The giant mammals glide back to my shores. Lazily, darkness is drifting on the horizon and I fall asleep in front of a single flame…

In my dream the road is winding in and out of the earth, drenched in sap and iron, it tastes like blood but has the golden aspect of honey. I am in a northern forest.

As I am walking I hear her sing a lullaby up over my head. It is from a tall tree and the wind quiet down in its branches to let her voice pierce the artificial silence. I distinguish a wild woman sitting on the tallest limb. She appears to be knitting something: Is it a web of communication or a rancor trap? Her smile isn’t inviting, it has the same shiny blade as cruelty. Her eyes are turned inwards and she sees something I can’t distinguish. Contempt and intolerance carve lines on her skin, a map of ill will. She is breathtakingly, perfectly…beautiful, a wild creature singing to the wolves and ravens.

Shadows are sliding around my body. Each made of different colors, when they touch my skin a story is told directly to my senses. These ghosts are yours, their many facets and colors. All in one. I know so because of the old fear surrounding them, the only one defying time and history as the others are just angst anchored in the moment.

Music is echoing between the northern bark and leaf, but also reflects of the golden southern shores. As it summons the story of many colors, my brain learns from their touch, but try to forget as soon as the next one opens my soul to deposit its story. I forget out of self-preservation but how can I go on if I unlearn constantly? Why do I tense up? They soak in my porous mind anyway, host my soul and body without any permission. I hopelessly witness them pulling and distorting my values and my perception.

As I surrender, the fear seems to dissipate, a mirage?

Send me more colors, I will welcome them as they should with glory and recognition. As my shores, your woods have no gates. The flame can guide you no matter how lost you are.
Send me rainbows and few northern spindrifts as the whales are coming back to Malabar.

“Les hommes, au fond, ça n’a pas été fait pour s’engraisser à l’auge, mais ça a été fait pour maigrir dans les chemins, traverser des arbres et des arbres, sans jamais revoir les mêmes; s’en aller dans sa curiosité, connaître. »
Que ma joie demeure (1935)
Jean Giono