Tag Archives: Meeting Place of the Winds

Jasmine Snippet #98

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Notes for The Story of Jasmine continue:

The North and South Wind cards from JASMINE: The Battle for the Mid-Realm Collector Card Game.

Two Wind Special Cards from “The Battle for the Mid-Realm” collector card game.

Jasmine looked down at her hand and inspected the ring. So, it’s not a ring after all, it was a Faery King’s Crown. How strange. Then she looked up at the brilliant luminescence of the sky. It seemed to her there were only deep, saturated colors. There was no blackness in the night sky at all.

“Where am I?” she marveled. A Wind came up from behind and blew her hair forward.

The Wind answered, “Welcome to the Meeting Place of the Winds. Allow me to introduce everyone. I am Ost, the East Wind.” He spun around delightfully as he spoke, “I am the first wind–the breeze of the morning. As herald of the day, I bring hope and brightness.” He stopped and moved closer to her and whispered, “At the moment, I am the strongest here as it is just about to dawn.” Ost landed lightly by Jasmine’s side and took Jasmine’s hand. She clearly felt Ost’s firm grasp and wondered how this could be. Ost introduced her to the other three winds. Each one’s sharp, undulating features refracted in and out of invisibility.

Ost paused. “This is Wein, the West Wind.” he introduced, “He shall be the strongest wind this afternoon.” Next to Ost’s warm feel, Wein was cold. He seemed bluer than the other winds and his voice had an unfriendly edge to it.

“I shall chill you and never leave you in peace.” Wein said.

“Lovely.” Jasmine sighed a bit too loudly.

“Miss, that is my nature.” Wein replied. “I came out of courtesy to meet you, though I’m bidden to do but a single service for the Sorceress of Medrylthorn. Know, oh haughty one, until I have dispatched my obligation, I cannot do you any favors.”

Jasmine nodded her acknowledgment as Ost ushered her quickly away. “This is Noird, the blinding wind of the North. His strength is in the evening and he’s sometimes hot and sometimes cold, but he is always full of energy. Noird has promised a service to the Ice King, Thorgall. So like Wein, Noird is unable to help you at the moment.”

Noird blew a kiss at her. “I sincerely hope you will be around when I am able to serve you…” Jasmine blushed, then acknowledged him with a nod of her head.

Ost took her to meet the last wind, “Sud is the hot wind of the night. Her strength envelopes and protects.” Sud displayed more of a purplish cast. Her vibration seemed faster than the other winds. Strangely, the faster undulations gave Sud’s sharp features more definition. With Sud’s form, she could make out a body beyond her face.

From what Jasmine could tell, Sud had the general shape of a horse with great wings, but also, instead of a horse’s head, there was a woman’s torso. Jasmine thought Sud looked exquisite and stunning.

Ost added, “Oh, deep into the night, you traveled on an excursion with Sud, since she was the strongest at that time.”

“Oh.” Jasmine said, “thank you.” It seemed to Jasmine that Sud winked at her and she chuckled.

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Jasmine Snippet #97

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Notes for The Story of Jasmine continue:

The Special Card, “Ring of Emeth” from the JASMINE: The Battle of the Mid-Realm Collector Card game.

Jasmine closed her eyes and kept her eyes shut as she concentrated on blowing into her makeshift flute. It surely felt as if she was suspended in the air but she preferred to believe the feeling was illusory. She felt safe from harm as long as she kept her mind occupied with playing. So she fought the temptation to reach out one of her hands to confirm there was ground beneath her. In case it wasn’t an illusion, she did not want to fall to her death.

After a while, she decided to get bold enough to trust her bodily sensations. She trusted gravity would not claim her. If she was being suspended in the air, she’d make the best of it. But she still kept her eyes shut. Jasmine moved her body in a way that placed less stress on her muscles.

