Miri and the Gardener | ||
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|  Miri loves that tree with the many cavities sculpted with art and dedication. But with the respect for the survival of the living tree, of course. The problem is that poor Miri is suffering from a mysterious illness. The magician healer was very upset. He had never encountered any such sickness before. He searched the memory books left by previous magician-healers to no avail unfortunately.The little fairy, courageously continued to believe, in spite of her suffering, that she would heal. Winter was long for little Miri who, from her bed entertained her friends. She could not stand sorrow so she kept her morale up. With spring came a hope, as fragile as the eggs in the nest. The healer had discovered a cure. But it was the powder that rests on the wings of butterflies. Hundreds maybe even thousands of butterflies,would be needed to harvest sufficient quantities for the medicine for Miri. Miri’s father was at the inn with his friend. He was discussing the problem of which no one seemed to know the solution. It was a sad day for Miri’s father. A stranger seated at a neighboring table, approached them discreetly as the custom prescribes. He told Miri’s father; ”I think I can help heal your daughter”. “Stranger, if you can accomplish that, I’ll give you everything you want” “I have no need for everything, all I need is work.” “Are you a healer?” “No a gardener, if you hire me I guarantee that your daughter will be healed by the end of summer." The honest tone and truthful gaze in the eyes of the gardener convinced Miri’s father to give him a chance. He had nothing to loose and Miri all to win... From her window, Miri looked at the gardener work, an old man with the precise movements acquired along a lifetime dedicated to the love of plants. The gardener planted lilac trees in many shades. He even planted unknown plants, bushes and flowers with strange, mysterious names that brings visions of exotic places. The old man told Miri that soon, he assured her, it would translate into a symphony of colors and textures that will perfume the air. He had such a pleasurable expression as he said it, that Miri was certain “HE” could smell it already. Miri observed as the young sprout escaped the soil, as the tender green shoots grew. Soon flower buds appeared followed by the most beautiful blooms. The gossipers were having a good time. “Shameful, he buys himself a garden while his daughter, poor girl, lay sick and all. Shameful, I tell you.” Then one warm day, attracted by the selected flowers butterflies came, more and more of them kept coming to invade the garden. The gardener installed a lawn chairs in the clearing and installed Miri comfortably in it. Miri received a shower of the powder falling from the wings of the butterflies. The powder was of many colors shining in the sun. The rays of the sun reflected in the fine powder. The clearing was bathed in the light and in that light Miri’s healing… In a week Miri was cured. Her delicate wings shone brightly again. Her face had regained her healthy colors and above all her smile was resplendent. And this is how Miri got her name: “MIRI THE BUTTERFLY FAIRY” Copyright ©1998 By Dr. Claude Gagné To read more about Miri the Butterfly Fairy visit: http://miri.topcities.com | |
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The Spirit | ||||
|  | Age: 60 | | |
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| The Wee One, sat in her thinking place, puzzling. The purple hyacinths grew behind the moss covered rock she sat upon. She was wondering if what she wanted to do was the right thing. The longer she sat in her thinking spot, the more she believed her idea was a good one. With her mind made up to do something she had never done before, the tiny fae took flight on golden wings. The fae flitted high into the air over the giant oaks and beyond the meadow. She fluttered down on the shore of the Sparkling Lake. The Wee One walked from one stone to another, towards a very large rock. It stood above the others, like a beacon. She hesitated for a moment before whispering to the stone. Suddenly it appeared to rise a little into the air. The Wee One walked under the stone. A golden box sat beneath it. Quickly she lifted the lid of the box. A Spirit filled the tiny crystal box the fae now held in her hand. As the fae walked out from under the great stone, it settled down once again. Without a moment’s hesitation she took to the air. The fae flitted to her home in the ancient oak, the crystal box now safely in her pocket. Once home, the Wee One set the box on her mushroom table. The fireflies gathered overhead. The crystal box glittered like diamonds. With trembling hands the Wee One opened the box. Suddenly, before her stood a beautiful Spirit. “Will you help me?” The Wee One pleaded. The Spirit did not so much speak, as it thought. The Wee One knew, the Spirit would help her. “We shall begin our journey now,” the spirit thought. *poof* In a twinkling, both the Spirit and the Wee One were transported to a city, in the Land of Real. The Wee One was not prepared for what she saw when they materialized. It was a place that had things called buildings. Some of the buildings were as tall as the Magic Mountain. The air smelled odd and tasted funny. There was not a tree or flower to be seen. “I am frightened,” the fae whispered to the Spirit. “Is this where the children come from?” “Yes,” the Spirit replied. The Wee One shivered a bit, but the Spirit thought, “It will be okay, I’m with you.” “Now quickly before it gets light open your pouch and do what you have come to