[A story from the world of the Whittiers and Deer Hill; having taken place on Saturday, 17 March 2007]
A Saint Patrick’s Day Epiphany
“Wonder is a horizon effect of the known, the unknown, and the unknowable.” (81)
- Philip Fisher Wonder, the Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences (1998)
Hail and Fire had initiated the day just after dawn; the warm days of the previous week giving way to a return of wintry possibilities as Edward Whittier got himself up and around for another morning of rehearsals and recording. Lightning had struck ground somewhere to the north of Deer Hill, and hail had fallen again after the attendant thunder boomed the world, once and then once again and again, making the walls of Studio House at Norwest Farm vibrate to their foundations.
After breakfast and three hours of rehearsals, Edward ‘changed gears,’ switching from performer-mode into teacher-mode. “I’ve got students coming,” the thirty-five year-old drummer let his older siblings know as he left Studio House and hoofed-it out onto Deer Hill Road and on down to the railroad crossing just on the Deer Hill side of Willow Creek. The gas-electric car bringing his students would be travelling the Wickersfeld Railroad line; as the trains only ran on the weekends—the WRR having been run as a local tourist attraction since its reopening in 1992.
He was glad the day had warmed up somewhat; that the somber skies had given way to white clouds and clear blueness beyond. In the distance, he heard the lone passenger car coming. As it approached, he tied his long blond hair back in a ponytail with a brown leather scrounge and zipped up his long black denim coat against the cold breeze that was still blowing to caution the beauty of the day. He waited patiently as the car arrived at the crossing and stopped, brakes squealing and engine humming underneath the carriage. He soon saw Todd, then Rachel and Brad, passing the windows of the car as ghostlike silhouettes cast in sunlight and shadow as they worked their way down the aisle to the front of the car. As he awaited them, Edward warmed once again to the opportunity to get together with these three drumming students from the college.
“Greetings!” Edward offers as the doors of the autonomous passenger car open, revealing his students on the steps, each then jumping in turn down off the landing onto the gravel-topped road to greet their mentor. “How was the ride?”
“Ultra-retro_ as usual,” the young woman, Rachel Everett, says, smiling and giving her drumming instructor a warm one-arm hug. She was carrying a bodhrán bag in one hand, and across her back hung a daypack in which her flutes and tippers, spoons and bones were no doubt stowed.
“Hey there, Edward,” Rachel’s boyfriend Brad Carson says, grabbing the older drummer in a strong embrace. Edward notices Brad has a larger-than-usual daypack hung on his shoulders and in addition to his bodhrán bag, is carrying a second instrument bag of unusual – though not unknown – dimensions.
“Great to see you,” Edward agrees. “C’mon, you next I guess,” he says to Todd Berringer, the third – and tallest – student in this group, just as the gas-electric car pulls away from the crossing, on its way down to Spring Junction; Edward having waved between hugs to the engineer, whom he knows from the band’s annual concert at the railroad station in town. Todd sets down his bodhrán case and grabs the foot-shorter drummer around the shoulders, holding him to his chest for a moment.
“Great to see you, too, man!”
In addition to his bodhrán case, Edward notices – sticking out of his friend’s daypack – the peg head of his old worn-and-travelled fiddle.
“We’ve got so much to tell you,” Rachel announces with a solemn smile breaking open into full radiance.
“Can’t wait to hear,” Edward rejoins as the four drummers effervesce in their collective eagerness at being together. Expectant of the news, Edward politely motions his friends; a gracious invitation to fellowship—to begin their ‘ascent’ to the ‘sacred place’ of their instructions, as Todd likes to call the studio where they learn, practice and jam.
“We’re getting married,” Brad bursts, getting a playful arm-slap from his bride-to-be.
All intent to start the walk back up to Studio House goes into suspended animation!
“I was going to tell him!” she chides with stern, smiling joy.
“That’s great!” Edward congratulates.
Todd, who had heard the news on the way out, rejoices from ear-to-ear for his two closest musical friends, and claps Brad on the back, congratulatory.
“I graduate in May,” Rachel continues the announcement, “Brad graduated last year, you know_ and his teaching over in Millvale at the HS is going well enough_ and now I’ve got a gig there too, if I want it, at the JH.”
