The Carpenter
Wendy Robertson Fyfe, Abbey Of Soul
The Carpenter was written nearly 30 years ago inspired by a blessed stay in Stromness, Orkney Island, 1995, in the ancestral home of Stanley Cursiter, one of the early Scottish Colourists. Many of his paintings hung on the walls in his, then descendants cottage; there on one of the water streets. Staying in that beauty gallery home space even for two weeks had me realise the necessity of wildness, of rich colours and powerful images, of mythos, of arts and crafts, of inside-out/outside-in deep imagination and dreaming for a healthy generative life. The vast skies and power of forces participating in creating the islands, the inner walls of the cottage built by those forces, the inner psyche of the human-creature made by and in participation with Earth songs and cries, Earth and Cosmic psyche … ‘me’/’we’/’creaturex’ finding myself there at a particular Conjunctio in my 30’s…
Here is the story, written and audio with invitations to make yourself comfortable, perhaps with a cup of tea, somewhere relaxing whether inside or outside, by a fire perhaps, and let yourself be taken by the words, images, symbols, sounds, colours, and songs from the Orkney Islands and a deeper, wilder remembering. You are invited to make space for yourself afterwards too so you offer yourself a break from often busyness of these days, and for some reflections afterwards.
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... there was a carpenter and he lived in an isolated cottage on a small far-away island. Being an island of The North, there was great awareness of living with the sun and moon, land and sea. Here the summer nights were light and the winter days were dark; the weather was the news and many a storm swept over the land. Sheer cliff crags and low-lying hills gave testimony to forces of wind and water. So strong and relentless were the gusts that to find a tree here was rare, to be found only in a few sheltered places. The buildings in the little town Hartness and the few scattered farms were, for many years, all built with grey or red stone, from floor slabs to roof tiles and box beds to cupboards.
The carpenter lived a few miles out from Hartness. His cottage was situated in a bay on the southwest of the island. It faced eastward down towards one of the few sandy beaches where he kept his boat, whilst also snuggling into the base of a low-lying hill behind. It was as sheltered from the wind as any place on the island could be. He built his cottage from stone for his simple needs and purposes a long time ago. It was small, perhaps more like a little hovel than a cottage, and smoke was always seen coming from the chimney. A warm welcome was ready for friends and strangers alike. Most of the time though, he was to be found in an outbuilding, his workshop, which was also made for his purposes and gave out a continuous scent of burning peat.
Between his cottage and his workshop grew the most beautiful of the few trees on the island though it grew no taller than the height of the small buildings. With roots and branches spread, the harbinger of the seasons stood strong. No one knew quite how the tree got there, it just started growing one year soon after the carpenter arrived, and he tended it lovingly. No one knew what kind of tree it was; the shapes of the leaves were star-like and though their sun-side showed deep green, their earth side showed silver. In a sunny breeze it looked as though the tree sparkled just like the sea. It was said that the tree could be heard to sing at such times.
The carpenter loved the tree, of that there is no doubt. He spoke to it every day as he walked between cottage and workshop. When he worked on his vegetable patch behind the buildings he talked with the tree. Weather permitting, he would lunch under its arms appreciating the beauty of the moment; from snowdrops on hard ground and red-breasted robin looking at him from stark branches in February; daffodils, buds and nesting in April; fullness, song thrush, soft long grass and white spotted-orchids in June; to October violets in autumnal glow. Not a day went past when the carpenter did not hold the tree in wonder.
The folk from the land of stone who visited the carpenter admired the tree as much as they admired and valued the carpenter’s skills. Indeed, both the carpenter and the tree were much talked about in the town and on the bigger island across The Big Water where the carpenter’s furniture was also much sought after even though there were many trees on that island.
