Bonfire Of The Faun

Into an invisible world of ancient mythology in tonight's calming sleep story.

Sleep in Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel and I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep in Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

Concentrate on my voice only as long as it serves you.

When you're ready,

Feel free to let go of the story and surrender to sleep.

If you are still awake as the story concludes,

I'll guide you through a relaxing meditation.

In tonight's bedtime story,

You begin another night as the after hours caretaker of a Roman archeological site.

As you make your rounds,

Thinking of the millennia of history upon which you stand,

You encounter a mythological creature known as a faun.

He leads you to a lively bonfire to which you're welcomed by generations of your ancestors.

He is life's liberating force.

He is release of limbs and communion through dance.

He is laughter and music in flutes.

He is repose from all cares.

He is sleep.

He is sleep.

He is sleep.

He is sleep.

He is sleep.

Warm amber lights activated at nightfall begin to flick on all around you,

Shooting targeted beams of illumination up the columns and triumphal arches.

Still,

You turn on your flashlight and keep it close for although you know the grooves in the hillside and every rock and root so very well by now,

The buoyant personal light gives you comfort.

You take a deep inhale as an evening breeze dances across your shoulders,

Carrying the milky sweet fragrance of the fig trees of the valley.

Dirt and gravel crunch beneath your feet and little clouds of powdered clay burst in your wake.

Rome has such a sweetness on summer nights.

The warm air so oppressive during the day is smooth and perfumed and alive with gentle movement.

The city is lamplit and glowing,

Romantic and transportive,

As though it's rolled back the hands of time.

And the forum,

Your sanctuary,

Is vacant,

Quiet save for the underscore of cicadas who this summer have crawled from their burrows with renewed numbers and strength of voice.

The buzz is so constant,

It becomes a kind of white noise,

Sometimes surging in a wave-like crescendo that tickles the insides of your ears and gives you goosebumps,

Tingles at the back of your neck and scalp.

How long have you served as a night caretaker for the Roman Forum?

Five years?

Six?

It's easier to count the time in summers as time slips so carelessly away.

Enough time at any rate to feel connected,

Attuned to the place.

During the day,

It crawls with tourists,

Students and history lovers from around the world.

They pour in from the Colosseum and wander,

Often aimlessly,

Through the ruins and wonders,

Eyes glazing over in vacation exhaustion,

Snapping photos of broken archways.

But as the day wanes and the gates close,

They amble onward to dinner reservations or gelato stalls.

At sundown,

The Forum becomes your domain,

Your place,

Glowing and nestled in the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills.

Its temples,

Stairs and domiciles exhale,

Recovering from the thousands of visitors,

Feeling only your soft footfalls come and go.

A pleasing tranquility settles with the sunset.

The sprawling Forum,

Save for its cicada symphony,

Is quiet and serene.

Tonight you savor the emptiness even more than usual.

The cool evening breeze,

The twists about the umbrella pines,

The last gasp of molten gold sun sinking,

Washed in violet sky behind the Colosseum,

Its brilliance sneaking briefly through the archways of the monument.

You stroll with a languid gait throughout the site,

Taking your time.

The flashlight beam bounces on the clay path as you wind your way around the arch of Septimius Severus.

The lunar marvel of the columns captures the glow of its namesake,

Now large and full in the sky.

The floodlights,

Pointing upward,

Illuminate the undersides of the elegant relief,

Winged victories flanking the triumphal arch,

And detailed illustrations of the Parthian War.

As you pass through the central archway,

As you do on most nights,

You briefly close your eyes,

Imagining the fanfare of horns and cheering crowds.

You imagine your temples crowned with laurel leaves,

A harmless fantasy.

Opening your eyes,

You see the beam of your light fall upon the brick structure of the umbilicus orbis romei,

An unassuming monument it frequently goes unnoticed by the casual tourist.

But in your years at the site,

You've come to cherish it,

For its legendary significance stretches back to the founding of Rome.

Long,

Long ago,

The legend says,

The god Mars fathered twin boys with a vestal virgin,

Rhea Sylvia.