“Teaching music?”
“You bet! We’re over the moon!” she admits.
“You seem ‘appropriately’ radiant!” Edward gushes mock formally, shaking hands with them both in turn.
Edward then notices Brad’s hour-glass shaped instrument bag. “Is that_” he queries, pointing, expectant of what he guesses it contains as they take their first steps down the road together, coming to the Whittier Company garages.
“It’s my new doumbek, yeah!”
“Can’t wait to see it_ and hear you play.”
“Seeing and playing are two different things, Edward! Ha!” I’m learning the hand fingering_ there are no sticks or bones or anything with this instrument_ as you know. I think you’ll be pleased to hear, though_ mine’s made of clay and metal, just like yours?”
“No kidding? Did Ms Alembeck over in Mapleton make it?”
"She did. A real craftswoman, she is.”
In a gathering reverie at their togetherness and in anticipation of whatever their instructions would be this week_ they walk along past the company garages and, bending with the road up to the right, then, as they move along the north flank of Deer Hill, enjoying the brisk noontide air, Todd asks, “Are you still working on the new album?”
“We are, _still trying to find the right lyrics to set to music_”
“Don’t they work well enough?” Brad asks.
“Just the other way ‘round. Yeats’ lyrics are so musical it’s hard to settle on one, much less a set of them. We learn one by heart, we sing it, and then someone will say, ‘but what about this one,’ and we try it_ and_” Edward says and gestures a ‘what are you gonna do?’ with his arms.
“There you go,” Brad sympathizes, understanding the dilemma Edward dramatizes.
“This morning, we were rehearsing our second setting of “The Hosting of the Sidhe.” We were hoping to record, but we ran out of time_ ‘Cause Tamara and Samantha introduced us to their setting for “The Wild Swans at Coole.” It’s awesome, I have to say. So_ we’ll probably add that one, too.”
“I love both those poems,” Brad admits.
“This is gonna be another double-CD release, for sure.”
“I love it already!” Todd avers.
As they go, they take note of all the buds coming out on bushes and trees, and then the fifty or so Daffodils blooming bright yellow and radiant with a natural joy, bobbing their heads in the breeze near the entrance to the Werner House driveway. Next, as they pass the road up to Four Willows on their left, Todd remembers what he’d wanted reminded of, and queries, “Last time you were telling us how the bodhrán got to be such a great instrument in Celtic music, if you remember?”
“I was, I think.”
“Who were you saying was responsible for that?”
“Oh_ It’s often attributed to Sean Ó Raida, and his ensemble Ceoltóirí Chualann.”
“That’s right! I wanted to look them up.”
“We’ve got, I think, five of their old LPs. You can borrow them if you want.”
“Ah_ I don’t have a record player,” Todd says, for the first time chagrined at the fact.
“Neither do we,” Rachel likewise laments, perhaps for the first time.
“So_ we’ll just listen to them out here, after your sessions.”
“Okay!” “Cool!” “Great!”
Just then_
in the woods stretching out to their left, there’s a rustle of branches and something like strange, plodding footsteps_
“E-gad, what’s that!?” Brad exclaims at the startling appearance of what looks like a five-foot tall bi-pedal rabbit in the woods, about thirty feet from them!
“Is that real?” Rachel queries, of Edward and her senses, as the figure seems to bob up and down on its feet, in an imitation of ‘hopping in place.’
“Ed-ward?” Todd cautiously questions his instructor.
“Ha! That’s our_ Hm_ ‘Pookah!’” Edward ‘explains.’
“It’s what?” his three students say in near unison.
Edward waves at the strange apparition, which waves back. It has sticks on its head in a kind of ‘crown’ with ends sticking out – as sticks often do – in every direction. The figure is clothed in what looks like an old-fashioned button-down suit – circa the 1880’s? – with a white neck collar and a red, yellow and black cravat hanging from it. It has no spats around its ankles – which would compleat the look – as they can see it’s wearing current-styled low-rise hiking boots on its feet! Its face is covered in a mask that makes it look like some cartoon character wanna-be (you can guess who!) – with plain-to-see whiskers! – and, as they all stare at it, unbelieving, having stopped in their tracks on the road, two long ears rise-up from its shoulders and stand straight up on its head!