Many folks wondered if there would ever come a time when the carpenter would chop down the tree outside his cottage for wood. For the carpenter, though, this idea was utterly unthinkable. He would collect driftwood from the beach and make arduous two-hour journeys across the waves that claimed many lives. To maintain the forest on the other side of the water he would select trees very carefully, chop them down, and return them to his workshop. He only selected trees with a specific need in mind; curving oak for a crib for farmer Isabella McCloud who shared her meat, milk and eggs (for whatever was on the island was willingly shared); pine for table and chairs for fishermen David and George Sinclair who shared their fish and crabs, and often helped him over The Big Water for wood; beech for fiddler Jock McMorrin’s’ coffin (oh, how he would miss nights by the fire with Jock and his music).
On rare occasions the carpenter might reconsider his decision after seeing and feeling the grain, the pine might not be cut out to be chairs after all, but a bookcase and small stool. So, he would make the book case and stool. Sure enough, within a few days someone would come along looking for just such items.
Wood was so rare on the island and the carpenter put so much love, warmth and skill into his work that nothing stayed finished in his workshop for very long. The interiors of the stone cottages of Hartness began to soften over the years as folk invited the carpenter’s wonderful creations into their homes for creations they were, indeed. Since the carpenter always used the shapes of the grain to guide him in his making, this meant that everything he made was uniquely shaped with holes and curves. In fact, his furniture was probably more reminiscent of that usually found in fairy tales set in deep forest cottages miles from anywhere. Even on the darkest, stormiest night of midwinter, the items brought much joy and light into people’s lives, and it was said that people often felt that the wood itself gave out life.
It was on such a midwinter’s day that news was given of a storm approaching. Everyone on the island hurriedly braced themselves as best they could; securing boats, bringing in supplies of food and peat, making sure they were all indoors in time and all children safe and accounted for. The carpenter watched the storm begin from his cottage window. With the land lying low here, the skyscape took prominence.
The storm began shortly after mid-day with a quickening of rushing wind and a raising of swelling waves. But the darkening of cumulus clouds took up most of the pane. Streaks of lightening forked across the height and breadth of the carpenter’s world frame in torched gashes. Then, thunder, sounding as never before, as if the very sky and earth were exchanging places. The rain became so hard on the glass that it was not possible to see what was happening outside anymore; all became a blur of flashes, bangs and crashes from every direction – above, below and around. The carpenter had no option but to sit tight, hope that all was secured enough and wait patiently for the storm to pass. Fortunately, he had a warm fire, some food and lots of hot tea.
It was three nights and two days later that the storm began to ease and the carpenter began to sigh with relief. He had begun to wonder if the storm would ever end and whether his roof would hold out. End though, the storm did and hold out the carpenter’s roof did. Afterwards, apart from a quiet, echoing, dripping sound all was silent and still.
It was in this silence and stillness that the carpenter went out to assess the damage. He went out of his door and turned towards his workshop. He looked at the sight in front of him in total dismay. The tree had been ripped from root exposing jagged wood clean from earth; trunk and broken branches lay strewn across the path between buildings. The carpenter was devastated. So devastated was he that it was said that his cry could be heard all over the land. Although surprisingly little of the cottage and workshop was damaged, unlike his vegetable patch, the carpenter would have given anything to have the tree still growing. But, of course, this was not possible and for the next while the tree lay across the path whilst the carpenter felt unmoved to shift it.
Fond habits die hard. So, whilst the carpenter now walked round the tree on his way between cottage and workshop, he still talked with it; perhaps even more, and more warmly, than before. It was also said that during this time the carpenter’s style changed; his creations lost their holes and curves; they became straight and angular.
One day as the carpenter walked round the tree, chatting as usual on his way to the workshop, he thought he heard a bird singing in the branches. “This cannot be” said the carpenter, “for it is midwinter and all the birds have flown.” But, sure enough, there was definitely singing to be heard. What is more, when the carpenter looked closely at the branches, he could not see any bird there at all. The singing though, was more beautiful than he had ever heard in his life before. For the first time in a long while, the carpenter felt a twinge of joy in his heart again. But, what was more astonishing was that the singing came from inside part of the tree.
