Servants to Balance

Kat, the muskrat, had been born in the valley where the willow tree bows over the running stream. It was soon going to be time for muskrat love. Kat was busy clearing the willow roots and taking branches to make the den cozy. Kat sang at the top of her voice.

“Willow branches shade, beneath the broad canopy, holds summer's wind song.

Light begins to fade. Cascading leaves fall as tears float on the river.

Life’s brief song burst ends. Winter comes. Weeping ceases. Cold snow eases pain.

Spring comes. Resurgence. Willow branches form strong roots. New life will dull pain.”

Kat’s song was part of a wave. Undulations within the smallest units flowed and set up the harmonics needed to regulate balance in this little space, The haunting melody seemed to dance with the wind, then expand outward. It stirred the residents of the pond.

Kat stood by the water's edge, then dove into the stream of consciousness. In the deep, Kat remembered the creation story of the ancients that she had heard since she was a kit. Humans had strayed from living harmoniously with Nature and had destroyed the lands. There were few places to find rest, and there was little hope. The muskrat alone had the inner strength to defeat the odds. She had died, knowingly sacrificing her own life to help in the world’s recreation.

Kat held onto the story, of the muskrat who was at the source, who knew how to use the rules of Nature’s ladies and gentlemen. She had sacrificed herself and taken punishment to pay for the sins of others. Sadly, it had not permanently solved the problem. Each of the Kat’s that had followed had been raised to be prepared for self- sacrifice to maintain the balance.

Kat was born to be a servant protector to nature. Without formal education, Kat had learned to connect matter and energy, using the attractive or repulsive force between objects, to maintain what she deemed was balance.

Kat wondered how primitive man, so naïve and ignorant about respecting the balance, could survive. Any muskrat knows that any change generates problems. Change does happen but Kat could not understand why humans were making avoidable mistakes that released the untamed souls of the departed divine ghosts of nature. The ghosts lured from their hiding places, from out from the void after death and now appeared in plain view.

Kat knew to listen to the ghosts that move through the fabric of space and time. They are part of reality. Each uniquely affects the future. Their reflections, seen in real or imagined thoughts and memories, mirror the past. If they are captured and exploited, the ghosts play out their drama on the stage. Any friction causes torsion that can make the stage shatter and reshape.

Kat surfaced, drawn to the cool shade of the willow. The willow’s branches reached out. She called out to Will. They had been lifelong friends. Will had explained, “Will, means 'determined protector, wearer of the helmet of will'. Will could express a prophecy or declare inevitability in the future in a language without words. Will explained about the power of the great flood and the Tower of Babel that was created, where words did not always hold the same meaning or values in various cultures or contexts. The confusion threatened the balance. Will explained how humans seldom used their freedom to direct a wish or make an intentional choice that could unite concepts of a personal and higher power. Freedom had been erroneously defined as permission to exploit others and be irresponsible to maintaining the balance.

Kat respected the Willow. “You my friend Will, have more flexibility and resilience against the winds of change than does the strong oak. Humans do not have such strong Will power. They cannot flex enough to resist immediate temptations and thus, they make long term goals of balance unlikely."

Will shared the stories of two young humans, named Will. Both had come to seek wisdom from the whispers of the wind in the willow. One was William Yeats who scribed a poem called ‘Down by the Sally Gardens’, where the willow, of the group Salix, was found. He said the young and foolish humans do not take things slow and easy, like they should. Another Will, the Shaker of the Spear, wrote a tragic play about Desdemona who sang the willow song, as streams ran by, and murmured moans as this woman’s salt tears fell in sorrow. As Desdemona awaited impending death, the willow expressed grief, sorrow and mourning for the physical or spiritual death of a love, or a forsaken ideal, or hope.

Kat accepted to serve the willow, just as the willow accepted to serve Kat. They chose to be servants to each other and the ideal they shared. The weeping tree shared stories with generations of Kats that appeared over time. The Romans knew cats were independent, and free to do what they want, even when in opposite of what is expected. The Egyptian Cats, the sacred Bastet, was respected for grace and swiftness and providing protection from pests and offering the pleasure of companionship. The term cat means pure, consistent, whole, and unmixed, like the numbers zero and one. All or nothing are pure counterparts, the either/or, that seems to have an opposite meaning. However, the ancient texts say they were once equal, they were the seed that became All and nothing in the circle of life that flowed like a serpent eating its own tail, or for that matter, the many Kats who followed one after the other as part of the story of recreation.

Kat took a deep breath and dove again. She had watched the kitten-tailed, male Willow catkin flowers move with the wind then fertilize the greenish hairy female caterpillar flower parts in spring. She had lived to see many seasons where the gypsy moths and tent caterpillars emerged alongside the budding willows. The moggies, caterpillar larva held blueprints for adult structures. Although they strongly resisted the emergence of a new adult system, they still transformed when the imagination cells resonated together at the same frequency, to a critical tipping point. The quiescent imagination cells transformed into a crystal palace, where the caterpillar turned to goop and transformed into an adult. Most amazing was that upon emergence, they remembered their past life as a caterpillar.