To be aware of her orientation, to know up and down, she had to be aware of her center of gravity. She instinctively did this by imagining herself in the middle of a bubble that would always right itself. Creating her bubble cushion helped make her flute playing easier. The winds picked up and tossed her higher and higher. She could control how fast she tumbled by spreading out her arms and legs. To do this, she had to stop playing.

When she stopped playing, she opened her eyes. Darn, she knew this would happen.She was in free fall. “This is not my imagination.” Jasmine said to herself. There was nothing for her to do but to accept her situation. She was falling. How could she fight gravity? Sooner or later, she will hit the ground. So she decided to relax her muscles and welcome every sensation she felt during her last moments alive. Indeed, as she fell, she noticed the customary colors of the night had changed into an intense blue purple.

She did not hit the ground. Instead, she was buoyed up, suspended, and gently placed on a circular bowl etched in a rock near the edge of a cliff. As soon as her feet touched rock, she stumbled as if she had forgotten how gravity worked. The Winds immediately manifested before her. There was much mirth between them. Their laughter sounded like high whistling. “See!” one was saying to another, “didn’t I tell you? Aria’s daughter could not help but to succeed, and brilliantly!”

“W-What?” Jasmine asked, as she got up, “who is Aria?”

“Oh, you can hear us speak?” asked one who appeared directly in front of her. He was see-thorough, but his features were sharp and piercing. His image kept distorting as it flickered between invisibility and shades of blue and white.

“Yes, I understand you.” Jasmine answered. The winds quickly ushered themselves away to confer among themselves. Jasmine felt nothing but an abysmal stillness during their absence. But it gave her time to consider her situation. She was here basically because the ghostly voices connected with the ring had brought her to this spot.

“This spot.” That phrase kept echoing in her head. “This spot. This spot. This-s-s-p… Of course! This very spot is where the Winds meet. I’m here!” Jasmine felt elated. She spun and danced within the circular depression in the rock. Somehow, she arrived at the place the ring voices advised her to find.

When she thought about it, she became puzzled that she had not encountered the voices emanating from the ring for a long while. They were silent still. Then Jasmine heard the word  “Doorway” in her head. She reasoned that this was why the colors were so deep and marvelous! Jasmine smiled. She was on the doorstep of elementals who could take her precisely where she wanted to go.

One of the winds returned.

This one also had sharp features and was almost indistinguishable from the first, except the voice differed, “Winds are able to converse quite freely with the denizens of the faery realm. We think you can understand us because you wear the Crown of the Faery King Emeth on your finger.”

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Jasmine Snippet #95

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The Story of Jasmine Notes continue:

After Jasmine calmed herself down, she did as suggested and strained to listen. She heard the tweeting of the night birds, the rustle of the leaves, distant shouting. She heard the effects of the wind, but not the wind itself. She tried even harder to focus on the sounds, but to no avail. She was merely hearing the sounds of the night.

“There is nothing to listen to!” Jasmine cried out in frustration.

“Precisely” was the response she heard.

“What?” Then it occurred to her that she was meant to focus on the space between the sounds. She needed to hear the silence.

As she focused deeper into the silence, she found its space could expand and open up. But with the next sound, her expansion collapsed. What did she have to do, stop time? It was difficult to sustain her focus, but she kept at it until she became aware of a faint melody. When she concentrated on the melody, it disappeared. Then she would have to start all over again. She could not trap the melody in her mind. Finally, Jasmine understood she needed to completely surrender to the silence. To allow this, she needed to relinquish her mind’s search for meaning.

When she allowed her experience to wash over her. Without her mind’s interference, Jasmine was finally able to follow the alluring sound with her heart. Her heart followed the faint hollow melody of silence to a stream where some golden reeds grew. The haunting song of silence came from these reeds that stirred in the faint breeze.