The carpenter went to his workshop and returned with a saw in his right hand. He listened attentively to the tree, feeling the warmth of the areas where he heard the voice. He concentrated on the part of the branch where a small off-shoot slopped out. He made marking of the precise area before sawing it carefully. He took the piece of wood with the off-shoot sloping out into his workshop and held it in his hand for a long time to get the feel of a shape. When he felt ready, he reached, not for his hammer and nails as he usually did, but for knives, chisels, files, and sandpaper. He began working with the wood.
For a long time, the carpenter carved into the branch until the shape of a deep-seated bird breast sat in the palm of his left hand with the off-shoot sticking out above it sloping back towards the tail which curved out to a point beyond his thumb. The rings from the branch centre reflected out creating the image of wings on both sides of the bird’s breast. The carpenter painstakingly carved the offshoot until it showed a narrow, elegant neck to coy head and long slender beak stretching across the bird’s back. The shape was as if the bird was just awakening from sleep. The rings from the offshoot centre gave the impression of a crown at the top of the bird’s head.
The carpenter worked until every curve was as smooth as could be. When it was no smoother using his files, he reached for a small piece of sandpaper. As he finished the last stroke, he looked in wonder at the beautiful, delicate wooden bird in his big, rough, tough hand. He felt warmth in his hand with the wood sitting in his palm.
Then, with the warmth in his hand, the carpenter thought he felt a single heartbeat; and again; and then another. It got a little stronger, and a little quicker. In his hand he felt life beginning to breathe into the bird. He saw a little round eyelid appear on each side of the bird’s head, then two dark eyes pop open. Breast rings began transforming into soft, white-feathered wings. He felt the movement of two tiny feet pressing into the centre of his palm. The bird began to stretch and flap its wings. The carpenter held his breath in astonishment. Feeling for the right moment, he lifted his hand and let go. The bird flew up into the open sky.
When the woodcarver looked into the palm of his hand there lay a single, small, curling white feather. His heart began to sing. It was said that the song could be heard all over the Atlantic Island and across The Big Water to lands beyond. It was also said that the trees across The Big Water sang out in echoing rounds and that there never was in all the world a more beautiful sound to be heard.
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You are invited to offer some time for yourself after reading, to reflect on where you may feel resonances with The Carpenter. You may want to come back to the story and notice what happens in your body as you read or listen. What images and memories arrive unbidden, what longings do you feel in the marrow of your bones, where might you feel allured or repelled or hear a note coming from your own CosmicEarth heart with the one atom of iron there-in from the explosion of galaxies and more …
You might wonder what story is born in and with you to live into the world; how to learn about and from it/them when the time comes; how to abide by and with them. You might wonder what storms there have been, are now, or to come and to cultivate the particular and magical patterning of Earth alignments who will also crack or spear your hearts open in exactly the right way to bring forth Mystery’s wonder carving. Imagine you are inside and intertwined within a greater animate narrative, a greater dream; a greater surrender. You might wonder what beauty of you might be released from the palm of your hand, perhaps as yet a heart unsung and very much needed in the world; a beauty otherwise not lived; a beauty that brings this reciprocal Earthsong world alive again.
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I welcome you to leave comments below. You are also welcome to contact me to explore the ways of working with Abbey Of Soul and with your unique deeper story; time at Abbey Of Soul…
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I also welcome you to read my musings below on The Carpenter at this time should you feel curious. They are not ‘complete’ or the only ones and you are welcome to feast on what tastes nourishing, let go what doesn’t. I’m also interested in your reflections too, where the story takes you.
Firstly, why have l decided to publish The Carpenter here and now?
The story is here is the first post sent out to folks from Abbey Of Soul since even now, 30 years on, it has deep meaning to me, perhaps more, both personal and also a DNA archetypal mythos pilgrimage of soul … the way lovingly tended places upend in particular alignments into bigger more powerful storms in a variety of ways; the storms that are necessary for a human life to mature. This storm offers the way of surrendering and metamorphosis; being reshaped by a bigger force to another mysterious depth carving by deep loving, by Tending The Dead; by finding out who and what matters in a life worth living. As Rilke notes:
You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.