Kat too remembered the past lives. They had told her that she was born to live and likely sacrifice herself under the large canopy that was transformed into a thatched roof over her home. Men had learned from the muskrat, how to use the willow as a cord for binding and then they had made baskets that float above the waters or attached to air balloons and could fly in the sky, float on the water, or sink into the earth into caskets that carried their dead to the dark unknown beyond life. Red headed and bushy bearded peoples came and ‘knocked on wood’ of the willow for good luck and protection. They said the sound of the wind in the willow as elves talking. Some cut large branches and made cricket bats, that could bend and flex and absorb shock, without splintering.

Kat had watched man use the willow to create and ease pain. Chewing on willow bark could ease suffering, pain, and inflammation. But the willow’s green branches could also cause pain. Kat had seen man take the diamond patterned flesh of the willow and make the Cat of nine tails, or a willow switch, that cut into the flesh of those who did not do as ordered.

Men used the willow branches to made panpipes, a form of whistle. They whittled harps and carved magic willow wands, called flutes that could bestow a spell upon all who heard the music. There were songs by a man called Mozart that told of the Magic Flute that helped to battle fire, water, air, and earth and to discover love and experience the power of transcendence to a higher world, through transition and rebirth.

Kat remembered when the ‘droll tellers’ wandered the countryside and found shade under the willow. They told wild stories of giants, the little people, the pixies and fairies and the knocker or bucca also called the leprechaun, King Arthur and his court, Jack the Giant Killer and St. Wyllow, a monk. St. Wyllow was beheaded. As is typical of a cephalophore, he carried his head and ran like a headless turkey to St. Willows bridge, where a church now stands to honour him and carry on his immortal words.

The willow, when cut, can re-root and form new trees. Muskrats have two litters of 8 per year. The two worked together. Both easily propagated. The Willow is a symbol of hope and rebirth, associated with immortality and the endurance of love despite death. The muskrat could adapt and transform. The willow originated in China and came to populate North America, the Muskrat populations from North America were introduced in China.

However, neither the muskrat nor the willow is not immortal. Man had come and cut the willow to use for products, saying it was to reduce environmental damage because of leaf decay causing water quality to deteriorate because of the silt. They forgot that cutting the willow trees decreases shade and causes water temperatures to increase promoting disease. Kat remembered when the crown gall had started to grow. The tumour girdled the willows and killed it by strangling it from receiving water or food or creating new shoots. Kat had saved Will.

The willow tree grows alongside rivers in rocky substrates with low nutrient levels. Willows interact with soil microbial rhizosphere and endophyte communities, that give willows the potential for uptake, assimilation and translocation of various chemicals and are needed to produce growth hormones and help in nitrogen fixing. Endophytes help willows hyperaccumulate pollutants. Yet pollution remediation of contaminated soils and land restoration has unknown costs.

Some endophytes can enter the food chain. At low level they are not harmful. Selenium, garnered from willows, is a trace mineral that is used as an antioxidant to treat cataracts and thyroid issues, and mercury toxicity. Bacteria alter Selenium, causing a phosphorescence. Selenium is used in photovoltaic cells and ignites in oxygen forming a blue flame.

The light of the will-o’-the wisp, is released when the leaves that have fallen, continue to transpire and as they decompose. As Kat swam beneath the water, she had a toot and believed that it also released the Natural gas that forms the blue ghost’s dance in the mists of the willow marshes.

Kat remembered hearing that the wisps enter the atmosphere throughout Europe where the walking fire or corpse candle is thought to be held by a sprite, a puk or hob. The moving 'ignus fatuus', the foolish ghost light, hovers a few feet above the waters, and leads men who follow it to get lost in the marshes. In the light of the full moon of October, crabs and corals living in the phosphine swamps along the Mekong River, associated with phosphorescent diatoms release bright light lime green, red and blue fireball gases called the Naga serpents fireballs.

Kat surfaced after 9 minutes. She ran holding roots that looked like a ball of earth as did her ancestor, whose self- sacrifice let the world be recreated. Kat was the called the marsh cat and marsh rat. She was at the same time the predator and prey. The roots held biotoxins, and the risk of contracting Tyzzer's disease was a clear and present danger. But the waterways needed to be cleared and Kat did her job, despite the mortal danger.

Kat was needed to avoid catastrophe. ‘Catas’ in Sanskrit means to swindle or cheat, ‘trophe’ means an overwhelming victory, and nourishment. Her role was a catalyst, who could catapult change by entering into the catacombs of the deep and catabolizing the toxins. Kat knew her role was as the servant protector. She was ready to sacrifice her life as had generations of her ancestors. She was ready to move on. She had left her kits and they would continue the hero's journey after she was gone.