Sunshine Satellite Story Podcast

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” -C.S. Lewis Not far from here, there was a garden encircled by a stone wall. Lacing through the middle of the garden was a healthy, productive Grapevine. In this garden, songbirds laid their eggs in nests constructed from pieces of vine that they had clipped with their sharp beaks.  The mother and father songbirds both worked hard, protecting the eggs that housed their baby birds. They would keep the eggs warm until they hatched, and then they would continue to provide warmth, love, and food until the babies grew old enough to fly away and eat the grapes on the vine without help.  Now there was in this same garden, a Fox and a Snake. Fox was tricky and fearful, but Snake was cunning and evil. Although the Grapevine had never failed to produce enough grapes to feed all the animals in the past, Fox was afraid of scarce resources. He worried that someday there would not be enough grapes. The old Snake was everyone's enemy, plotting in the hope that he could one day utilize Fox's fear to consume the songbirds. Now, Snake was more crafty than all the animals that lived in the garden. One late night, while the garden slept, Snake brought Fox some fermented grapes to eat. While Fox ate, Snake uncoiled an evil plot.  The songbirds knew that Fox and Snake were not their allies, but they did esteem their worldly wisdom. They knew that Snake could perceive when frosts were coming and that Fox was full of gossip about events happening in distant fields. So when Fox and Snake went to the songbirds heralding impending destruction, they listened from a distance at what they had to say.  Snake explained that an expected frost would kill most of the Grapevine, while Fox warned that there would not be enough grapes to sustain the flock in the spring. The songbirds knew that the Grapevine had never failed to provide everything needed for nesting and food. Even in the cold months, the birds could eat the plentiful insects in the fallen leaves and fruits. However, Fox and Snake spoke with conviction, so the songbirds listened to them. A seed of anxiety was sown. Time in the garden continued as it had. The sun rose in the east and traced a happy arch across the sky, before melting into the arms of the soft summer nights in the west. The enlivening afternoon rains fell on all the animals whether they were wise or foolish, evil or good. In all this abundance, the songbirds forgot to remember to be afraid of scarce resources. By and by, Snake warned the songbirds again that if they did not leave the garden and go into the fields, there would not be enough food. While the songbirds continued as they had been, laying eggs and building nests to protect them, they were uneasy. Snake knew that, if he wanted Fox's seeds of anxiety to sprout into fear, he would need to water the threat with more deception.  Again, evil enlarged in darkness. At night, while the songbirds were sleeping with their eggs, Fox disguised his voice to sound like an owl. He ventriloquized, "Who? Who -who? Who will adventure with me to the hills? Who will go out into the fields to gather better food?"  Some of the father songbirds heard the owl call and left. Some of the fathers left because they were impressed by the wildness of the mysterious owl. Others left because they believed that they would have better opportunities if they abandoned their eggs. Some fathers deserted because they saw the others forsaking their families and felt compelled to imitate. But still, the mother songbirds remained with their eggs, alone in the quiet darkness. Although the tricksters had caused significant damage, they were not satisfied. Their ultimate goal was to own the entire Grapevine for themselves. Again, in the night, under the deep shadow of the stone wall, they applied the final coating of corruption to their... Support this podcast

The story is drawing to a close. Moiety and Akedah have faced a variety of dragons and have learned from each one a different aspect of the transformative ability of chaos. Akedah, the overt representation of a hero, is being reborn as he wakes up from a death-like state and Moiety the covert representation of a hero has risen from the pressurized depths of hell, bringing back an unknown treasure (the dragon's pearl) to combine the known threat -the (mechanical heart). Both heroes learn that their main antagonists are not each other, but forces their own psyches. "It turns out that an eerie type of chaos can lurk just behind a facade of order - and yet, deep inside the chaos lurks an even eerier type of order." ― Douglas R. Hofstadter, Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern 1979 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction for exploring mathematical relationships in creative processes. Akedah's eyes slammed open into a body filled with pain. Moiety was crying, or more accurately, weeping hysterically with snot free-flowing from her nose.  He coughed. His mouth and nose were full of cottony silkworm thread. "You came back!" As Akedah pushed through the layered wrappings of silk threads, he felt the pins and needles of blood flowing back into his small capillaries. It made him sneeze. Moiety was trying to hug him. He stiffened. For a brief moment, he considered utilizing her repentance and joy as a way to gain the upper hand in the relationship. Now that she wanted him, he could manipulate her more easily into being compliant. He would be able to use his approval or disapproval of her as endless currency to get what he wanted out of the relationship. He gave her a cold, distant look. "What is wrong?" she asked. Akedah continued in silence. She still looked like a wet cat. He remembered his half-finished book in the high mountain city and the importance that it had placed on his motivations above his actions. He considered the fact that the quality of his life would hinge not on what he accomplished but his motivations underpinning his accomplishments. All Akedah could think of was her back to him, sailing away in his boat. He wanted revenge on this woman for the way she had unfairly treated him, but he also knew from looking at his life book, that it did not matter. He would only be right in the end if he was able to forgive her. No one in all eternity, especially not the old Morning Star, would ever care if his personal grievances were resolved to his satisfaction. The thing that would give his life meaning would be his ability to overlook the insult, to despise Shame, and choose love despite spite.  Akedah again laid it down and let it go. He would be doing a lot of that. The North Wind was long gone now, a soft, warm sunset had taken her place. Akedah stood up and promptly fell back down. Moiety rushed to help him.  "You have been asleep for three days," the Leviathan informed him. "Your strength will return." But to Moiety, he said, "Do not cling to him. He has not finished the transformation. You cannot help him in this, Princess. You must allow him to gather his own strength, or his vitality will be stunted. He must generate his fortitude from within right now, or he will forever be dependent on women for succor." With considerable effort, the Viking pulled himself up to stand using a low tree branch for support, "What is that clicking sound?" Moiety listened. She could not hear anything but ocean waves and the residual breezes left behind in the jungle canopy from North Wind's impossibly long hair. Then, she noticed it, not so much as a sound but as a nagging feeling of urgency. Softly, the feeling reached her senses as an irritating sound. The muffled metronome was present and persistent, as persistent as time. It was sending out vibrations through the jungle soil like the concentric ripples on still water... Support this podcast

