There is a morning inside you waiting to burst open into light. --Rumi

-------

Caleb couldn't move. He lay in semi lucid half sleep, he felt himself drifting. Had he dreamed? Had he truly been asleep? He searched his memory as the pieces of his mind began to settle into place. He could remember the coolness of the water, the gentle touch of the figure. The woman? She hadn't looked quite human. It must have been a dream.

Eyes, he needed to open his eyes. It felt strange, everything felt strange. It took effort to pry his eyelids open. Above him he could just make out the lower branches and spreading crowns of the forest canopy. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, the fallen tree with it's vertical wall of roots rose up behind his head. When he tried to sit up he remembered, he couldn't move. Panic wormed it's way into him as he fought in vain to extricate himself from the smothering pressure.

Just as he began to despair of regaining bodily control, he felt a soft voice brush his mind, "Be still child, you have but a moment to wait and you can free yourself."

Caleb's mind momentarily spun, the voice was like the soft touch of a butterfly's wing, or the delicate landing of a single snowflake, yet held the power to mold continents. Above him a face peered down, illuminated dramatically by the flickering fire, it was the face of the woman from his dream. Her preternatural features held a compassion that eased his fears and he felt his body slowly relax into the embrace of his strange bed. He found he could not take his eyes from her exotic countenance. At once she appeared as a human, but a flicker of the firelight would show her face to be completely alien, almost vulpine, and the next moment her aspect would change from angelic innocence to wisdom incarnate, with deep fissures and a time worn brow; yet, he remained mesmerized by her etheric charm.

"I... I...." Caleb couldn't form words and his entire world was spinning, his mind simply couldn't keep pace with his sensations and emotions. The woman smiled gently and reached down to effortlessly pull him to a seated position. It was only after he had regained some of his composure that Caleb noticed that the pressure he had been feeling was a strange cocoon of vines and leaves that, at her touch, opened like a green sleeping bag, releasing him to sit unsteadily with his legs crossed under him.

When he tried to speak again, the woman stilled his words with a small gesture with one hand, while the other handed him a cup of herbal tea. His eye widened in pleasant surprise as the deep earthy aroma drifted to his nose and he hugged the cup to his chest to eagerly breathe. Just a small inhale sent vitality surging through his body, he gasped as memories of soft rain on dry earth and lazy summer days filled his mind. Without delay he brought the cup to his lips and drained the brew in one long draft. With a surprised gasp, he lowered the cup to look up at the woman who laughed lightly at his expression. Before he could bring words to his mind, he felt a surge of energy rush into him from the earth below. Almost as soon as it began, the flood was over, once again he looked up with a shocked look on his face but she precluded any questions by beginning to speak.

"You have questions." Her voice, like soft wind chimes, held a gentleness that Caleb had never experienced before. He sat mute, holding the cup gingery in one hand. His face must have spoken volumes as she smiled again and lowered herself to the forest floor beside him. She started again, "I am Gaia." His face must have held more than a small amount of surprise and disbelief because her lips twitched in a small smile before she went on, "yes, as in 'mother earth' or Terra, or any of the dozens of names you've heard."

Caleb felt himself beginning to draw back from her as his thoughts began to spin, had he found himself in the presence of a crazy woman? Perhaps he had eaten some strange mushrooms and was just hallucinating. He was quite a way out in the forest and there were always those stories about strange 'folk' you might meet in the woods.

Her next words both stilled his thoughts and brought a thrill of fear, "No, child, you are not hallucinating, but I suppose you could say I am indeed one of those 'strange folk' you humans have whispers of in your tales." She went on as his eyes widened further. "Don't be afraid, I'm here to help you."

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Caleb's voice creaked with strain as he tried to contain his racing heart, "Help me? what is going on? was that a dream? Gaia?! like, the goddess of earth? What was in that tea? Am I dying?!" If his rapid fire questions surprised or bothered her, she showed no sign of it.

After a pause so that he could regain some composure, she went on, "You are not dying. The tea was just tea, my touch does awaken some of the latent potency of the herbs, however it is nothing more than some tea with a bit of mint, and honey. Yes, the 'goddess of earth', or more accurately, I am the personification of Gaia, or 'Avatar' might be a more apt designation. No, it wasn't a dream, and I will explain what is going on. Just breathe and know that, in this moment, you are safer than you have ever been." Her smile did little to slow his heart, but he felt a gentle presence blanket him and he slowly relaxed.

