in the dawning

I look through the narrow tower window and look out over the mists rising off the glades below the castle.....a fairy maid somehow senses that I am up and about, and comes through the stone wall in the strange way of the folk here, offering me cider and cheese and bread for a breakfast.....actually, what they call "first breakfast"....a little something before the early morning romp over hill and dale which all here participate in....dashing about in the coolness of the morning.....a little later folk will assemble on a terrace for proper breakfast, with eggs and kippers and bacon and scones....."breakfast wine".....and exotic fruits with names I do not know.....

I will run and dance and sport with the younger folk of the castle through the hours until noon, when a more formal meal will be served in the Great Hall......here Grandfather will take me in hand, and on into the afternoon I will receive the instruction that I was brought here from Earth to garner....

I learn of the noumenal, which is unknowable......my life here is beyond strange, which is why I was brought here still young......

events of note

I must attempt to record some developments of importance as regards the relationship between this sphere of reality and the next one over.....for three generations, since the time of the Green Magus, there has been a portal open to another world which is much like ours, but which is different in certain crucial respects.....mainly, on the Other Side, the "powers-that-be" are of a strange nature.....here in our mundane reality we may think and talk about and perhaps pray to the "powers" .....but with little actual effect to our daily lives.....our reality continues rock-hard and thick with unchanging sameness, not varying with the whims of free thought and poetic fancy....but just over the Border things are more free..... Mind has more reign over Matter.....

My grandfather often crossed over to the other side, and when I was a child he would tell tales of what wonders could be found Over There....and when I was twelve years old he took me with him once across the Bridge of Stars......of course I could be burned alive as a heretic by the Temple if I asserted this memory of mine as the truth....but it did happen.....

My grandfather took my hand and we entered the cave under the hill where the bonfires were made on holy days.....soon we were lost in utter darkness, but my grand-sire and name-sake did not falter on the path....down and down we went into the heart of Earth....."the Way lies Within"......somehow, in seeming contradiction of common sense, deep below the ground we came to an open glade with the stars crowded above us in marvelous abundance.....one bright star at the zenith flamed large, and somehow seized upon us and drew us up and away and beyond the reality we were born into.....

Flying and falling through the cosmos, we sped towards a circle of stars.....and on and on we went.....finally, we plunged down through air and clouds to a fair wondrous land of strange beasts and shining gentle persons who welcomed us, and took us into their castles, and anointed us with rich oils, and garbed us in fine robes, and told us we were welcome and more.....