The gardens of Aeoliah        Chapter 4       

Chapter 4

* The village in the infinite *

* Suggested music: theme of the Eolis, Bearns and Dexter, Golden Voyage 3, «Look after tomorrow for me» *

* (With «Lovely Day» of William Aura it is as good either) *

 

With the days passing by, Nellio and Aurora's love unfolded in marvellous discoveries and long reveries. The day, they even sometimes forgot to work, like often the Eolis at this age. But the life is so generous on Aeoliah, that nobody minded, and especially nobody made any reproach to them. Anyway the reproach is completely foreign to the Eoli mind. The very word is even unknown. And then, if you had not yet understood, the Eolis are completely Benevolent, especially towards the young lovers. To see them happy gives the Eolis even more drive...

The night, instead of sleeping all the time like the Eoli children do, they began to stay up more and more often, in their home, or on the place of the village with the other Eolis. These immutable rites were the very frame of the Aeolian life, and they still are today, with their perennial peace. It will be like this as long as the Aeoliah's sun will be shining. About the middle of the night, there are the obscure hours: the ring, in the shadow of the planet, stops reflecting the sun; the light flowers, exhausted, fade out, leaving the place to only the star-studded splendour. The last crickets gradually become silent. These are hours of a majestuous calm, where almost all the Eolis sleep or travel out of their bodies, in the realms of the spirit, that some on Earth name the astral voyage.

Dawn get them out of their sleep. The Eolis do not have clocks; they have no need for such devices on a planet where there are no trains to catch. The ring, the flowers, the scents of the air, the songs of the birds or insects, the very vibration of the light give to each moment of the day its peculiar ambience, similar to no other. The Eolis and the Eolines do not dully number their hours, but they name them according to their ambience. On Earth the Hindus artists dully understood this, who play different musics, the ragas, on each moment of the day. Each hour has its vibration, its song, its moods, its rhythms... Poetic subtleties of the time which passes by, disturbed by the prosaic and ignorant hour fiddling fashioned in certain countries!

The Sunrise is on Aeoliah a majestic ceremony. It always takes place at the same hour, as in our tropics, because the axis of Aeoliah is not very much tilted. The night animals stop their songs one hour before the first gleams at the East side. It is the Silent Hour, of an incredible Peace, or the Rest Hour, or the Fresh Hour, the Dew Hour, the Hour of the White Veil... A moment of immense calm and of meditation, with the only light of the planetary ring which, free of the planet's shadow, regains all its splendour. The air is fresh, subtle, light, the sound reaches far. Whoever awakes at this hour feels light and filled with energy, with projects, but calm and concentrated at the same time.

Even before the eye could distinguish the slightest aura on the east side, on top of a tree some bird trills give the signal, soft and solitary in the great fresh silence. A pause, and others answer at intervals, and then let the first purple gleam point out without a noise. A light white mist extends its wet mystery between the bushes. An inaudible violin palpitates tenderly. Then Eolis and birds wake up. The firsts go up on the roof of their houses, still in silence, and sit there to contemplate the wonder of the nascent day. The birds begin their marvellous prayer. First very soft chirps quiver, almost unperceivable, gentle warbling. Then the slow and soft song of the Aeolian blackbirds, in infinitely moving melodious glissandos, starts to move the heart, while in the sky the purples fade in pinks, then into golds, and that finally superbly arises the white and glorious light... When the misty and shivering silhouettes of the Eolis on their roofs become coloured, then burst out the sheaves of merry chirps, briskly tinkle in the fresh air, with all the trills and arpeggios of Happiness. The corollas of the flowers quiver and open in a slow dance. The joy becomes general when emerges the golden sun, and the Eolis, moved, transported, get up, and, on the tip of their feet, raise up their arms to the sky and give thank to this wonder in a very soft song, almost a sob of Happiness. They know, them, the mysteries! The marvellous ceremony of the birth of the light, each day renewed, offers the Amazement, the joy of life and the spirit, to all the hands, corollas and beaks!