“That’s one of my uncles, probably,” Edward diffuses, laughing, amused at the reaction the person in the suit is getting from his students, who are as-yet not-too-familiar with his family’s penchant for enacting myths.
“What in the world_” Todd exclaims, starting to laugh, raising a hand and waving at the very animated person in the rabbit suit, which likewise_ waves back.
Brad and Rachel follow suit, waving and being waved back to, after which moment the person in the very believable rabbit costume starts hopping, once again up and down, in place, on both feet at the same time_
“Have you seen the goddess?” Edward hails the apparition, hands cupped to the sides of his mouth.
The ‘Pookah’ stops hopping and, after a couple seconds, makes a strange honking sound, turns and hops away, further up into the woods, apparently climbing up toward Four Willows; whether that is its destination or not – leaving its audience behind in a stunned and suspended state.
“You better explain that, Edward!” Brad says, laughing in wonder, amazed and curious.
“Yeah!” Rachel agrees, startled into a state of suspension by the strange visitant.
“Okay, well_” Edward collects himself and attempts to comply with the request, “it’s probably just a custom of our family and our ancestors, started long ago, back in England, but for us the Pookah is an avatar of the Earth Goddess – that is, a personification of Nature – whose powers are ‘reawakening’ at this time of the year.”
“So this is part of your ‘poetic mythology,’ that you’ve mentioned?” Todd asks, long curious to know more.
“It’s part of that, yeah_ we participate in a lot of Celtic and Pagan myths, as well as Christian ones, and this one has to do with Spring and the fecund return of life. … In the Spring when Nature begins to re-green itself, as the vernal equinox approaches, we imagine the Pookah as a symbol of that fecundity. He was thought of as the consort of the Earth Goddess, back in Pagan times, and becomes manifest – in our imaginations, at least, and in such enactments as you just saw – at this time, so as to awaken us to the changing of the season; a manifestation of that annual phenomenon—from Winter into Spring.”
“I think I get that,” Brad allows.
“Do you want to hear more?”
“Sure!” “Yeah.” “Please.”
“Let's head on up to the Studio; we can walk while we talk?”
The three students agree, and so start walking together with their mentor on out the road toward Norwest Farm, though at a more bemused, thoughtful pace. As they go, Edward continues his ‘explanation,’ saying, “the Pookah is one of the Old Spirits connected with Alban Eiler, which is one name for the Festival of the Vernal Equinox. That’s next week, on the 20th!” Edward interjects, “Westfram Nurseries and the Christmas Tree farms are having an open house_ and we’re playing at the evening party. _But anyways, to continue_ In its most ancient, mystical guise, the Pookah was either a were-rabbit – a person who could transfigure into rabbit form – or else a rabbit-were; that is, more strangely, a rabbit who could change into the likeness of a person.”
"Oh_ you mean like a ‘were-wolf’?” Todd says, suggesting the more familiar idea.
“Yes, or ‘wolf-were,’ which would also be a wolf that transfigures into human form. In this case a rabbit, not a wolf. … In the myths, the Earth Goddess in her vernal-guise brings forth this spirit-servant as a helper in investing the powers of the Vernaltides with presence_ ‘in field, garden and wood’ as our inherited stories say. Before this creature became ‘demonized’ in Christian mythology, it was the ‘Consort of the Fair Lady of the Vernaltides;’ that is_ he was the Lover of the Goddess in his youthful form. The Pookah is the boon companion of the Earth-Goddess; whom we sometimes call Tailtiu – after Irish Celtic tradition – in the tides of the Vernal Equinox. He is the Pagan antecedent and original guise of what has become sanitized, naturalized and cute-i-fied into the ‘Easter Bunny.”
“That was no ‘bunny!’” Brad exclaims, still in awed amusement at the apparition he’d seen.
“No_ definitely not_ that was a full grown ‘Pookah,’” Rachel muses.
“We imagine the Pookah – rather than the Easter Bunny – bringing decorated eggs to those who are seeking wisdom on the night of the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox.”