Moiety had been so firmly calcified into a selfish princess, that it took the heat from the gates of hell and the pressure of the deepest trench in the ocean to soften her soul enough to be released from its binding mold. In so doing, she had, with the help of her friend, the Leviathan, defeated the ancient Nidhogg Wyrm, the titan tapeworm responsible for draining the roots of the World Tree of gratitude. However, we must not forget that the only reason that Moiety is still alive and having this adventure is that the Viking volunteered to take her place, absorbing the wrath of the chameleon's curse. In chapter thirteen, we go back in time to follow the Viking's Vision.  "We don't feel fully known, understood, or valued by others or even ourselves—that's why we labor to prove ourselves, to get people to notice us, to make a name for ourselves, or try to be someone else. Imagine how in Heaven, all this gets replaced with an unbelievable clarity of who God created you to be—fully yourself, fully unique, for a unique relationship with your Creator." ― John Burke, Imagine Heaven Akedah began to die as he absorbed the chameleon's curse from Moiety's body. The glowworms surrounded him.  "We cannot stop the curse from killing you, but we can slow it down so that you will not immediately die."  Akedah felt the venom spreading through his limbs with an unmitigated crushing pain. The glowworms were overflowing with their organic juices. They carried the Viking into a spreading Live Oak tree and began working quickly to encapsulate him in silk, a process that would curb the rise of death's steady tide.  The last thing the Viking saw was entitled princess Moiety, disembarking in his boat. Akedah closed his eyes and slept. His spirit awoke and walked through his dreams. He was in a crowded city, surrounded by masculine women and feminine men. The landscape was defined by hard angles and stone. People walked into and out of each other's personal space without greeting. There were few children and even fewer aged, only a sea of family-less persons moving without eye contact like cold fish in dark water. Every person had a number attached to them.   Akedah wandered through these streets until he saw a woman standing outside what appeared to be a tavern. She was clearly upset, and clearly in contrast with the rest of the stoic environment. She did not have a number and was therefore not allowed inside. She had two small children, a girl, and a boy.  Akedah went inside the tavern to see what was wrong. Inside the dim lounge, there was a bath occupying the majority of the room. It was lit from the inside with a bluish light. It was surrounded by tables where patrons were drinking. It would not have been so strange if it had not been full of wiggling scarabs. Some of the patrons were stuffing the scarabs in their pockets and bags. Some of them were up to their elbows playing with the bugs. Others were sitting neck deep in the bug bath.  Despite his disdain for these curious habits of the natives, the Viking, was intrigued. While Akedah watched, a beautiful woman brought him a drink. He drank. The mother outside continued to pound on the glass window. She seemed to be calling out to a big man who was happily up to his beard in the bug bath. The man was numbly ignoring her. Midway through his drink, Akedah realized that he was not feeling half as repulsed by the scarabs as he had been. In fact, they were quite mesmerizing. Some of them appeared to be made of gold. Now he understood why the patrons were putting them in their pockets. The smiling woman reappeared with another drink. He had not even finished the first drink. Something about the woman banging on the glass out front made him distrust the women inside. He finished the first drink, while he watched the scarabs glistening valuably in the blue light. They were so smooth. He wanted to take some with... Support this podcast

Chapter Twelve The Viking and the Princess The Leviathan and the Princess have discovered several things in the great trench in the deepest ocean: the roots of the World Tree, the Nidhogg wyrm, and the gates of the Abyss. The Nidhogg wyrm is a giant tapeworm sucking the energy out of the roots, and the ocean floor is slowly seeping into hell. The Leviathan uses his comparatively smaller size to infect the Nidhogg at a cellular level. Moiety has discovered that she can stop the influx of the universe into her black hole heart by utilizing the creative energy of the Universal Vibration that surrounds her. However, she has lost Odin's Scroll of Poetry, and the pieces of the wyrms tale that she cut off have come to life and are attaching themselves to the World Tree in a new effort to drain the World Tree of its gratitude. "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened." -CS Lewis, The Great Divorce"Please tell me more about what is in the abyss," Moiety inquired of the Leviathan. "It is the waterless places," replied the Leviathan   "The waterless places?" "The void, the nothing, outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is the fire that is never content with wood, the ground that is never filled with water, and the eye that is never satiated with seeing, and it is full of the spirits who are never grateful for being." "That sounds terrible. Are there really beings that are doomed to live inside of it." "Yes. But not in the way that you might think. The gates are locked from the inside. There is no one there who has not chosen to be there.  When they first get there, they just walk in, because it has a comfortable familiarity - the spirit can walk back out, but it will not. The whole earth is filled with the Creator's glory, leaving no room left over for self-glorification. Instead of joining into its Universal vibration, cursed spirits choose to engage in self-aggrandizement, shutting themselves out of the cosmos. The Creator, in mercy, allows them to abide in the outer darkness." Moiety thought about her mother's sisters, who spent much of their time together bickering. At any time, any one of them could just get up and leave, but they seemed to thrive on the intrigue generated by their scandals. No wonder the Abyss is made of fire and full of malice. Without wood, the fire goes out. Without words, there is no gossip, and without malice present, there is no consuming hatred.  The Leviathan was listening to Moiety's thoughts. "A great chasm was set between the Heavens and the Abyss for that excellent reason. The saints would delight in extinguishing the Abyssal fire, and the Abyss dwellers would utilize that sentiment to lure them in and entrap them." Moiety and the Leviathan searched along the roots of the mountain. The Abyss continued to consume the seafloor and release its pressure on the surface in the form of volcanic activity.  Moiety could hear the malodorous thoughts of the Abyss dwellers, "It's all your fault!" A woman's voice screamed. "If you would have just listened to Me!" A man's voice thundered. "That is Mine!" "I have a right!" "This is my property! Get off My land!" "Get out of My way!" The mob's cry perspired from the crack in a sulfuric stench. Finally, the Leviathan spotted the tip of the glowing scroll peeking out of the silt. It was slowly inching its way towards the fissure. There was no way to reach it in time. It was being sucked down into the Abyss. Moiety felt terrible. The one valuable thing that she had, she was losing, and only as soon as she realized that it had any value at all. She put her... Support this podcast

