Laela and the Moonline- Overview
“Surprises unfold in the predictable. . . . You can never fully foresee the foreseen.”
Long ago, the four tribes of Aerizon lived as one people, but the time of unity has passed. Now, three of the tribes collectively called the Treedles inhabit the forest canopy. The fourth tribe, the Mergons, live on the ground and pose a constant threat to the Treedles. Laela is a young Treedle girl coming of age in the treetop realm of Aerizon. Her destiny, as yet unrevealed, will cast her in the role of catalyst for epic change.
Laela grows increasingly restless with the cultural limits and expectations for young Treedle women. In her quest to understand and express her authentic self, she faces soul-transforming psychological and physical tests. Unlike Treedle women before her, she pushes back against traditional gender and cultural boundaries. Propelled by mysterious forces, she ventures into the forest and onto the lands below, breaking ground for a new era.
Seekers of truth and justice will relate to how Laela grapples with the challenge of finding her guiding values.
Laela and the Moonline- Overview
“Surprises unfold in the predictable. . . . You can never fully foresee the foreseen.”
Long ago, the four tribes of Aerizon lived as one people, but the time of unity has passed. Now, three of the tribes collectively called the Treedles inhabit the forest canopy. The fourth tribe, the Mergons, live on the ground and pose a constant threat to the Treedles. Laela is a young Treedle girl coming of age in the treetop realm of Aerizon. Her destiny, as yet unrevealed, will cast her in the role of catalyst for epic change.
Laela grows increasingly restless with the cultural limits and expectations for young Treedle women. In her quest to understand and express her authentic self, she faces soul-transforming psychological and physical tests. Unlike Treedle women before her, she pushes back against traditional gender and cultural boundaries. Propelled by mysterious forces, she ventures into the forest and onto the lands below, breaking ground for a new era.
Seekers of truth and justice will relate to how Laela grapples with the challenge of finding her guiding values.
Laela awoke to the lapping of her curtains, her room bathed in cool, iridescent blue light. Her window framed the full unblinking sheen of Cor and the ark of the edge of Cora with its soft melon glow. She had forgotten to close the shutters and was reminded of how powerfully these giant orbs filled the sky and flooded a room with light.
The Treedles dedicated many odes to their twin moons, brother and sister, close in orbit and size, waxing and waning in synchrony. Some Treedles even prayed to one or both of the moons, though they knew they weren’t the ‘One.’ For a tiny people so prey to forces hidden in shadows, these were nocturnal guardians—defenders of their sky-born communities. They were a reliable compass for nighttime foraging and illumination for gatherings and celebrations.
Tonight, Cor was peering into her room. Impassive and mysterious. Laela saw the moons as protectors and confidants, though not easily accessible to one’s petitions. It was part of Treedle lore that the moons draw out one’s deepest secrets and the answers to inner questions if one gazes with patient devotion. Laela wasn’t prone to patience. Yet, she was drawn to gaze at them tonight.
She slipped out of her bed and sat on the spacious ledge that served as a window. It served as a porch rimming her bedroom and a perching place for sylvestrian visitors during the day. She could use curtains or shutters as needed to increase her privacy or keep out the rain. However, a broad thatched roof protected the room from intense sunlight and all but the heaviest downpours. Laela sat out far enough for the night breezes to whip her hair around her face and to have a panoramic view of constellations that marked the season of spring. The group of stars that formed a maiden pouring an arc of water from a gourd, a sign of spring, was just to the east beyond the moons. Tonight, the moons, in their ¾ phase, were another reminder that a new month would soon begin. The month of Hope. The rainiest month and an auspicious time for new projects.
Laela felt an uneasy chill beneath her skin, quiet but distinct as a chameleon changing colors, which warned her of presence and danger. She possessed hair-trigger alertness, an inner arrow that guided her to focus instantly on a threat. When she ventured through the layers of the treetops with Phips, her partner for hunting and exploring, she was the first to warn of an approaching raptor, a constrictor, or predator. Her lasso would be sliding out of her hands before she could utter a word. In turn, Phips was physically stronger than her and able to wield a slingshot or handheld arrow at lightning speed. Very coveted skills at the heights of Aerizon.