Perhaps in front of so much simple beauty, certain readers will think that I invent, that I freely embroider. Really? Know that things occur exactly in the same way, more or less some details, on our own Earth, so much vibrating, so much intense, every sunny morning. You do not believe me? As you like, but before jumping on conclusions, please test. Go, a morning early, in a clean nature place with enough trees and birds. If YOU MAKE YOURSELF AS RECEPTIVE as the Eolis do, as when wondering to a fairy tale, then you WILL FEEL, you will also receive, as do the flowers, the birds, the izards (Pyrenean does) or the moved gazelles, and all the good willed humans. Yes, of course, to let it work, there must not be power lines within sight, nor shoe box villas, nor car or TV noise. You must not speak of what you are doing to blabbermouths who will dilute your feeling, nor to rationalist who will spoil this delicious moment with their mockery or prejudices. But once met these conditions, everybody can successfully make this experiment, it is only a matter of Sincerity, of Simplicity. Besides, you can also decide to play your own role in the marvellous ceremony, and you will have only to hold your hands to collect the fluid and precious gold of the early morning, to be a flower among the flowers! By doing that, you will be in the REALITY. Thoroughly keep in mind that the true reality is this, no matter what the disabled of the heart say, lost in their grey illusions quoted in the stock exchange, the poor who believe they are realistic.

The Eolis are not dawdlers. As soon as the sun is in the sky, hup, they jump off their roofs, sing or call merrily, filled with a new and serene spirit. The fresh dew must be collected before the sun dries it. They get their basins out of the houses, seize very long and fine brushes stored just besides, and pass them on the walls and on the leaves, in a harmonious swinging. These brushes are very beautiful, with their long slightly curved shafts, and their butt end forming counterweight. The Eolis drain out the fine and flexible drop-like hair on the brim of a basin (a half coconut) and manage to fill each a coconut or two. Their voices resound in the crystal air of the morning like small bells, they work like in a dance. They wash themselves, shake their sheets, laugh like little children: it is the Hour... of the sheets, a symbol because it is also (and especially) the hour when everyone looks what he has the desire to do with his day, the hour when, free of the past, one is again fresh and available.

The houses of the village are scattered among grasses and bushes, or from rocks to rocks, but they are however sufficiently close together so that one can call with just raising the voice a bit. The Eolis always keep a foamy place to sit down with neighbours. Somebody runs flat out to the tool house, to bring back something to cut the freshly gathered fruits. Small assemblies of six or ten are formed, where they take the first meal of the day, made of fruits and leaves. It is good to eat, after a long night! And to drink too. The Eolis drink a lot of water, it is a refreshing pleasure of which they are never wearied. These meals between neighbours are generally calm, punctuated with glances and gestures of tenderness, sometimes of small ingenuous laughter.

From times to times an Eoli goes away from these nice picnics, without a word. It is that, like all the bodily beings in this universe, they have to evacuate the residues of their digestion. They do this quite naturally, crouching down and funnily rolling up their dresses. It is clean, because pre-packaged in an adequate protection layer, as certain Earth birds do. The odour which emanates from is not especially unpleasant to them, but it anyway allows them, in the event of an unexpected finding, to correctly identify what it is! They go on the compost heap and cover carefully and abundantly with dead leaves or other plant parts prepared for this purpose. This matures in a few days and gives an excellent perfectly healthy compost, very rich and free from seeds, that the Eolis use for sowing and gardening. You can also do in the same way on Earth, friend reader, with sawdust or finely crushed other vegetable matters. The result is surprising for whose who does not know certain laws of ecology. In any case you will get free of your wastes and obtain easily and quickly an excellent and completely hygienic manure, without polluting neither source nor brooks with your water infiltrating. But where you will not be able to imitate the Eolis is when their birds use the same heaps, and also very carefully bring leaves! Ha!

