MsTiara’s Thoughts

I ran out of the castle this morning with a piece of toast in one hand and a bag filled with apples in the other. Dragon had sent me a message last night among the dreams to meet him as the sun rose over the castle spires on the front lawn, that he had something to show me.

The sun was just starting to peak over the edge when I heard the sound of the wings from up above and Dragon came flying over the top of the turret and did a loopy loop before he came in for his landing, just as he was about ready to land he transformed into the boy that I know and as his feet touched the ground, he threw me that cheerful impish grin that he seems to wear constantly.

Dragon has black hair that mirrors his black scales in dragon form and the greenest eyes you ever saw, almost as if they are jewels instead of the every day eyes that the rest of us have. As I reach up and give him a hug my hand brushes across his hair which is soft and sleek as a cat.

“So, where are we going today? You know I am supposed to be doing stuff, right?” I asked

Dragon looked around and whispered in my ear, “we are going to go to the birth of an island. I will take us through time there and get you back here in time to do your work.”

“Dragon, can’t we do the whole time travel thing and NOT get me back in time to do my work? I want a day of doing nothing but playing.”

“So you want to play do you? Hop on and let’s go.”

As Dragon changed into the large beast that I have grown to love I jumped onto his back and I heard him in my head. “Hold on.”

As I held on with my legs and arms around his neck, he took off and as he twisted and turned and my laughter rang over the castle grounds the entire world blurred around me and we left my time behind to the “time of the dragons”.

“Where are we?” I asked.

Dragon replied back, “we are everywhere.”

“Everywhere? How can you be everywhere?”

“It is very simple,” he said as he took us into a dive to fly low over the water so I could feel the spray flying up and touching my legs. “Everywhere is the place where everything is.”

“But, there is nothing here but water, so how can everything be here and if everything isn’t here than how can we be everywhere?” I sighed… Sometimes Dragon thinks the most impossible things.

“How do you know that everything isn’t here?”

“Dragon, if everything was here wouldn’t I be able to see it?”

“So you are telling me as we are flying along the water, that just because you can’t see the fish below they don’t exist? Or that as we are flying in the air that just because we don’t see any birds that there must be none or that because no one sees us that we are nothing?”

I can’t help but laugh at my friend, as I said he thinks the most impossible things. “So you are telling me that here is my castle and here is my cat and here is flowers and here is life?” I think to myself, now how can he possibly imagine that there are flowers here in the middle of the ocean. Let’s see him get out of that!

At my last comment, Dragon just stops and seems to be suspended in mid-air, “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I am so glad you finally understand!”

“But, Dragon…”

“shhh… We are here”

I look around at all of the water, trying to see the signs of the island that is about to be born. I see no bubbling in the water and when I look down it is clear and dark and deep. I wonder if someone magical is going to come by and call it forth from the sea, but it is only Dragon and I, suspended over the patch of water below.

“So,” I whisper in his ear. “How is it going to be born?”

As he turns his head and looks at me with his emerald eyes, I can see the smile spread across his face and make his eyes shine so brightly. “You get to decide”

“um..” I stammer, “I get to decide, but who am I to decide?”

“Well you are going to be the person who creates it, so it should be your decision.”

“I can’t create an Island, I am nothing special but a human.”

“you are wrong, Etoile. You are very special and you have the gift of creation. You have always had it, now you just need to use it. So, what should it be? Song? Words? A wave of your hand? Maybe you should laugh it into existence or cry it.”

“Dragon you can’t be serious. I am not like you I can’t do those things. I have no magic, I have no power. I am just me.”

“Do you believe that if you keep on saying Can’t and keep on denying that you are nothing that all of a sudden it will be true? I am very disappointed in you my star, I am giving you the opportunity of a life time and all you can do is look at me and tell me that you can’t do it. Before you say Can’t one more time, maybe you should just try.”

“But…” At those words of mine Dragon let out a roar and the flames from his breath turned the world around me the blue green of dragon fire.

“try…”

“Dragon, I don’t know what to do. You need to help me.”

At those words I could hear the whisper of the ancients running through my head telling me the secrets of creation. As the knowledge filled me, it all made sense, it was so easy. I just needed to name it, call, it give it life with my belief while I say the word.

I wanted to create the most beautiful island in the world, so I thought long and hard and I created what to me would be perfection and I looked below us in the water and I let the beauty spread below me into my soul and I said the one word that I wanted the island to be and as I said the word what was once just water and air was in but a breath and a thought a perfect island.

I could feel Dragon’s joy radiate up through every part of his essence into my very being and then it exploded out of him and I until we were laughing in the pure joy of creation. As our laughter rang out across the land Dragon flew across the beaches and up the streams to the mountain tops where a waterfall flowed down the mountain side to land in a pool below. As we got to the pool, Dragon transformed till he and I were tumbling through the sky into the cool depths of the water.

