A story teller's summer tale

The summer is slowly ebbing and soon autumnal winds will ruffle the golden leaves, but I will carry the soft glory of this season within me as nourishment for the colder darker months. And this magical story teller will do the same, weaving the whispers and treasures that the playing children have entrusted to her, back into the earth, from where they will spring once more next year.

It has been such a privilege to share moments of my summer time with this wondrous being, who has become at the bequest of a dear kindred soul. This story telling creation will have four seasonal story panels, incorporating transparency work, silks, wools, painting and applique, and of course magical beings to live and move within the frames. 

Today I am able to share with you the summer panel and the story which will accompany it, as well as a little song about the prince of the lavender and the bees.

THE STORY TELLER'S SUMMER TALE 

One summer noon, and perhaps within the folds of this very moment, the story teller is listening to the hum of the bees. She listens for their togetherness in their mummering song and she listens for each bee’s voice, every one. For within their golden buzzing they carry the stories of the flowers they have visited and the old woman hears all the joyful noticings and sing-song questions that the children had come to her with last year.

She hears Rosanna’s wondering at the heart shaped petals she had found and sent with kissed wishes into last year’s summer breeze. She hears Fin’s enchantment with the tiny mint flowers and the small flutterer that danced around them in the warm dusk of the rising golden moon.

And now as the listens dreamily to the bees, reminiscing, she hears other voices of today, children’s voices from the meadow, coming closer and soon they are here, today, perhaps in the folds of this very moment, gathering into her lap, and around her shoulders and at her feet. In their hands they bring treasures, their findlings of today, a seed to plant in the story teller’s skirt, a shell of the sound of the tumbling sea. A stone so hot that it seems to carry the sun, and carried oh so carefully on a purple blossom, a thirsty bee who is too tired to fly.

The story teller holds each child and each child’s wonder and takes their noticings deep into her heart, that the living world will be nourished by all that the children have brought and that next year she will hear these stories in the hum of the bees.

Then the story teller asks Isabel to help her sing a song story with the puppets and all the children gather round to watch and listen.

Click on the picture to hear the song 

The Prince of the Lavender comes 

dancing O'er the Green 

Following the humming bees 

to find his Golden Queen
 

He carries an offering 

his flower sweet and sunny

In hope she will honour him

with just a taste of honey

I wish you a wonder-filled journey from summer into autumn.