The twins were set adrift on the Tiber River,

And they were rescued,

Nursed,

And raised by a she-wolf.

The boys,

Romulus and Remus,

Grew to adulthood,

Then returned to the river valley to found their great city.

Romulus became the first king of Rome,

And it was he who established the umbilicus orbis,

The symbolic center of Rome.

He had a pit dug into the ground of the Forum,

Into which the first fruits of the year were thrown as a sacrifice.

And as tradition,

All new citizens of Rome came to the spot to throw a handful of soil from their place of origin.

The umbilicus was the spot from which all distances in Rome were measured,

To which all roads met,

The spot at which all newcomers cast away their histories and became Roman.

It was,

For all intents and purposes,

The world's navel,

The axis mundi.

You imagine yourself,

A newcomer to a strange place,

Being welcomed and embraced by a new people.

You think of where you come from and all the memories that come with it.

You remember the good weather and the bad,

The smell of your first home,

How the soil,

Or grass,

Or sand,

Or gravel,

Or road felt beneath your feet.

You imagine tossing a piece of that soil or sand into the pit,

Symbolically incorporating your origins into the mythical unfolding of Rome's history.

But this is only one piece of your identity.

Where you come from is only a small part of who you are.

It's funny,

You think.

You spend so much time surrounded by ancient history that you hardly think of your own history.

So much time in the footsteps of great historical and mythological figures,

The ancestors of the modern world,

That you rarely think of your own family.

Wandering the slopes of the Forum at night often lends itself to such introspection.

You walk in the shadows of history,

Of ghostly triumphs and empires decay.

It's remarkable how much still stands,

Unshaken by the thousands of years of shifting winds and human movement.

That the earth hasn't swallowed or toppled these monuments is,

You think,

A miracle,

A testament to longevity and a warning about pride.

How many dynasties,

After all,

Have these structures outlived?

Often you feel those histories,

Like a low vibration in the ground or an edge of gold on the sinking sunset.

Like an invisible world hovering nearby,

Floating just out of sight.

Like phantom lights in your periphery.

What wonders might reside in that invisible world?

Kings and she-wolves,

Nymphs and fauns.

As you swing the beam of your flashlight round to continue your usual route toward the Temple of Saturn,

The light falls upon some motion in the deepening dark.

A small creature scurries toward a shrub and you catch just a flash of white and muddled browns.

When you locate it once more with your light,

You exhale to see a cat not so effectively hiding in the foliage.

You feel a half-smile cross your face.

The cat gives a little chirp and you chuckle.

You know this one.

A lean but healthy calico who visits and hunts in the empty forum some nights.

Should humans disappear from the city,

You think,

Amused,

It would take only a day or two for Rome to become the Empire of Cats.

There is another archaeological site to the northeast of the forum called the Largo di Torre Argentina.

It's the excavated ruins of a complex of temples and the theater of Pompey.

Supposedly it was on the steps of one of the meeting halls in that square where Julius Caesar met his end.

Now,

Its structures in tatters,

The site is a sanctuary for cats who climb over its monuments and sun themselves in its crevices.

Blissfully ignorant of human affairs,

Legendary canine founders,

And political intrigue,

The calico,

Whom you've affectionately nicknamed Octavia after a favorite historical figure,

Comes out from her hiding place and winds herself around your legs,

Purring just loudly enough to hear over the swell of cicadas.

You're pleased that tonight she seems interested in accompanying you on your rounds.

She follows a few paces behind,

Occasionally falling back to investigate a possible movement or becoming distracted by dust particles dancing in the floodlights.

The liquid gold of the sun has long disappeared and the last shadows of monuments are swallowed in blue night.

On like this,

You stroll with your quiet companion past the temple of Saturn where the god of wealth and abundance was venerated,

Past the ruins of the Basilica of Julia,

The towering columns of the temple of Castor and Pollux,

Those other mythic twins of antiquity.

Wrapped in warm fig-scented breezes,

You and Octavia begin to climb the path up the side of the Palatine Hill toward the terraced gardens overlooking the Forum Valley.

With fewer floodlights illuminating monuments,

You rely more on your flashlight in the ascent.

