Hidden Passageways
Lodan poked his head out the door. “Are ye busy?” he asked in his sing-song voice. Áine’s hair shone like flames in the sunset.
“Not too… why?” Áine replied.
“Would ye come for a walk with me?” he said with a smile that was hard to resist.
“Where?”
“Just come with me,” he teased. Áine went to him and they went back inside the hillside home.
“Ye haven’t fully explored this house, have ye?” Lodan asked.
“Well… no, actually… I meant to… but…” Áine trailed off. He slipped his hand into hers and led her down the hallway. “Wait… I started making a map…” she went back to the library and picked up the map, a quill, and an ink bottle. Áine handed the map to Lodan who stood there studying it for several minutes.
“Ye would have made a fine navigator, a mhuirnín [my beloved],” he said as he handed the map back to her. “I’ve found something that’s not on your map. Come, I’ll show ye.” He led her through a series of passageways deep into the hillside. At last, they came to a wall of solid rock in a deep cavern within the hill.
“I’ve been here before,” Áine said, “and this is where my map ends.”
“Aye,” agreed Lodan, “but this is not the end.”
He pointed at two indentations in the rock wall that were shaped like hand prints. “Do ye see? The runes there along the top say this is some sort of gateway, and those hand imprints are spaced much too wide a span for one person to reach, eh? But look,” he said, still holding her hand in his, “if I put my right hand in this one, and you put your left hand in that one, we can reach them both at the same time.” She looked at him, uncertainly, then studied the runes on the wall.
“Should we?” she asked.
“It’s your house, love, but I say we should try it,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, and as she placed her hand into the imprint, he kissed her very softly.
Mists began to swirl within the room and formed a circle about them, and they could hear murmuring voices coming from a far distant place.
“What is that?” Áine whispered, though she felt she already knew.
“Sian ní infinideacht,” [sheean-nee-infinideekt - the murmuring voices born of infinity] he whispered back to her.
Áine nodded. “Those, I’ve heard before… but not this clearly. In the World of Men, people put their ears to the earth to listen.”
And they both stood there listening for long minutes that seemingly flowed into hours, and if their hands hadn’t been joined, it’s possible they would still be there listening, but because of their physical connection to each other, they were reminded of each other’s presence, and gazing at one another, they could See each other as they truly Are… and they were not self-conscious or embarrassed.
Suddenly the rock wall before them opened silently, and they looked within. Before them was a magnificent chamber made of crystals of many colored gemstones that reached up higher than they could see. Growing up through the center of the chamber, in the midst of a fountain of silver waters with five streams coming from it, was a magnificent Tree whose trunk was so thick that no man’s hands could reach ’round it, and whose leaves were every shade of green that ever was green.
The whisper of leaf on leaf murmured throughout the chamber as Lodan and Áine slowly entered hand in hand.
Lodan spoke to Áine in mindspeak. What do you see?
I see my Mother and my Father before us. They are alive and well, and they are singing the song of the cycle of life… the Song is indescribably beautiful, it’s echoes in this realm are the sound of leaves and of waters flowing. Our kind… we draw our life out of the Source of All Things… the Soul of the Worlds, Aine replied. And what do you see, Lodan?
I see what you see, and there is something else as well… three old women are sitting at the base of the Tree. The first holds a distaff, holding and drawing forth the flax… she represents birth and the past. The second sits at a spinning wheel, spinning the flax into thread… she represents the events of life and the present. The third holds a pair of sharp scissors, she cuts the threads… she represents the end of life and the unknown future. And yet, the threads she cuts untwist themselves and once again become flax. Lodan replied. Áine nodded solemnly.
A voice that is both male and female, and yet neither, entered their minds and spoke to them, it echoed as if a thousand voices were speaking at once, and it was like music.
