This is a clay doll made after a character from one of my published stories, “Mirror in the Abyss”. The DreamCatcher Girl is a both a Fantasy character and a real one, as it’s a very personal character.
Somewhere deep inside, my wandering spirit is a DreamCatcher girl, from the eons old Clan of Dreamers and storytellers. This is my first handmade doll….my skills are those of a hopeful beginner.
Enjoy!
M I R R O R I N T H E A B Y S S
“ My sweetest love of other Spaces
Of other Time-lines, other places
Of waterfalls of stars, amazing
Beholder of the key, full blazing…
A river of stars from the depth of the night
A bridge over hollows that frighten the heart
A door into darkness with light on its sides
With magic of pathways woven in forest hides…
I ‘m here, leaning against cold rocks…
The light that falls, tears into my heart…
My soul is running wild through my core,
And bursting …
I’m here at the end of all worlds,
Dissolved in the glow…
I’m waiting…”
We live in a layered world; nothing is what it seems. Our senses reach out and touch reality; our senses come back, recreating it in our minds. My world is mine, your world is yours…we all see, touch, taste, smell this world, but it’s never the same…Like an endless mirror of billions and billions of pairs of eyes, reality reflects itself inside-outside, it’s born and reborn with each moment and dies with each burned out candle. I can never see the world through your eyes; I might catch a glimpse of it through your words…but that is also a very personal way in which my ears, my mind, my heart capture the music of your thoughts. So here we are, fragile but blazing creatures, dancing in the short span of light that is our existence like butterflies. We swirl up and down, gracefully and full of hopes, we share moments of glory on the glow, we fall down with shredded wings or just fade into nothingness…Whatever light is hidden inside, in that secret core that slowly burns, reborn in another cycle, another creature of wonder, running wild, full of desire.
But in this illusionary existence, with boundaries set by a tangible reality we draw pathways of shadows and light, we touch, we dance around each other, we fall, we rise, forget, remember…we fall on love, spring into skies in ecstasy, plunge into dark depths in pain. Sometimes in this crazed swirling of destinies hearts get tangled, memories of other cycles erupt into the momentary reality and everything goes wild….
I am a Dreamcatcher-girl, one of the lasts of my kind. Dreams fill the invisible world around us, float and drift away and then fade into oblivion. People cannot see them and they so easily give up on their dreams. I was born and raised to capture and protect dreams, learn their stories and give them back to the world. So I am a Storyteller to. But the story bellow is mine…
Have you ever seen a wandering dream? They are the children of souls, bubbling up day and night, floating around gracefully and holding intricate stories inside their nacreous, fragile walls.
I see them everywhere, riding warm currents of air, waltzing along with the breeze, popping up in colorful fountains, rolling over the roof tiles, landing on grass blades, getting stuck in cob-webs, gathering in bird nests…I’ve seen them hovering over the land in iridescent rows like flying beads, resting peacefully in a dipper of old moss, showering over the land along with the icy stars of snow…
Dreams are like humans; resilient yet easy to shatter. As a human, I had my own dreams but they were unknown even to the closest of my kin. I grew up in the shadow of my talented and highly praised mother. She taught me everything, hoping that one day I’ll follow her footsteps as leader of the DreamCatcher Clan.
But from early childhood I had been a peculiar child; easygoing on the outside but building my inner pathway away from the eyes of the people around me. I rebelled inside with each try of protecting me and tying me down to the safety of an already set pathway. I grew up wild deep inside, foolish and passionate, yearning for mysteries and experiences beyond my grip. Feeding on the magic of the unseen world of dreams but bowing on the outside before the order and stability of the tangible reality, I became inhabitant of two different realities, in and out my person.
I‘ve never been confrontational…until the day I had to choose between my dreams and other people’s expectations. I argued and I met refusal; so like pushed from behind by an inner spring I grabbed my scarce belongings and left the house without even looking back. I fled, afraid that somebody might see my hidden dreams, get hold and cage them before I can set them free to fly. Something was calling me, attracting me, luring me into the wilderness of the world. That powerful push from the inside made me severe my roots and leave the comfort of my home, the security of guidance and support…but opened a wide, blazing horizon before my eyes and my hungry heart.