It casts just enough light to brighten the pathway a few yards ahead.

Familiar curves,

Rocks,

And vegetation are revealed from the thickening darkness as you progress.

But soon,

Your flashlight beam falls upon an unfamiliar sight.

You stop in your tracks and you can feel that your furry companion is also on alert.

The sound of cicadas in the valley has sunk into a hushed underscore.

You can hardly believe what you're seeing in this small pool of light.

A pair of hooves.

Certainly,

Though feral cats may find their way into the Forum at night,

It's a much more complicated proposition for a horse.

Or,

More likely,

As you examine the hooves,

A goat.

Slowly,

Cautiously,

You pan the light of your torch upward,

Illuminating legs,

Hunches,

Tail.

Then you gasp,

For the lower body resembling a goat meets at the hunches with the upper body of a man.

Your flashlight moves continuously upward,

And the creature raises an arm to shield his face from the light.

But even so,

Above the shielding arm,

You can make out a pair of small,

Stubby horns protruding from shaggy brown curls.

He lowers the arm to reveal his face,

Boyish and ruddy-cheeked,

With a glint of mischief in the eyes.

You are flabbergasted before you,

As though he stepped from one of the paintings or sculptures in the Villa Borghese,

His faun.

He bears a sheepish grin,

And as you gape at his confounding appearance,

He bends forward in a humble bow.

You stumble to speak,

Releasing a string of disconnected,

Incoherent words and sounds.

This must be your imagination run wild,

You think,

Swayed by the sounds and smells and shadows of the forum at night,

Twisting trees and monuments into mythological phantasms.

But the more you stare and blink and squint,

The more solid and indisputable the faun's presence becomes.

He is a creature of flesh and blood,

Lifted from the most ancient of Roman myths.

The faun,

The spirit of woodlands and wilds,

Tamer of wolves,

Cousin to the satyrs of Greece,

And counterpart to their shepherd god Pan.

Rescuing you from your floundering speechlessness,

The faun begins to speak.

He's sorry to have caused you such a fright.

It was not his intention.

He speaks with a patrician elegance,

But there's something very deffrent in his tone,

Too.

He seems to know you,

To have sought you out.

Finding the inner calm at last to chime in,

You ask who he is and where he's come from.

There's the glimmer of mischief again in his eyes,

But it strikes you as something benevolent,

Rather than deceptive.

Like he has a secret from the whole world,

And he's here to let you,

And only you,

In on that secret.

He goes on to explain that he is Faunus,

The protector of this place.

You almost protest.

You've carried out the night watch for years now,

And never seen the like of him.

But you think you understand.

You've always felt,

Especially in the quiet hours of deep night and early morning,

That the spirits of history still inhabit these hills and valleys,

And that the long forgotten gods and legends still wait in the ruins of their temples to have their kingdom restored.

Just as you protect the Forum from intrusion and vandalism,

Perhaps this Faunus watches over the invisible world of history and myth that hides between the shadows of the monuments.

But why then would he reveal himself now?

Why appear to you?

Before you can pose this question to the Faun in the path,

You realize that Octavia has stepped into the throw of your flashlight.

She sniffs cautiously at the Faun's feet.

He looks amused and reaches down to stroke her fur.

She purrs loudly and butts her head against the Faun's leg.

Something about her inherent trust of Faunus makes you wonder,

Have they met before?

Are they of the same world even?

Either way,

She seems comfortable with the stranger.

It puts your mind at ease.

Faunus,

Eyes soft and kind,

Gestures toward the top of the Palatine Hill.

Your eyes scan upward,

Your flashlight hand seconds behind.

But you find you don't need the flashlight.

Just obscured by the crest of the hill,

You can see a flickering movement,

A dance of warm,

Orange light.

You angle your head and throw your brow.

If you're not mistaken,

The distant,

Elevated light is coming from a fire.

Yet you sense instinctually that it's safe,

That it's meant to be there.

Faunus steps aside from the center of the path,

Arms still outstretched,

Making space for you to pass.

They are waiting for you,

He says.

Who is waiting for you?