However, these days she found her senses diffused. Restlessness tagged her like an unpredictable shadow. Her thoughts meandered from slow and random to buzzing and intense. She was becoming more apt to say or do something that raised eyebrows or surprised even herself. Sometimes she lay awake for hours, trying to break from a trap she couldn’t define. She wished she could just move, run, fly until her heart cleared like a bird soaring up in an unbroken sky. Escape. From what she didn’t know. And the last thing she wanted to do was to spend the following day in a state of calm and quiet, grounded Treedle-style to reflect on a current act of ‘immaturity’ at school.
She looked at Cora, wanting to pose a question. She wasn’t sure what questions to voice about the inevitable. Soon, very soon, she would become a woman, the oldest in her group of friends to do so. Too many ‘manly’ activities had delayed the onset of this event. The unstoppable momentum of the turn of life changes was converging together: the end of her schooling, choosing her path of service, the increasing pressure to find her lifemate.
“Surprises unfold in the predictable... You can never fully foresee the foreseen.” She mused on the words of one of her teachers. If she couldn’t fully grasp the present these days, what control would she have over her future, even knowing the predictable?
In a way both unsettling and reassuring, she knew instinctively that she would come of age in the month of Hope. She also knew that the very sweetness and light of this month would taunt in her about the hopes she couldn’t yet express. She would leave her childhood behind, shed its comforts and pleasures, to embrace the responsibilities of womanhood and maturity.
This transition in Treedle culture marked a profound dividing line between a youth’s unconscious simplicity and adulthood’s well-defined roles. She would follow the strict rituals to guide her over this threshold; she would undergo the rigors of solitude and intense meditation in the Enclosure. And later, she would have to answer questions about her role in the community. She felt a mixture of excitement and dread about sipping the dream teas that would reveal her future and reflecting on them in the hours of stillness. But not even her talent for prediction allowed her to see beyond the passage of the ‘Enclosure.’
As the moons, she was in a near stage of completion, at a peak turning point in becoming a woman. Her breasts had become round and tender—a sign she had at first longed for not to be a child. But the changes were more an inconvenience to her now. A hindrance for running and leaping hard. A distracting and weakening ache at times. Tara promised that she would see her body in a completely different way when she had her first child. But hopefully, she might be the last young woman of her age to mate and give birth. Laela wasn’t particularly looking forward to either. She longed for something else. More and more daring adventures with Phips. A releasing of restraints. Exploration of frontiers.
Laela reached into a pouch she always kept around her neck or in her tunic pocket. She needn’t sleep with it, but she had tonight. She pulled out the coil of line, moonline, the most precious of the spider-woven tensile cords used as both a tool and mechanism of defense. Stronger than Mergon metal and with the capacity to pull up a large log without breaking, it was incumbent for every Treedle to have one on hand. Laela also used a smaller piece of line to play with, and now she swung hers in spiral patterns and tried to fish the center of Cora with it. Even the silvery brilliance of the coiling line arching and flashing gracefully within this orb didn’t ease her unease.
She watched as the first blushes of morning light swelled into the certain blue of day, eclipsing the moons—an invitation to get up and about. But not for her. Today she would stay at home all day. She sank back into floral-scented pillows; her mother filled with bird-down and petals from their garden and herb nurseries. The inviting softness of her bedding was the work of aural spiders, trained to fabricate every kind of thread from feathery cotton fibers to metallic-like cords.
With a slicy woosh, Macecle swung through the window, his long, tapered fingers stretched around a tree vine. Still hanging on to the vine, he jumped onto Laela’s chest and dangled a large calipsoberry, good for morning digestion, over her mouth. Laela accepted the berry and stroked Macecle’s peppery chocolate-tufted cheeks. Macecle tickled her with his dark brown and ash striped tail and poked her cheek back mischievously. Macecle, her totem, accompanied her as her most valued protector. All Treedles bonded with their totem and other animal friends from the time of their birth. Survival at the top of a towering forest required them to weave a web of connections among peaceable animals, edible plants, and one another.
Laela’s mother knocked on her door, “Laela, are you awake now? I have some breakfast for you.”
Laela opened the door to the smell of steamed grains, honey, and nuts mixed into a porridge and a cup of bulbnut milk, which she never tired of eating. But this was, of course, a pretext for the mother-daughter ‘talk’ to follow. Tara didn’t smile at her but looked at her with calm, appraising gray-lavender eyes. Laela had arrived home early from school, let her mother know shewas suspended for an ‘incident,’ and asked if they could discuss it tomorrow as she would be staying home the following day. Her mother answered, “If you think it should wait, so be it.”
