once upon a time in a village of gold a very curious little girl went out into the forest to find a prince. Along the way she met squirrels and owls and coyotes, each one by one taking her by the hand and whisking her away to the enchantments of the woods.

Exhausted and weary from playing with all the creatures of the land, the young maiden laid down for a rest by the babbling brook. As she came out of her slumber a majestic figure approached her and lifted up her head to the light in the sky, twinkling and glossy. Unfortunately the animals grew jealous and sent in the snakes and the bats to puncture each toe and and each finger so that she can walk no more towards the dream of her prince.

Desperate to hold on to this royal boy suspended just out of reach, the majestic figure suddenly dissolved by the bite of the scorpion and bid her farewell never to be seen again. This little girl wept and howled, much like the fisher cats. This little girl retreated and regressed much like the momma bears hibernating in the winter; until she found herself all grown up and naked in a field of lilies.

This lovely girl, now a lady creeped down into the stiff grass to search for wild edibles to sustain her on her journey through the weeds in the valley. Running, skipping, jumping and bouncing under scorching sunbeams and shivering star dust she tripped and fell flat on her face and got stuck in the mud.

Frozen in suspense to the flora seeping into her nose and sand filling her mouth she grabbed tightly to an invisible rope back up to standing. Emerging, dirt ridden skirt and grey hairs matted down by leaves and twigs, she witnesses her ugly reflection in a puddle nearby. She spent a moment and an eternity studying this impression barely recognizable yet mesmerizing.

Lost in thought and safe from the viscous beings of the dark, a warm sensation hugged her back like a snug bug in a rug. Not wanting to scare this comfort away, she sat in stillness daring not to turn her head but instead sat dazed at her own eyes fawning back at her from the crystal clear waters. Eons passed and still she would not move from this gaze or the warmth, praying to keep it forever.

Finally she grew lonely and looked up to the oracle in the banyan tree for guidance. Tentatively she confessed that as nice as that reflection and that warm hug may be, she still deeply longed for her prince. She sat like a totem statue listening for a pin drop, when a fierce gust of wind that stretched each of the tentacles of each of the branches of the great banyan had attached itself to her shoulders, hips and ankles and twisted her around like a tornado in slow motion.

It Lifted her up with the grace of a feather to the top of the mountain and to the bottom of the well and back to her perch on the ground decorated by brown eyed susan’s. As she regained her balance she searched frantically for her puddle and cried out for her lost warmth, fearing moving made it gone. She walked aimlessly for centuries making meaning from the vision until one day, surrendering to the memory and regret the maiden got so distracted by a luminous bed of buttercups.

A childlike glee swept throughout her soul as she recreated all the wonder that buttercups bring, not thinking of her prince or her puddle or that warm hug. All she saw was yellow yellow everywhere. A yellow better than gold and better than silver. A yellow so pure that nothing else can exist. Am i dead, she wondered, not really caring and just basking in the fleeting moments of pedal after pedal. Then, as if by magic, this lonely girl captured a face in the center of a daisy poking its head out off in the distance.

She spotted two eyes, a nose, and a mouth etched into each new seed ready to be set free by the hummingbird. She stared closer as the daisy seeds morphed into a man just like her, with mud on his face and dirt in his mouth. She noticed he also was enjoying the endless color of yellow and the simple joys within that garden of flowers. And…In that moment she knew that her king was staring back at her and she never again went searching for her prince. The End