“That’s in a couple days, isn’t it?”
“Actually, it’s April 2nd_this year; then Easter is the following Sunday; the 8th.”
“That’s how the Easter thing works, isn’t it?” Rachel asks.
“Yep_ First Sunday after the First Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox. That first Full Moon we call Eostre after an Anglo-Saxon goddess of Spring and the dawn. She was also a teutonic goddess of sunrise, I believe. The word ‘Easter’ is known to have been derived from one of these ancient words for ‘Spring.’”
“Ah_ I always wondered where the name of the day of Christ’s resurrection came from! It’s not from the Bible, right?”
“No, it’s not, Todd. And as we approach Alban Eiler – the Vernal Equinox – here on the Hill, we are all getting into the mood by imagining the Pookah bringing baskets of coloured eggs to the different houses; giftings to the children_ but also to the adults. _And the person playing the Pookah – like whoever that was – will actually do the delivering; their family being the ones who will help decorate the eggs; in secret until the day they are to be delivered.”
“So, you folks engage in the Easter traditions, huh?”
“We do, Brad, but we enact the ones associated with the Pookah on the night of the first Full Moon after the Vernal Equinox; on Eostre. Those of us who practice and participate in the Christian mythos like to keep ‘Easter’ separate from ‘Eostre.’
“For ‘religious’ reasons?” Rachel queries, hoping she’s not prying.
“No, more for poetic and mystical reasons. I’m not religious. We just decided it as a family; we get two celebrations, that way, instead of one, ha! The more the merrier_ but seriously_ the deeper we can go into the mysteries of life that each sacred day encodes. _And the clearer the symbolic and spiritual resonances are for us.”
“Why rabbits?” Rachel asks, her curiosity deepening toward a more intuitive understanding.
“Rabbits are iconic in folklore and old mythologies – including the Celtic – of the intrinsic power of the Earth; of Nature. Back in England, I expect, the animal would have been the Hare or Jack-Rabbit? This connection arises from rabbits long having the reputation of being prolific! They symbolize fertility and fecundity. Where a rabbit is seen in the woods, Julianna and Bedlow would say_ do you know them?”
“I do,” Todd acknowledges, “over there at Westfarm, where that horror novelist lives.”
“Exactly,” Edward agrees, amused at Daniel Westforth being called ‘that horror novelist,’ “_they were into Celtic myth, mysticism and spirituality back in the 90’s and they used to say we should stop and pray for the guidance of our Earth-Mother – Nature personified – at this time of year wherever we see a rabbit. _I often stop and ‘ask’ a rabbit, ‘Have you seen the Pookah?’”
“Haha_” Todd effuses, thinking of what it would be like to do that!
“But you asked the Pookah,” Brad counters, “’have you seen the Goddess!’”
“Well, that would be next, I guess,” Edward says, “if you’re actually talking to the Pookah!” and smiles into a laugh, each student doing the same, nodding, amused at the idea.
“I met Bedlow and Julianna when I was buying soil and seedlings at Westfarm Nurseries last year,” Todd explains.
“Those who work at Westfarm Nuseries or on our family’s Christmas Tree farms,” Edward continues, “dealing with plants and trees as their vocation, tell me they under-stand this mythos of the Pookah and the Goddess, spiritually and poetically. It inspires them in their work. Participating in it is a way of wakening themselves to their connection with Nature as the growing season begins. Bedlow would tell you it opens his consciousness, each year, in a poetic way, to the spiritual dimension of what he does as a professional gardener. Cornelius Whitsel – at the college, do you know him? – would say that rabbits make the goddess-force manifest just as stags make the god-force manifest in Nature.”
“Who? Professor Whitsel_ over in the religious studies department?”
“That’s him.”
“I heard he’s a witch,” Brad suggests, immediately a bit embarrassed at having said it.
“Ahem_” Edward cautions, “he is_ and he’s a good friend of ours, too.”
“I didn’t mean to offend!” Brad politely protests. “I’d just heard_ I think that’s fascinating.”
“You do?”
“I do, really_ all this stuff fascinates me. Mythology, folklore, Christian Mysticism...”