Chapter Eleven The Viking and the Princess The holes that the Chameleon’s zombie army had drilled into Princess Moiety’s chest would have killed her if the Viking and the glowworms had not intervened. The princess -in tune with her character- demonstrated her gratitude to the Viking for his sacrifice by stealing his boat and fleeing the island. She would have sailed home quite happy with herself if she had not had so much trouble with the holes. The holes exposed the world around Moiety to the negative pressure inside her chest. Quite a few random objects and an ocean giant were sucked inside of her to establish equilibrium. On top of that, the mermaids were attacking. The only thing the princess could think to do was to light Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire to fight them off. This caused a tsunami. Moiety also discovered that in the light of the poetry scroll, things -such as mermaids- could be seen for their true nature.  When the tsunami from the burning scroll covered the island, Moiety was sure she was going to drown. Job’s Leviathan came along at the last moment and saved her from drowning. The Leviathan carried her down to the deepest part of the ocean to the base of the island. There they meet the Nidhogg, the organism infecting the roots of the World Tree. The Nidhogg attacked Moiety and Leviathan, and while the Leviathan was reeling from the blow, the Nidhogg looked for a way to enter into the princess’ chest cavity. ____________________ “With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.” “A book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.” -Madeleine L’Engle ____________________ Moiety called out to the Leviathan again. “How do I fight this?”  Her mustard seed of resistance to the darkness was enough to pierce through the current and find the dragon’s mind. Hope sliced through his despairing thoughts. The child was finally fighting. God does not give us meaningless dreams. “Tell a story,” Leviathan commanded and began to muscle himself, tiredly, toward her.  The Nidhogg had disengaged his considerable length from the root system and was hovering above the current rushing into Moiety’s chest cavity.    “Tell a story.” Moiety balked. Why? What story could she tell when all the world was rushing into her black hole heart? “What do you mean?” “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.” The dragon’s words crackled into her head like a flurry of sparks jumping from a smoldering log. Maybe the Leviathan was right, and the only way to fight against the depression of consumption was through the joy of production. Perhaps the best way to fight pain was to use it to her advantage, to harness the power of the chaos around her, and use it to produce something of value. Moiety inhaled and listened. She exhaled and repeated the rhythm that she heard around her: “The ladybug is done. It splits its ruddy mold, Splaying tiny fly wings Unfurling from their fold.” The current flowing into her chest cavity slowed ever so slightly, imperceptible to anyone but Moiety. Moiety again opened her mouth to translate the universal vibration that she heard in the ocean around her. “A still small voice Is only loud to quiet ears, Tiny drips dropping Flood a city after years.” The current slowed even more. Moiety closed her eyes, a redundancy in the stygian darkness, but somehow necessary to creation. The poem continued to reveal itself. “Marching ants move Like a military fleet Tiny blades of grass Are splitting concrete. Quiet, gentle zephyrs Turn the clouds into rain. The beach expands by sand: Grain by grain.” The current in Moiety’s chest stopped, and the water in the trench... Support this podcast

Chapter Ten The Viking and the Princess If Moiety had understood exactly what her problems were, we could say that she had been running away from them; however, the princess was only just now learning to call things by their right name. The tsunami that resulted from lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire washed the misandrogynous mermaids away but it also flooded the entire island. The weight of the giant and the anchor inside of her was pulling her down despite the scroll’s magical ability to provide some buoyancy. Job’s Leviathan has been tasked to carry the princess down into the deepest part of the ocean to confront her final dragon. “When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.” -Ellie weisel “What is this place called?” Moiety asked Leviathan.  “We have traveled up the river Gioll to the headwaters, Hevergelmir, in the Nifleheim realm.” “Nifleheim?” Moiety asked, picking one of three words she did not know. “The frozen mist, the valley of the shadow of death, and the land of the dishonored dead. The River Gioll is the current flowing through this trench - the heart of Nifelheim. It is the boundary between the living and the dead, and here at its headwater, Hevergelmir, you will meet your third and final dragon, the wyrm, Nidhogg.” Leviathan exhaled a breath of light and Moiety watched the seafloor continue to creep down under the wall. “What does this mean?” she asked. “We are at the base of the World Tree and nearby are the gates of Hel. Listen with the light of Odin’s poetry scroll.” Moiety grew quiet in the darkness and for a moment heard nothing. And then peacefully a still small voice reached her ear. It was a quiet command coming from the current directed to the fires just below the surface, “The seas have lifted up their voice The flood lifts up the pounding waves ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further:  and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.’ When sorrow of death encompasses And torrents make you afraid Walking through fire you will not be burned The flame will not set you ablaze.” So it was the peace in the current’s song and not the water itself that was holding back the hellfire below the surface.  “There is more that is born in a birth than a baby, more than sound that is sung in music, more than oxygen that sustains in the breath,” said Leviathan. “And more than the wetness in water that quenches the coal,” Moiety finished the dragon’s thoughts. Moiety and the dragon continued to follow the trench against the current in the darkness. Soon Moiety began to see what looked like thick branches and fallen logs suspended in the current. Moiety saw more branches as they traveled. The branches moved fluidly with the water. They were not, in fact, branches; this was an underwater thicket of loose hanging roots. She was impressed at how the massive Leviathan was able to lithely maneuver through the underwater canopy.  As the leviathan slowed his pace, Moiety was able to get a closer look at the roots. New tendrils were sprouting off from larger ones every second. Each one ended with a small loop encircled by a larger loop. The tendrils were very small, but they grew quickly. Moiety was able to feel a warm grateful vibration when she touched them.   Intricate as coral, and moreso. Moiety could see that only some of the roots were free floating in the water. Most of the roots were knitted up in complex and creative looped cables like the sailor's woolen tunics of the far northern islands. New root systems joined old root systems to make new designs and old root systems split apart to follow new paths. The whole system was a living, moving, changing canvas of decorative knots. As vibrant as it was, something was not whole about the root system. Some of the roots were... Support this podcast

Chapter Nine The Viking and the Princess The Princess had stolen the Viking’s boat and left him on the island. Honestly, she did not feel too bad about the decision. That is until she discovered the holes that the chameleon and his zombified army of automatons had drilled into her chest. Unfortunately, the Princess’s chest was full of nothing, and that nothing created a negative pressure gradient which threatened shrink and suck anything around it inside of it. So far, it had inhaled an anchor, a rope, and Aipaloovek the ocean giant. This was only part of Moiety’s struggles. The mermaids had also returned. Moiety accidentally summoned a tsunami by lighting Odin’s scroll of poetry on fire which washed the mermaids away, but it also flooded the entire island. The scroll which she had carelessly lit turned out to be a light that revealed the true nature and character of the objects which were illuminated by it. “It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us. Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.”Elisabeth Kubler-RossMoiety was left standing on the water above the island. She was peering down through the clear water full of salt and light - a skin diver’s delight. There were none of the expected clouds of murky silt, everything was as if it had settled that way an eon ago as quiet and observant as dinosaur fossils pressed down beneath the burden of light like a dry autumn maple leaf resting in the hymnal pages.   Moiety had the sensation of spinning like a pot on a potter’s wheel. She had been here before, but she had been a different shape. Somehow she felt that she would be back again, but not in her present form. Everything changes as it stays the same.  The scroll was keeping Moiety on top of the water, but the weight of Aipaloovik, the boat anchor, and its rigging was starting to pull her slowly beneath the water, the heavy negative pressure was still inside her chest. Quiet. For now. Moiety was buoyant, yet irresistibly sinking.  Moiety tried to stay afloat. She tucked the scroll into her waistband and pumped her arms and legs, but the inexorable heaviness in her chest was drawing her below. The danger pressed in all around, and yet Moiety could not help but notice how exorbitantly beautiful it all was. She was hovering above the island treetops, and schools of flashing fish were darting through the trees like silver shooting stars. River beds, like rocky highways into the hills, lay exposed. Giant reaching octopus and eels, freed from the boundaries of the estuary, were ascending the heights along these river bed paths, exposing their treasures. They coiled and expanded, rolled over the rocks, reaching higher with childlike intelligence. Shy seahorses, fastidious shrimp, and all manner of colorful reef fish were darting through the jungle foliage that lay closest to the surface. The island was fecund, teeming with vibrant beauty, but it was the filtered sunlight that brought it to life. Curtains of lightrays shimmered freely in and around the rocks and trees. Nothing was hidden from its joy. Everything became alive in the illumination, eerie and innocent, boldly camouflaged. Moiety felt helpless to be drowning amidst such a strong life force. She took one last breath and slipped below the waves….. Something immense erupted up from the illuminated bottom. It churned the depths like a boiling cauldron. It torpedoed through the water next to Moiety’s sinking form leaving a glistening wake of white bubbles behind it. Moiety tumbled in the water, losing her breath. The creature was coming back. Moiety could see its eyes were as red as a sunrise. It snorted a flash of light, descended, and then scooped her up on it's armored back. It rose back to the surface. The monster did not have scales, Support this podcast

