Tag Archives: fables

Oh, my dears. It’s been a long week. And it is Friday night. The sky is dark, the moon is traveling past the stars, and much of the world is readying for bed. Curl up and listen to the tales I weave, until your eyes grow heavy and you slip into slumber, ready for the Dream Maker.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the fear of being buried alive reached a feverish height. Grave Watchers were hired to keep watch over the recently buried, alert and vigilant should the prematurely buried awake. Often there was a bell apparatus set up with a string from bell to coffin. If the bell rang, the buried was not dead but alive.

My Uncle Ruprecht spent an eventful month as a Grave Watcher somewhere in Tennessee. He published his most well-respected poem during this time, titled “Safety Coffin Sleep Depravity”, and received a commendation for logging the most consecutive hours in a cemetery as a Grave Watcher during inclement weather.

He also continued the work that would become his legacy: Behavior Taxidermy. Ruprecht has an uncanny ability to recreate precise moments of human behavior, sculpting and drawing emotions so that these creations pulsate with energy. Even centuries later.

We discovered a trunk of Uncle Ruprecht’s Behavior Taxidermy Studies in an ancient trunk, and while the man seems to have disappeared nearly half a century ago, we inexplicably continue to receive letters and shipments from him. For all we know, he is back in Tennessee, vigilant at some soul’s grave, waiting for a bell to ring in the night.

Sleep tight, my pets. Dream deep.

Oh, my dears. It’s been a long week. And it is Friday night. The sky is dark, the moon is traveling past the stars, and much of the world is readying for bed. Curl up and listen to the tales I weave, until your eyes grow heavy and you slip into slumber, ready for the Dream Maker.

Some times, when we are at our darkest, our weakest, our most delicate, we are able to enter worlds previously closed to us. With our bodies and consciousness set to fighting the demons assailing us – whether physical or mental – our subconscious is free to explore beyond what we know on Earth. So often we explain away our dreams in the daylight. But in the depths of a fever dream, explanation seems impossible. And unnecessary.

Maruja is an Alebrije, a Mexican folkloric fantasy creature. Alebrijes originated in the fever dreams of artist Pedro Linares. While sweating through an intense and deadly fever, he dreamed of brightly colored creatures. The creatures all whispered one word to him – alebrije. They chanted this word to him and when he recovered, Linares began sculpting them out of wood and paper mache and named them, naturally, alebrijes. At first, people scoffed at these cryptids – contradictions and amalgamations of known animals, odd and arresting.

But our artist continued sculpting. He believed in his fever dream, knowing that the world he had visited was real and full of a truth not found in the here.

Alebrijes have since gained a reputation for scaring away evil spirits and for protecting the home. They exist now in our here, enchanting and inspiring and protecting. Mysticism need not be dark and smokey, my dears. It is in everything fantastical and bright as well as in everything mysterious and dark.

Believe in what you see, especially when it is in your dreams. You can dream. Don’t forget it.

Sleep tight, my pets. Dream deep.

Oh, my dears. It’s been a long week. And it is Friday night. The sky is dark, the moon is traveling past the stars, and much of the world is readying for bed. Curl up and listen to the tales I weave, until your eyes grow heavy and you slip into slumber, ready for the Dream Maker.

Have you ever had a picnic next to a river, perhaps, or taken a walk by a babbling brook, and had the feeling that someone – something – was watching you? Perhaps an otherwise placid stream burbles too loud too suddenly, or the babbling brook seems to be babbling rather vicious things. You could be in the presence of a Kappa.

The Kappa is from Japanese legend, a water demon (a suijin) that looks like a short, wrinkled man with a beaked nose and a turtle shell on his back. Kappas live in rivers and eat unwary people, especially children. Don’t worry, pets, I am always thinking of your safety.

There are two ways to keep yourself safe from a Kappa. Firstly, Kappas love cucumbers, so if you carve your name into a cucumber and throw it into the river, the Kappa will find it, remember you and thus will spare you should you ever run into him. (This could be why my brother Mordecai always travels with a cucumber and a pen knife.)

Second, the Kappa’s strength comes from the water. He has a depression in the top of his head that carries water so he is never without it. If you should run into a Kappa, all you need to do is bow. He will have to bow in return, and when he does the water will spill out of the bowl in his head. He will be powerless until he can return to the river, which gives you time to run and run for your life.

Interestingly, though mostly evil, if one does capture a Kappa, it will pledge to assist with farm work or to teach its captor the arts of setting bones and making medicines and salves. I still recommend removing oneself from a Kappa’s presence as quickly as possible, though. While bone-setting and mixing salves is incredibly useful, capturing a flesh-eating Kappa seems much riskier than, say, entrance exams for medical school.

Whether you know this Suijin by a different name, perhaps Kelpie, Näkki, or Vodnik, when riverside, to be vigilant and keep your wits about you. Don’t jump into shallow water and beware the Kappa.

Sleep tight, my pets. Dream deep.

Oh, my dears. It’s been a long week. And it is Friday night. The sky is dark, the moon is traveling past the stars, and much of the world is readying for bed. Curl up and listen to the tales I weave, until your eyes grow heavy and you slip into slumber, ready for the Dream Maker.

Deep in Mongolia, near a castle built by Tsogt Taij, lives Gomez. Gomez has a farm of 73 acres, and he toils over his coffee crop, determined to grow a blend that brings to mind clear skies, warm earth and grass for as far as the eye can see.

He calls his blend Zanabazar, after the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu in 1640. Unfortunately for Gomez (and, quite frankly, the rest of us), coffee prefers warmer and lusher climes, and until he gets his state-of-the-art greenhouse yert built, Zanabazar is just a dream.

Gomez also raises goats on his land, and since he’s rather short, he wears tall golden ears so that he’s easily found amidst the herds. He reads poetry to the goats as they wander the acreage, and his deeply resonating voice echoes across the quiet skies.

Perhaps future generations will sip Zanabazar and raise coffee wherever they please in yerts full of warmth and fertile earth. Perhaps future generations will see drawings of Gomez in his gold ears, poems etched into the walls above his image, like in the Khoid Tsenkher Cave.

And we, we shall admire Gomez for his dreams. For his faith in the beauty of simple things – like goats, coffee, and poetry. We shall dream big dreams for ourselves, and will stare on hills towards the sky, barefoot like Gomez.

Wearing gold ears.

Sleep tight, my pets. Dream deep.