“_That goes for me too,” Rachel agrees.
“How about I ask my cousin Geoffrey – he lives at Westfarm, too, and teaches special topic courses at the college – to invite you to a faculty tea with Cornelius and maybe one of his housemates, too, sometime, if we can arrange it – they’re ‘witches’ as well.”
“Ah_ that would be awesome,” Brad says, feeling a ‘door’ to ‘something’ opening.
“You should take one of Cornelius’ courses,” Todd suggests.
“I might_ as an elective,” Brad agrees.
After a brief pause for reflection on this new possibility, Rachel asks, returning to the question of the Pookah_ “So now_ you said that_ was your ‘uncle?’”
“O yeah_” Edward beams, “possibly! One of’em_ or a cousin_ I’ll have to ask around and find out! But I won’t know for sure until Easter; we keep it very ‘secret’ until the season comes to fruition. Every year at this time someone from one of the houses around the Hill goes out and plays pookah, making appearances in the woods near each of the houses, on no particular schedule_ always surprising and delighting the kids and, I would say, us adults, too. This tradition started in the mid-80’s and I remember_ I was about 14 at the time_ the wonder and delight I felt_ the surprise – a lot like what you three experienced today – at seeing the Pookah – somewhere on the Hill – that first time!”
“Do the kids know it’s one of the adults?” Rachel asks.
“Oh I’m sure most of them do, once they’re old enough, at least, they ‘figure it out,’ you know_”
“Like Santa Claus_” Brad alludes, understanding.
“What do they think when they find out that the Pookah isn’t real?” Brad asks.
“Well, we don’t believe the Pookah isn’t ‘real.’ Its ‘real in a different way from us, and the physical world, but we would never deny a mythic character its reality.”
“How-so?” Todd queries, puzzling over the distinction being suggested.
“When the kids start asking about it – and this applies to Santa Claus as well as the Pookah -- we tell them the ‘secret,’ that while these characters are not ‘real’ in the same sense as you and I and the physical world around us are ‘real;’ they are real imaginary persons. And in their discovering this, they begin to be led into an understanding of the power of the creative imagination. They are invited into seeing how representing imaginary things in stories and in acted-out presentations is for the edification of the soul and the broadening of our minds; the deepening of our hearts and the better realization of our humanity. It opens the doors to fantasy, which is – as Cornelious is wont to say – like ‘jumping up above the tree-tops to see further than you can in the thick of daily life.’”
“I see,” Rachel reflects.
“We then help the kids to see that, now that they are in on the secret, they too can become Nicholas’ or the Pookah’s earthly helpers – and work with him, as equals. They can participate in the myth. They can become part of the mythos by beginning to gift others in the name of Nicholas or the Pookah. At Eostre this usually inspires them to want to color and decorate eggs and gift them to each other. We’ve got a number of real ‘egg artists’ here! So you see, for us, the Pookah and Santa Claus are real; as are characters from literature and film—just in a different way than we are real. Otherwise, Geoffrey would say, how could we even have an idea of a Pookah – or any other fictional character – if they didn’t have some kind of ‘reality?’”
“That’s fascinating!” Brad allows, pondering the explanation and whether that would have worked on him when he was ten or eleven. “Perhaps, if I’d grown up on Deer Hill with you, Edward, I wouldn’t have experienced the disillusionment I experienced after ‘losing’ Santa Claus. _And quietly wondering why my parents had ‘lied’ to me?”
“Perhaps_” Edward agrees hopefully. “I remember the day I realized it; that ‘Santa Claus’ and then the Pookah weren’t ‘real’ in my limited understanding of that loaded word. The way our parents handled it let us in on some of the wonder and awe that being imagining beings makes possible. … Maybe you can re-discover Santa someday?”
“Hm_” Brad muses, pondering possibilities perhaps long lost to his psyche.
“I’m thirty-five and I still love all of this imaginary mythic stuff we do here! _You all ought to come out to Deer Hill during Yule this December and participate in our celebration of the Thirteen Nights and Dayes_”
“Sure!” “Yeah!” “I’d love to.”