I roamed the world, guided only by my instinct and that hidden call; I watched, learned, collected and released dreams into the world. My book of stories was steadily growing in pages and my knowledge was adding up and deepening by the hour. I was following one star that shone each night above me, talking to me, showing me the way…
I’ve reached the premises of the Echo Mountains in late summer. Nested in the rich greenery of the foothills there were small villages inhabited by resilient people that welcomed me in their homes and shared shelter, food and knowledge openheartedly. I knew from the tales picked all over the land that the high plateau was largely avoided by people. There was a thick, secular forest spreading all over that high and lonely place, a forest thought to be haunted and dangerous. Myths and telltales spoke about a magic door hidden in the dark belly of that green beast, a portal to worlds of secrets and enchantment. There was an ancient spell cast over that place and for generations humans had decided not to disturb the peace of the zone. Even the rainbow-colored Mandala-birds rarely flew over that vast expanse of emerald; my hosts warned me about the dangers that I might encounter in my quest for the forest above the mist.
I started the climbing on the last day of summer, in a morning where light laid dormant in each dewdrop that was hanging from leaves, grass, laces of spider web. The sea of tall rooted grass was slowly undulating under the gentle wind of dawn and I walked through it barefooted, cooled by the moist rolling down my ankles while my heart was running wild with the excitement of the beginning. It was a moment of deep silence and peace when my breathing connected with the one of the earth and tranquility embraced us all.
A narrow, carefully paved pathway opened before me as the field ended and the tiny steps lead the way round the massive shape of stone up into the gleaming skies. As I set foot on the first piece of pavement I felt an inner connection taking shape, flowing through my body and soul, washing over me and setting a firm grip on my entire being. The next steps I took naturally. Even if the pathway was climbing quickly, I wasn’t feeling tired. While I was following the road up high, above the village I left behind hours before, the sun flooded the hills, fields and valleys with warmth and gold, blurring the contours…Sounds of everyday life, laughter and cries, growling of animals, cracking of fire and branches, splashing of waters…all these noises entwined with the joyful singing of the birds and the soft murmur of the wind roaming the land surrounded me as I pursued my road.
Strangely beautiful plants with colorful flowers were my silent company, stretching over the rugged edges of the mountain wall. Cool streaks of water sprinkled from above, glittering through the cracks, splashing over the boldly creeping greenery…I ran my fingers through the life giving source and felt refreshed almost instantly. I filled my bottle with the translucent liquor and returned to the call of magic.
The higher the small road rose, the wider the view grew bellow me and the horizon spread, engulfing the distances. The familiar sounds of my world faded away replaced to the faint humming of winds seeping through the soaring shapes of rock. Surprising and graceful bridges arched over depths as the road turned round and round the kingdom of echoes. I stood on the bridges a few moments, inhaling the crisp air and abandoning myself to the thrill of the abyss opening under my feet. On my way towards the plateau I filled my pockets with lost dreams, warmed them up in my palms and listened to their whispers while relentlessly following my journey. The call from above was growing stronger with each footstep; I followed it half dazed, like in a dream. Light and shadow, passionate yearning and heartbreaking pain were mixing in a constant swirl inside that alluring flow of magic….It was the same voice that was speaking to me night after night from the star watching over me.
As I was closing to the end of my road, the sun was completing its arch above the land, dropping behind the horizon in an ocean of crimson flames. Before the last spark of heavens died out I reached the edge of the plateau, facing the ghost –forest. In the fading light, the road was glowing dimly. The pathway was leading straight through the wood, bordered by incredibly tall and erect trees. I stopped there for a moment, watching them, trying to encompass all that dignified magnificence through my inner world. The high bastion of arboretum echoed inside me like an organ, with deep and powerful sounds. It was a choir of ancient spirits, wise and profound, connected to each-other through a complicated web of memories arching over millennia.
Overwhelmed and exhausted, I decided to find a place to sleep and leave the challenge of entering the forest to the next day. My star right above me, I felt safe; I curled up in the soft grass, embraced my bundle of dreams and drifted away into the realms of sleep…
The waters of my dream cleared and I found myself in a large, empty room, facing a tall, dark mirror. There was no reflection in it yet somehow I knew what that really was. The smooth, glistening surface of polished crystal was the source of the calling that has led me here. I stepped closer and lightly touched it. I heard a sudden breathing and the surface gave in under my fingers and I met the warmth of another hand! I gave a small cry of surprise and woke up in the grass, trembling like a leaf…That unexpected touch burned on my fingers and unexplained sorrow filled my heart. I burst into tears and cried myself back to sleep…The night went on without any more disturbances.