Ha the birds of Aeoliah! The majority live their life of bird in the immense and mysterious original forest which covers the whole Aeoliah. They are even more numerous than the Eolis (Who are already more than one hundred billions, nobody knows because never nobody had the strange idea to make a census). We can say that they are really the main inhabitants of Aeoliah, and we shall see that they fill a very significant role. Some of these birds elect residence in company of the Eolis, into their villages. Do not forget that an Eoli is as small as a chaffinch, and imagine the village where the pumpkin houses of the Eolis goes together with the birds nests! The latter are often built like our Earth nests, on the bare ground, perched on a rock or in a bush, sometimes just against an Eoli's house. The nests can also be in earth masonry, like our swallows nests, stuck to an Eoli house in the same material and of the same style: the Eolis paint all together, and we do not know where the nest of the Eolis starts and where the house of the birds finishes! Each of the two communities leads its own life, while meeting all the time, for adjustments or for sharing, like in the morning meal. However far in the forest, or in the mysterious ravines, live totally different species of birds, some of them who never meet the Eolis.

During the morning meal the Eolis often stay among friends and neighbours, and often with the birds, their neighbours and friends. They share fruits (the Aeolian birds never eat insects) or give the pips; often the birds bring back from who knows where some succulent or unexpected berries which they share too. Lastly, they like so much to sing together! And it is extremely beautiful, the voices of the Eolis and birds merged in harmony...

 

But the meals never last so long, with our so enthusiastic Eolis, especially the morning, in the merry and active hours. Swiftly any traces of meal disappear, and everyone comes and goes into the village. The Eolis and Eolines put their large flower hats, so poetical; they seize tools longer than them, and soon they are small flowers running and working, laughing and singing in the surrounding fields. An eoli field, sure we cannot see it from the air: it has no rows nor borders. It is simply a place where the good plants grow. They are often mixed, just making sure that each plant has enough place, or a good vicinity of friendly plants. The Eolis often start the day with the garden, where there is always business going on, between the cotton and fruit cultures, and the harvesting of juices and pollens for painting! All the Eolis without exception like to cuddle the plants, little or a lot. They are never wearied, and the most exhausting works even seem to further increase their spirit. Or they love long delicate cares, while concentrated or dreaming, especially the afternoon. But there are many other activities in an Eoli village: To go in the forest to seek what is needed to manufacture tools, basins, containers, which they build in the various workshops. They also maintain the village. The Eolis love doing all this work, which is the frame of their everyday life, its continual creation, its direct handling, much more total and round that with any of our politico-economic systems. All the objects manufactured on Aeoliah are done with poetry and skill, with the materials available in nature (Even iron, and there again we shall see the genius of the creators of Aeoliah).

 

This morning there was a large work to undertake in the village: Aurora wished to install a cotton weaving workshop beside that of spinning. It was her dream, Aurora! She enjoyed this so much that everyone was happy to build it for her. The only large enough pumpkin available at that time was the school pumpkin. It was new, and somewhat lonely, emptied of all the school hardware, taken away in another village for other Eoli children. But this pumpkin was on a terrace below that of cotton. To drag along a so large load is not a problem for a village of thousand Eolis, but it was impossible to do without crushing many plants or endangering the fragile windows.

Look how the Eolis work and make delicate decisions in a group. It is amazing. They think like one, when needed, the Eolis. Never any squabble nor wavering. You may think that telepathy, common among the Eolis, does many for this. It is however not to telepathy that they owe their formidable cohesion power. The telepathy, which is, you may think, THE very communication, cannot however make coherent a relation which was not clear from the beginning. So that we still need the effort of trying to understand the thought of the others.

Look how they do. Each of them first looks at the situation by itself, and then he looks at what the others are already doing. His own participation then continues to build on what is already started, or only questions it for better proposals. And it works pretty fine. When choices are needed, decisions, they make great meetings, rounds of hats. It is not necessary that everyone talks, since generally in this kind of situation the two or three firsts to speak already exposed the various possible choices. The least interesting ideas are quickly eliminated. The Eolis never cut someone else's word, but they reply very swiftly: not the moment to take language courses! And when they are on a subject, they steadily hold it on the saddle and let go only when the matter is solved.