“Thanks for breakfast in bed, mom,” Laela said with a false note of cheeriness. “I think it is time to share the letter with you from Miss Adel.” She handed a stiff envelope to her mother. “I didn’t give it to you last night to not disturb your rest over something really rather silly. And I told Miss Adel I’m sorry, right away.”
As it was her ‘responsibility’ to discuss Miss Adel’s message with a parent, she chose to do so with her mother after their mutual night’s rest before responding to it. Laela was still irritated that a woman of Miss Adel’s age wouldn’t brush off a kind of joke, especially after they had apologized. Also, she felt too old to still be in school anymore, let alone be suspended from it. But these were the last days of it, thank goodness.
While Laela ate her breakfast, with Macecle helping himself to some nuts, her mother sat in the hammock chair by Laela’s bed and read the note. Her mother closed her eyes and breathed softly while Laela finished.
“So, Laela, how do you feel about what happened,” Tara asked, “Do you think you deserved to be suspended from school?”
Miss Adel had written about not caring for her hurt feelings as much as Laela’s apparent lack of sensitivity to others’ feelings. Treedle Basic Education’s whole purpose is to become a caring community member, an upholder of the principles of the ‘One’ in every aspect of life. So humor is not funny if it is at the expense of someone else’s dignity. To make fun of a person is usually a way to reduce them and make yourself feel superior: the targeted other and you, the better, the more clever one. Also, wasting time and wasting resources on our school parchment isn’t a Treedle virtue.
“Ah, mom, Miss Adel ‘overly’ interpreted this. She fusses over the smallest things. Maybe what I did wasn’t pleasant, but she keeps repeating the same things over and over in classes. We have more than memorized her words and stories. I know them backward and forward now! She doesn’t understand youth—our real needs sometimes. She doesn’t interest us in learning new things. To be honest, she’s like a burli-parrot (one with a bright feather fan springing from the crown of its head), and I drew a picture of her while she seemed to be almost babbling. I drew her with a bubble coming out of her mouth, saying blah, blah, blah.
Okay, as I tell you this, it does sound kind of bad, but I did it while giggling inside. We never imagined Miss Adele would see it. Only Phips, and he’s as close to me as my heart. Oh, and he helped me draw it. Not, of course, to involve him in blame too.” Laela stopped, disappointed at herself for bringing Phips into this. She usually wouldn’t blurt out such information about a friend, especially such a close one. Her comfort was that her mother wasn’t a person ever to repeat others’ secrets or faults. She continued, “The situation for us isn’t easy. Mama, really they should let us finish school much sooner. How can boredom be educational? We want to get on with ‘life.’”
Her mother replied, “You sound angry, Laela. Were you angry when you made this joke?”
Laela answered,” Maybe frustrated more than angry. Something has been building up inside me.”
“And do you think that outside of school you will never be faced with boring and repetitive tasks? And outside of school, will it be okay to mock members of your community, especially your elders?” Tara eyed her firmly. “Laela, a more important question, for now, is if you would accept to have someone draw a picture of you as a most unflattering animal. A picture that wounds your pride?”
“I have a good sense of humor, mama; I would laugh.” Laela retorted.
“Laela, be honest with yourself. If someone criticizes any of your ‘creative’ ideas, you become quite rattled. If someone doesn’t take you seriously, you are the first to take offense. You were mocking Miss Adel. I don’t hear any reflection about that in your words.”
Laela felt a kind of jolt at her mother’s frankness. Her mother usually gave advice so delicately that she wouldn’t realize until later that she was correcting behavior or recommending another course of action. She got up to hand her mother the breakfast tray. Laela preferred to move around when she wanted to think things out.
“Mama, can I work some in the garden and then reflect about this in the afternoon?”
“Yes, but I hope that you will honor yourself, our family, and Miss Adel with some careful thought on this. Hurt to the heart is never little.”
Laela nodded. There was no one whose approval she desired more than her mother’s. Her mother was a kwanai or ‘healer’ who treated both the mind and body. Her mother always chose her words carefully as she said that stories are even more potent than the remedies she prepared from the herb gardens.