The first day of autumn descended over the plateau from a blindingly blue sky, spreading rainbows of colors over the high canopy of the forest. I watched in awe as the sunlight turned into liquid gold, filling up the leaves while invisible hands toned the fading green with touches of amber, vermillion and magenta. Ink-blue and purple bells were swinging gracefully in the soft breeze, citronella butterflies crisscrossed in the light permeating the space around. I released my collection of dreams into the glow and took up the way to the core of the kingdom of magic.
The house in the middle of the forest was strange and familiar to me at the same time. Its strangeness resided mostly in its odd shape and the feeling that this house was changing shape each time you were looking aside. On the other hand, its familiarity came from the vivid memory of the dream I had during the night. It was inside this house that I was about to face the reality of that intriguing mirror.
……….It’s a swirl of fire and ice running over the plain, setting the pathway on fire, charring the land, turning the swinging, long-stemmed grass into soft, silver ash….it’s a pain so deep as high is the exhilarating lift of blazing feelings rushing through the same veins, the same heart, ravaging the same soul….it’s a wild blast of wind shattering mirror after mirror, spreading bright shards of glass all over the place…..it’s dark yet flaming…..deep, deep…cutting, digging, seeping through every crack of the finely broken surface of the soul….unstoppable, bitter-sweet destruction….a point of no return…a mirror in the abyss….a labyrinth that hides a deadly secret………………………
The amount of power radiating from that awkward two-story house was huge and it was constantly unbalancing my self-control. As I roamed around the countless rows of rooms I had the constant feeling that the house was shape –shifting around me, wearing me out and obstructing me. The room from my dream was nowhere to be seen. Something or someone was hiding it from me, like it was hoping that I will give up and leave. But that was the wrong assumption; as I was wandering around from empty rooms to furnished one, a pattern emerged in my mind and slowly solved the puzzle of the hide and seeks.
I closed my eyes and focused on the call coming from the room of my dream; I found the thin thread of light and followed through the unseen but tangible dark hollow filling the space around. I passed through rooms after rooms, turning left or right, counting the turns, walking and walking, holding that faint trace of light until the wandering ended and I opened my eyes right in the middle of the hidden room, facing the dark, shiny waters of the mirror.
Tonight is the night of the Moon, closing on the dormant planet, raising the tides to heights unseen before….this is the night of wilderness coming to life, of souls running wild and of spirits breaking through the hidden portals into reality….Emotions carefully hidden in the deepest secret of hearts burst into the silver light, surging and receding on the tormented shores of the soul, rolling pearl-coated shells and rounded rocks in and out with the boisterous waves….What tears I had left, they all gathered in speedy torrents inside my world and ran down the slopes, carving deep ravines, shattering my balance….
In the large and basically empty room, the high, smooth shape of glass was the only feature that held significance and…life. Beyond the glossy surface and the velvet blackness something, someone was moving from time to time. Gazing into its depths I could feel that someone gazing back at me. I cautiously moved my fingers over the surface; it was firm and cold. Yet my heart has captured that fragment of human warmth seeping through my palms …So I decided to stay.
The house had everything I needed from comfort to provisions and my needs weren’t high. A few pieces of basic furniture, a long necked blue pottery for spring –water, a jar with a bunch of flowers picked from outside and a handful of colorful autumn leaves completely changed the atmosphere of the room. While I was wandering around, a gush of wind rolled some dream-bubbles to my feet. I gathered them and brought them up in the room. I hopped on the bed, took out my notebook and started to decipher the mystery of each pearl of soul.
Hours passed by peacefully…whenever I stopped, my eyes locked on the mirror and I could swear that the moves behind that wall of glass increased by hour. Even the thickness of that dark shade was thinning bit by bit….Night was spreading its wings above the land and I lit up some candles. The shimmering light reflecting in the mirror reminded me of the stars twinkling in the skies. There was a large window and I searched for my guiding star; it was there, watching faithfully, shining a bit brighter than usual…I sighed and returned to my iridescent collection; I stopped for a moment in front of the mirror.