Chapter Eight The Viking and the Princess The Chameleon, Shame, has damaged the Princess. Her body is full of holes where it tried to remove her heart. She is alive but dying and mostly zombified. The glow worms encased her in silk in an effort to slow down encroaching death but they cannot stop it themselves. In order to save the Princess this time Akedah must take her place. Akedah has lived up to his namesake. He has volunteered to take the woman’s place inside of the silk casing. Moiety will awake on the island alone for now. “By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.” ― Elisabeth Elliot, (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/55040) Moiety was dreaming lucid dreams. She was walking on a dark red marble floor with long veins of gold. The whole slab was a single cut placed in its entirety. A gray lighted pool steamed in the center of the room that was lit all around with beeswax candles. This was her childhood home, but she was not a princess in this house. She was there as a cleaning woman. She was trying to do her job, but she also did not want anyone to recognize her. The queen walked through the room, and Moiety turned away. The ocean giant, Aipaloovik knew she was there. He was looking for her, going from window to window and peering into the room. She kept moving. The water in the pool was sloping and heaving back and forth as if in an earthquake. Moiety felt no earthquake. She tried to stay hidden. Aipaloovik appeared in the window, behind Moiety. The windowpane was not glass, it was a laminar sheet of falling water. In her dream, Aipaloovik reached through the water to grab her with his huge yellow palm. Moiety gasped and sputtered awake into the reality of a wet humid jungle.  The first thing Moiety knew was that her chest hurt.  For some reason, she was wearing Akedah’s wet wool tunic. It was itchy and uncomfortable. She was holding a parchment with some barbaric runes.  Moiety wanted to get off this creepy island. The last thing she remembered was speaking to a flashy lizard with a curious offer. Something about making her wise. What happened? Was she wise now? Where was the grouchy barbarian? Moiety knew that if she was able to make it to the coast, that she could walk around the perimeter of the island. She would eventually find the longboat. Maybe Akedah was still there. Maybe he had left her. Moiety would have left him. Moiety started towards the light. She came up close to the edge. It was a dizzying distance to the bottom. The waves lapped over the crags jutting out of the water at asperous angles. No one would survive that fall she thought. Moiety made her way back to the boat and waited a full 52 minutes before deciding to set off in the longboat by herself.  It was a beautiful day. Recent rain had pulled the edge of the heat out of the air and beautiful full clouds were lining up in rows like children waiting for a drink at the water fountain. Moiety was moving along at a quick clip and looking forward to a new adventure. Except for the deep digging pain in her chest, life seemed absolutely grand. Moiety sailed on to sunset feeling utterly self-satisfied. The sun left its glow the western sky and the stars appeared, gently at first in the east and then swelling up the sky with blinking pinpricks of joy, they became the entire field of vision. A heat storm rose in the north. The billowing castles tossed plumes of lightning back and forth highlighting their architecture in waves of lucid red and giving the impression of a momentous royal celebration. What was that pain? it seemed to be getting worse the further away from the island that she got. It was heavy. Moiety lifted her shirt to see if she could find clues on her flesh. What she found, dropped her to the floor of the boat. There were six round holes up the sides of her chest tunneling neatly into its interior. Each one was easily deep and... Support this podcast

It turns out that a very normal looking tropical island is not what it appears to bel. Several tunnels inside the World Tree open out into various places on the island. The island is home to an evil chameleon wyrm with a mechanized zombified army of unfortunate creatures. It is also home to an ancient race of glow worms. The evil Chameleon wyrm was in the process of removing the princess’ heart of flesh to replace it with an eternal mechanical heart when the Viking found his way out of the World Tree and onto the stage of the Chameleon’s drama. He was able to defeat the wyrm, but a piece of the dragon’s tongue attached itself to Moiety’s ankle and would not come off. “Real magic  can never be made  by offering someone else's liver.  You must tear out your own,  and not expect to get it back.” ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicor (https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/902304) Akedah crouched to examine the oddity. It did not look as though it was hurting her, but it was stuck. He tried to slide it off. It was just tight enough to refuse to pivot over her heel.  Moiety gave a slight moan. The woman was not dead after all. The Viking felt hope gaining momentum. She opened her eyes and rolled to the side. She vomited a heave of thin yellow bile. Akedah looked at her blank eyes. “Moiety,” he called “Princess.” Nothing, just a vacuous stare. She jerked like a string toy, stood, and began to lurch back into the forest following after the hoard of mechanized animals. Akedah followed. “Moiety!” he called again. Moiety’s body gave no discernible response as it continued striving through the forest and towards the sea cliffs. Her unclothed flesh stomped unhindered through thorn and mud, catching itself on low hanging vines all the while maintaining its mechanical march. Akedah was going to have to use force to intervene. The bright beautiful ocean loomed dangerously ahead. Akedah remembered the majestic but jagged boulders at the base of the cliffs. Moiety would be certainly dashed into pulp if she stepped from the precipice.  Akedah stepped up behind her and bearhugged her over her arms, lifting her bloody feet off the earth. She did not fight. She did not resist. She did continue to mindlessly strive for the cliffs. Her body twitched side to side in tractionless gait with calm suicidal effort. Akedah thought he was going to have to tether her body to a tree. As he was wondering where he was going to find a suitable cord, a warm moist wind began to blow across the island. Akedah took his brown wool tunic off to clothe the woman. He had to pin her torso to the ground with his knee, as her body rhythmically pushed against the earth, attempting to right itself. He sat down under a broom tree and pulled her into his lap while he considered what to do. The wind was picking up. Akedah felt a rumble, that he supposed was thunder. The rumble grew stronger with the rising wind. The island’s atmosphere was absurdly normal for an epic. There was nothing on the surface that would indicate that it was a cosmic battleground, and yet here it was, complete with dragons, stars, and World Tree wormholes all set against the milieu of a normal ocean breeze and a common warm summer evening downpour.  The downpour. It all seemed so suddenly meaningless. He remembered great warriors who had fought valiantly to win difficult battles only to die weeks later from infections. He also knew well the creeping depression that settled in amongst men after victory. A warrior cannot return to the family farm as a farmer. Wolves do not live in kennels. The warm, mundane rain was relentless. The woman’s body continued to jerk mechanically. Akedah looked at her. Her eyes were glazed. Her mouth was slobbering. There was nothing in her appearance that he would desire her. He was thoroughly exasperated and wanted nothing more than to rid himself of the annoyance. He pushed the feeling... Support this podcast

