’t go too quickly, came the sound of the queen’s voice. You may miss the meadow. Without turning to acknowledge her mother, the princess slowed down, walking more steadily. Soon she was looking at the countryside around her, noticing everything, but when she stopped to smell the flowers, almost immediately she heard the queen calling, Don’t dawdle; you’ll never get there.

This time the princess spun around, ready to snap a retort. But when she looked back she saw that she had travelled further than she thought, and that her home had long disappeared from view. Curious, she turned back to her journey and walked on.

As night neared on the first day, she found herself in a narrow valley, which led into a forbidding forest. Unsure of what to do, she decided to climb the valley side and see what lay beyond the dark trees before her. Scrambling up the steep stony scree she was able to gain enough height to see that the forest stretched many miles, yet not far inside the embrace of the trees there was a wide clearing which caught the evening sun. It reflected a brilliant light towards her, and she felt sure it was the meadow she sought. The princess slid back down the slope and entered the forest in the direction of the clearing.
It was certainly spooky passing through the dark trees, and her heart jumped several times when the wind whistled the leaves and the brambles caught her skirts, but nothing untoward happened and she reached the opening without mishap. And there, lying by the swaying grasses was a stream. Excited, she rushed forward, certain she was in the right place.

However, it was too dark to look for the mirror that evening, so after a light supper from the food she had brought, and a drink from the stream, she unpacked her bed roll and settled for the night in the embrace of a huge and magnificent oak.

The next morning she began her search, and though it would make her story more exciting to say she search for hours and hours, in truth she discovered a mirror almost right away. In fact, it was almost as if it jumped out at her.

Pulling it with trembling fingers from the tangled grasses that had grown around it, she sat it on her knee and tenderly wiped its face with her sleeve. It was almost a foot and a half high with flowing ornate carvings around its frame. It was very grand. ‘Are you the queen’s mirror?’ she whispered gently. Whether it was magic or not, the mirror made no reply. But the reflection it showed the princess of herself was so beautiful that she felt sure it was truly enchanted. Her hair seemed brighter, her eyes larger, her skin smoother. ‘My,’ she said, with an appreciative laugh. ‘You are quite the flatterer.’ She was delighted by the mirror’s attentions.

When finally, she looked up she saw that the sun had crossed the mid-point. Unsure of how long it would take her to return through the stretch of forest between the clearing and the valley, she decided to climb the oak and view it. It proved not to be far, but on turning the other way she got a shock.

Not more than a short distance away through the trees was a second clearing. She knew she could not leave without checking, so climbing back down she picked up the mirror, and made off through the woods.

Though it was the middle of the day, the forest floor was at once dark and cool. She felt the urge to push and hurry through the undergrowth, but found that the mirror was heavy in her hands, and the loops and hooks in its frame caught easily in the forest vines. For a while her love of it lessened - especially when she caught a glimpse of herself in its face, showing her features dark and heavy in the forest gloom.

But at last she broke out into the new clearing, and fell in a thankful heap against a beech of outstanding grandeur. So tired was she by her struggle through the forest, that she might have slept straight away - had not something particularly painful stuck in her back. Something that turned out to be… another mirror.

The princess was shocked. She had not expected this. Her trip to the new clearing was more from a need to be thorough, than because she truly expected another find. And now, when she looked into this new reflection, she was troubled. This mirror - a smaller, plain, metal banded glass - showed her not as more beautiful, but as wiser. In the reflection she saw a broad forehead, deep knowing eyes, and a wide mouth capable of great speech. Truly, in her experience, such an image of herself could only be one of wonder.

Both mirrors showed her as special; both must therefore be magical. Which could be the one for which she searched? Tired as much from the mystery as from the journey, she slept. 

And she dreamt:

‘Knowledge is much more important than flattery,’ the smaller mirror croaked at her. ‘Don’t be deluded by that puffed-up fellow. A princess needs to know things to conquer her world. Gaze into me, and I will teach you how to be better than others.’

‘Rubbish,’ cried the other, waving its ornate loops in the air. ‘Brainy people are despised. No one will love you for cleverness. And none CAN love you as I do. Look at me, look at me – I am the one to show you what you are.’ And with this, the larger mirror curved its loops and folds towards her - in ways that the princess found disturbing.