The Eolis are free of any attachment to that we call «our opinions». They do not have each one «their» idea to defend, they do not try to place their word into a target, like a ball, but all together they play and dance with the various ideas, make them follow arabesques, launch them to see whether they go far or if they fall down flat. (Parabola, hyperbolae, ellipse...). Each Eoli keeps simultaneously in mind the various possible choices, and none of them could never have the strange idea of selecting one of these choices to say «It is MY idea» and even less to be upset if this choice is not retained. Free of the least clan mind or property mind, the Eolis feel fine like that, and they are always all together, without any quarrel nor division. And often, when a stroke of genius gets everyone enthusiastic, afterwards nobody rememberwho said it at first. What to do with this, moreover.

The Eolis, when they discuss, always look at the problem in depth, examine it under all its aspects, so long as any participant asks for further clarification. Never any aspect of the debate is eluded, under no pretext, nor emergency neither utility. Only one inhabitant of a village, even a child, can give his own particular point of view, and have it considered by the whole community, just as with an important group. And if what he says proves relevant, then he can be followed. The concept of balance of power does not have any validity on Aeoliah, and even not that of majority. Only the relevance of the ideas matters.

The poets and the jokers come along, of course, for the most seriously possible foster the most eccentric projects, the most surrealistic. Then crazy laughter shakes the flower bed of hats, and sometimes it is these ideas which are adopted. As it is anyway necessary to make a decision, if two ideas appear as fertile or as practicable the one as the other, without any other consideration to make the decision, then the funniest or the most poetical is chosen.

On the other hand, once the decision taken, they do not discuss it any more, except of course if some new element comes to change the data about the choice. Whose who preferred another solution can, free of any personal interest, become enthusiastic for the general opinion, without any feeling of being injured in any way. Thus whatever delicate situation always finds promptly a commonly agreed solution; the Eoli group remains always all together, perfectly coherent and of a surprising efficiency. While keeping, in addition, a perfect individual freedom, an unbounded spirit of initiative, thanks to an absolute respect of the person and of its aspirations...

But this marvellous facility is not only a matter of communicating together, there is something else still far more significant, which does that sometimes decisions of higher importance can be taken with no dialogue, and have nevertheless, afterwards, the approval of everybody. Something irreplaceable that we shall see further, without which any form of communication, however advanced, is fatally bound to failure.

 

Therefore, that morning, as soon as the end of the meal, ten Eolis and Eolines were busy and discussing around the school pumpkin (a true one, quite heavy) and another ten on the future site, carefully prepared the day before. Aurora with some friends was tirelessly fluttering from one group to the other, and chirping, and looking. The civil engineering, it was not her job, to Aurora, but she flickered so much that each of the two groups felt that she was there permanently, and... knew exactly what the others did!

Quickly the site was cleared from its foam, gathered and planted out elsewhere, while rope rolls were accumulating, coming from numerous store places in the village. (Incredible the quantity of ropes we can find in an Eoli village, but what do they do with all this, we wonder) Quickly, without even making a round of hats, it was clear that it was impossible to drag nor to roll the school, because of the plants and of the fragile windows. It had to be lifted, and this was another business. But this apparently insoluble difficulty did not stopped only one second our merry workers: the solution would come, and if not they would go and fetch it. Elsewhere, in the fields, the entire village knew instantaneously the advance of the business, in a merry hubbub of flyby and callings. There was of course the fine team of bachelors specialists of jokes and gags, Antonnafachto and the still worse Arnophilco, but this day they hardly had the occasion to exert their talents. Adenankar also went from his forest, as he does in all the festivals in the village, although nobody warned him. But nobody never warned Adenankar, as he always know about everything, from his deep forest retirement.

 

But who did had the freak idea to make carry the school by geese?

 

The birds of Aeoliah, them again, are not all small like titmouses. There are also large ones, blackbirds, doves, ducks, and even geese. Of course they are not geese exactly as on Earth, but they have a family look: so let us call them thus. They are much larger than the Eolis, and fly much better without being tired because they are intercontinental migratory birds. It happened that close to the village there was precisely a group of them, resting and eating some days before resuming their mysterious and remote journeys.