When the sounds of scuffling in the entryway of the inn surpassed that of the ruckus of the inn guests, the innkeeper knew he had to intervene. He was beyond exhausted, having worked two days without sleep to set up accommodations for travelers on a property that was not designed to be an inn at all, more of an expanded fruit-stand-way-station extension of his own home. He could hear a woman’s shrill hysterical crying, and the sound of a man’s head thumped like a melon against the stucco. “Great, another fight over a stupid whore. Not in my inn,” he vowed as he jumped down the stone steps ready to throw down on anyone. Well, almost anyone. “God don’t let it be a Roman soldier,” he swore under his breath. His wildest dreams never prepared him for the scene unfolding in his entryway. The huge stinking man looked like a highway robber. He held the innkeeper’s servant up off his toes, pinned with a muscled forearm against the wall. But that’s not what held his attention. What held his attention was a little girl, no older than his own 16-year-old daughter, swollen with pregnancy and pain. Her pale hands grasped the door frame in a desperate attempt to stand while the blood and water gushed down her legs. “No!” He shouted, “There is no room in the inn! She is unclean!” The Innkeeper had received large payments from prominent members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, their scribes, and their families. They would want their money back if they knew a girl was bleeding all over the floor. His guests would become unclean by association under the Mosaic law. The desperate burly man was nearly crushing his servant’s throat. Spittle frothed into his black beard as he spat the words, “There is no room in all of Israel!” The girl was on the floor now, a trail of tears cutting through the dust on her face. She rolled on her back in the puddle of blood on the floor the urge to bear down was primal, uncontrollable. The abstract shame of total exposure was nothing compared to the real fact of her dilated cervix. The innkeeper was a passionate man, but he was also a businessman, and he knew he had to find a solution to the problem before it engulfed him, before his paying guests witnessed the bloody scene. “Ok, Ok, I have one more room,” and to his servant, he said, “Get a large blanket from the dirty laundry. We will carry her out in it and still be able to wash in time to serve the guests the evening meal.” Mary felt the horribly unpleasant sensation of being carried out back into the dark lonely night. She shrieked. Joseph helped to carry her. What else could he do? Images of what the Roman soldiers would do to his Beloved if they were roused from their gambling and whoring in order to keep the peace, danced in his head like a bloody nightmare. The three men set her down as gently as they could in the dark. The servant hurried back with a dim lamp and a flask of water. “Sir, I am sorry, but considering these irregular circumstances…’” the servant trailed off mid-sentence as he averted his eyes, shook his head, and backed away. Joseph was vaguely aware that he was in a hastily assembled shack for housing beasts. The creatures who bore the weight of man’s burdens. This symbolism was lost on him until much later in life. In the dim light, he could see a pallid crown of curls emerging from the mother’s pain. This was the first he had seen Mary’s nakedness. Her utter vulnerability reminded him of his own failure to provide, and one last guttural sob escaped his throat as he called out to a God that he felt sure was so very very far away. The red screaming baby flopped unceremoniously into Joseph’s hands with a tangle of organic glossy umbilical cord. He knew he was supposed to cut it. Would it hurt Mary even more? Maybe he should wait. “God what do I do?” He cut the cord. She did not notice. Good. Mary took the baby from Joseph. She was flooded with endorphins after the relief of completed labor. She tried to... Support this podcast

Chapter Six The Viking and the Princess “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers Lately in our story, stiff-necked Moiety has been getting jerked about quite a bit. Akedah, the Viking, has had to be on his toes to keep up with the amount of rescuing the independent princess has been requiring. She had been in trouble with her mother, an ocean giant, mermaids, and even the generous North Wind.  So far the Viking has been able to keep Moiety alive by using gifts given to him by the gods of Asgard, but when he beached the longboat on a tropical island to make repairs, she wanders off on her own. While in the jungle Moiety encountered the Chameleon, an evil lizard who is building an army of half-living half-dead mechanical-biological automatons. The princess is just what she needs to complete her menagerie of zombie foot soldiers. She has paralyzed the princess and is planning on replacing her flesh heart with a mechanical one made out of loadstone. Akedah is also deep in the jungle looking for Moiety. He has encountered the natives, ten-thousand-year-old glowworm children whose job it has always been to wrap the newly born stars in a protective casing of silk to preserve their songs as they travel into space. The children bring him to an entrance to the World Tree where he encounters Vision inside, the triune sisters Past-Present-Promise, inside one of the tunnels in the World Tree. When we left Akedah he had gone through Vision and was nearing the exit point of the tree where the Chameleon’s army was preparing to perform their grisly operation….  And so begins Chapter VI Moiety was supine in the hollow of the dead tree. She would have noticed that the inside of the tree opened up to a tunnel of considerable length if she had been able to explore, but Moiety was in too much danger. She was conscious but unable to respond to her surroundings. Only her eyes moved, and she watched as the hoard of tiny mechanized beasts swarmed over her body and began the process of slowly boring into the spaces between her ribs. They were tunneling cavities into her chest to her heart, presumably to replace it with something else. Moiety felt the pain, but it was so intense that she also felt that she was outside her body, hovering over it, watching in suspended horror. There was not much blood, but there was the terrible smell of electrocauterized flesh. She vomited. She lay in it. --------- Akedah was coming to the end of the tunnel, and he saw what he thought looked like large ants on a dead bear. He balked with abhorrence when he realized what it was. He froze while his brain whirred in an attempt to categorize the abomination. All at once he lurched, laden with emotion, at the horrific scene batting and swatting at the tiny monsters with frenzied effort. He unthinkingly beat at her motionless body. When he was able to get a grip on her drug her out into the acrid red light. The automatons followed slowly, steadily, gripping, and climbing his leg. Then, suddenly, as if a poisonous gas had taken them, they all dropped, lifeless, to the ground.  Akedah assumed that Moiety was gone, but he picked her up to carry her just as he would have carried any battle-fallen warrior: with strength and sorrow and deep conviction. This is the power of flesh. Flesh only yields to a machine in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, flesh and spirit are stronger than any machine. Broken human hearts keep beating, pumping right through the greatest spiritual injuries  A strange thing happens when they are broken. A broken heart creates a rift through the realms for God to come near to the brokenhearted. It cuts right through the fortified walls of... Support this podcast