Gaia stood and looked around at the quiet forest, a small smile playing across her otherworldly features. When she turned back to Caleb, her eyes had grown soft and sad, but her smile lightened her expression and Caleb could at last understand that the emotion she conveyed was a deep love. Her graceful hands made a small swirling gesture and beneath her a tangle of vines and brambles quickly grew into a seat that wrapped around her form like a perfect armchair. Simultaneously a similar gathering of vines lifted Caleb and a slab of stone the size of a coffee table was held by branches and vines between them. Caleb hardly had time to marvel at these strange developments before he found himself comfortably seated across from her, for all the world like he was on a coffee date at a café somewhere. Only, it was in the middle of the early morning forest, miles from any other humans, and the table and chairs were constructed entirely of vines and a roughly polished slab of stone. Morning glories popped out of the legs and back of the chairs and another set of cups and a teapot grew from the stone, already filled with the same delightfully earthy tea he had enjoyed just a few moments ago. Caleb sat in his chair stunned as Gaia reached for the teapot and poured them each a cup before eyeing him over the brim of her cup as she sipped, eyes twinkling with mirth at his poleaxed expression.

Caleb reached for his cup, enjoying the warmth in his fingertips as he tried to order his thoughts. After a few false starts, he gave up and settled back in the chair and looked at the goddess across from him as she calmly sipped her tea. She gazed back with a twinkle in her eye as she watched his thoughts writ plainly on his face.

"You haven't lost your mind." she began with another smile, "the simplest way to explain is that humanity, or earth..." she said with a wink, "has reawakened to the wider world of, well, magic." Caleb nodded numbly, but really had no clue what to think. She went on, "Thousands of cycles ago, tens of thousands, Earth was part of the greater cosmos. Great beings were able to gain power far beyond what anyone is capable of, until today." She sipped her tea and continued, "You will have heard some of their names, Zeus, Odin, Ra..." She nodded at Caleb's widening eyes as recognition began to dawn in his mind. "Yes, the 'gods'."

Caleb stirred in his chair and sipped his tea, momentarily distracted by the subtle tingle on his palate. A question began to form but Gaia continued, precluding his thoughts.

"In those days, anyone could reach the power of the gods, it took a lot of effort and was by no means a short road." sadness entered her voice once again, "However, many of those powerful beings tried to hoard all of the power, and ways of attaining power for themselves." She smiled at a small bird that alighted on the table and offered a few triumphant notes before flitting off again. "The result of hording the pathways of power was multifaceted. The most notable was that a massive gulf between 'mortals' and 'gods' appeared and grew to be nearly insurmountable. What they failed to recognize was that in seeking to hold all of the power, they not only kept others from beginning their own path to power, but stunted their own."

Caleb was transfixed and sat mutely drinking in every word. "Soon they discovered that they could bolster their own power by taking it from the others. So, war broke out. Almost overnight, the entire planet became a desolate wasteland." She paused and her eyes became distant. "They had become so powerful that it was nearly impossible to kill them, even for each other. But, for mortals, and much of nature, this was not so. People died in the millions, the face of the planet was scarred. Something needed to be done."

Gaia sat, seemingly lost in thought and Caleb sat in silence with her, holding his cup, untouched while thin tendrils of steam drifted up to dissipate in the first rays of golden sunlight as it began to trickle through the canopy.

For long moments they sat together before she began again, "Something needed to be done. So those of us of the Origin, stepped in and put a stop to it." Caleb mouthed 'origin' and she smiled and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, "Another time." Gaia reached for the teapot and refilled her cup before going on, "Our combined power was enough to place them all into a forced stasis." Here she paused and looked at Caleb's blank stare. "A time out", another pause and a wry look, "There are now certain restrictions on them, but the whole of Earth cannot be held in limbo forever. In fact, it would be detrimental for all of us to continue our self seclusion."

Caleb took a deep breath before forming a question, "Our?" he searched for language that would carry his whole meaning. His eyes widened and he screamed, "what the actual fuck?! Gods?! Origin?! I'm..... WHAT?!"