I pressed my palms over the cold surface and closed my eyes, shutting out the tangible world. I reached deep inside, opening the gates of my heart, letting the light out, searching for that elusive thread that brought me here…I listened carefully to the faint echo of the light-dropplets, the hushed sound of the light-waves traveling through the air, slipping through the opened pathways, circling my blue trees and golden bells, spreading in and out, piercing the frozen surface of the mirror until they fell into place. Circles of responding light tapped my fingertips and, under the gentle but steady pressure of the light, the glass slowly bent and melted. For a fraction of a moment I connected with my invisible kin-spirit. The surge of crushing pain, flaming rage, blazing desire and thirst for love washed over me like a tidal wave, rising high all of a sudden, prowling over the unsuspecting shores and unbalancing me…The connection broke instantly, leaving me breathless and in shock. I ran out the house and kept running through the woods…something from inside burst out and I cried and ran and cried and ran…until the last salty drop dried on my face and I regained my composure, breathing more easily. I strolled back to the house, cooled by the late night mist coiling around my ankles.
The room was silent and the light dimmed to the visible limits…I curled up in the bed facing that mysterious portal on the wall…A question echoed in my mind as I touched the depths of sleep : “Who are you?”
Night dreams layered and piled up one above another, mixing, mingling until their sense faded away from my troubled mind. I woke up while the morning was blossoming above the horizon. Warm, amber light poured in through the window and tiny dust specks danced in the gleam. On the opposite wall, the dark surface of glass was inhaling light…As I stood there, staring at the mirror, a sentence formed on the black screen, written in blazing white letters:
“Good morning…”
I couldn’t believe my eyes; I had to pinch myself to realize that I was awaken and those letters were truly there. I jumped off the bed and opened the window; an early concerto of many voices was saluting the glorious rising of the sun. The autumn chill has added new shades to the foliage during the night. I approached the mirror reading again:
“Good morning…”
I started to write a reply hesitantly at first but I gathered courage as my own handwriting emerged on the smooth surface:
“Good morning…Who are you?”
Moments later the same invisible hand wrote:
“ I don’t know anymore….Who are you?”
Who am I? Where can I find the words encompassing the ever changing facets of a soul? I have never tried to draw my boundaries….I simply existed, breathing in reality and whatever I could sense or grasp beyond that. I had some sketched contours for everyday use; after all people needed to see the person to whom they were talking to….usually. So….I am a Dreamcatcher Girl…a child of endless wonder, holding a net that captures the butterflies of dreams….I am bound to listen, understand and retell the stories nested inside the translucent, ephemeral bubbles of the soul…Under my touch, nightmares fade and fill with light, sweet dreams blossom and spread magic in the unseen world, yearnings find a peaceful shore in the expecting hearts…My own untold, unreleased dreams sleep in the quiet and peace of my inner world where nobody ever entered…Even I have forgotten where the key of that dimly lit door lies….
Loss and confusion, a desperate need for an anchor, a deep yearning for a human touch…all these feelings were streaming through the elusive surface that separated us. The moment I picked up the conversation, words connected us, carrying all of the needed significance. The bridge between hearts, minds and souls built up with each new sentence, arching over the abyss that separated us. The days that followed turned into weeks, the weeks built into months as we were piling brick over brick, raising castles of impossible, improbable dreams, burning down connections and starting over and over again…New landscapes, new rushing, raging rivers, ambitions, graceful arches, steps, corner stones, castles, cottages, pathways, endlessly redesigning the world we kept building with words…
I opened my inner world to this unseen, unknown stranger, this shape shifting, passionate, energetic yet sensitive spirit that captured my imagination. Before I could even realize, his inner spark lighted up my hidden pathways, filled my skies with stars and scattered, sizzling blue pearls over my silent shores…His light dressed in words gently surrounded me, became light of my light, conquering my shores, washing over my fears and pains…I followed him, unable to turn away, lost in enchantment, not wanting to wake up again to a world of shapes and angles.
We kept sending out pieces of imagination carved into words and they reached us back and forth like white doves, gracefully resting…half spoken miracles…half whispered secrets…half acknowledged yearnings…half understood truths….entwining into mirages…
All this time I never knew who he really was; I didn’t even know if the one behind that deep, dark screen was in fact a he or a she. Though it possessed the graceful imaginary of a woman, the passion and intensity of that personality was of a man…so I decided to refer to him likewise. But on the whole I couldn’t care less; he could’ve been a jellyfish or an octopus as well…I was mesmerized, hooked, following his shape shifting, his countless personalities emerging behind the thin wall of glass.