“Great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds.” -George MacDonald At the Back of the North Wind To all appearances the gods had deserted the viking in his need. In his frustration, Akedah fired that same arrow at the moon. “Take it back!” he growled. The arrow hit the moon and sent up a spray of shining moon dust with the impact. Perhaps, in some cases, the viking’s instincts were smarter than his brain, and perhaps this actionable lack of philosophy is what we could attribute his good fortune to in many cases. Perhaps, his willingness to take the next step, any logical next step, protected him from the overwhelming stagnancy that overtakes men like moss overtakes a stationary stone. Peers had sometimes accused him of brash and unsafe action, but no one ever accused Akedah of lackluster procrastination - which is - the greater evil. The arrow returned to Akedah’s hand fully drenched moon poison. This poison is released from the moon every 28 days when it is in full bloom, that is to say, when it is a bright perfect globe like a white-seeded dandelion. When the world was young, people knew about moon poison, how it drifts its dusty seeds out into the solar system on lunar flares. Today, after landing on the moon and scientifically evaluating its surface and finding mostly igneous rocks, modern man has disposed of any new speculation concerning moon makeup, however; if the astronauts had taken up residence and observed the moon first hand through its cycle they might have reported otherwise. It is important to remember that all things magical or miraculous, are made of the same atoms and elements as the rest of the universe. Water can be turned miraculously to wine but first it has to flow through the Vine. There is nothing strange about that. And so again without prelude of excessive forethought, Akedah fired the loaded arrow at the guffawing giant. This time when it hit its mark the moon poison dissipated into Aipaloovik’s blood stream. -- In his youth, Aipaloovik the Terrible had grown fat munching on eskimos and picking his teeth with narwhal tusks. These days, he fancied himself a snowbird, relocating in his middle age to the sunny mediterranean. He would still visit his mother up north, and she would chat with him about what she wanted him to get her for her birthday, or nag at him for never being able to maintain a marriage. Sometimes she would put the two together, “Oh my little Snuggymumps!” She would announce as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Did you know my birthday is this spring? Maybe you keep your next wife without taking a bite out of her. Then maybe you could visit me with sweet little baby grandstinkies on my birthday.” Aipaloovik thought that maybe he would like to have some little stinkers to carry on the terrible heritage of the Aipaloovik namesake, but self-restraint is not something any child learns when they are catered to by doting mothers. This is especially true in the case of children who are the size of several elephant seals. So Aipaloovik’s well-meaning mother had spoiled her son and in the process spoiled any chance at hearing the thumpity-thwap of little grandstinky footsteps in her home.  Aipaloovik was really intending to actually entertain the thought of perhaps not taking a bite out of this wife. He was going to try to save this one for his mother. Well, maybe only one small bite. It was just that whenever he tried to only take one small bite he always wound up eating the whole wife. He did not think this was any fault of his, it was just that it was a shame to let the rest of the wife go to waste with profuse blood loss. If they would just stop bleeding, he would not have to finish them off.  All these thoughts evaporated from Aipaloovik’s conscious mind as the poison crashed it way into his brain like an explosion of... Support this podcast

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.” ― G.K. Chesterton _______________________________________________________________ The light music grew heavier. The viking thought he could smell bread baking, or maybe it was lamb meat roasting. Then he realized it was neither. The music had grown so real that he could smell it too. It smelled like a childhood memory. It smelled like home. If home was more of a home than home had been. Like the happiness of a deeply rooted family during a winter solstice festival, it smelled good. The viking plunged his hands through the water’s surface and pulled his body underneath.  The glowworms moved in a cloud of current like floating lanterns under the water. Every light was unique and beautiful, a note in the Universal Sound. Their silk trailed behind them -echoing reverberations in the flow.    Akedah floundered and gasped, but then found it easy to breathe in the water. It was as if he was not breathing on his own, but was a part of a breathing organism.    “She is here at the womb of stars. She is the ancient red dragon poised to consume the child of the laboring woman clothed in the sun.” “Stars are songs, and lies are discordant interruptions in song reverberations.” “The princess is here. She has brought her heart with her.” “She has already swept a third of the stars from the sky.” Akedah could hear the soundless voices of the shining viscid children around him like thoughts bubbling up in his own mind. “Who is she? Who is the red dragon.” Akedah wondered to himself. In unison, the voices, rolled into his head, like rushing water.  “The void.” “The nothing.” “The always winter and never Christmas.” “The waterless places.” “The outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The viking heard all this and comprehended in a moment’s breath. “She is the fire that is never satisfied with wood.” “The ground that is never satisfied with water.” “The eye that is never satisfied with seeing.” “The spirit who is never satisfied with being.” “The consumer.” “What does she consume?” “Love.” “Joy.” “Peace.” “Patience.” “Kindness.” The viking felt a tremor of horror in his spine despite his lack of understanding of the implications of this idea.  The current was winding through an open kelp forest. Great green stipes rose to the surface like giant beanstalks, anchored and buoyant, while the sandy white bottom rolled ever on like a submerged desert. The children and the viking swirled round and round. Up and over the kelp passing seals, rockfish, and even a grey whale hiding from killer whales until they stopped by a round wooden door lying exposed in the drifting sand. Akedah grasped it by it’s heavy metal handle and hoisted it open. Akedah could see a stone stairway. It was lit with torches and spiraled steeply down into the earth. Akedah had to pull himself through the water’s surface tension into the tunnel with the same force that he used to enter the water. It was not difficult, just surprising. A cold thermocline blasted Akedah in the chest. Akedah was not at the top of a stairway. He was at the bottom of a stairway sitting on top of the water: the base of a deep well.  _______ Moiety was lying without defense at the threshold of the enemy, and the enemy had exposed her. The Chameleon was crouched in detached cold blood at her feet, her belly dragged the ground. Her eyes moved. They darted and bounced in the dim like red dice on a green casino table. Her sides heaved, and like blacksmith bellows they blew heated air into the acrid night. “si-moom si-moom si-moom,” her dry inhalations and exhalations chanted, and with this sound a fecund hoard of biologically mechanized bloodless birds and lizards swarmed into the... Support this podcast

