From the shadows of the moon hiding in the oak forest Gwn Rhosyn appeared. They had called out on the nightwind to her in a chorus of whispers, breathless like the silence. Floating above the leaf litter she stood motionless as the trees reverently receeded.
"Why hast thou summoned me, men of the Old Way?"
"Lady, 'tis thy wisdom, we beg of thee. One of our people has gone away and rejects the Old Way of our ancestors. His path has veered. The priests are angry and withold the rites. Advise us, Lady. We are uncertain and fear the god's wrath."
Head covered, she lowered her eyes and inhaled the night. From her lips, upon a mist ancient as time, she spoke...
"I will tell thee of The Crooked Path.
A man sat upon a knoll eating apples with abandon. The young woman spied him through the small birches as she climbed the last few feet to the summit. Stepping softly into the clearing she gasped at the view. The lowlands were splayed before the two of them.
'Hello.' he said.
'Hello.' she replied.
He silently offered her an apple, and with it an invitation to sit. The air was sweet, the apple tart and his manner serene.
'Good sir, are you a traveler? 'she asked, inclining her head toward his bundle.
'Yes, woman. I am on a journey. I lost my way for awhile for I took a profitless path, but all is well again.'
As he spoke his gaze remained upon a distant figure in a burned out patch of land below the knoll. An old shriveled beggar sat upon a rock there, surrounded by smaller stones. He seemed to berate them first with threats and clenched fists, then with wails and secretive whispers that carried to the hilltop upon a chilled wind.
'Behold the man, for he is lost.'
'Shall we not assist him?' she asked and moved to rescue the beggar.
'No woman. Let him be. He and his kind have chosen this fate and have enslaved many with deciet and delusions.'
'Enslaved?'
He reclined on one side, always keeping the beggar below them in his sight.
'I spoke to you of a journey. Once I yearned for the touch of the creator's spirit in the world. Many years of lonely searching and endless recriminations kept me on a crooked path. Beyond my sight I saw nothing but another bend, another mystery. I searched in vain for the answers to the mysteries but each bend in the crooked path only seemed to bring greater pain and darkness.
I despaired. Then a man appeared on the path facing me as if knowing I would come. He took my hand and told me all would be well. The path narrowed and straightened. The darkness seemed to lift. He called me brother and fellow traveler. We talked and his assurances made my heart sing. Then it happened.
The straight path opened into a bright clearing. The stone castle before me glowed with a soft warming light. The guards at the gate moved and the door opened to me. Such beauty! I cannot even now explain the love in the eyes and the song on the lips of the inhabitants. They themselves were glowing with an inner fire. They drew round me and made me one of them. I cried with joy and knew my heart was home at last. Creation itself had found me....there really was now a purpose for my heart to beat, for the breath I once thought I stole.
The crowd parted as they greeted me. From a high place a man emerged. His power was easily seen. The people reverenced him, and I bathed in his greeting.
"Welcome to this holy place. I am The Teacher. From me you will recieve that which you seek, and from no other."
I was happy at long last. The days were full bodied and the heady aroma of success fed me. The years passed and I rested in the castle, believing I was saved from my self and an answerless world beyond the guarded gate.
One day I noticed the air had a foul tinge. I seemed to be the only part of the family that noticed. Suddenly, the flowers that had once bloomed were succumbing to weeds I had never noticed. Harmonies once sung from the hearts around me became discordant. The Teacher became the hard task master. The spirit we once had dined freely upon now came with a price. The Teacher demaned fealty, the walls began to bleed the lifeblood of those who had secretly escaped.
It was then, bathed in their blood I realized the unholy castle was The Teacher's prison. The walls were the hearts of those who gave in to him. The guards were his, and none of the creation spirit I sought lived there. The Teacher had choked the hope and the spirit had long fled.
In the growing din, I escaped. Heart broken, betrayed I felt again lost and unworthy. I like the spirit fled to this hill. This morning I awoke to the clean air, the shining sun and was glad. It was here I learned that the spirit I had searched for in the world dwelt in me, not in his prison.'
'Behold', he said, pointing to the beggar.
'The Teacher... a dishonest man who believes his own lies. The illusion of holiness he builds in the minds of the confused are stones he gathers to keep him on his throne. From a distance his pathetic place is revealed.'
'Woman, hear me.'
He stood, hauling the bundle up and flinging it upon his back.
'Dispair not a crooked path. I have just today discovered that the mysteries around each bend are better teachers than the beast that preaches the narrow strait path to glorify himself. The spirit can always be found on the crooked path if you seek it.'
He kissed her cheek, smiled, and left the clearing atop the knoll with one last look at the beggar who continued to berate his stones. The woman watched him go down the winding path and silently wished him well, vowing always to choose the crooked path.
Speaking the last word the shadows once more enfolded Gwn Rhosyn, leaving the enslaved of the Old Way to ponder.
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