But you're already walking,

Gliding toward the top of the hill,

Your heart leading,

Pulling you forward.

You hear Octavia's soft trot behind you.

As you climb,

You steal a glance back at the valley,

Expecting to see floodlights on the undersides of ruins.

But instead,

You see a quivering,

Hazy image,

Almost translucent,

As if overlaid upon the forum of monuments,

Restored and resplendent.

You blink,

And the impression is gone.

The ruins return.

It's funny.

Heart drawn inevitably forward,

Onward,

Upward,

You begin to feel the reach of warmth from the fire atop the hill.

Faunus is at your side.

It's a marvel,

A mesmerizing tower of fire rippling toward the sky,

Bouncing amber light off the canopies of parasol pines.

You're so transfixed by the leaping bonfire,

Its mix of yellows,

Reds,

And oranges,

The sparks flying from its edges,

That it takes you some time to notice the silhouettes encircling it.

They move,

Too,

With a fluidity akin to water,

Black like shadows against the brilliance of the fire.

And although you can't make out any faces or features from here,

You feel instantly that you know them,

That you're one of them.

You turn to Faunus,

And a question almost escapes your lips,

But it must sing through your eyes,

Because Faunus answers it with his own glance.

Your body moves of its own volition.

Your feet might not even touch the ground as you're drawn to the flame.

Loose,

Languid limbs and body soft,

You find yourself dancing to the rhythm of unseen drums and flutes.

As you move and slide and let your mind surrender,

Faces pass before you,

The other dancers,

A face that might be your own,

Save for a slight difference in the bridge of the nose and color of the eyes.

A face you think you recognize from the old photo albums you used to look at,

Serious and strong.

A face that resembles your mother's,

But not quite.

Every face that passes beside the fire is familiar.

Hands grasp yours briefly,

Then let go,

A revolving chain of dancers and movers,

Firm hands,

Soft hands,

Rough hands.

They're warm and comforting and familiar still.

You understand.

You look into the eyes and grasp the loving hands of your ancestors who welcome you into their celebratory circle.

The world seems to spin around you on the axis of the towering bonfire,

All a blur outside the centrifuge.

Lights and monuments and hills and valleys spinning,

Blurring,

Your limbs loosening.

You feel light as though if you kicked off the ground you'd leap straight into the moon.

You feel open as though you extend far beyond your body,

Reaching out to commune with the others who dance with you about the bonfire.

You surge with movement,

Dynamic like the flame itself.

Release.

Surrender.

It's ours around the bonfire,

Maybe.

Or moments.

The fire changing,

Shifting in its white-hot alchemy is the only constant.

The world is turning on this spindle.

As the revolution of the world slows,

The Palatine Hill falls away.

You find,

Collapsing on tender grass and soft soil,

A new density in the trees.

The bonfire burns in an open clearing at the heart of a wild wood.

The moon smiles down.

Your fellow dancers,

Your family,

Slow their dancing too.

All around you people fall to the earth with sighs and exhales.

Laughter.

Faunus is there.

He reclines in a bed of ivy.

Octavia,

The calico cat,

Is curled,

Snoozing at his feet,

And playing beside him a pair of wolf pups.

You see other creatures,

Rabbits and squirrels,

Flit in and out of the trees,

Approaching him.

Faunus drinks from a skin and grazes on dark red grapes.

He's the picture of repose and abundance.

You feel the grass,

Pleasantly cool beneath your fingers and toes.

For at some point you became barefoot.

You're not sure when.

It's good to feel the grass.

A rustic,

Imprecise ring of red poppies,

Curled and closed for the night,

Circles the spot where you recline.

Someone brings you grapes and ripe figs and something cool and honey sweet to drink.

She looks like she could be your sister,

But she's robed in deep purple,

Threaded with gold,

And her eyes hold something ancient.

Though the dancing has ceased,

You can still hear music,

But you're not quite sure from where it comes.

A desk hand of flittering flute,

A solid,

Resounding drumbeat that vibrates in your chest.

You feel like something out of a painting,

One of those pastoral scenes where the light is hazy and the figures are small against a rolling,

Organic landscape.