It was Heaven and Hell, a roller-coaster relationship, sipping me inside, deeper and deeper, igniting me, burning me out and yet, waking up from the ashes the Phoenix took flight again. Even if sometimes I wondered what could be the reason behind this endless come and go that went on between us, I kept following his lead, dreaming his dreams, painting his realms, entwined with his passionate emotional flow. Day by day, tides rode in elation to the star spotted skies and then receded into the bottomless abyss of hopelessness…In this speedy race I’ve got lost sometimes, confused and tired, unable to let myself go, to give up the reins of my mind and soul…We fell out, stopped speaking, withdrew inside our protective shells, unhappy and miserable, yearning for the moments when magic was flowing freely between us…I could never part….I could never deny myself as being part of him , just like he was carved inside me for eternity…So I held my breath and waited…waited until the skies cleared up and the light came back showering, inundating everything, washing away the pain, smoothing the crested shores, rolling magic over the white sands…
Time flows relentlessly, stars blow up in the hungry belly of the Universe while young suns wake up to the ceaseless rotating of the expanding Space…Here I am, drifting between days filled with sparkle, intensely burning and days of nothingness echoing painfully in and out of my heart. Ever since I made it clear that I am not going to leave these premises, he/she changed the rhythm of our connection, leaving me only thoughtful, heartfelt messages while I sleep…We seldom speak, so I spend my days wondering and wandering….The high winds keep supplying me with bubbles of dreams captured from the world below and I listen to them, comfort them and release their sizzling, glowing substance into the magic blanketing the world.
As autumn deepens, the light slowly dies out in the rustling leaves, colors dim into shades of milky brown and ashen. An early chill scatters ragged clouds over the wild-blue sky; the sun looks back with sorrow through the dense entwining of black, vegetal fingers of the branches soaring up high. The legend-filled sap that pulsed through the tall, erect bodies of the centennial forest is now hiding deep into the ground, running along secret corridors into the core of the planet. The forest sleeps and dreams untold stories of elating joy and tearful misery. It’s for the first time in the moths I’ve spent here that the high-pitched cry of the Mandala birds can be heard above the canopy. The majestic creatures sail the waters of heavens in their trip to south, towards the lands of eternal sunshine, hot sands, gracefully undulating palm-trees and endless banks of the life-giving river that crisscrosses this land of unending summer.
Before the winter overtakes these heights, one last day of full blazing autumn opens. In my room, the dark shape of the mirror is silent. The door into the unknown, hidden world is locked, coldly rejecting any attempt of human touch. It’s too early anyway; the sun still sleeps serenely beyond the horizon. I leave the house and take my walk to the edge of the plateau. With each step over the softly cracking pile of dry leaves mist exhales from the ground and follows my footsteps gracefully coining, uniting into eerie creatures of opalescent vapor, slipping playfully between the dark columns of the trees. I stop at the end of the narrow stretch of rock that soars above the bottomless depths. The stars had died out, leaving the ink-blue sky smooth and undisturbed. A compact layer of cloud spreads over the sleeping land, its dark shade mirroring the skies above.
I gaze into this continuous, quiet surface while my long withheld inner turmoil erupts to the surface of my soul, rushing through my veins, the burst chocking me, pushing hot tears into my eyes. I gasp and swallow hard, watching the unexpected mirror in the abyss stretching for miles at my feet until my entire being dissolves into the lull. I rise above this enigmatic expanse until we face each other; as I look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at me….It’s my face but with strange, alien eyes.
The whole world around me is a house of countless chambers and mirrors, opening into the unknown, while the unknown moved into my inner world, filling my pathways. I desperately close my eyes but the truth is beyond my eyelids, in scripted with blindingly white letters shining over my trembling soul:
“I am him/her….he/she is me. We are ONE.”
Whatever the flow of Time will bring, I will always be a mirror for the kin-spirit that inhabits the house of labyrinth. As I quietly return to myself, the first ray of gold gently fingers the froth of mist, diluting it in warmth and glow, reviving the land once again before winter would set its ice-glazed army upon it.
I am just a girl of no importance, a door opened into magic, a mirror for the light that shines brighter in the dark. I am here, alone on this remote shore of Space and Time, threading colorful beads of dreams, diving into worlds built from words with the one and only key-holder of my secret realms…My life, my dreams stream under his/her touch, under the light shed by the star that unites us, a star that bears the name of a mighty river long lost…
katemantis 