Leaving them arguing with each other she turned away, only to find herself trapped. In the dream, her home was a tiny windowless room, shared with only the two mirrors. A home that had little space in its own right, and none that she could call hers.

Days seemed to pass in the altered reality of her dream; then months, even years went by. And throughout it all the two mirrors continued their competitive pursuit of her favours. Moreover, they grew. The princess found herself cramped more and more by their reaching clutches, their whiny voices, and their incessant arguing. She tried to find some space for herself but trapped in the box-like room, there was nowhere for her to go.

Then one day she deliberately turned away from the them, clamped her hands over her ears and stared resolutely at the wall. And as she did, she faintly started to see something she had not noticed before. At first she was dismayed, because what was appearing - as if from nothing – was yet another mirror. But as she looked at it, she felt a warmth and comfort from it that she did not experienced from the others. Moreover, it reflected nothing, instead giving out a beautiful golden light. The princess leaned closer to examine it – and to her great surprise saw the following words embedded in the frame:

‘In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass’.

The idea that a mirror should itself tell her to break it seemed preposterous. Yet the princess intuitively knew a deeper magic was being offered by this sacrifice. With her heart in her mouth - and to the sound of sudden terrified silence from the two arguing mirrors behind her - she took off her shoe and thumped the glass.

The mirror cracked with a noise like laughing rain. The broken bits crumbled in on themselves until they were no longer visible, and the golden light bulged outwards. Freed from its glass barrier it grew outwards and the princess, transfixed in front of it, became completely immersed by it.

For long blissful moments, she saw nothing but gold, felt nothing but joy, and heard nothing but her own heart. When at last her eyesight cleared, everything around her had altered. The walls of the room had become translucent, then transparent, and no longer were they a prison to contain her. They were simply the boundaries of her being – her own internal world, her sacred space. A space that moved as she moved, and grew or shrank as she dictated. Moreover, a space that nothing should enter uninvited. She knew this instantly – and the two mirrors, watching her anxiously, knew it too. Without words, with merely the knowing of it, she banished them beyond the walls of the room. Her ‘room’. She was freed within herself. Freed to be herself.

And she awoke.

The princess sat up. It was early dawn of the next day, the sun just starting to creep into the clearing. The mirrors lay beside her. Silent. Passive. She got up and without a backward glance, walked away through the trees.

When she arrived home that evening, tired but complete, the queen asked her where the mirror was.

‘There is only one mirror, mother’ the princess said, kissing the queen on the cheek. ‘And it is me.’

Not dying yet, then.

Last month I found out that I don’t have prostrate cancer. I’d been in the state of unknowing for a few months, so it was a huge shift in perspective - like something leaving that you don’t even remember arriving. A weird feeling.

I'm sure it is weird for most people who go through that, but for me it has another edge to it. Because of childhood trauma I'd always found life more scary than death, so when I got told back in early March that I might have cancer I had mixed feelings: some surprise, and curiosity, but not fear. All my concerns were about what it meant for my wife.

The journey since then has been most odd. At the start of it I lost what I had thought of as my closest friend. In part through telling her I might have cancer and her not wanting to be the one I talked to about it. That in turn led me into a place where I felt I had to keep it a secret from anyone other than my wife, who I also felt I needed to protect from knowing too much. To cope, or deal with that, I put it out of my mind and convinced myself that the symptoms were probably something else (as it turned out to be) and just carried on living with a weird, background feeling that my life might not be as long as I'd previously expected. And since I was kind of okay with that, I was also avoiding finding out for sure by turning down potentially damaging investigative procedures and delaying blood tests. 

Then, I did a 3 Day Intensive Zen Retreat.  

The purpose of this practise/retreat is to ‘find out who you are’. In my case, I had always been basically just fear, both of life here now and of where we come from (i.e. our source, whatever that may be). 

To my great surprise, the retreat (which was very intense) shifted so much of that I found myself in a state of love with life and - for the first time - with myself. And even more oddly and also for the first time, I felt at peace with my origin. 

All this was not just some sort of spiritual high, it was the removal of a lot of negativity and past pain. I didn't gain anything new in terms of a faith of some sort of god or something, nothing like that; it was just a letting go of all the ‘old me’ stuff - like a few years of therapy in one weekend. Which was the point of the retreat.