This marvellously eccentric idea appeared soon to be the only practicable one: the whole village endorsed it soon and the fields were quickly deserted: everyone wanted to play at this beautiful work. The wise Adenankar was looking and laughing!

The skilful Arnophilco had brought ropes and eoli shackles, and he imagined a system, quickly enhanced by others. Some went to call the geese; they readily agreed to bring their force. No, the Eolis and the birds do not speak together as in our children books, but the geese are very gentle and they are deep-heartedly committed to do what is shown to them!

The Eolis of this village had for custom to let point on top the tail of their pumpkins, and to cap it with an old flower hat. A bundle of ropes was tied there, and each goose took one in its beak. Secondary ropes were installed on the sides, to control the swing, because the geese are not so skilful. Somebody was to guide them while sitting on their neck. This lack of precision was compensated by an indefectible goodwill. Other Eolis fluttered here and there, to supervise or to guide, the remainder of the village looking from the roofs of the closest houses.

With the first attempt the geese made such a wind that the hats flew away everywhere, and the guides had to cling at them. The ropes had to be prolonged. They were successful finally, and in the laughters and cheers the school rose with majesty. Aurora could not stay in place, she applauded and laughed and ran! All finished very well; the future workshop was posed in its place; in a trice, the wedgers put it in its good position, horizontal, pushing down by teams of twenty on each of their twelve levers, nimbly slipping stones below, using very long shovels, to prevent the moisture of the ground from attacking the flesh of the pumpkin.

Geese were thanked, and they flew away each one their turn, to make circles above the village.

These Aeolian geese... Or course, we hardly imagine on Earth geese taking part in such operations, although when they are loved and respected they can show more intelligence than commonly believed. Some Earth wild geese have a moving mystery: these birds fly higher than any other, and by far: how can they manage to cross hundreds of kilometres of Himalayas, without anything to eat, at an altitude of 9000 metres, in a rarefied air requiring three times more effort and giving three times less oxygen, by a cold of minus fifty degrees? Carefully think at this when you see some of them, with inexpressive eyes, in sad farmyards...

That day, as it often happens, there were in the village visitors of other neighbouring villages, and especially four Eolis of the mountain, who never speak. Sitting together in lotus, right in the middle of the hubbub, both two Eolis were looking at, turning their heads right and left, laughing in their beards, shouldering each other, the eyes gleaming with benevolent mischievousness; their two Eolines smiled blissfully, obviously taking pleasure with all this merry agitation.

When in an Eoli village a beautiful work is completed, the Eolis does not just set out again at once toward the fields: satisfaction prolongs Enthusiasm, they look at, they discuss, they polish, they tell, they gather and run everywhere.

 

 

The afternoon is calmer and gentler that the morning, more tepid, more complete and achieved. The morning, one likes the heat of the Sun, the afternoon one prefers the softness of the green shades. The morning, flowers and fruits exhale their more delicious fragrances, the afternoon the sun filled branches give a more balsamic note.

There is a time for cheerfulness and one for Poetry, and the Eolis are perfectly able to pass from one to the other when it is time to do so. Sometimes, the funniest are the best poets, and never they mix the genres. The evening meal was approaching (they missed that of midday, no matter) the exuberance dissipated gradually, and right at the good time the Gentleness of the day which goes down took again its full rights. On the contrary of that of the morning, the midday and evening meals are taken all together, on the meal place, from where the Evening Mountain is visible, where the Sun sets. That evening the meal was thus almost as calm as usually. The Eolis discuss only at the midday meal. That of the evening is the prelude to the meditation of the night, so they whisper, they sing, they dream together by telling interminable stories, or they just keep silent.

