pum pum…pum pum…pum pum

qui tombe, Rebekah West, 35mm and digital layering, ©2007

I address my remarks to those of you who have a heartbeat

I address my remarks to those of you with beating hearts

to those with passionate blood

to those with passion running through their bodies

to those young

to those who were once young and who are now…older, yet not so old

to those old but with quickening in their veins

I am here to tell you, to whisper in your ear…wonder exists.

Wonder exists, I say, it lives among us.

O New-comer,

seeds of wonder inverse, Rebekah West, Colour pencil/digital image, ©2011

seeds of wonder, Rebekah West, Colour pencils/digital image, ©2011

O New-comer,

This birth has given you value beyond all price.

With the sun and the stars

You have received the unique gift of Form.

The light that travels along the Milky Way

And touches the green brow of this earth,

Has kissed your eyes

And tied you forever in bonds of friendship

With the Universe.

From ages past the Great Message

Has come down the stream of Time,

And at this blest moment pays you homage.

In front of you lies the Soul’s path,

Stretching toward Infinity;

Along that path you are the solitary traveler –

This great wonder is without end!

Time flies. What a wonderful French experience I have had. How about you? Thank you for reading! I will take a blogging break to put my new wonder stories business in order. When the ducks and stars line up, I’ll announce the next bit here. If you’d like, you can opt-in to my email list to get information on other wonder happenings as they unfold. Again, Thank you! Merci Beaucoup!

Final

giver receiver, Rebekah West, Video still, ©2005

It was disbelief that caused her questions in the first place. She was fighting Sir Ritter, sparring, teasing, and seducing. In truth, she did not question the intent behind his words because she did not want to fight the man. It became clear to her only now, she had wanted to bed him.

She supposed every one else already knew.

Yet here was something foreign and impossible, a Knight in transparent armour offering her a daisy, so that her constant need to cajole, control or even know evaporated.

What do I do now? she asked this vision of a knight. Unconsciously, she brushed the daisy petals across her face.

In response, he turned toward the bridge and extended his hand. She was not sure they were of the same flesh, but she reached out her hand.

As their hands touched, the sensation was of flying across the bridge, images tearing past, some she recognised, others she swallowed whole. One particularly clear one she gulped down even though it was sharp and hard and heavy and clear. It went straight to her heart.

She found herself back in the main hall standing slightly behind the Diamond Knight. They were facing Ritter and his knights, now clambering from the benches to their feet.

Sir Ritter saw the vivid yellow pollen on her cheek and grinned. As he bowed to the Diamond Knight, he reached under the table for his sword. As he came swiftly upright, he sliced it through the air and charged for Lady Madeleine with a battle cry.

In a river-fast moment of calm, she drew from her war-hardened heart a leaf-shaped diamond blade. Daisy petals formed the handle and they were animated in the act of contouring to fit the arc of her wrist. The blade’s point and the sharp curved edge provided a delicate and precise weapon. She raised the sword high above her head, fire in her eyes.

Stepping in front of Lady Madeleine, the Diamond Knight raised one foot and stomped it down, shaking the earth, reverberating power. Ritter stumbled, she fell to her knees. Men’s voices called out in warning. Ritter was heading toward her too fast to stop. It looked like his blade aimed to kill.

With a tilt of her head, knowing what she did not understand, Madeleine pounded her sword point down on the stone floor and released it spinning like a top. When Ritter hit it, the petals of the daisy handle exploded in intense yellow pollen sending Ritter through the air.

Madeleine, with her arms akimbo and her hands free, smiled at Ritter flying across the room sideways, eyes fixed on hers, still grinning.

She winced only a little when he hit the floor and skidded to a stop. At that moment, her diamond sword flew back together, settling deep down into her heart for safekeeping.

Why, now, Lady? he asked bursting into laughter. The knights, including the Diamond Knight, laughed with him, showing their willingness to follow even under the strangest of circumstances.

Good, she thought, he’s got his men back so that’s done…even if he is on his back. Madeleine looked across at the men and shook her mind at the vision presenting itself. She saw them as if in simultaneous layers: playful boys, blood-drenched warriors, sensual lovers, concerned fathers, honest brothers, and fellow human beings. She felt butterflies in her stomach, a sensation she did not usually permit, but she smiled in spite of herself and they saw it.

Because, Sir Ritter, she said, because it is the way of men.

And what is the way of women, Lady Madeleine? He answered from the floor.

The Diamond Knight took a step back to give her room to answer.

She walked toward Ritter. The way of women, she thought, he wants to know the way of women? War, epics and the tale of the Diamond Knight who stood before her, and he wanted to know the way of women?

She walked to him without hesitation and knelt down. She put her face to his face and breathed in his scent. Ritter’s left eyebrow quivered.

Tancred’s eyes lit up and he held his breath. Perhaps except for Madeleine’s hungry breathing, they all waited.

The way of women, m’lord, is a surprise. Do you want to know why?

And as Ritter opened his mouth to ask the question that started this story, she took his dusty, grinning face in her hands and kissed him. She used her tongue for something besides arguing.