WELCOME, CHILDREN OF TWILIGHT…
YOU ARE THE OFFSPRING OF OUR THOUGHTS, AND YOU ARE WITH US ALWAYS…
THROUGH YOU, AND THROUGH ALL THE OTHERS… OUR DREAMS HAVE BEEN WAKENED INTO SONG AND INTO EXISTENCE… WOVEN IN HARMONY FROM THE DEPTHS OF SORROW TO THE HEIGHTS OF JOY…
SO THAT YOU MAY LIVE AND EXPERIENCE… WHAT WE OURSELVES CANNOT…
THESE WORDS THAT YOU HEAR NOW… THEY EXIST ONLY SO THAT YOU MAY UNDERSTAND…
The voice faded from their minds. A vision then was given to them. They found themselves in a place of darkness without beginning or end… and yet, they could sense a Presence there… awakening… and as It awakened, tiny strands of light, like wisps of clouds or of starlight appeared in the darkness… and music, as if from a far off place, began to play…
The Beings that were Áine and Lodan turned and looked at each other. They were without form… they were pure energy and pure light of many colors, lying side by side in the darkness… and as they became aware of each others’ formless selves, their energy began swirling like a slow ballet of wispy strands of light… around, into, and through each other… and the music began to build into a theme of endless variations, and of such sweet beauty and utter sadness… and the song they sang together added to the Song, and more energy and light was formed. There were stars twinkling in the darkness… and nebulae… and galaxies… and suns… and planets and moons… and as each thing came into being, the music played on in endless variations… and it was indescribably beautiful.
And then the vision faded from their minds, though they could still hear the music, and they found themselves once again in the chamber, standing before the Tree and the Fountain.
REMEMBER, CHILDREN OF TWILIGHT, ALL THAT YOU HAVE BEEN SHOWN…
“NOW” IS THE PRESENT… OUR GIFT TO YOU… WAITING TO BE OPENED AT EACH MOMENT… THAT IS WHY IT IS CALLED THE PRESENT, AND NOT THE PAST OR FUTURE… IT IS A GIFT… And the voice faded from their minds, replaced by the music of the leaves and the flowing waters. Lodan and Áine stood there speechless, so awed were they by what had just occurred.
Lodan at last found his voice and asked, “Is there something we could give to you in return for what you have given us this day?”
The whisper of leaf on leaf melded with the sound of the five streams, and after some minutes, the voice returned to their minds.
ONE THING… ENTER THE SILVER WATERS AND ALLOW US TO *BE*… FOR A LITTLE WHILE…
Áine looked into Lodan’s eyes, and they both immediately realized what was being asked of them. They lovingly undressed each other, and entered the waters hand in hand, tears streaming down their cheeks. They watched themselves as outside observers… touching each other, exploring each others’ bodies, bathing each other, drinking from the five streams of the Fountain, eating of the fruit of the Tree, and making passionate love. And when it was done, they found themselves again fully dressed and standing in the chamber… and they were profoundly changed by the experience.
And they had no words.
WALK IN BEAUTY, CHILDREN OF TWILIGHT, YOU ARE WITH US ALWAYS…
In silence, they left the chamber hand in hand, and the opening was magically sealed. When they turned around to look back, a picture had appeared on the stone wall. It was a Tree and a Fountain with five streams coming from it.
And there was a man and a woman in the waters.
The passage to the inner chamber had been magically sealed, and there were no hand imprints with which to open it again, but neither Lodan nor Áine ever spoke of this experience. The change within them, however, was unmistakeable. Neither of them would ever feel alone, no matter how far apart they might be, nor would either of them ever feel insecure in their love for each other, for now they Knew one of the great mysteries of life and love that lay hidden in the chamber, deep in the Windlass Mountains.
Áine and Lodan spent a quiet afternoon and evening sitting on a bench in the garden, making plans about how it would be planted. Lodan set the swans free on the lake, and they watched the pair getting accustomed to their new surroundings. As the sun set beyond the mountain peaks, and the stars made their twinkling appearance in the night sky, the moon rose full and bright overhead, like a silver ship sailing the great ocean above.
As they gazed up at the stars, Lodan said, “Even now, the worlds unfold, and their history begins,” and he brought out his silver pennywhistle and softly began to play a tune called Turas go Tir nA nOg (Journey to the Land of Youth). And there was no finer piping heard in those mountains before that time.