The bonfire still burns at the center of the clearing,

But its flames diminish somewhat,

No longer fed by the energy of the dancing.

You wonder what lies in the wild,

Overgrown forest that surrounds you.

You feel an urge to explore,

Investigate,

But not quite yet.

The grass is cool against your skin,

And the fruit is sweet and delicate.

Another ancestor comes to you.

She brings you a small leather purse,

Pressing it into your hand.

You look at her quizzically,

And the gesture reminds you in some strange way of a grandparent giving you a gift unbeknownst to a parent.

You move to unfasten the drawstring,

But the woman stops you.

She shakes her head,

But a small smile remains upon her lips.

Not yet,

Her eyes seem to say.

Before she leaves,

She gives your hand a little squeeze.

The touch of her hand is achingly familiar,

Though you've never seen her before.

And you love her,

And you know she loves you.

You inspect the exterior of the leather purse.

There's nothing quite remarkable about it,

But it does have some weight to it.

There is something inside,

Though it's hard to tell what that might be.

Unsure what to make of the mysterious gift you look around to your fellows reclined in the grass or grazing on fruits and wine.

Though many remain comfortably resting,

You notice some are missing from their places.

You see one or two strolling,

Unhurried,

Away from the bonfire and toward the edge of the wood.

They have the same instinct as you do.

You stash the purse and pull yourself to stand,

Before swearing the comfort of your grassy resting spot.

The warmth of the bonfire at your back,

You too move toward the tree line.

After a few steps,

You feel Octavia's presence by your feet.

The woods are wild,

Trees and rocks blanketed with moss and ivy,

Vines tangled all about.

You still have your flashlight slung at your hip,

And it comes to good use now,

Helping you avoid hazards.

You step over a tiny stream that trickles through the ferns.

Your light falls upon a doe and her timid fawns,

Who stare wide-eyed for a moment,

Before scampering away through the trees.

With every step,

You take away from the glade and the fire and your ancestors.

The further you are determined to go into the wood,

It's endlessly enticing.

You have the feeling something important lies within the forest.

There's no coherent path,

And your route becomes more and more difficult to traverse over fallen trees and overhanging vines.

And yet,

You conquer each obstacle effortlessly,

As if your body is once again steps ahead of your mind.

The forest smells of rich earth and powdery poppy.

Your head feels light,

Easy,

And buoyant.

There's something ahead,

Something faintly glowing,

Perhaps the thing that's culling you through the wood.

You glide toward it like a bead of dew upon gossamer.

As you draw nearer,

You see that the hazy,

Creamy glow surrounds a yellow flower,

Blooming from a slender plant.

You've never seen anything quite like it.

You stoop to inhale its fragrance,

Which is herbal,

Spicy like licorice or anise.

Somehow,

With just one inhale,

You feel all pain,

Discomfort,

Worry and stress soothed by the perfume.

Octavia,

Who has traveled loyally at your heels and leapt over every fallen tree with the grace of her species,

Nibbles at the spiny green leaves of the plant.

Not fully understanding your urge to do so,

You feel yourself reaching for the flower's base and pulling it up from the root.

The glow dims slightly for a moment as you unearth the plant,

But renews itself shortly thereafter.

You reach for the purse the ancestor gave you and pull the drawstring open to deposit the flower.

Funny,

You think,

As you look inside the small bag.

It's already filled with soil.

Why would she have given you a purse of soil,

If not for this reason?

You gingerly place the flower,

Roots down in the soil,

And draw the opening of the purse closed around the stem.

The glowing flower's head protrudes sweetly from the bag.

You bend down to give Octavia a scratch on her chin.

As you stand,

Ready to survey the wood,

Perhaps return to the bonfire with your discovery.

You realize you've dropped your flashlight.

The flower's glow only spills a few centimeters ahead,

So you reach for the torch to find your way.

But as you angle the light from your flashlight,

It's not the moss and ivy-coated forest floor your eyes meet but powder,

Clay,

And marble.

You turn on the spot,

Shining your light across what you thought was wild woodland.