-4- “When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin ___________________________ “No! You can’t tell me what to do,” Moiety fussed. “And if you would have just listened to me, and taken me home, instead of messing around with those mermaids, my father would of had your boat fixed already.” “Your mother was trying to ‘marry’ you to an ocean troll! You can’t be serious.”  “Well, I am serious. I am going to go find someone to help us.” “Haha,” the viking laughed, “the gods go with you,” and he compartmentalized his thoughts back to boat repairs, as the Princess Moiety paraded off into the jungle.  Time dragged. Moiety felt that she must have been plodding along for hours. The interior of the island was a dark tangled jungle. The ground was soft with gripping sucking black mud, and the princess, who was quite up to her knees in the sticky stuff, had a mind to go back and tell the viking what she thought about his lack of initiative in assisting her in her escapade. So far Moiety’s mind had been bouncing up and down on a carousel of similar thoughts. She had not noticed the thick silence asphyxiating the jungle air. Moiety turned abruptly. It occurred to her that she might not know the way back to the beach, and her stomach jerked in protest as she suddenly became aware of the sucking silence permeating the foliage. “Hello!” she called out. Her voice sounded alone. Moiety turned again. The jungle could not be completely devoid of life. It was a jungle. This time scanning her environment she noticed a lizard, who, as soon as she saw it, lost its grip on the tree and plopped like overripe fruit onto the path. It laid on its side, twitching. Moiety then fully opened her eyes to her surroundings, and saw that she was surrounded by birds and lizards - each one as silent and cold as silverware - each one watching her with unblinking, unseeing orange eyes. Moiety tried to remain proud. “I’m ok, I think the beach is back this way,” she told herself. Moiety was doing fairly well at remaining calm, and was making some progress out of the jungle, until she saw the monkey. The monkey was only about a meter in length, and was hanging passively upside down on a grape vine. When the monkey saw that Moiety had finally noticed her, she widened her eyes, and smiled a grotesque counterfeit smile, flashing a mechanical maw full of thousands of thin medical needles. She calmly advanced on Moiety’s position. Terror detonated in the princess’ mind.  Moiety backed up and fled towards what, she did not know. Nighttime fully gripped the island and Moiety’s resolve to be brave. Moiety was in full panic, but still vaguely aware that if the monkey had wanted to catch her, it would have done so by now. She continued to push through the muddy brambles, spiraling ever deeper into the bowels of the jungle.  Suddenly, as if it had been spontaneously created, a bright clearing appeared ahead through the tangled vines. It glowed red with an acrid phosphorescent light, and Moiety was drawn in to it like a shrimp to an angler fish.   The clearing was larger than it had originally appeared, it's red light seemed to billow out past where Moiety assumed the ocean should have been. The ground was dry and covered with wispy grasses. A skeletal tree protruded from dead center in the parched ground, its brittle branches scratched the stark sky. The thing that captivated the senses was a dinosaur sized chameleon lazily poised amongst the limbs.   The great lizard was pinching the tree with rounded claws, and the princess felt sure that the tree should be collapsing under her scaly weight. Its face was stunningly large and Moiety was nauseated at the thought that her whole body could fit inside that cavernous dragon mouth with room to move.  The chameleon opened and closed her mouth thoughtfully, revealing a muscular lump of tongue... Support this podcast

Welcome to the Sunshine Satellite Story Podcast. The Podcast that brings you a FREE new modern mythology mashup story every Thursday morning at 7:00am. I am your host Amanda Louise VanStratum the registered nurse turned full time story teller and founder of www.sunshinesatellite.com a free online story and poetry base for a growing tribe of people who want to live for something braver and fiercer than material prosperity. Every week you will be inspired by a hero who lives beyond what is merely visible and reaches for what they were meant to attain. This short form show typically runs 10-15 minutes. If you would like to support this free show, please subscribe and leave a review. Also, please visit the website SunshineSatellite.com. I look forward to hearing from you! Support this podcast

-2- ---------- It is excellent To have a giant's strength But it is Tyrannous to use it Like a giant. -William Shakespeare ---------- Leaving his warriors to their farms, Akedah sailed with land portside and the stationary star, Polaris, at his back until he passed through the choppy Straights of Gibraltar, where Hercules placed pillars to hold up the sky. Akedah stiffened his jaw against the thought of Hercules’ father, the henpecked god Zeus, and all his frivolous pantheon of playboy demigods. This was the gateway to barbarous backsliding Civilization, a self-righteous settlement of people who thought that just because they bathed every day they were clean. He could stomach Rome. He could understand a culture of military nobility, even if it was weakened with opulent squalor, but Greece could go to hell. For all its laziness and unnatural passions, it was no better than Carthage who sacrificed its infants in a fiery pyre to the abominable Molech. Of course, a man of action would not think that Greece would be redeemed for its philosophers. “All philosophers are Sophists,” the Viking thought, “except maybe Aristotle.” And with these, his own very self-righteous thoughts, he absentmindedly cast a piece of his bread upon the water. Here, closer to the equator, during the equinox, the sun reached its zenith near the sky’s meridian, and the heat boring down from that height altered the cheerfully chopping waves into a smacking angry antagonist, that left an embalming residue of crusting salt against every surface it touched. Akedah knew he must soon leave the protection of predictable water with its clear sight of the navigable astronomical horizon, to replenish his supplies on solid ground. If the ocean was dangerous, at least it was foreseeably so; in a civilized city, anything could happen. The celestial bodies moved with mathematical precision presenting with clarity the order of the mind of God, yet on land, amongst drifting lost souls, one could never know where one truly stood. Akedah deeply prefered the bold expansive company of Neptune to the uncanny conversation of the market bizarre. Just as the sun was setting, and the viking was steeling himself for an unwelcome transition to land, a glowing paper lantern skimmed the surf against his longboat. It glanced the prow, glinted off the port bow, and disappeared into the wake spray. Akedah sat transfixed gazing at it for a quiet moment. When he turned around, he could see several pinpoints of light wafting from a queer locus amid the waves. The current was picking up in an unnatural contrary action against the wind, running tangentially to its previous course. It was as if a path was being carved out in the midst of mighty waters. The viking had enough imagination to understand that this was a whirlpool without ever having seen one, but by now the current was clipping along at an irresistible pace, and despite his best efforts to jibe, he was being dragged sideways down into that spinning hole that was, with violent force, puffing out gaily colored lanterns to waft like summer seeds in the ocean zephyrs.    The shipboards groaned as they flexed with the unnatural momentum. Akedah, in his ship, spiraled out of control down into the depth of the whirling darkness. The force of the water would have undoubtedly surpassed the tensile strength of the oak keel, but with a boom, that sounded as if he had out-sailed sound itself, it was suddenly over. The ocean bounced cheerfully under his boat. The sun was higher in the sky, and the happy lights still floated festively all about. The wild-eyed wind blown man ferociously bracing himself like a cornered wolf against the mast cut a contrasting figure to the surrounding serenity.   “Hullo there, Stranger!” called the common fisherman. “Welcome to Atlantis. Though I daresay you have stumbled upon us during our most dire festivities.” Akedah... Support this podcast