This was great, obviously, but brought with it a new challenge: for the first time since I was about 10, I wanted to live - and thus wanted to not have cancer. I had the curious feeling of suddenly being okay about life, while also being aware I might be about to lose it. Very bitter sweet. It was like that feeling we get when we're in a foreign or new place, and see great natural beauty, but are alone and have no one to share it with. Joy and sadness at the same time. (See what the Postwoman says in the 2006 film, Paris, Je T'aime for a great explanation of this). 

I think that's what life is: joy and sadness at the same time. And heck of a lot of it. 

And as ever, it left the question: okay, still here, what now? 

The Tower Woman

A story... 

Once there was a woman who lived in the land of the tower people. The tower people were just like any other kind of people, they just happened to live in towers. Some were small and near the ground, while others were tall. Some were strong and some were neglected and some were very weak. And while most were made of wood, some were made of the thickest stone.

The woman’s tower looked very normal from the outside and the people around her thought she was exactly like them. But hidden in her tower were a lot of unseen rooms. So many in fact, that she had developed a habit of keeping them locked and hidden – especially when other people came to visit. She even went so far as to create a whole section of her tower for other people to see, just so they would think she was like them. She had to, she was very pretty and a lot of people wanted to visit.

As the years went by she grew tired of this, and spent more of her time at the top of her tower, where she could relax in the bright sunshine and look across the lands, exploring with her eyes and mind. She grew to love the height and what it revealed to her, and how it made her mind wander and wonder. So much so that she tried to make her tower as high as she could. Every day she dragged stones up the long winding stairs inside, fixing them to the top, and adding floor after floor, room after room. She loved her tower deeply and especially the top where she could feel the sun and forget some of the dark rooms near the bottom - rooms she tried not to go to anymore.

However, there was a problem: the tower was now so much higher than the ones around her that how different she was had become harder to hide. When she looked down at her friends’ towers, she felt so different that it was uncomfortable. She knew she wasn’t normal – all her hidden rooms were proof of that - so she began to keep to herself more and put all her attention on her tower, each day increasing its height.

After many years, it finally became high enough for her to see over a hill that lay to the west, which excited her because one of her favourite things was to sit on the top platform of her tower and watch the sun go down. In her dreams she had imagined there was a mystical land and people who lived on the far side of the hill; people who did not live in towers, but roamed free among trees and meadows. So she was a little shocked, but intrigued, when her tower grew high enough for her to see over the hill and into the valley beyond and see that, there, another tower had been built – one that was very tall, and standing almost on its own.

The tower woman had a telescope and holding it up she could see the top of the other tower and there, looking back at her though his own telescope was a man. He did not seem like her old friends, but that pleased her, and so she started to signal to him. It was slow at first, because although all tower people instinctively know signal language, the woman and the man used slightly different signals. But as time went by she realised that if she let go and used her intuition she knew exactly what he was saying. He was funny and random, and made her laugh. She loved how geeky he was and it meant she was able to be herself with him – and how the nagging fear of all the dark rooms beneath her feet was smaller when she talked to him. Over time, they became close friends and her fears and need to hide lessoned.

However, as her fear retreated it left a hole, and she felt a loneliness and longing she’d never had before. She so loved talking to her tower friend, the geeky guy who lived alone in the valley, that she wanted more. She wanted to hold him, and be held by him. To touch and be together.





This new feeling grew and she began to realise how long it had been since she had left her tower. So much so that she wasn’t even that sure how to do it. The entrance had grown stiff and just getting to the bottom, passed the dark rooms, was hard work. But in the end she managed it and she began to make her way from her tower to his. When she got to it though, she got a shock. The man’s tower was incredibly high; at least twice the height of hers. She smiled with delight, and wonder, realising that it was only because of the height of her tower, and extraordinary height of the man’s, that had made them visible to each other. She loved how they had found each other that way. She also longed to see what could be seen from the top.

However, she could also now see that there was no door. If she was honest that scared her a bit, but it also appealed to her and so she began to climb.

At first it was easy; the man’s tower was enveloped in creeping vines that made it simple to get a hand hold on – in fact, she even loved that his tower was covered in the twisted vegetation, since she had noticed some creepers beginning around the base of her own tower when she’d left it. So the fact that her tower man had many more just made her all the more determined that he would love her for who she was.

