He Gave Her Rings

Welcome to the expedition! If you’ve never examined these writings before, it may take you a moment to grasp the unique perspectives of their authors. Let’s get you started with this big guy. We’ll call the poor soul Callery. That seems appropriate, considering his chronicles. You see, since learning to read their journals, we’ve witnessed a multitude of ways these fellows tend to view their lives – limited as they are. You might find yourself appreciating what you’ve got more. This one here’s a romantic.

Look at that. It’s not just a dot. That point indicates the beginning of the manuscript. He says his consciousness “felt her warmth brush his core before he could see.” Such an intimate and sweet impression, at the cusp of his self-recognition, explains his predisposition to the maiden he called the Bright One. Also, a juxtaposition immediately emerges between his positive view of her and his attribution of malice to the darkness.

This is especially obvious considering a summary of his early days in that undulating part right there. It reads like a sonnet, if you think they are capable of such things.

“Her! She may neither speak to me nor linger, lest the Taker see and punish. But this I know in my heart, it is she who sang life into the earth before I could look up. In the cold, wet dark, my thoughts flickered between life and oblivion. I felt her call. The heat of her smile. I chose life, to lift my head, until I saw it. Light. I pressed through the numbing barrier that threatened to smother me and fully viewed her radiance as she passed by in her course. I could see the one who moved me to live. I understood that she had been with me, and know that she will be, even in the darkness.”

Callery credited his patroness with his very life. Most of what he says is about her visits. Just look. Line after line. Unable to move as they are, anticipating her coming is a ritual for most of them. While it was common for them to hunger for the gifts associated with her coming, His being’s focus and passion was her presence. So strong was his desire to give back to her that he declares, “I have shaped my purpose and being toward making her gifts in return.”

Of course, to you or me, gift-giving is a simple expression of appreciation and interest. You must realize, though, that they often consider themselves imprisoned, with little or no ability to do anything meaningful.

He examined the others who were longer confined than he. When you brush the debris off of that line, you can see he notes the myriad of reactions they had to their shared plight. Two extremes became apparent to him. Some hunched, listless and emaciated. He calls them “the standing dead.” Others were proud, standing tall and strong. At first, it appears that he could determine no difference in their contributions to the world around them, then he opines:

“I will stand. I will stand tall. If for no other reason, so I can move others to grow as these tall ones have moved me. I will stretch. I will grow strong. If for no other reason than to give others strength.”

Huh! For all his talk of “If for no other reason,” it remains obvious that our fella still bent his world around the one he regularly calls “the Warm Maiden.”

Anyway, with such a mindset, would you believe that upstart discovered he had a power? Repeatedly, we read that he envisions it as “drawing energy from my surroundings, despite my chains, even through them!” He says he harnessed this energy and could produce “gifts for the Light of my life. Stretching with all I have; I offer them to her.”

It’s at this time that the bitterest winter of his life is recorded. You need no translation to notice the graphic disturbances in these lines in this part of his report. See? He could produce and offer gifts, but she wouldn’t take them. Well, as he saw it, she couldn’t. Here is where we can see his growing disdain for the darkness he calls the Taker, and why Cal seems to think his life’s problems are because of him. And, given how it looks from his perspective, why wouldn’t he?

Here is an excerpt from the most scaring “punishment.”

“It burns! He saw! Her visits grew longer. She yearned to take the fruit of my powers. She did not. Why? Because of the Taker. It is he who restrains her. She had never gazed upon me with such intensity. I blushed at her stare. ‘You will accept my gifts now?’ thought I, then the clouds darkened the sky. Her face cooled. She was scared, and she fled early. The Taker punished us. He gestured, and our shackles spewed heat. Not a life-giving heat, but a killing one. The standing dead succumbed first. Their aim to live was long gone. Even some strong ones bowed to his punishment. They would not again try to please our Fair Lady. I have learned she may not take my gifts, but I will still make them. It will be my still, silent defiance. My victory. Through my making, I will overcome the Taker.”

The guy managed to recover from his torture! There is ample history that establishes that most did not withstand “the Taker’s” wrath that day. So, Callery not only continued, he thrived. That is not to say his life saw no more struggles, but that fiery chastisement galvanized him, and the benevolence of his Lady motivated him, especially at this part. Here, he discovers a way he thinks they can develop their relationship, outside of the sight of the darkness.

“The Taker,” he journaled, “has tried burning, shocking, and drowning me. I will not quit. I will also not show him a single sign of my true weakness, the darkness. My Lady visits, and there is light. It is her warmth that sustains me. When he takes her away and keeps her longer, I feel as though I will die. I even lose my power to create, but I will still stand tall. The memory of her caress, well, the caress of her smile, will sustain me through the dark. After all, she has sent her secret friends.”

The secret friends appeared in all shapes and abilities. To him, some seemed impossibly fast, and others moved to the rhythm that He and his Sunshine shared. Either way, he decided that “they were sent by her!”

He explains, “I know it! I hold my gifts. She sees them. When I no longer have the strength, they fall. Then her servants come. Taker does not see them. They bear my gifts away. Some, so quickly one can scarcely see them. The Taker does not. Some, so slowly, I have nearly forgotten before the gift is gone. But she is accepting them, and I am making them.”

With this sense of purpose, Callery persisted, becoming the eldest, the last to fall to the unyielding reign of the Taker.

This last part proclaims, “My Warmth. My Maiden. Finally.”

Sadly, I can decipher no more. As happens so often, this side part has been chewed up by the axeman’s bit. I wish they’d stop cutting them that way! Years of this guy’s history are lost. After all, we rely on the records from the annual growth of the tree to tell his tale.

For the rest of Cal’s story, I guess we have to assume he fell how he lived, loving the sun. An unavoidable romance for a tree.

Tragic and Hopeless?

Maybe.

Meaningless?

No.

What has a tree to offer the sun?

If nothing else, he gave her rings.

Dedicated to my Sunshine, Jennifer. I reached for you and, somehow, touched the sun.