There is a heartwarming folktale indigenous to Vietnam involving an unexpected romantic coupling between a dragon and a crane that is one of many endearing folktales that make up Vietnam’s rich heritage of maritime folklore. Since the beginning of time storied landscapes have included in-between, magical places like coastlines or intertidal areas between land and sea, and these are often sites of transformation, thresholds between worlds, and are infused with magic. The enduring wisdom of this story is about finding the hidden treasure that is birthed from unexpected connections, and when we choose to come together despite our differences.
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Although I did not take this photo, this is what the landscape looks like where I live around this time of year. It is such a familiar scene, the colors, the trees, the gray sky. . .it reminds me of an opening in the forest where there are birches and reeds at the Hapgood Wright Forest Trail in Concord where I sometimes walk. Mikhail Luchin has captured it brilliantly here with his photo (available on Pexels) so much better than I ever could.
Waking up to the Dark: The Rich Gifts of Winter
Though the darker, colder season of winter is often associated with death and stagnation, folktales that feature winter and death reveal that darkness can offer a potential for spiritual enrichment and be the dark womb within which the seeds of new life incubate and begin to germinate. The darkness of winter and death is rich with meaning, and ripe with transformative potential if we choose to harness it, fearlessly welcome it, and recognize how it connects us to the great mystery of this wild and precious planet.
Read MoreAutumn's Gifts: Beauty and Bereavement
Autumn gifts us with the beauty of dying leaves, or, in the words of Rebecca Solnit, the reminder that beauty and bereavement can sometimes intertwine. What the autumn reminds us of is how feelings of grief and loss (and the dying of the leaves) can be felt at the same times as we experience something beautiful and joyful (the vibrant golden colors of the leaves) and how this complex combination of opposites is often at the heart of our human experience and weaves its way into many ancient folktales.
Read MoreThe Old Woman Who Weaves the World
Like the concept of Yin and Yang, the folkloric archetype of opposing forces that create the cosmos, weaves its way into so many different landscapes and cultural traditions secretly behind a veil of different stories and visual motifs . . yet here it is hidden in plain sight, in the White Mountain Apache folktale of The Old Woman Who Weaves Together the World and the Black Crow who pecks at the loose ends and unravels it again. What wisdom might this folktale offer us in rethinking our relationship with the wild?
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