Through a deep listening attuning with the ‘more-than-human’ world a further depth of nature and psyche, soul and mystery can be felt intuitively, rather than rationally, for the shape of the new, ‘the thing’, or “the truth at the centre of the image were born with” (David Whyte). The nature-based pilgrimage tends towards being in a wilderness, away from human culture’s survival dance where another conversation becomes possible, remembered. It could be said that the storm is something that happens to us, in Mystery’s time; also how we may even have longed for such a particular storm and then whether we respond from a wounded and fragmented place or/and a place of wholeness/holyness, and being able to discern between the two, can make all the difference. The fallen tree may also be understood as the current condition of The Earth too; a storm that is perhaps exactly the right kind of horrendous beauty storm for Earth’s evolution with a particular human participation.
As said, in many ways it is an archetypal story of love, loss, dismembering, tending, and birthing anew. A story of time and tending necessary to be offered in the descent, the necessary heartcrack, and unravelling in order to truly receive a vision, a beauty grief horror, a song, that only you and each one of us can bring uniquely into the world. A story of time and the tending vital to remember and surrender again into the ‘more-than-human’ world who still remembers who we are when we are lost and can’t see a way. Or as Neruda said:
“Our love was born
outside the walls,
in the wind,
in the night,
in the earth,
and that's why the clay and the flower,
the mud and the roots
know your name.”
To be human here is to be, as in this story, to go resourced into the wilderness storm and through the transformational fire, certainly globally, that we are already in anyway. To be human, l believe, is to be born for such particular storms, such fires when Mystery decides we are ready for such a particular alchemising encounter … perhaps like the banksia cone way is born for it’s transformation through the flames to thrive on, or a caterpillar way after many sheddings is born to become caterpillar soup in a cocoon …
“… so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.” Rilke.
The storm is not a failure. Our readiness is important and is recognised by elders in the rare blessing these days of being near one. The Carpenter also had a healthy community, inner and outer. In inner community can help even more when there isn’t an outer one and when we can also find ourselves dragged by the feet into Mystery’s storm unbidden. Both the pilgrimage, and the fall within it, as an inherent part of it then, is something that happens to us, is part of us, and something we do, something we can prepare for and tend to or. The metamorphosis is more than only ‘personal’. For example, whilst the Carpenter is carved into a Woodcarver, the carved wood, following the inherent grain within to winged bird, is released from his hand out into the world. His heart sings and the heart of the world sings. There is a new shaping of a way maybe as ancient as the birth of the cave where the world is born. Is not every new birth a new shaping to reshape the world? An offering?
To find yourself at a ring of fire dissolving into the juice of who you thought you were, then, is not the failure you might have been led to believe, though in the current culture this pilgrimage is more usually blocked, medicalised, or pathologized. Rather, it means you are bang on schedule (it can feel like a bang). Who, you might ask, is/will be there to meet you at such a juncture, at such a bang?
A Guide to Soul here at Abbey Of Soul is one way to go into the forgotten rich underland stories and myths of the particular storm and more through the colours, words, images, symbols, dreams, multi-portals and more with ones who have travelled before and know the terrain. What will be involved, how do we go through the fire? Here are some offerings, numbered but not always in order:
Falling in love with an animate, intimate, enchanted Earth and Earth Community including ‘humans’. For example, this story was also partly inspired by an experience of my doing just that, speaking out my love in a beauty world of river and forest; being stopped in my tracks which following curiosity finding/being found by a tree singing. She began singing a few notes, stopping. I sang the same notes in the space, she added more and so on until a riff was sung. Upon singing the riff the whole forest sang out in rounds. Other people heard this. The Earth is not what we have been taught it is. Be curious. Be open to the dream, surrender who you think you are and wonder/wander about the world.