At night, everyone does what he wants, sleeping or keeping awake when he likes it. But almost everyone come to the quiet meeting of the evening. Once removed the traces of the meal (this is always quickly done) they contemplate the sunset, the purple sky, the appearance of the ring, the phosphorescence of the light flowers, the mysterious and benevolent red gleam on the summit of the Evening Mountain. At this hour the crickets come out, and sometimes large beetles pass by, loudly humming in the still tepid air. It is enough to embroider songs on their concert. The birds make silence gradually, except some low chirps and the moving glissandos of the blackbirds, on the edge of the forest. In the sky the stars appear, answering the myriads of wild light flowers, with here and there the pink oval of the window of a workshop or enlightened house. Later the air cools, but just a little because it is denser on Aeoliah than on Earth, allowing it to better equalise the temperatures.

 

 

 

* Suggested Music: Bearns and Dexter, Golden voyage 3, I'll stay

 

At the hour where in the mysterious folds of the forest resound the somewhat nostalgic calls of the eyerlis, the hour where the sky illuminates with million stars giving life and Love to so many beings, lighting so much forever unknown wonders, in this universe so vast that they are definitely unable to see nor to know everything, the Eolis just stay and contemplate and meditate... Ô discrete nostalgia of the stars! Ô hour where the freshness and the shade of the soft twilight give a desire for flying away, higher, higher towards the splendours of the sky, towards these trillions of unknown brothers who like them love and contemplate in the infinite... One day, one far day, perhaps...

O sweet moments of calm and moving Happiness that the Eolis enjoy with delight... While singing or while contemplating the stars... While dreaming, overcome with recognition for the forever unknown creators of their so beautiful world... Pensive, they are sometimes moved to tears for the Universal Source of Life, which allows a so vast universe to exist, which gives Happiness to so many beings... They know, the Eolis, the mysteries... they know that their small bodies rest here, under covers made of flower petals, carefully adjusted to protect from the night dew, in a large village full of tenderly loved friends, they know that this village is very small on a vast plateau with many other villages with warm lights, itself lost in a immense mountain range, in turn a small part of a continent vast like Asia, one of the twelve continents of Aeoliah, a planet larger than our Earth, negligible dust in a galaxy among some billions of billions of galaxy in a universe between a infinity of other universe all different...

 

A village in the infinite...

 

They know that already on their own plateau the Eolis of the mountain have a completely different life than them; the Eolis of other continents have other skin colours, other climates, other houses; just as they look above their heads, stars conceal thousands of infinitely varied life forms, and in the vastness of each universe in an incommensurable number the strangest existences blossom up and love all the same; the most exotic feelings, different colours, unimaginable music in a scale which never ends going up, to stretch in an increasingly more intense and more delicious emotion, saying all together the same Universal Law: TO LOVE!

 

A village of Love...

 

Later in the night the light flowers fade out, studying in the houses becomes impossible, so that some go to sleep or to tell each other their love; others, or the same in turn, remain on the place, silhouettes sitting in lotus under their covers, snuggled up by two or lying down; the Eolis and the Eolines dream, or leave here their bodies to explore a piece of the immense universe or to bathe in the Source of Life. Until late in the night, the eyerlis, tender nightingales with long and melodious notes, answer each other from time to time, moving cantors of the night hours.

Still later the night becomes completely black: no Moon on Aeoliah and the ring is in the shade of the planet, invisible. The crickets and the eyerlis are now silent, only remain sometimes some toads with fluted notes. The rocks still emanate some tepidity; the fresh air, free of the strong odorous vapours of the day, has a soft smell of moisture and compost; or sometimes it takes a subtle, indefinable perfume of mystery, impalpable indigo incense which seems to descend from the stars themselves: the Star Perfume...

The place of the village becomes gradually empty. At the end everyone gets in his house or sleep in rounds outdoor: the only remaining watchers are those who love each other, or who contemplate in the most complete silence the crimson lamp at the top of the Evening Mountain, which sometimes fluctuates from some unknown signals. The night cools down; very far above the village, migrating geese accomplish their mysterious and eternal voyages, invisible and silent. Still infinitely higher palpitate and love billion suns in their ablaze round dance.

 

Everything is right;

the Universe is happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gardens of Aeoliah        Chapter 4       

 

Scenario, graphics, sounds, colours, realization: Richard Trigaux.

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