At least that’s what I heard.

continued

giver spins, Rebekah West, Video still, ©2005

Situated elegantly between the known and the unknown was a wide boundary, a grey area, a moment. Lady Madeleine hung in the balance.

All sense of external motion stopped. She felt quite suddenly serious. The eagerness melted from her face. Within, not only her heart raced, but her mind, words galloped blindly toward conclusions.

Where is here, exactly? she said aloud to no one, for she could see nothing but the door hovering over her shoulder. Is this a place or a state of mind?

A male voice responded, What were you expecting, Lady?

Her face was still, senses alert. I imagined, she began, No, I fantasised you would give me direct and definitive answers to my questions. From what Sir Ritter said, I presumed things, perhaps I did not have the…correct information to presume.

Was her mind her own so she could keep embarrassment at bay or did he suspect or even know she had considered a public knighting of a woman, even to be sure, of herself? She took a deep breath and sighed saying, More than that I’m not prepared to speak at present.

This is where one comes to seek, to listen, to question, even to take refuge in fantasy. I assure you that as far as I am concerned, there is no judgment to be devised, no ruling to be heralded. However, should you wish to fabricate your own, you will not be stopped.

Was he laughing? Her body vibrated with questions, almost as if they were crowding in from this place, multiplying with each breath. The urge to fight was gone. In its place arose a gut feeling to listen, not something she was particularly good at. Not in the stomach at all, but in the essence of her self, stemmed something voracious, a hunger for the food of dreams.

In that moment, language ceased to have total power over her. A stone bridge appeared and at its near edge leaned the Knight twiddling a daisy in his fingers.

She landed on what felt like earth to her and found her feet carry her forward, toward him.

He stood tall and bowed slightly forward.

She had never seen armour like this. It was brilliant, luminescent and colourful. No, she realised, it was transparent. The illusion of colour was his clothing visible underneath. No visible weapon, no shield, no helmet. What manner of knight was this?

He offered her the daisy. Though its tender stem and delicate petals bruised to her touch, she received it in a rigid state of disbelief.

continued…

g.old giver, Rebekah West, Video still, ©2005

On the other side of the door, the bottom dropped out into a place without edges or boundary. The simple force of coming through the door threw Lady Madeleine forward, out and down.

Her cloak flew from her shoulders.

She instinctively looked up to try to see where she had started. Part of her brain registered that the door seemed to stay right behind her.

It was impossible to keep from feeling and seeing. Her curiosity forbade clenching; it untied her fingers and pried open her eyes.

Her body sensed pressure and elevation. Her mind ached for something to grab onto, something to anchor her, even something to follow. Thoughts stuck to her skin like metal snowflakes gearing together; she recognised the feeling of donning the armour she wore to protect and conceal herself in battle.

She felt her chin jut up, her jaw tense, her ears pique. Her body prepared for impact; a familiar feeling from the wars she had been arguing about with Sir Ritter.

Her breathing slowed to match time moving.

Before a skirmish, there was a cutting of ties to the ordinary, a languorous moment between the mundane tasks required to arrange oneself for a campaign and the charge itself. Her eyelids went half-masked, half bladed. This position combined inner seeing and outer that gave her an uncanny awareness at the periphery of her view and made her vision ready to slice, cut and pierce. This was the most important protective power she had, to see in this way.

Madeleine’s physical anticipation scrubbed at her mind until all that was left was stark perception. Words meant nothing. Her heart was not closed, as one might think, but ripe, bursting with the juices of emotion ready to spend.

As the Diamond Knight watched, Lady Madeleine yielded, bent, dropped, gave way and went under, yet advanced with each breath.

She was nearer than any woman before. If she kept from falling to pieces, he would finally get to abandon the old rules.

continued…

giver over, Rebekah West, Video still, ©2005

It’s what warriors do, Tancred said, bristling.

But why do we write these epics, she had said. Why, Sir? Making the stories costs us dear.

Raised eyebrows on all sides.

M’lady, Tancred seemed ready to acquiesce, There are costs and there are costs. These questions lead nowhere. He tried to swallow his smile of condescension, which made him look like a human stuck in a cat.

Her patience thinned.

Her pride was well-known. Men caught themselves mid-snicker for they had known her since her birth and, though willing to tease a bit, would not offend outright..they’d rather have her good humour.

But these are critical questions to discuss, she had blurted out with more passion than she knew she had, Asking why is crucial to the conversation.

Who is the know-it-all now? Sir Ritter gently slid off his tongue into the room.

The men laughed then, she remembered, but when Ritter evoked the Diamond Knight and handed her the key to the doorway which led to the secret bridge, their protests rang off the stone walls. She had scooted out partly to keep the conflict between her and all the men, leaving Ritter on their side. So much for her famous pride, she thought. What could Ritter be thinking?

Women were only privy to the story of the Diamond Knight. The key was a sacred male object. Lady Madeleine assumed at first her trip to the bridge was to curb her passion, her pride and her tongue, probably through the ridicule induced by the fact that only a man could evoke the knight. But he had given her the key and that weighted the matter.