Her father was a scholar and dedicated most of his day thinking and writing in a quiet tree loft study. Her father would know volumes about intentions, but she and her mother rarely involved him in day-to-day concerns. Few Treedles spent full time practicing the art of philosophy. Her father was responsible for providing expert advice for the Treedle Elders and the Community Council, of which he was a member. He had a safely guarded library with a number of parchment scrolls and books with historical records of Treedle law and regulations for community life. Her father, Alvaro, appeared mostly at meals and never made small talk. Laela feared her father, but not in the way of danger or hurt, like with animals. She feared his disapproval or not making sense to him.
However, Laela felt her mother could outshine any of the most studied Treedles and was a philosopher of experience, an intuitive healer. Her mother spent hours every day in the gentle but demanding work of caring for the nurseries and creating herbal medicines, soaps, perfume scents, and candles from bee’s wax. Treedles of all ages sought her mother out for consultations on problems ranging from trouble sleeping to a broken heart, often leaving no need for any other remedy. Her mother was a balm to her ardent nature, honey, to an unspoken wound. As much as she admired her mother, she would never be like her.
Laela’s thoughts returned to that change in her life that would represent a beginning and an end, a force of nature over which she wouldn’t have control. One that would change her permanently. Laela took a mirror apart from a simple telescope apparatus she had to study the stars at night. It was a precious possession, and few existed in the known world. Although vanity and self-admiration were highly discouraged in Aerizon, she occasionally used them to examine her face and body changes. Today, she stared into it for reassurance and to see her sameness. Her face was agreeable to her. An oval face, with large round, upturned eyes. Rarely smiling, alert, with a flexible and robust mouth—lips and tongue that could twist into acrobatic shapes to make calls and whistles at different frequencies through the forest.
Laela’s body frame was small and light. Treedles rarely grew over half a meter tall. Many ages ago, her people were forced to emigrate far from an ocean land engulfed by vast floods, ultimately settling in the towering and strongly branched treetops of the forestland of Aerizon. Four clans with different shades of complexion: lavender, olive-green, rusty-copper, and golden-brown emerged. Three of the Treedle clans had a basic pearlescent gray undertone to their skin and hair, ranging from a chalky to an iridescent hue like the nacre of the inner shell of mollusks. These gray tints subdued the distinctive hues of their clan colors. All but one clan shared the same wiry hair that could look gray or silver depending on the light or shade in which they stood. These silvery-gray colorings had originally helped them blend in the sands, grasses, and corals of their ancient native land. The color-adaptive capacity of their bodies had enabled them to thrive at the forest heights as well. They could quickly submerge and camouflage themselves with objects nearby.
Laela’s skin was suffused with lavender, which appeared pale lilac/gray in the bright sun. Her coloring heightened into a vibrant, deep lavender in her thick, petal-shaped eyelids. Her eyelids curved up with a dramatic flair, accentuating the inquisitive brightness of her pale gray-lavender eyes. Striking to see on any Treedle, these signature, large, thick, leaf or petal-shaped eyelids protected their eyes from the sun and indicated their family ancestry from a distance. The shape and the color of a Treedle’s eyelids were signs of each of Treedle’s three main clans. The long-ago estranged tribe of the four, the earthy-colored Mergons, had evolved in ways that fit the forest ground, a great distance below.
In ancient, peaceful times, Mergons had been service providers of all kinds but now were feared as warriors and usurpers of lands and enslavers of peoples. Tribal Elders regaled the Treedle youth with cautionary tales of the dangerous Mergons, who had evolved differently as ground people originally from the same race. They had lived farthest from the sea on higher hills, and when the floods arrived, they escaped to forested hills. They didn’t join the other three clans in gradually building a treetop civilization in the lushest and tallest tropical forest of Aerizon.
Laela brushed her hair with a wooden brush Phips had made for her and tied her hair up in a bun on top of her head with brightly colored cotton bands that Oti had woven and dyed. She and Oti first met at school at age four. Oti sat beside her one day, smiled bashfully, and offered her half of a coconut sweet. From then on, they became—in short order—friends, confidants, and sisters.
If yesterday had gone as planned, she and Oti would meet Phips at his house late afternoon to talk until early evening. Tara consented if Phips accompanied her home. Phips’ house had the best views of Aerizon and its sunsets, orange, fuchsia, pink, and purple waves of light cascading across the sky. Phips and Oti wanted to tell her ‘something.’ She knew well what it was and that the joy would be in the telling and not the news.
