Through the Firefly Forest: H is for Holly...
Festive enchantments found in bleak midwinter....
This letter is part of my Through the Firefly Forest: The Creative Journey series, where I look at the gifts and challenges of the creative life (one alphabet letter at a time). Start here, at A is for Apple Tree…
Dear You,
It is winter in the Firefly Forest. But right now, winter feels less like a season and more like an actual place. Because it is so cold, so bleak, so unforgiving here that you can’t imagine winter not existing. Spring just feels like a faraway dream.
It hasn’t snowed yet — there isn’t even the relief of snow. Just a brooding off-white sky, a watery sun, and a darkness that falls around you like an undertaker’s cloak each evening. Everywhere the trees stretch black and bare, looking as stiff and miserable as your fingers.
Cold, dark and dead.
Dead, dark and cold.
This is what you mutter to yourself, in lieu of the songs and stories and poems you used to make up. You feel emptied out, exhausted, not so much a person as a body that must be kept alive, regardless.
Dead, dark and cold.
Cold, dark and dead.
Maybe winter is forever. Maybe this is just how it is now. Maybe spring is a thing of the past, a melting pastel memory.
Maybe.
And then, at dusk, you hear it…
The sound of singing, shrill and sweet. You look up to see a little bird with a splash of scarlet on its chest, hopping from bare branch to bare branch, a crimson berry in its beak. You find yourself following it until, a few feet ahead, the trees thicken into a sudden, miraculous green, the bird disappearing among them. So this is where the life of the forest has been hiding, all along. And by your side you see a holly bush, all emerald gloss and ripe berries, bold and defiant and bright.
You become aware of another kind of singing, rich and deep, somewhere through the firs. You follow the sound, breathing in scents that are both resinous and sharp until you find yourself in a clearing.
Here, all the animals of winter are gathered, silent and serene — deer, hare and squirrel. Mouse and vole. A white wolf with brilliant, unblinking blue eyes. And the little robin, perched on the shoulder of the tallest man you have ever seen.
A man in a green velvet cloak, beard shimmering with frost, wearing a crown of holly. And singing a song that you have never heard before, yet have somehow always known. A song about birds whiter than snow, fountains stronger than ice, blood more precious than rubies.
You realise that you are holding a wooden goblet of spiced wine and that your hands are coming alive with warmth again. Yet there is no fire here and certainly no sun — the warmth is from the song and from the heart stoking the song.
The man has stopped singing and is watching you. He clears his throat.
‘You see, solemn traveller, walk deep enough into the “cold, dark and dead” and you will find merriment hiding, right at the heart of it all.’
He raises his goblet in a toast. ‘Happy Twelfth Night!’
Flakes of snow begin to fall. The robin puffs out its chest and trills. Above you, a single bright star flashes like a promise, like a single gleaming bead of joy.
Love,
Deborah x
P.S. A little bit about Twelfth Night and the festival that follows it, Epiphany.
P.P.S. No requests for coffee this time! Just a big thank you to every Ko-fi supporter who has bought me one already. And also thanks to the very generous subscriber who gave me this enchanted book as a Christmas gift. I feel very lucky that you are all travelling through the Firefly Forest with me. Let’s have more adventures in 2022…