The Return

As I sat meditating in my corner, some sound started to slide into my physical conscious mind bringing me back to this plane of reality ... which was a shame in a way, as on this trip I had gone to the foothills of the Himalayan range in the year 1890 to experience late spring coming to the mountains. Of all the things that Ska and I missed the most, it was Spring. Oh sure, the calendar that most people still use, to tell them when to do things still said it was April, and the days still got a little warmer and longer (but no where near as much as I remember), but there was no longer "Spring" ... at least not the spring that Ska and I used to love being in. The "official" death of Spring came with the death of the last chickadee. Who knew at the time that actual Spring burst forward each year, because it was sung into existence by the chickadees?. Most people just thought that they were cute little birds and some were saddened when the last one died that terrible winter of '42. But when Spring of '43 never arrived and then not again in '44, the scientist discovered that it was due to the absence of the chickadee songs. Most people just thought that they were cute little birds and some were saddened when the last one died that terrible winter of '42. But when Spring of '43 never arrived and then not again in '44, the scientist discovered that it was due to the absence of the chickadee songs. They tried all kinds of things .. holographic chickadees, android ones, playing old recordings of their songs, but nothing worked. And the world became colder and darker, and the air became harder to breath and the food supply became scarcer and scarcer -- all from the lack of Spring arriving. And the world became colder and darker, and the air became harder to breath and the food supply became scarcer and scarcer -- all from the lack of Spring arriving. And the new growth of leaves, trees, plants and shockingly enough, even animal births that were triggered by Spring's arrival, all collapsed--- the worlds population plummeted by over two thirds. Ska and I did not mourn the loss of humans that much. With our imaginative meditation practices, we rarely spent much time in this reality anyway, ...preferring instead to create and visit ones of our own making. But we still felt the deep ache of the loss of the chickadees and Spring. Ne'ra! ... Ne'ra!! ... come quick! It was Ska yelling from outdoors that had come inside my meditation bubble and had brought me back! Had something happened? ... had the garden been raided by the wild bands of bangalors that had become more brazen as they became hungrier? I started outdoors to see what had aroused Ska to such a pitch. She tended to be very quiet and rarely ever raise her voice, Since the death of Spring, she would go months at a time without speaking at all. Ne'ra!!!!!!!!! .. she yelled even louder this time. Hitting the back door on a full-out run, it slammed open on its well oiled hinges and I rushed into the back yard .... I came to an abrupt halt, shocked by what I saw. Hitting the back door on a full-out run, it slammed open on its well oiled hinges and I rushed into the back yard .... I came to an abrupt halt, shocked by what I saw. There, in the middle of the garden where we eeked out a few hardy turnips, potatoes and bitter greens, ... stood Ska. Instead of the drab brown landscape we had gotten used to, the garden was bursting with greens, yellows, pinks and blues as all the wildflowers and fruit trees we had planted years ago were in blossom. The old oaks and birches which we had left up in hope that a stray woodpecker might find a scant meal there, were awash in tender lime-green buds and small leaves. But most amazing of all, sitting in the center on her meditation stone, was Ska ..... with a chickadee perched on her hand. She was laughing as tears rolled down her face, and I watched dumbfounded as another chickadee landed next to the first .. then one landed on her shoulder, then another and another, until she had hundreds of them flitting about her. "it worked, it worked!!! ... she laughed joyously in a way I had not seen her, for close to a dozen years. .."The meditation worked!!!!!!" We danced and hugged and laughed, as the tiny birds happily flew about us, Singing their song of Spring. [fade out]