As Dragon and I came to the surface of the water and saw each other wet and happy, we gave each other a hug and played in the little piece of heaven I created. As we grew tired and sat next to the waterfall on the bank and dangled our feet in the water, Dragon asked me what word I used to create such a beautiful place. I smiled and whispered in his ear “Friendship.” I wanted the Island to be a representation of our friendship. He smiled at me and then whispered in my ear. “It is a very beautiful thing.”

Today I saw pictures of fire, buildings tumbled, cars destroyed. Pictures of blood splattered, men with guns, planes dropping bombs. I saw pictures of a city with parts of it flattened, children in the streets crying… Today, I saw war.

The sad part about this is it becomes an image that is all too common place in our world. The destruction on TV, the news pages as we look at our computer during the day. As I walked in the street, I heard the honking of horns and the continuous stream of anger, anger directed outwards, anger directed inwards.

Today I felt war, the war within people as they lose the fight over and over again to grow and be, to love and to accept. I wish I could say war was something new that people just made in this day and age, that it was just another part of the continuing destruction of the earth that we live in. But, I cannot. War has been around probably since the beginning of time. When man looked at other men and decided they were different they must die. That when man looked at the animals roaming the land and they feared so they killed. When man looked at the food on the other mans place and envied so the other man died so he could be fed.

I sit in my cocoon in this world. I have everything that I can possibly want. I have worked hard and long for it. I am sure many people envy it. Some would even possibly kill for it. I go through life looking forward, still dreaming, and still believing. Afraid that if I fall into the mindset of the world at war, that I will become just like them. Someone who is mindless and hates, who will kill for differences, who refuses to listen because I am hardened.

Today I cried as the despair of the world hit me and I realized that all my life I have hoped for peace and that the dream is but a dream for man cannot help but hate. But, still I hope and do not give into despair. For if but one person can go through life and take the time to smile, take a deep breath and apologize when anger explodes, and can learn to love even when someone hurts you maybe, just maybe there will be one less war.

Deep inside the forest there flows a stream that is far away from the concrete and steel world that most people call home. As I sit on the rock that has been worn away over the many years to fit perfectly to me, I dangle my feet into the water. There is something so amazingly peaceful about sitting inside this world of green velvet that is made up of the trees and the grass on the forest floor. The sun filters through the trees in waves of gold and hits the water as it slowly flows by every now and then moving over or around a rock in its path creating a bit of silver before it continues on its way.

Around me is the music of the forest as a slight breeze ruffles the leaves and a bird flies from one perch to another and the stream continues its music. I gaze off into the distance as I sit there and slowly connect to the patterns of the forest. A rustling occurs in the forest across from me and a pure white unicorn steps out of the shadows and looks at me with its aquamarine eyes. It dips its head and steps to the stream and takes a drink from the stream before turning and disappearing back from where it came.

As I sit and breathe in the peace around me, fluttering in the distance captures my attention and as I watch a large grouping of butterflies comes toward me and if I listen closely I can hear the sounds of their laughter and joy as they brush on by. A slight smile touches my face.

As I have to go back to the world of concrete and steel I take the sound of the laughter of the butterflies and place it into my memory to pull out when I forget what really matters in the world around me.

As Etoille and Cyn wander through the wood sharing their stories and dreams for the day, they hear shrieks and giggle up ahead and off the path… As they pick up their speed they can hear childish voices raised in terror, “No! No! Don’t catch us.”

We looked at each other in fear and ran up ahead to see if we could save the voices we heard. As we rounded the bend and saw the open clearing, a dark black dragon filled our vision, swooping low and deep towards the ground. Up ahead of him were 5 baby bunnies, running in terror away from him as the dragon came in even lower and grabbed them each with his claws.

As I gathered my magic to blast the dragon with a freeze spell, Cyn yells in my head. “NO! If you do that, he will fall to the ground and squash them. We need to think of something else. I will distract him and you put a float spell on the bunnies.”

As I gather my energy once again, this time to make them as light as the cloud, the dragon swirls around the clearing, skimming over the trees and the shrieks of the bunnies can be heard throughout the woods. I start the words forming in my head when the dragon swoops low once again towards the clearing and gently lets each bunny drop daintily upon the ground.

All of a sudden the giggles of the bunnies were filling the clearing and as they ran in joy away from the dragon, you could hear their voices float back upon the wind… “Again! Again! Catch us again. We want to fly into the clouds this time and cool off.”

The dragon lazily did a loop da loop through the sky and shot a look towards Cyn and me. His voice echoed in my head, “come play with us.” I looked longingly at the bunnies playing in the tall grass, working out their strategy with glee and I wanted to run and play with them.

“I want to, but I am too big to play with the bunnies.” I whispered back through the path he left in my head to talk to him.

“Then I will just have to make you into a kitten.” As the words whispered through my head I felt myself change until I was low to the ground. As I linked with Cyn to see myself through his eyes, I saw a cream colored kitten with Aqua colored eyes and a star in the middle of her forehead.