The Temple of Vesta,

The Jomonian stairs,

The Tarpan Rock,

The Arch of Septimius Severus.

You're in the Forum once more.

Figs-hunted breezes,

Deep gray clouds across the full setting moon,

Orchestral cicadas,

Distant city sounds if you really listen for them.

You let go a sigh,

Tinged with confusion and some disappointment.

You press a hand to an ancient column,

Feeling its still,

Cool,

Marble solidity.

All a flight of fancy,

You suppose.

A fantasy made of old shadows,

Lingering myths,

And an unquiet mind.

Octavia chirps.

At least she's still here to keep you company.

And the sun will be up soon.

But then you look to your hand,

The one without the flashlight.

It's still clutching a small leather purse.

A yellow flower,

Unlike any you've seen in Rome,

Or anywhere for that matter,

Sticks out of the top of the bag.

It doesn't glow any longer.

Or at least,

Well,

Perhaps there's a faint,

Hazy glimmer around the petals.

Your eyes scan the Forum,

Unsure of what you're looking for.

They flick upward to the summit of the Palatine Hill,

Where a shadowy silhouette moves.

It's the figure of a faun,

You think.

But you blink,

And it's gone.

Or perhaps it was only a tree,

Or a ruin,

To begin with.

Taking a few cautious steps across the dusty ground,

You feel as though you're treading on the surface of water or a frozen lake.

As though with a heavy footfall,

You might crash through to another world.

You breathe slowly,

Conscious of the cool air entering your system,

The warm air leaving it.

This world is real enough,

You decide.

It's not long before the rosy fingers of dawn begin to paint their way across the eastern sky,

Opening poppies and lilies across the city.

Waking tourists and shining through the high windows of a thousand churches,

You find yourself at the shrine of the Umbilicus Orbis,

The center of ancient Rome.

The axis mundi,

Navel of the universe.

There's a small patch of green grass where the original pit might have been dug.

Carefully,

You open the drawstring on the leather purse and reach for the roots of the yellow flower.

You sprinkle a bit of the soil from within,

The soil of your ancestors,

Of the invisible world.

And you place the flower there,

An offering from another place or time.

And you turn,

And you go.

Flashlight in hand,

Your feet tread upon a golden web made of strings that cross the valley.

Built of invisible histories,

Mythologies and ancestries.

Breathe naturally.

Be still.

With your inner gaze,

See a flower.

Your favorite flower.

Or the first that comes to mind.

See its stem and leaves and its bloom.

The colors and patterns of the petals.

Set your inner sight upon the center of the bloom.

Breathe.

Let the breath flow naturally,

Comfortably.

Now with your inhale,

See the flower petals open into the fullest expression of the bloom.

And with your exhale,

Watch the blossom curl in on itself and close.

Inhale,

The flower opens outward and upward,

Unfurling.

Exhale,

The flower folds inward,

Collapsing.

Inhale,

The flower blossoms,

Petals reaching for the sun.

Exhale,

The flower closes,

Drawing into itself.

Inhale,

The flower awakes.

Exhale,

The flower sleeps.

Keep visualizing the blossom as an expression of your natural breath.

And with every inhale,

Let yourself open and be vulnerable.

With every exhale,

Let yourself surrender into relaxation and comfort.

Inhale,

Let light and love in.

Exhale,

Release yourself from all worry.

Inhale,

Rise.

Exhale,

Sink.

Reach upward toward the sky,

The moon,

The clouds.

And surrender to the cool grass and ivy of the earth.

Now let go of the image of the flower.

Feel yourself letting go of any preoccupation of the mind or body.

Let everything fall away.

Sink.

Know that the earth will catch you.

The earth resonates with all the mystery and grandeur of ancient pasts.

It sings with all the myths and legends of its enduring people.

Feel your body cradled by that golden web of history and song and poetry.

And music and legends and myths and rites and rituals.

Loosen your limbs.

Feel yourself sinking into that web where it's cool and comfortable.

And you're safe,

Protected.

The web is made of the ancient protections of all who came before you.

It's made of your own resilience and a collective love.

Feel loved and held and at peace in your invisible world.

Pleasant dreams.