Phips’ house was the ideal setting for sharing secrets or for playing. His family was among the most expert builders of the Bouder Clan. Phips would unveil the new wing of the house that he had barred both of them from seeing. His craftsmanship was developing to a state of artistry. He experimented with unexpected architectural forms—new shapes of resin windows- arched, encased, multicolored pains, suspended stair-towers with weavings of metallic cords and wooden steps, shingle textures, stained boards, and situating rooms for the most captivating views.
Laela felt fortunate that each of her best friends was from a different clan. It opened a more expansive world to her. She could spend many hours absorbing the smells, sounds, and vibrancy of the clan life in other neighborhoods of Aerizon. All were Treedles and citizens of one land, but each clan had very distinct characteristics and customs. The clans were denoted by their skin color and their extended communities’ main occupations.
Laela sighed heavily, thinking of the loss to her when these two would join for life. They would remain friends, but the relationship would shift entirely. Oti would still be quietly and steadily present. But, Phips. She wouldn’t be able to call on him any time, sneak off to hunt together, trade tools, or experiment with new ways of climbing, swinging, and traversing the forest.
She envisioned Phips standing on a branch exposed to the sky. Laughing. His skin was glowing burnished red-brown as if stained with wine resin. He exuded a powerful and noble presence with his broad shoulders, angular forehead, and well-articulated muscular hands. He would raise his prominently arched, russet eyelids in quizzical ways that made her laugh. His humor was a secret until you knew him.
He was becoming more serious, almost by the day now. He promised to bring much pride to the Bouder clan as a gifted hunter and inspired artisan and builder. He was blunt and truthful, valued Bouder qualities, but he was becoming more thoughtful about what he said or did. He was becoming a man.
Oti was no less strong or accomplished than Phips and wise as an elder. A Texare, she had a round face, and her almond-shaped eyes slanted up like half-moons. Her skin was silvery-olive like the underside of tender tree leaves. Oti’s fingers were long and tapered, which favored her artistry with textiles and weaving. Hours with Oti could flow by gently, and Laela would never tire of her presence. Phips had found an ideal mate.
Laela mused to herself about how to make this day profitable. She settled on a project to improve her current kit of helpful outdoor gear. Courtesy of the team, Tan and Gibble, she had a lightweight camouflage jumper whose metallic-thread mesh helped her blend into any setting and protected her from volatile and sharp objects. She added extra pockets to the jumper to carry longer ropes for lassos and thin, translucent lines for tying and sewing. Today she was thinking of designing a sack with shoulder loops to carry heavier loads when hunting and foraging. She would need Tan and Gibble to spin two different kinds of lines for this.
She picked up a tray where Tan and Gibble were sleeping, nestled in leaves, and headed for the gardens. She shuffled them awake, “Come on, buddies. Time to work!”
Chapter 2
Laela is a Treedle, small humanoid-like creatures that live in the tree tops of the Aerizon Forest. Treedles are, by their nature, sweet, caring beings, who try to live in harmony with their surroundings. Their entry into adulthood isn't measured by age, but by their mental maturity - and Laela is the oldest in her friendship group to reach the required level. Although most Treedle females are expected to fade into the background and bring up the children, Laela doesn't want that. She wants something more, even if she doesn't know quite what that is.
Laela and the Moonline is a sweet book, with a slow pace. It took a long time for anything to really happen in it, with many of the first chapters dedicated to Laela contemplating her supposed bad behaviour in school. To be honest, her transgression was to scribble a cartoon of her teacher saying 'blah, blah, blah'; something many of us have done in the past with little or no repercussions. Laela, however, was suspended - and only allowed to return to the school after she made a flowery, heartfelt apology.
A lot of Laela and the Moonline felt as though it were a lecture on behaviour and how to act in a pertinent, polite manner. Perskie repeated a lot of the acceptable behaviour for Treedles, which did become somewhat tiring when reading. It slowed the pace of the novel even more. There were also a lot of references to the Treedles religious beliefs, 'The One' being their deity. Some of the scriptures felt very much like the core Christian beliefs - 'do as to others as you would have them do unto you'.
Although Laela and the Moonline is a beautiful book with a deep, heartfelt message about living in harmony with the world, caring for each other and not purposefully harming others; there's another message in the book. Overcoming deep rooted prejudices, making new friends and overcoming societal obstacles and breaking the proverbial glass ceiling. It's just a little slow, with perhaps too much rumination.
S. A