I felt a joy rush through me. Tired of having to be the perfect princess, always making the right choices and decisions, always speaking with perfect clarity so that everyone around me would trust me all of a sudden I knew what it would be like to just be small and give up and play for a day.

As I looked up at Cyn he smiled slowly at me, “It is okay to play for awhile as long as you remember it is for play and it isn’t who you are.”

I ran towards the bunnies in the grass and we started to whisper out our strategy of how we were going to evade the dragon before we let him pick us up so we could fly through the clouds and let our laughter shower the land with joy.

Once upon a time there was a princess. She wasn’t a princess as you normally think of one. Her parents weren’t kings and queens, she didn’t live in a country that had royalty and there wasn’t a prince that one day found her and made her his princess.

Instead, she was not there one day and then the next instant she filled the sky and changed the world for so many people by suddenly coming into being.

She is a Star and her name is Etoile. A young silvery star that filled the darkened sky, one day upon a dreams whim.

Stars are interesting creatures, they are born in an instant rush of breath and thought. They touch people that they will never ever encounter in all the moments in the land of the time before time.

Stars have great responsibility and from the moment of their existence they start learning and have advisors who are there to help guide them with the handling of the responsibilities and burdens they have to bear.

As they come into being, a guardian/protector is also born at the same time and their lives will forever be twined. As one lives, the other is destined to live also. As one dies, the other also ceases to exist.

Etoile was born with a guardian dragon entwined around her heart and through her soul. As she breathed, her dragon breathed. As her laughter and light burst into the night sky the dragon’s blue-white flame also burst into the night. As consciousness came into being a whisper in her mind said a single solitary word, a name… Cyn.

And the land they lived on/in started to form. For even though existence may have only been a couple of minutes, the heart and sould of the start and the protector dragon had been formed in the time before time long before this moment.

Around the land formed a crystal castle with walls that were clear enough to see deep into the soul before, with a blink it reflected the patterns of the moving clouds ever changing, one second indescribable and the next showing fantastic creatures that can only be found in dreams. At night, the walls were blacker than the blackest sky. But, if you dared to look you could see reflected the multitudes of the universes from the unlimited world of time.

Around the castle grew fantastical gardens, deep woods and oceans that reflected the depths of the universes dreams.

This is the land which Princess Etoile created and this became her world in the land of time. Sometimes she would wander off into the time before time, but this is her world, her universe that she chooses to live in the Now.

The world that Etoile created was filled with knowledge and beauty. But, it was lonely. Living on a star let’s you see everything and many people are touched by you. But, it is ever so lonely. No one to share adventures with, no one to share thoughts or jokes or laughter.

Cyn didn’t count, he was bound to her soul. They faced the world as one. The advisors were always talking and telling and advising, nothing new and exciting there. And the dreamers and wishers all wanted something from her. There was always a cost.

Death from the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman. In book 8 “Worlds’ End” near the end of the story, there is this perfect description of Death from the perspective of someone who meets her for the first time.

“The one at the end… I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn’t that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they’ll still love you, because they know you. I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped and she looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don’t know. She probably didn’t even know I was there. But I’ll always lover her. All my life.”

A part of me wants to meet her and a part of me wishes someone felt that way about me.

Have you ever woken up one day and realized that you had somehow switched universes and you aren’t sure how you got there? All of a sudden you are scrambling around trying to come to terms with the new universe and the rules that you find there. What was once black is now white and what was once white is now black.

You look around and you try to understand the place and you try to fit into a world that lives by completely different rules. Where once you were the norm, you are now the freak. So you look at your values and your philosophies and you start to adjust them here and there to fit in. But all you do is fail and just cause more confusion. Till you sit along the side of the road watching the world go by and decide that it is time for a reset of your perspective. But perspective resets aren’t easy. Along the way you kind of blast outwards and touch all of the people around you with your change until they are all slightly singed.

Sigh, that sure didn’t work. You don’t like the person you are when you look into the mirror each day as you start to fit in more and more with everyone’s perspective.

So, you look inside and you look outside and you determine that if this is the universe that I am going to live in then I need to make some decisions on who and what I am going to be.

There were elements that I really enjoyed before I got to this place and there pieces that I could do without. But, as I got rid of the pieces that I could do without it left me vulnerable and insecure and instead of settling I went to far on the changes and lost some of the important elements of me.

Now it is time to step back and rebalance who I am. For once, not redefine but rebalance.

From this day forward I am making my own Universe and if someone wants to come play in it, they can play by MY rules for once.

I am a creature of Light and I refuse to take your darkness and insecurities into my Soul

I am a creature of Laughter and I refuse to allow your world to cause me to despair.

I am a creature of Beauty and I refuse to allow your ugliness to paint me with your brush.

I am a creature of Dreams and I refuse to allow your nightmares to color my world.

I am a creature of Hope and I refuse to allow your reality to kill it off.

I am a creature of Love and I will not allow your hate to kill me.

This is my universe filled with dreams, laughter, love, beauty, hope and light. I walk away from the darkness and despair of your universe and step into my own.