The Viking and the Princess A Lodestar Story -1- __________ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are fading away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:16-18 __________ Once upon a time in the mighty raging Northland, there was a wild Viking who, despite his success in conquest, never had a compass. He had many mighty men who followed him to battle, and many beautiful women who desired to follow him to his tent, but the Viking was restless.  The Viking had been born as his mother died. She had named him Akedah which is not a Norse name, but his father wanted it to remain because he loved her.  Akedah’s father had brought his mother home during his own adventure. Some scandal-tongued folks said that the dark-haired woman had been involved in her own intrepid exploits when she met the burly old man. They said she had not even been “carried off” in proper viking fashion but was actually steering the boat as it came into the fjord while the old viking fished off the bow. She was certainly a queer woman who caused no end of gossip with her nonchalant diffidence toward the Norse deity. According to all the worldly-wise women of the community, her failure to set up a hearth shrine to Freyja (Froya) was undoubtedly the cause of her demise in childbirth. Akedah traded places with his mother in his father’s life, and he had been fairly happy with the arrangement, even if his father was slightly less so.   After the earth balances night and day in equinox, the spiraling planet begins to nod its head toward the sun, and a warm veil falls across the forehead of the northern hemisphere. Winter rushed away from the Northland like a tide receding from the shore, leaving spring revealed like low tide ocean treasures. During this season, black soil billows up through the frost, and glacier calves slide into the sea. As the sun rises ever higher into the brightening sky, the hearts of restless men also rise up to meet the call for adventure, and the gods lead men on great quests.  In this rising warm air, a raven, a shadow in birdish form, gripped the hilt of the Akedah’s broadsword and flew away into the still frozen mountains.  The Viking pursued the bird windward into the frosted highland fog. The bird soared high, but each time it landed for rest, Akedah was not far behind. Finally, after trailing in the bird’s shadow for a frozen fortnight, the Viking was able to lay hold of its fuliginous feathers. It was in a flash of smoke transformed into the scandalous visage of the Snow Queen. The Snow Queen, a pallid practitioner of wizardry, was the mother of the Arctic wolves. She smiled, or rather, drew back her purple lips to reveal neatly filed fangs. Her frosty face flushed purple under Akedah’s grip as she lunged gracefully to retain her hold on the broadsword. The Viking was unrelenting even as the witches’ flesh grew hoarfrost and his blood retreated from his extremities. Thus they struggled, straight-forward strength against sorcery until the alpenglow of the rising sun settled onto the distant mountain horizon. Then the Snow Queen hissed, “You must release me now Viking. You have won the favor of the gods of Asgard (Osgaurder),” And as she spoke, the rising sun mounted on the morning sky and a rainbow fell from the heavens Illuminating the Snow Queen and the Viking. In these times, when the world was young and wild, the rainbow was known as the Bifrost (Bif roast) Bow, the door into Asgard, the domain of the viking gods. “The gods have given you three gifts,” she sniffed with only a slightly perceptible air of covetousness... Support this podcast

A story in which an ancient trickster spirit gives an enchanted Selfown to a little girl intending evil against her, but it worked out for her good because she learned how to see things with new eyes. __________ A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it. - George MacDonald ___________ Once upon a time there was a normal girl who lived in a nice neighborhood and went to a good school. In fact, I think you might know her, or at least you know someone who does. She had a dog, two cats, some goldfish, and climbing tree. Her porch hosted sunsets in the evening and the stars twinkled between her strawberry curtains where her mother kissed her every goodnight. Life was good for this little girl, and she was happy; mostly, except for one thing: this little girl really wanted a cell phone. Her friends had cell phones. And data plans. And Wastebook accounts. And InstaKudo accounts. And. And. And. Her friends posted pictures of their epic adventures in Suburban Teenager Land so that all of Family-and-Friend fandom could tap their pictures and pithy statements with clicks of approval. It was wonderful, with a simple snap of the lens both Grandma Sarah in Seattle and Aunt Gertrude in Corpus Christi could both instantly know and approve of the cream in your coffee and the color of your sneakers. The little girl wanted so much to be caught up in this interconnected world wide spider web, but her mother and father would only give her a flip phone. It was awful. The only thing you could do with the flip phone was make phone calls. That particular morning, was a very normal day: sunny with a high of 72 and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich were all that was expected. The little girl zipped up her backpack and headed off to school. She was walking down the sidewalk path when she was surprised to see a silver slithering off into the bushes. Of course, all normal little girls are intrepidly curious adventurers, so the little girl followed the silver slithering to a hollow dead tree on the outskirts of the park. “Did your mother really say that a cell phone would not be good for you?” the silver slitherer asked the little girl. “She said it was not necessary to be so focused on promoting my external self-image,” the little girl paused and scrunched her nose as she tried to remember the rest of what her mother had said. The slitherer had such large engrossing eyes. “Mom said, “I would be happier if I focused on building my self image from the inside out by concentrating on learning useful information and playing active outdoor games.’” The slitherer made a wheezing sound that the little girl assumed was laughter. “And you really believe that? Of course she wants you to think that. That’s how grown-ups make themselves look good. They don't go to school anymore, so they have to show off their children’s achievements in order to make their friends like them.” The little girl had never thought of it that way. It sounded true. Mostly true, anyway. Did her mother really feel that way? The slitherer must be very clever to have noticed that. “Here, I have something special for you.” coaxed the slitherer. And from a hole in the old dead tree, he produced a smooth shiny cellphone with a silver emblem of a bitten fruit on the back. Take it. It will make you wise. You will see all the things your mother wanted to keep from you.” The slitherer coiled its body around a dry bone of a branch and whispered in the little girl’s ear. It is called a SelfOwn and you can take pictures of yourself with it, but not just any pictures. This takes Soulfies which make you appear more vibrant than any other little girl in the world.” The little girl touched the slender silver box. It really was pretty slick, but when she looked up the slitherer was gone. The phone was innocuously off. It certainly did not look magical. It... Support this podcast