As she climbed, she called out the man, telling him she was coming – and more than once asking him about a door. But when he looked over the top, down to where she was climbing, all she heard was him shout down that now was not a good time, and that she should go home and he’d tell her when it was a good time to come. He even promised to make a door just for her if she would just go home and wait. But the woman had come too far and wanted his touch too much to be able to go back. Besides, she was sure that even if there was no door she would at least be able to get in a window. And being a woman who knew she was always right, her head was full of happy ideas and thoughts: she imagined finding a way in, hugging her new friend, and finally – after exploring a few of his own dark rooms, which just thinking about made her feel excited – that they would make their way together to the very top of his tower and sit and watch the sun set together, where they would finally be no longer alone. And so, with all this in her mind, she climbed fervently, shouting back that she could not wait, and not noticing that the man had disappeared.

Before long, she was able to make out a window ledge far above her. Excited, she climbed faster, covering the distance quickly so that she was soon able to pull herself up and over the ledge and sit breathing deeply with the exhaustion. However, her breathing became a gasp when she saw that, although it was a window, it was filled in and brick up. Moreover, shuffling forwards to see if there was any way to work the bricks loose, she discovered a truth that nearly broke her heart, the cement around the bricks was fresh – all the time she had been climbing, the man had been bricking up the window.

In the hours that passed after the woman discovered the bricked up window, she had sat numb and scared on the ledge. She knew she was very high and that a fall might kill her. She knew she ought to climb down, but the thought of doing so and returning to her own tower alone was painful. She also knew there was no point in climbing higher – even if there was another window, she knew that it too would be bricked up by the time she got there. She did wonder if she could make it to the top and pull herself over the parapet and chase the man around the platform until he gave in and let her hold him. But that seemed impossible, even for her. So instead she just sat, and tried to figure out what had gone wrong.

After a while, she heard a noise and realised that the man was on the other side of the window. That though he had shut her out, he still wanted to contact with her. She felt angry and called out to him, telling him so. He replied, although his voice was muffled, she heard him tell her again that it was too soon and that he was not ready to have guests in his tower. She shouted back that she was not a guest, that she was like him and wanted to be with him. But then he said that he could not let her in that window as it led into a room he did not want her to see, to which she replied that it was those rooms that she particularly did want to see because she had rooms of her, and that she understood and wanted to be understood in return. Finally, he said that he did not want her to be disappointed, but she immediately called back that he was probably disappointed in himself and that with her help he would be fine. But the man did not like that and grew angry that she wanted to change him, which made the woman confused, as she did not understand how someone could be not what they wanted to be, yet not want to be changed, and before she could stop herself she said some horrible things that later she wished she hadn’t.

It was quiet after that, so that she was not sure if the man was still there. She called out again, but his voice was so faint she was not sure if he was still inside or had retreated to the top of the tower. The wind made it hard to hear too; it had picked up and even seemed to want to tear her from the ledge. Clinging to the ledge, she started to feel afraid. What if he left her there? What if he didn’t pull down the bricks and let her in? What if she was left on the ledge until exhaustion made her fall asleep and she fell? She knew that she had to make a decision: she had to either give in climb down or somehow stay awake and keep trying to persuade him to let her in.

And it was then, as she sat trying to decide which to do, that she heard a terrifying rumble. Looking back towards her home she was able to make out the top of her own tower and see that there was a problem. She had been away too long and neglect meant some stones were becoming loose and her tower was starting to crumble. If she was to save it, to have a tower to go back to, she would have to leave soon. For a while, she cried in frustration and pain and fear.

However, she knew she had to make a decision. She loved towers, and still wanted to live in one, but if this man would not share his with her, then she would move on. She would find a new place and build her own again. She build on rock and make it even higher. So high that she could see everything and everyone, long before they could see her.

Journal - And...

One of my favourite books is the Tao Te Ching. 

My favourite part of my favourite chapter is this, from Chapter 20. 

And what do the people want? Money and things.

And yet I find I have nothing, and I don’t care.

I am as unambitious as any fool.

 

Most people seem to be bright and sharp.

And how do I feel?

Like a blunted sword.

 

The people, the people are like waves of the sea.

And I am drifting between wherever they are blown.

 

And the people, the people are so busy.

But I have nothing to bother about.

I am a bumpkin, a lout.

 

I am different, I am strange.

I live for the mother.