Healing. To live in this world is to be wounded and to be living in a survival dance of some kind. Do our healing work, including shadow, not that we can then go back into a wounded culture, but that we can dive deep into exploring what shape is in the wood of our lives, the offering we are born with that is needed in this world. The core wound, one we are born with, holds the memory/key of the shape that will lead us to ‘the shape in the wood’ to be found “…outside the walls…” (that we imprison ourselves in with our wounds and protectors, the level of our current culture).
‘The shape in the wood’ is one way of describing soul. It’s always in the wood, but will we/you make the pilgrimage to it, be felt there, live the being back into the world.
Living the deeper shape of a life, the gift, into the world that will be renewed in a way that will never be longingly lived into that world.
Imagine the song at the end of this story not being lived into the world, not being sung, not awakening life. Imagine that on a vast scale. What if that is the crisis? If so, might it be worth considering alternative routes to the current mainstream?
Arriving here, at Abbey Of Soul, or wherever you feel led, means preparing for and surrendering once more to that animate, intimate and enchanted life; to sacred conversations; synchronicities remembered and longed for in our Earth bones. It will mean cultivating, tending, increasing bandwidth resonances with earth-based powers beyond the current human culture to be more fully with the beauty horror ways of Earth where anything can happen and will. It’s unlikely to be what you plan which, as David Whyte says, is too small for you to live.
Who knows, but what if Earth is currently longing for, preparing and inviting humans into metamorphosis on an evolutionary scale? What might be possible in tending the storm the way of The Carpenter on a grand scale? What if how we respond in whole/holyness surrendering to the metamorphosis in trusting Earth ways, can make all the difference beyond a rational planning? Abbey Of Soul serves as such a place for such a surrender and pilgrimage.
I sense, as in The Carpenter, and above, that there is as yet a currently unimaginable depth of beauty in each of us that ‘we’ and the world are longing for. What if that beauty becomes the currency? What if ‘humanity’ has created exactly the right storm, the right fire, needed for our own metamorphosis. More-so, what if Earth has created ‘humanity’ for creating such a fire needed for Earth’s next evolution. Maybe, if anything can be planned, now can be the time to start this pilgrimage whether beginning by curiosity, by resourcing-in rather than extracting-from our Earth home or/and preparing for descent into the flames/cocoon, returning with our unique gifts to regenerate the current culture with greater capacities and revelations as part of Earth dreaming.
Will ‘Tending The Dead’ song of what has been until now sing in, bring in, the shape you are Earthborn to be? Like The Carpenter, are you, will you be listening to, attending another kind of DNA to be seen in the soul threads of your understory? Will you respond in a song of mutuality in bringing your unique Earthsong revelation heart voice, or your longing to hear your unique place in a more magnificent Earthbirth song expression into this hungry world?
Your pilgrimage is longed for and welcome here at Abbey Of Soul. Your trembling, courageous voice is welcome here at a conduit portal of Earth, Earth Community including humans, Ancestors and Future Ones, Gods and Goddesses, seen and unseen, death and life; love. Sing in and sing on …
The Abbey Of Soul is now open … lifting from the palm of one revelation from many, living into and from the palm of the world … a palm of the Cosmos.
with a tornado of love and blessings coming over your way ~
Wend
Image: curling white feather and ancient yew found together on my path this morning. Yew is also significant in my mythos identity as learned along the way. Who would have thought these two would come together today as l let Abbey Of Soul go into the world …
Top Image: silver leaves, wrf
This is the first full Abbey Of Soul Substack post sent to subscribers. You are welcome to explore further Abbey Of Soul posts and the fast approaching Imbolc Dreaming; Holy Island Lindisfarne on Wed 31 January. Limited Places available. I welcome you sharing the magic and news about Abbey Of Soul.
The Carpenter is copyright Wendy Robertson Fyfe … walk … talk … vision …