Circus Serpentine
July 4, 2007 The carnival atmosphere filled the air with laughter, fun and joy. Everybody present came together in a spirit of light-hearted anticipation. There was an unspoken sense that something marvellous was about to unfold, something new and so far anyway, unseen. People wandered around in small groups or on their own, and the sense of delight was almost palpable in the air. Everyone present could feel the magic draw closer and closer as the day worked it’s way through the hours.
Soul Sister
Circus Serpentine by Fran Sbrocchi
Vintage Circus Collage Sheets for Your Workbook
As everyone gathers, ready to depart and follow the Serpentine Road, there is a carnival atmosphere. Enchanteur is looking like a rock star and her slaves have set up many tents with oracles and sages offering advice. Weary donkeys, roll their eyes at the prospect of yet another journey. Breaking in new travellers is never easy.
Circus Serpentine
The midday sun beat down upon the brightly coloured tents scattered hither and thither around the field decked out for the occasion by L’Enchanteur. And what an occasion this was going to be! Late last night a decree had been issued announcing that it was time for a gathering of her Ravens, with the promise of a new journey into previously unexplored wild and mysterious realms of the Unconscious Continent. With L’Enchanteur as our guide we were to venture towards new lands, meet new beings (one just simply knows that they will not all be human!), and return at the end of our travels altered and changed beyond recognition — once again!
”Just how many times can one be altered beyond recognition before one no longer even recognizes oneself?” I pondered as I arrived at the scene of bustling activity.
The carnival atmosphere filled the air with laughter, fun and joy. Everybody present came together in a spirit of light-hearted anticipation. There was an unspoken sense that something marvellous was about to unfold, something new and so far anyway, unseen. People wandered around in small groups or on their own, and the sense of delight was almost palpable in the air. Everyone present could feel the magic draw closer and closer as the day worked it’s way through the hours.
But as the evening began it’s slow approach this same air of expectation that had settled upon the gathering gradually turned to restlessness. The sun was beginning to fall lower and lower in the sky casting long shadows across the fields and lanes. The enervating heat of the midday sun gave way to a more comfortable warmth. A slight breeze began to blow gently across the land coming in from the sea at Duwamish Bay. Day was easing into evening and still no sign of L’Enchanteur.
Having failed to remember anything quite so prosaic as packing some food to eat it wasn’t long before my stomach began to grumble. Looking about I noticed a tent that sported red, orange and yellow stripes with tiny multicoloured flags attached to the tent poles. At it’s very top flew a large flag announcing that herein lay the ”Food Emporium”, a place where apparently all one’s culinary desires could find satisfaction.
Just as I was perusing the menu on the chalkboard strategically placed at the entrance to the tent, I felt someone tugging at my coat. Looking around I could see no one. Thinking that someone had merely brushed against me in passing, I continued on into the tent.. But then the tugging began again, this time more insistently. Yet still noone to be seen. The tugging continued. I lifted up the hem of my coat and found the cause — a thread had become attached to something I must have passed earlier, and every time I moved the thread pulled and hence the tug. Yes, that was it. A perfectly logical explanation. Now just to break the thread.
”No, silly! Don’t break it! Follow it!”
”Sorry? Is somebody talking to me?” I answered, feeling rather foolish to be talking to nothing. A couple of bystanders looked at me with arched eyebrows. I attempted to smile feeling the blood rush to my face.
Suddenly Lori was standing beside me, desperately trying to contain her laughter as she suggested that maybe I ought to listen to the Voice, and do as it says.
”I think that you might be interested in what you find at the end of this thread,’ she reassured me, still trying (unsuccessfully I might add!) to hold her merriment at bay.
”Lori, why do I get the feeling that it is all about to begin?”
With that she burst out laughing, which failed completely to reassure me and simply left me feeling more perplexed than before.
”OK, OK, just — just–just stop laughing at me!” I moaned, which really only added fuel to the fire, and in the end I joined her in her merriment. Actually my laughter was more of the hysterical than the humorous kind.
One would think that by now I would have achieved some level of comfort and ease in coping with anything that carries the mark of L’Enchanteur upon it, yet if the truth be told, my fears about where I shall find myself next far outweighed any certainty and hope that I would return unscathed. L’Enchanteur is not known for her gentle approach to character development! She believes in what she euphemistically refers to as ”challenges”. Something told me that I was about to meet my first one!
Following the thread took me on a little trip around and through the circus. Being more than a little bemused it took me rather longer than it should have to figure that I was merely walking back over ground already covered. It was as I was approaching the compound where a small group of donkeys were munching grass that my nerves began to tingle. Intuition told me that the answers lay ahead, just behind the wooden fence where I had been leaning earlier in the day after first arriving.
”What took you so long? Do you always leave the important beings in your life waiting this long to be acknowledged?”
The voice seemed to be coming from a donkey!
”Ahem, pardon me?” I stuttered.
”Ooooh ‘pardon me’, she says so grandly. Well you’re not pardoned, so there! I am sick and tired of all your dammed politeness and boring niceness. And all this time you waste being what you are not, you leave me standing and waiting in the cold. Well it’s gone on long enough now and it’s time for you to wake up and smell the roses. You do like roses, don’t you? You’re always saying how much you love them and oh how you wish you could have a rose garden all of your own. Well why can’t you? Just go and plant the bloody things. Do the work dear. Just do it. And stop talking about it!
”By the Goddesses do you have a lot to learn! I could kill that L’Enchanteur assigning me to one like you. Far too much work for me at this time in my life. I should be left out to pasture, just let be and left alone, not given a ‘challenge’ like you! You, my dear, are just too much work. My orders are to take you and lead you where you are afraid to go. Oh yeah and I hope you remembered that bag she gave you, cos you’re going to need it! We are heading straight for the House of Serpents. You haven’t been there yet, have you dearie?”
”The wh-wh-what?”
”The House of Serpents! You know, your biggest fear — snakes and all that jazz”.
The last thing I heard before I fell into blissful oblivion was loud and raucous laughter, echoed from a distance.
(Soul Sister)
Activity
Capture the atmosphere of Circus Serpentine and the heightened excitement as travellers meet and prepare for the journey along the Serpentine Road.
Circus Serpentine 2007