Jasmine felt the breeze. She felt it whirling around her, inside and out, like a slow motion tornado. She was a reed moving in the wind. Like every other individual reed, she too, had her own sound. Like the reed, she was a hollow vessel for the wind to play. She never felt so alive and good, a reed yearning to be moved with living breath of the wind. She became the instrument and the song. There was no place where her song was not playing. Inside and outside of herself, she played the song of her soul. The energy increased in waves. She felt sound vibrations all over her body. She was already on sensory overload when there was an increase in tempo and amplitude until, in one great burst, she released herself to the wind and experienced time out of time.

She travelled on the wings of the wind. Together, they journeyed freely throughout the Mid-Realm. She saw wonders and sights she never knew existed. The wind told her about the history of the different lands they visited. With stars flashing before her eyes, her heart perceived everything around her all at once: her relationship to the cosmos, her true connections to the people around her and she saw the face of her true mother. What was revealed in a couple moments would take life times to explain.

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Jasmine Snippet #75

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The Story of Jasmine notes continue:

Jasmine tossed and turned in her sleep, just as she had done every one. This night was the third encampment away from the White Throne Mountain and the last one before turning northward on their journey. It wasn’t that sleeping on the ground was too unbearable, or that there was so little peace between her companions. She was fighting the influence the ring was trying to impose upon her. Try as she may, she could not remove it physically from her finger.

To cope, she hid herself underneath her cloak for most of the three-day ride and trusted the horse under her to manage them both. The horse’s instincts were better than her own ,so she saw no need to impose her will upon the beast. She trusted her ride over her own judgment to react best in its own, familiar surroundings. She was not totally present or anchored in this world and oscillated between the two worlds.

She avoided looking out upon the sunlit landscape. It was the most gloriously beautiful, dazzling and oppressive landscape she had ever seen. The more they traveled, the more she experienced this convulsive beauty.

Jasmine concluded to herself, “If I accept this as valid, it means the ring commands me. If I am not ruled by a man, why would I be ruled by a ring?”  She handled the uncertainty by rejecting it’s validity and limiting her senses. Both hiding and hidden underneath the refuge of her cloak, Jasmine meditated during their journey across the plains, all the while concentrating on keeping herself in a bubble, suspended between two realities.

She thought the days were more manageable because the collective sound of hooves crunching upon sandy, rocky ground could not be syncopated. But the nights were another matter.

At night, she heard voices oozing out of the stillness. Always, they addressed her. Until this night, she had successfully eluded focusing on their words. But, this time, she was so tired,  she listened. She was greeted by people who seemed not unlike herself. Their features were very fine. All were frantically trying to warn her against taking the north road.

“Travel westward, ” they advised, “Seek the Meeting Place of the Winds and consult.” They identified themselves as the White Faeries, a race of benevolent beings who live in a corresponding world that “inter-penetrates your world.” The White Faeries seemed to be very well acquainted with the details of the Mid-Realm and promised to show Jasmine the best paths to take to avoid mishap. They also told her they were helping, “Because our fates are related and it’s in our best interests to look out for you in this world…”

That comprised the basic message. The heretofore incessant and insistent sounds she had tried to block from her head finally stopped its infernal buzzing.  Only after she acknowledged the message did all broadcasts cease. The oppressive atmosphere she’d sensed before was lifted. So did her disposition. Finally, something felt right.

At first light, she succeeded in getting Glynn’s attention and spoke to him about a change of plan.

© 2018 DARLENE

I AM A FAN of “THE STORY OF JASMINE”

Jasmine Snippet #41

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Notes for “The Story of Jasmine” continue:

In the glowing whiteness and silence of the mountaintop they found themselves whispering, as if in great reverence to nature’s accomplishment.

Standing on the outer precipice, they looked across the wide expanse of low hills and plains which they had just covered. It was then they realized they were between heaven and hell, between the sublime and the _____*

For a place known as the “Meeting Place of the Winds,” it was very still. It seemed to be a place of silence and secrets moved only by the wind.

_______________________

*These are merely notes to myself. Obviously, I had not yet figured out what word to use.

I recognize this snippet as being much further along in the story.

© 2018 DARLENE