do.” The Wee One reached deep into her pouch and gathered a handful of faerie dust. With the Spirit by her side, she sprinkled the magic dust everywhere. When they had finished the Spirit thought again. “You have done well wee fae, for a first effort; now watch!” Quietly, a gentle rain began to fall. The Spirit smiled, for the sprinkles began to grow flowers and trees everywhere they settled. As the sun began to rise the city was ablaze with the color of beautiful flowers, twining green vines and stately trees. From far beyond the city a rainbow appeared and held the city in its arc. The Spirit thought. “It will make them happy wee fae, it truly will.” In a twinkle the Wee One and the Spirit sat together on a spire overlooking the city. They watched, as the children, the young and the old came out of their houses. All looked about them with smiles and wonder. The city was now bursting with the beauty of flowers and the songs of birds in the young trees. “It is time to go now,” the Spirit thought. The Wee One nodded her head. *poof* In a twinkle the two friends were back on the shore of the Sparkling Lake. The Spirit returned to the golden box beneath the magic rock. The Wee One sighed to see the Spirit go, but she knew the Spirit would always be present for those in need of her. In a whisper the Wee One said, “thank you for helping me... Hope.”  To see another story about The Wee One CLICK HERE. Copyright © Idris O'Neill | | ||
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An Ordinary Mother | ||
By Phil Shapiro | ||
| * | Katrina Katrinka was like any other ordinary mother with two kids, a station wagon, and a 60 foot tall crane in her back yard. The crane just showed up one morning. A construction company was building an apartment building down the street. One day the company went bankrupt, and left their crane in Mrs. Katrinka's back yard. They just went bankrupt, and left her with a 60 foot tall crane in her back yard. Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to do at first. But then she had an idea. She called the sanitation department in her town to come around and pick up the 60 foot tall crane. If you have an old couch, an old table, an old refrigerator, or an old washing machine, you can call the sanitation department, and they'll come around and pick it up. You can guess what the sanitation department had to say about Mrs. Katrinka's crane. "Sorry, ma'am. We don't pick up 60 foot tall cranes. Old couches, old tables, old refrigerators, and old washing machines are fine. Large, 60 foot tall cranes are not fine." Mrs. Katrinka was not the type of ordinary mother who lets a 60 foot tall crane sit around in her back yard. No, sirree. Not that type of ordinary mother at all. So she bought a large wrench, and climbed up the tall 60 foot crane. She carefully climbed out onto the horizontal part of the crane, and unbolted one of the end sections. She happily climbed down and carried the steel section into her basement. Her neighbors peered over the fence, wondering what on earth could this ordinary mother be doing with a steel section of crane in her basement. What the neighbors didn't know was that Mrs. Katrinka also bought an excellent power saw. This saw could cut through the toughest, hardest steel. Day after day, Mrs. Katrinka would take one more section from the crane, carrying it carefully down into her basement. And night after night, she cut those sections up into little bits. These little bits of steel were easy enough to hide in her regular trash. Some of the bits she stuffed in empty cans of tuna fish. Other bits she stuffed in the middle of over-ripe watermelons. And other bits she hid inside old smelly socks. But it's hard to hide a full 60 foot crane in your day to day trash. You could hide a 20 foot crane, or a 30 foot crane. But a 60 foot crane is just too big to easily hide in the trash. So Mrs. Katrinka started painting the sections of crane she took down each day. She painted them, and then welded them into interesting sorts of sculptures. When her basement became too full of sculptures, she set the sculptures out in her back yard. It didn't take long for people to flock from all over the neighborhood to see Mrs. Katrinka's sculptures. One day, one of her neighbors walked right up her front steps and asked if she might buy one of the sculptures. Well, Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to say. She didn't make the sculptures to sell. She made the sculptures because it's hard to hide all the bits of a 60 foot crane in your trash. On the very day that she took down the last section of the crane, the man who used to own the construction company came back to pick up his crane. "Sorry, sir," Mrs. Katrinka said. "The crane you left in my back yard is no longer here anymore. It's hiding in empty cans of tuna fish, over-ripe watermelons, and old smelly socks. If you want to put it back together, you'll have to go looking through lots of empty tuna fish cans, over-ripe watermelons, and old socks." "Well, ma'am," said the construction company man. "I really shouldn't have left that 60 foot crane in your back yard. It wasn't the right thing to do, and I'd like to apologize to you." Mrs. Katrinka looked the man up and down. He looked as if he was genuinely sorry for what he had done. "Oh, all right," Mrs. Katrinka said. "If you'd like to take home some of the 60 foot crane you left in my back yard, it's sitting right over there in those six sculptures." "Six sculptures?" said the man, in wonder. "Yes, six sculptures," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "Mrs. Olney down the street bought the seventh sculpture last week for $200." "Well, the least I can do is buy the other six sculptures, at the same price," the man whispered gently. "No. I'm sorry. That won't do," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "I can't sell all six of those sculptures. They mean too much to me now." "But I tell you what. If you want to buy five of them, I won't complain too loudly about that. You can't expect me to give up all my wonderful sculptures to some stranger who left a 60 foot crane in my back yard." "Yes, ma'am. It's too much to expect an ordinary mother to give up all six sculptures she made from a 60 foot tall crane that a total stranger left in her back yard." As Mrs. Katrinka took the man's money, she laughed, "Besides, I need to keep at least one sculpture to show my grandchildren. They'll never believe this story if I didn't have at least one of the sculptures left to show them..." Phil Shapiro Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved | * |
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Driving on Ice | ||
By Phil Shapiro | ||
| In many northern states the winters are so cold that the lakes freeze right over. In Minnesota, Michigan, and Maine, the ice in these lakes can freeze two to three feet deep. When the ice is that thick it becomes possible to actually drive a car or truck across the ice. While driving on ice sounds like something that people would do just for fun, a lot of people drive across frozen lakes for very practical reasons. For example, there are people who live year-round on islands within these northern lakes. In the middle of winter the only practical way of traveling to the mainland is by driving across the frozen lakes. Actually, when the lake is frozen two to three feet deep, this is a perfect opportunity for people living on islands to transport large objects onto or off the islands. Say, for instance, you owned a cabin on a small island in the middle of a lake in Michigan. Suppose you decided that you wanted to build an extra room onto the cabin. Transporting all the building materials onto the island using a boat would take a lot of work and expense. But if you waited until winter, you could easily drive all the building materials across the lake. How can you tell if a lake is frozen solid enough to drive on? The surest way to know is to wait until several other cars and trucks have safely driven across the ice. Even then, you should always be extra careful when driving across a frozen lake. It's possible that one section of the lake has currents that prevent the lake from freezing solid. Or there might be a river or stream that brings slightly warmer water into one part of the lake. So even though most of the lake was frozen solid, one section of the lake could have thin ice. Usually it takes at least two to three weeks of very cold weather before deep ice is formed on a lake. Here in the northern United States, deep ice doesn't form until mid-January, at the earliest. (In northern Canada and Alaska lakes sometimes freeze solid as early as November or December.) Do the tires of cars slip when they drive across ice? Yes, sometimes they do. But almost every car and truck that drives on ice has snow tires, which creates extra friction between the tires and the ice. Some people also choose to put chains on their tires, which gives the tires an even stronger grip against the ice. After a few cars have driven across a particular path on a lake the ice actually becomes a sort of road. If you walked up to such a road and did not know that the road was traveling over a lake, you might never suspect that the cars and trucks are actually driving across solid ice. Copyright © 2000 Phil Shapiro | |
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When The Clock Got Sick | ||
By Phil Shapiro | ||
| Once upon a time, in a land not too far from where you live, there was a bank whose outside clock was the talk of the town. Clocks usually don't cause people to talk about them, unless they're not working right. This clock wasn't working right at all. The clock was a digital clock, meaning that it was the kind of clock with large neon red numbers that glowed both day and night. You could read the clock from an entire block away. The clock sat prominently a few yards above the main doors to a respected bank, right on the corner of a major intersection in town. In some ways, the clock represented the very center of town. One day, a few months ago, the time on the clock started slipping backwards a few minutes. At first this didn't cause any alarm. After all, if you are two minutes late, or two minutes early to an appointment, is there any harm done? But then the clock's health got even worse. Not only did the clock slip back more than a few minutes, sometimes it would actually jump forward an hour or two, and then jump back to being a few minutes late. It was clear to everyone in town that this was a sick clock. What do you do with a sick clock, though? Take it the clockerenarian? Take it a clockpital? Visit a clocktor? You're right. Healing a sick clock is not an easy thing to do. First you need to find what's wrong with the clock, and then you need to find a place that sells the particular part that needs replacing. The bank, being a respected bank, was eager to get the clock fixed and working again. The bank became even more eager after last month's birthday party. You see, a young child on the way to a birthday party burst into tears when he looked up at the clock and realized that he was going to be late. On that day, the clock was running about two hours fast, and the child was in perfect time for the party. The child just thought he was late, because who would