Crystal Grove - more faerie lights in the forest
1st Installation of the North Forest Lights
What is the North Forest Lights?
…It begins with the long walk from the entrance to the first installation. Here and there, shifting colored lights dot the nightime, transforming select trees into enchanted specters. Mist wafts through rocky features, hinting that you’ve wandered into the borderlands of an otherworldly realm.
This is NOT your usual Ozarks…1
The first time I meandered through the forest of faerie lights scattered across the ground like luminescent marbles on anemone stalks, all I could think was, “I have wandered into Felurian’s shaeded grove.”
If you don’t know this most beautiful and insatiable of the Fae—she with the irresistible voice and the butterfly eyelids—the best way I can introduce her to you is with a quote from the first book in Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller series:
“I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day… I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life.”
~Kvothe, The Name of the Wind2
All those images painted across my own butterfly eyelids when I first read about this creature and her fantastical land—I had found it! Darkness above, dancing lights below, and the towering trees standing sentinel over a song woven from magic. As I stood in the middle of what I had always envisioned, it rendered me all eyes and very little breath.
My first steps into the grove are always slow. For a time I merely marvel, absorbing the cascade of lights. Blues and frost, purples and pinks and deepest rose. They chase each other like a frolic of faeries through the undergrowth. I want to chase them, too. They are the forest come to life. They are its soul and ichor made sight. The music is its voice.
In time with the chiming tones of a crystalline harp, random lights or small clusters pulse and fade. A will-o-wisp calls me to come play. A trio or sextet says hello and then goodbye, only to pop up on the other side of the path. A whole flock of blue sweeps across the dell like a miniature Wild Hunt on electric wings.
Sometimes I sit on a bench at the fringes and watch the whole dance of harmonies and counterpoints. From there, I can also see the full scope of their night-riding frolic.
Mostly I prefer to be right there in the thick of them.
They giggle and chuckle. They sing and hum, luring me in deeper. As I wander the grove, they’re everywhere. Teasing here, beckoning there, playing hide-and-seek or rushing up in a flurry to require my appropriate mortal awe before slipping back into shadow.
They whisper to me that I am one of them, and I believe.
The video I made of the Crystal Grove now carries an extra-special poignancy. My mother’s voice…the “camera shutter” sound effect of her phone when she snaps a photo…our laughter and awe over the lights dancing to the music…
She and I haven’t been able to go out into the woods or to Crystal Bridges for our customary Shenanigans since her stroke two months ago, so watching this video is like the warmth of her arms around me.
She is sitting in her chair, right there beside me, and I miss her.
All over again, I am fourteen and she has fallen ill, my dearest friend, my most inspiring teacher, that most comforting, irreplaceable presence in the cosmos. This time, I have an adult’s understanding of what’s happened to her—an adult with nearly a quarter-century of her own neurological issues—so it is my greatest and most humbling honor, as well as my heart-wrung joy to take care of her the way she’s been taking care of me for so long.
When I miss my mom the most, this is the video I watch.
Up Next: FOREST FREQUENCIES - the 2nd installation of North Forest Lights
© 2021 Hartebeast
What is Crystal Bridges? My home away from home.
Moment Factory - creators of the North Forest Lights
Moment Factory's inspiration for this exhibit
Did you miss my post with the intro/outro and all the art scattered through the forest? Here’s where it all begins.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
--Felurian
My ginormous dance project inspired by this series.