“You’ll have a great time, and if you ask Julianna or Robert Werner about this idea that things can be real in a way other than the physical world is real, they’ll explain it better than I can.”
“It’s saying, I think,” Todd suggests, “to me, that to say things arising from our imagination – things we can experience, emotionally and intellectually – and that may have some positive impact on us, spiritually and psychologically – aren’t real, is to impoverish us.”
“_Wow_ that’s well said,” Edward replies, and teasing playfully, “And you’re how old, just twenty-two, huh?”
“Twenty-one, actually,” the long-brown-haired, six-foot-five man replies with a wide smile. He laughs and acknowledges, “I am taking a major in philosophy along with my music performance degree_ does it show?” at which Brad and Rachel affirm him and his aspirations, which are well known to them.
“Geoffrey says that there are two ‘onto-logical’ realms – at least! – the physical and the imaginary_ and both exist_ and we are able to live in – and participate in – both of them; but they are different and so long as you don’t confuse or confute them_ so long as you don’t think imaginary things are ‘real’ like things and beings in our physical world are ‘real’ – you’re okay.”
“That’s loaded!” Brad says, pondering. “I know ‘onto-logical’ refers to the study of ‘being?’”
“It does,” Edward agrees. “It’s a whole branch of philosophy!”
“It works so long as you don’t get ‘lost’ in imaginative things,” Rachel suggests.
“Exactly,” Edward agrees.
After a minute or so, as they walk on in a contemplative silence, Rachel asks, “Can anyone play the Pookah?”
“Yes, I’d think so. But you have to have a kind of acting-impulse to pull it off. I think everyone who does this has the ‘grease-paint’ in them, somewhere, to some extent. You have to perform, y’know?”
“Yeah_” Todd says, distracted with thinking he would like to play the part, someday.
“Have you ever done it?” Brad asks.
“Nope, the urge has never really grabbed me,” Edward says, shrugging a bit. “But it might, someday.”
“Is the costuming always the same?”
“Pretty much, Brad.” I believe it’s based on ‘classic’ representations of the March Hare in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.”
"Oh_ I can see that,” Todd avers.
“Well, here we are,” Edward says, opening the gate to the walkway leading up to the house and studio at Norwest Farm. All around this gate are a multitude of Tulips and Crocuses coming up, some ready to bloom.
“So many flowers along your road, Edward,” Rachel observes.
As he swings the wooden gate open, Edward says, “I remember planting these with mother in the early 80’s after we moved out to Deer Hill to join in ‘the Whittier Reunion.’ I was twelve at the time.”
“I’m really ready for some drumming!” Brad avers as they start up the walk.
Rachel then asks, remembering something Bridget – Edward’s mother – said on previous visit_ “Isn’t there a rabbit hutch here?”
“Sure, my parents raise rabbits. To have a rabbit living near your hut of dwelling, Rachel, is said to remind you, day by day, of the Goddess; which metaphors our connection to the Earth—and Nature’s powers. It is said that if you feed rabbits near your door the Earth Mother will visit and bless you and yours.”
“Cool.” “So cool.” “I want to feed one today,” Rachel resolves, smiling in quiet anticipation of the intended act.
Just then_
“Oh look! There he is again!!” Rachel exclaims, pointing down toward the woods, off to their right, east of Norwest Farm, at the strange figure of the Pookah, who is standing about forty feet from them, bouncing up and down on his two feet as if he wants to be dancing to keep warm in the coolness of the afternoon.
Brad quickly unzips his doumbek bag and, using his arm and fingers, begins making the characteristic sounds associated with the instrument, drumming for the strange apparition with four finger strikes and then two fingered strikes in alternations. Edward, impressed, listens intently to the sound of the new instrument.
“Look at him_ bobbing up and down!” Rachel exclaims as they watch the person costumed as the Pookah jump – on both feet at the same time – now and then leaping into the air.
“Which of my crazy relatives is that!” Edward exclaims, so amused.
“He’s really putting on a performance for us, isn’t he!?” Todd nods to Edward.
“Yep_ you’re getting your ‘money’s worth’ today, friends,” Edward quips.