ever doubt the time on a public clock? And then there was the whole wedding fiasco last week. A groom, on the way to his wedding ceremony, noticed that he was two hours early, so he stopped off at the cybercafe to do some web surfing. When he showed up to the ceremony two hours late, the bride and everyone else were not overjoyed to see him. The straw that broke the camel's back, though, was last week when an army major was traveling through town. Being an army major, he would regularly adjust his wristwatch to make sure it was perfectly on time. When he saw the clock above the bank, he immediately reset his watch three hours ahead of time. And the next morning he woke his troops at 3 AM to do their regular 6 AM ten-mile morning run. The troops were not amused. And so they stopped by to pay a friendly visit to the bank manager. "Please, please, please repair the clock above the door of your bank," they spoke in military unison. "Each one of us would like to chip in $20 to repair the clock," they added. The bank manager, a kindly young woman, promised that she would do whatever she could to find a part to repair the clock. She would even take the clock to a clockerenarian, if need be. And she had not ruled out the possibility of driving the clock straight to the clockpital, herself. Her own doctor had recommended some skilled clocktors that she could use when she received the replacement part. Until the clock was repaired, though, she decided to switch off its electricity. For three weeks the lights on the clock were entirely dark. And then one day a UPS truck drove up the bank with a very small package. Inside that very small package was a very small part that made the clock healthy again. The town sighed a huge sigh of relief when the clock was switched on again. And then everyone reset their watches and went on their merry way. Copyright © 2000 Phil Shapiro | |
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The Great Ping Pong Ball Experiment | ||
By Phil Shapiro | ||
| * | The Nile river is the longest river in the world. It starts out in Lake Victoria, in the middle of Africa, and flows nearly four thousand (4,000) miles north to the Mediterranean Sea. Lake Victoria, where the Nile starts, is the second largest fresh-water lake in the world. The only lake that is larger is Lake Superior, in between Canada and the United States. Now nobody knows for sure who first suggested the great ping pong ball experiment. It might have been dreamed up by some absent-minded, daydreaming inventor. Or, it could have been thought up by some great scientist. Or, it might have been thought up by a little kindergartener in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But the important thing is that somebody thought of it. And before long, people all over the world were talking about it. The newspapers printed stories about it. Television stations did special feature stories on it. And, everyone, just everyone, expected that the great ping pong ball experiment would happen right on time. What exactly was the great ping pong ball experiment anyway? How was the experiment to be performed, and what was it supposed to show? The great ping pong ball experiment took place to show just one thing. The purpose of the experiment was to show that a small, frail ping pong ball could travel four thousand miles down the longest river in the world. The experiment would end when the ping pong ball reached the capital city of Egypt, Cairo. At that time, a kindergarten student from one of the schools in Cairo would reach down into the Nile, and pick up the ping pong ball that had been thrown into the river way back at Lake Victoria. Two months. That's how long the ping pong ball would have to travel from Lake Victoria to Cairo. To add some zest and excitement to the experiment, the ping pong ball was to be thown into the top of the Nile River on November 1, 1999. The entire world would then watch to see if the ball could travel the length of the Nile before midnight, December 31, 1999. But the journey would be a dangerous one for a small, frail ping pong ball to travel. The ball would have to survive at least nine large waterfalls. It would have to survive being thrown against rocks and boulders. It would have to survive getting stuck in the papyrus reeds by the side of the river. And most importantly, it would have to survive getting swallowed by any hungry fish along the way. People would follow it all along its long journey. Scientists would follow it by driving along roads that travelled parallel to the Nile river. They would keep careful track of how far the ball had travelled each day. Sometimes they would even circle over the ping pong ball in a helicopter, making sure that the ball was safely travelling downstream. Once a week people all over the globe would turn on their televisions to see how far the ping pong ball had travelled in the past week. The television studios would have a large map of Africa on the wall, with an arrow pointing to where the ping ball was on that particular day. It would be an elegantly simple experiment for the people of planet Earth to perform. For two months, the attention of the world would be focussed on what was happening to a ping pong ball travelling down the Nile river. The outcome of the great ping pong ball experiment would not change the lives of many persons living on this planet. But perhaps, just perhaps, the experiment itself would help people realize that in some ways the planet Earth is just a small, frail ping pong ball traveling through space. Phil Shapiro Copyright 2000 All Rights Reserved | * |
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