She had asked why. Not plaintively, but earnestly. And he’d accused of her of thinking she knew everything. It was a question, she thought with conceit.

Ah, the conceit. That is the humility she is here to experience, no doubt. At times, Ritter knows her better than she knows herself. But while he can point to the truth in her, only she can dig deep. And that she would do, he counted on it. She didn’t know why he depended on it in this instance, not yet anyway. Another why for the Diamond Knight. And if the legendary knight did not appear, she was quite capable of following the question herself.

Though she was a warrior, she could see that the stories perpetuated the battle. The battle lived on for lifetimes if it was good enough, gory enough, and, of course, if they had won it. Yet, her devotion to protecting her lands and people, the blood lust of battle, the galloping unknown of it both thrilled and dismayed her.

The fabled bridge was on the other side of the door at the bottom of this spiral stairway, she knew. All the children in the castle discovered it at one point or another.

As she wound down the steps, she sought deeper into what was behind her unexpected question of why. The sense she had was that of a touchstone. Why, again, she could have asked. Tell me again why we do this? Why do we take the next step and the next and what is the value in that?

It has to be permitted to question the thing to re-value it. She needed the reevaluation, evidently, and for some reason her dreams told her this was the time to ask for it.

Of course, the story tells us again, in its ways through an experienced, or sly, teller. They tuck messages in the folds of their stories to pacify us as well as teach us.

Ah, the door.

The key practically wriggled as she approached the door, yearning for the lock, magnetising itself toward it with her hand and arm following obediently.

The lock clicked open, a rush of kept air escaped and she was in, door closing behind her.

Allergies have led to asthma and I’m down for the count.

Evil of me, I know…will finish the story of Lady Madeleine and Sir Ritter as soon as I’m breathing easy,

Meeting the Diamond Knight

giver above, Rebekah West, Video still, ©2005

Madeleine, Sir Ritter said, you don’t know everything and you best learn it this day. To the bridge with you and come back with the Diamond Knight or die knowing it all.

In a pout, she wrapped herself in a borrowed cloak and stomped past the amused men at their food. She did not give Ritter the chance to see she took the most direct route.

So, was it for him she had arrived here or, under scrutiny, was it the dream she had the last three nights? A black void of a force appeared in her dream, beckoning her forward. Out of the dreamy earth formed a clay woman, beckoning her forward. One forming, the other formless. Each beckoning, each calling, both in the same place. There was no conflict; she was to move toward them.

In her dream she could not move, could not respond. She was silent and still.

When they evoked the Diamond Knight, that is to say, when he appeared, it was known he had given a response. His presence initiated one prepared to become a knight, rarely a woman. Never a woman, if you must know.

The bridge of forming and formless invited and electrified all manner of stories. Now it was her story and in her cold and fear, she tasted blood.

How was it she had been ordered to this place? She thought back. She was arguing with him, teasing, egging on a display of knowledge, waiting to trip him up. He had said, Look, if you want to make a simple choice about the next step in a war, you have to have already done it a thousand times before. Then, and only then, would you know what to do next. No original thought needed.

She scoffed, pierced his eyes with hers and shot back, Assuming everything was happening exactly as it had happened before, of course, m’lord, but it behooves one to be agile. In her grave, her mother rolled her eyes (and not for the first time, mind you).

Oho, the men sang out. The theatre of the table elicited a chime of sound in the room but a silence in her mind. While they elbowed each other and called out responses, she put herself, for a moment, in Sir Ritter’s shoes.

Surrounded by the men he commanded, provoked by a woman. The fact that she was known as a warrior to him, occasionally costumed as a male to fight alongside, was private knowledge. She was pushing the edges of their intimacy, their shared secrets about who was who and what was what. In public.

Why are you arguing, she asked herself. The dream was a performance and perhaps it was on: rescue the commander and save herself from ridicule.

It’s a story, she said, only a story. Imagine me in a battle! Laughter from the men, a visible narrowing of Ritter’s eyes.

She continued. As a warrior, if you will permit me, epics are made by me, on me, and for others. The men waited.

Something is spoken through these stories, yes? Perhaps, the meaning of warriorship.

Sir Tancred, smiling, pounded his fist. Indeed, Lady.

She looked away from Ritter. You fight so others will fight, she said, right, Sir?

Each of us knows certain things

home known unknown, Rebekah West, Film still, ©2005

Held within the tender, fluid grasp of human hands lives an image in motion, a symbol of the individual, a symbol of the imagination: wonder as a living entity.

Infinite home of the unknown, light and dark, a mysterious source of illumination.

Vibrating home of the known, perception and information, a lifetime of human skin, human existence.

In our conversation with our imagination waits the potential to express our individuality while exercising our capacity to tend to a vaster world. We hold this inside ourselves and, if we are an artist, we make it or manifest it with our hands, if for a moment or eternity.

If wonder is dynamic, there must be a sense of movement, tension, change, activity, and vigor. It must be animated as any other living thing and it must be available to all of us. Wonder is the relationship.