As they watch the Pookah, Rachel takes her panpipes out of her daypack and starts improvising a tune over her fiancée’s drumming. Todd then takes his fiddle out of his daypack and tunes up quickly, taking up the riff Rachel is piping, augmenting it into a dancing-yet-melancholy mode. Edward begins dancing around his three friends, weaving between and ‘round them he goes, as the Pookah, dancing near the woods, inspired by the music, comes closer to where the four Ceoltóirí[1] are ritualizing their encounter. Todd gestures toward his bodhrán case and Edward takes the hint, unlatches it, takes out the skin-covered frame-drum and – with a tipper carried in his coat – starts to add a second rhythm to the emergent tune his students have been creating!
Hearing the music, Edward’s brother Cymricson and his sister Tamara come out on the porch of Llewellyn House to hear what’s going on. “What gives?” Cym hollers, smiling amused, down to his brother, who responds by pointing with his tipper toward the gyring, swirling, hopping Pookah! Cym and Tamara then add syncopated clapping and stomping, in rhythm with the music, which brings their father Llewellyn out onto the porch as well.
“Hey dad! It’s the Pookah,” Edward hails, pointing to the apparition, which is dancing, now, in a circle in the brushy field; which is not quite awakened from its winter slumber—between the woods and the property of Norwest Farm. Out of the corner of his eye, Edward can see his father start to gently step to the music on the porch!
Moving closer, now only about 20 feet from the walkway on which the Ceoltóirí are playing, the improvised ‘were-rabbit’ is hopping in what seems an epiphanic mode of consciousness; eyes elevated to the heavens, his legs seeming free-dancing without apparent direction!
…
After some indeterminate minutes, the intuited, spontaneous ‘composition’ the musicians were creating out of the runes of their creative imaginations comes to an organic unplanned denouement and stops in a powerful cadence! Llewellyn claps spontaneously in admiration from the porch, as Cym and Tam ‘hoot’ their approval to the Pookah and to Edward and his students, for their performances!
“Oh_ I want to get a closer look,” Rachel suddenly avers, and takes a step forward_ toward where the Pookah is still now swirling, just fifteen feet from them, in an ecstasis,[2] not aware that the music – at least on the physical plane – has stopped!
Edward, putting a hand on her shoulder to stay her, says, “Don’t! He’ll run – or hop! – away_”
“I’ll chase him!” Rachel avers, laughing at the idea. “I wanna meet him! Ha!”
“There he goes,” Todd then announces, alerting his friends to the departure of the creature, pointing at the strange performer who has stopped its gyring and is now hopping away!
“We really drummed him up,[3] didn’t we?” Brad exclaims, to which Edward agrees.
“How does he do that?” Todd asks, trying to jump up and down a couple times on both his own feet in imitation. “I couldn’t get very far at all doing that!” and laughs at this awareness of his own physical limitation.
“He must have had a lot of practice,” Rachel surmises.
They watch as the Pookah hops out of sight into a Hemlock grove, heading on down in the direction of Werner House.
“Well, that was our first jam of the day,” Rachel exclaims as the Pookah fades from their sight, though not from their Imaginations; Hearts and Minds thrown open by the experience.
After a few seconds, once their own reverie subsides a bit more and their spirits start to grow calm again, Edward suggests, So_ ha! Shall we head-in?” gesturing toward Studio House.
“Let’s go.” “I’m ready!” “I’m sooo wired-up to play so more!”
“I had quite a plan for today’s instructions, but now feel like just jamming the rest of the afternoon!”
“Perhaps we should?” Brad proffers.
“Dark Beer and an all-afternoon Party!” Todd affirms, holding his fiddle above his head for emphasis.
“Yeah!” Rachel agrees, beginning to pipe an old jig as they walk, encouraging her friends to dance the last few yards, over to Studio House.
Finis
[1] Irish word for ‘musician.’ (one pronunciation would be Kayl-tori)
[2] Ecstasis (GK for ecstasy) – refers to being out (Ek) of stasis (stasis).
[3] To “drum up” means to play drums until your auditors go into a reverie or are ‘zooming’ and dancing in a state of near trance or suspension of ordinary consciousness.
