Reflections of the Past A Story of the Guardians of the Well By Vanda Inman These words are written in honour of the guardians of the past,
And those who journey in the name of love,
Light and all that is good.
The answers to all the questions we might ever ask can be found in the ground beneath our feet.
Part 2 Air The Story of St Clodaris The Holy Spring and the Village Church Chapter 16 With the return of the longer days,
Rhiannon received a sudden insight into the world around her.
Everything was,
She realised,
A balance.
And the only way for things to work properly was for them to remain in balance.
As Dominic had so often told her,
All things were present in nature,
And it was to nature people should look to know what was right.
Thinking about the lengthening of the days,
The cycle of the seasons and the year,
Rhiannon began to see the symmetry of it all.
The way for half the year days were longer than nights,
But for the other half nights longer than days,
And there were two perfect points of balance in between.
Neither had dominance over the other,
Rather each had its turn.
Similarly,
During the summer months the earth was abundant with crops and fruits,
The air warm and life good,
Whereas at midwinter little grew,
It was cold and times were hard.
But these times were necessary in order for the good to return again.
Even as she looked around,
She saw the contrasts.
The gold of the buttercups,
Dandelions and selendynes,
Reminiscent of the sun,
Sprinkled through the grass beneath her feet,
Contrasting with the silver of the daisies and blossom of the hawthorn,
So like the moon.
And Rhiannon began to understand how everything had its place and created a perfect balance of the whole.
So why,
She asked herself,
Were the brothers working so hard to disrupt the balance,
To make their god the one and only,
And to force their beliefs onto the villagers,
Rather than allowing them to continue as they always had,
Revering nature and working with the turning of the year?
To Rhiannon the idea seemed like living in perpetual summer or eternal winter.
One could not exist without the other.
Only Dominic understood,
But the others took scant notice of him,
Holding the view he kept them fed from his vegetable patch,
And the villagers happy with his salves and potions,
Leaving brothers Ceda and Jeremiah the more important tasks of copying out the scripts of St.
Clodorus in order to leave his words for posterity.
Words,
She could not help feel,
Of a man long dead,
When surely it was the people here and now who mattered.
As far as Rhiannon was concerned,
Dominic was the only one who spoke any sense.
Cleda,
However much she loved him,
Had his head buried in his scripts,
And Jeremiah was simply obsessed.
Brother Jeremiah would not have said he was obsessed with Rhiannon,
He was simply unable to stop thinking about her.
And although he had no lurid thoughts or evil intentions,
Whenever he saw her his pulse raced,
He could feel his heart pounding in his most ample chest,
And a flush rising to his already ruddy cheeks.
And when he closed his eyes at night,
Willing sleep to come,
Or even at prayer when his mind certainly should have been on a higher level,
All he could see was an image of Rhiannon,
The darkness of her eyes and the tantalising curl of her long,
Dark hair.
He had been known to reach out his hand to touch it,
Only to hear a discreet cough from brother Dominic bringing him back to the present,
And the thought of caressing her soft skin caused him to sink into a fever of ecstasy.
No,
He was not having unholy thoughts at all.
In fact,
Rhiannon's very presence had caused brother Jeremiah to focus on his vocation within the church,
Spending many hours in prayer concerning his faith and place within the brotherhood.
He also endured a number of long nights thrashing about in his small cell,
Thinking of Rhiannon and questioning where his true path lay in life,
Torn between the duty of the mind and the passion of the flesh.
And he was so sure she felt the same,
By the little signs she had given,
Like the way she looked demurely aside when they met,
Despite the minx-like quality of her smile,
Or how she sometimes pretended to shrink back when he was near.
That of late he had seriously considered giving up the brotherhood and requesting her hand in marriage.
As far as brother Dominic was concerned,
It was all a complete waste of time.
The cleader either had his nose stuck in his scripts,
Was kneeling in prayer,
Or searching for brother Jeremiah in order to show him some page he had written.
Brother Jeremiah was,
Where,
Increasingly absent as far as Dominic could tell.
And when he did join them at prayer,
He often recited the wrong parts,
And had been known to make strange movements,
As if he were reaching out for something.
Brother Dominic sighed and stabbed his hoe into the ground much more viciously than usual.
He was seriously beginning to doubt not just the intentions,
But the sanity of the other brothers.
He had a good deal of planting to do,
And then some sows to make for the villagers,
And if he did not cook the evening meal,
Simple though it was of stewed turnip and herbs,
Sometimes supplemented with rabbit if they were lucky,
They would no doubt all starve.
He disliked the way all the preaching and prayers were detracting from the real meaning of life and appreciation of the world around them.
Brother Dominic sighed again,
Deciding the birds and beasts of the field had much more sense than men,
Especially monks,
And wondered how he could resolve the matter.
