Yumi and the turtle
By L'Animatelier Nomade

Once upon a time...

Yumi, a very curious 5-year-old, was very bored at school, so he spent his days traveling wherever he wanted in the company of all sorts of fascinating creatures.
He was happy to travel between worlds - it was a perfectly natural thing for him to do - but everyone said he was always over the moon, undisciplined, good for nothing. He often suffered from what others said, but deep down he knew that on his travels he was learning far more than the schoolmistress could teach him, he knew that he was accessing a wisdom far more beautiful than that which meant sitting quietly in his chair without disturbing, he knew that his traveling friends were just as precious and real as his family here and would always be there to help him.

A few more seasons passed when Yumi, when he wasn't at school and traveling the world, could live in the joy and wonder of swimming in the river. He loved to jump with his friends from the highest rock and spend time under the cool water looking for the rare, shiny pebble for his collection. He was also a great tree house builder, always finding the best branches and the most inviting trees to build them in. He also enjoyed telling his friends and family about his travels. They all said he had a vivid imagination. Yumi would say that he had lived what he told, but no one believed him.

Then Yumi began to doubt. Maybe it really and my imagination? Maybe all these places I've visited, all these creatures I've met, don't exist? By dint of asking himself these questions, by dint of doubting, the day came when it became impossible for him to travel the worlds. Little by little, the friends he'd met then became distant and hazy childhood memories.

The more the seasons passed and the emptier and sadder Yumi felt. He asked himself lots of questions and no one could answer him. He didn't understand why as he grew older everything seemed harder, even playing had become difficult. He didn't understand why people got sick, why man polluted the earth, why it was so important to learn a trade.

The world around him had become much greyer, the storms more frequent, the winters colder and summers too dry. Everyone was now surrounded by a gray halo.

Yumi felt powerless in the face of this, and was even revolted, finding the situation unjust and cruel! A ball of anger was constantly inside him.

One night, in a dream, Yumi met his old companions again, in which they reminded him that his role was to help re-enchant the world, but that before he could do so, he would have to travel on the back of a turtle.
When he awoke, Yumi's heart was at peace. The ball of anger had disappeared.

And when he opened his shutters that morning, he could see the extent of the damage, the result of several weeks of rain and high winds. Everything was flooded and he could see the landscape as a large lake rather than the village and the valley. He was lucky that his house was on a hill. Immediately, he rushed outside to help those in need, but a gigantic turtle appeared in front of him and told him it was time to leave. Yumi tried to explain that there were people to save. The turtle said authoritatively, "It's their choice to be trapped in the water, now climb onto my shell".

At that moment, Yumi remembered her dream and smiled.

The turtle was rather quiet and very secretive. It never answered Yumi's many questions, but he felt perfectly safe on its back.

First, the turtle swam for a long time. Yumi, lying on his back, looked up at the sky. The wind shaped the clouds in all sorts of ways, and he could even recognize some of his old companions waving and smiling at him. Then the turtle dived. The boy was now submerged in the waves. He was very frightened, drinking the cup over and over again, and several times he thought he was going to die. There were lots of eddies and currents, and he had to hold on tight to the turtle's blow... but after what seemed like an eternity, he realized he could breathe underwater, so he calmed down and the water became gentler. He recognized Naïa, a sublime creature he'd played with a lot as a child. With a smile, she tickled him with her long hair and swam happily alongside him.

The turtle emerged from the water, its feet now treading the ground. She was moving very slowly. Yumi, who was getting bored, asked her to move faster, but she replied that there was a time to contemplate.
There was dirt and more dirt as far as the eye could see. Yumi didn't understand what he could possibly be contemplating. As the days went by, he realized that not a single centimeter of earth was like any other, and he was able to contemplate absolutely superb shapes and plays of light and hue. One morning, as he was trying to forget the hunger in his stomach, he recognized one of his friends. It was a sort of huge dog-headed snake that Yumi, as a child, had nicknamed Wouaf. Wouaf amused himself for a while by throwing earth balls at Yumi and so began a great battle which ended at sunset when Wouaf disappeared into the ground.

Now the boy was covered head to toe in earth. He could fully smell its fragrance, its softness on his skin. He was no longer hungry at all. The earth nourished him.

As the landscape unfolded and the earth grew darker and darker, and it became hotter and hotter. A volcano seemed to be watching over the landscape, standing there peacefully, belching out a little smoke. The closer they got to the volcano, the more it roared. Yumi asked the tortoise if she was sure she wanted to go that way. She said nothing, but as she began to climb the slopes of the volcano, Yumi became very frightened - rivers of lava were flowing beside them. And it was while looking at one of these rivers that he saw him... Lubvi, yes, it was him, he'd met him once long ago. He felt reassured. Lubvi was like a long lava snake with a big head and Yumi had always thought that this creature was a real fire dragon. Lubvi surrounded Yumi. The turtle stopped beside the bubbling crater and without Yumi having time to say anything, the dragon wrapped itself around him and carried him into the crater's lava. The boy was fully confident, not afraid. He told himself that if he could breathe in water, he'd survive the fire.

He felt the fire consume him, transform him, turn him to ash and, in an explosion, he was expelled from the volcano and landed in the air on the back of the turtle, which was now flying. He felt deeply shaken but transformed. He felt as if he'd just been born, and everything seemed different, more beautiful, purer. He marveled at the caress of the air on his skin and hair, and found himself dancing on the turtle's back to the melody of the wind in the company of a few sylphs. He felt light and radiant, and now had all the possibilities before him.

The journey through the air was very pleasant and joyful, but the turtle decided to put an end to it by landing near a cave. She asked Yumi to come down and wait for her inside the cave. She said no more.

Yumi stayed in the belly of the earth. He was comfortable there. He now had the company of silence and the power to listen to it. It was his most precious companion. Several winters passed before the turtle returned to tell him to go on without her.

The young boy thanked the turtle and happily made his way to the bottom of the cave via an underground passage. He crawled for a long time under the earth before he felt and glimpsed a soft light that led him to the exit.

He could see before his eyes a green valley stretching between mountains that touched the sky. He walked between rice paddies, where the locals welcomed him with warmth and smiles and guided him to an extraordinary place.

There, Yumi felt her heart, stomach, feet and head light up and vibrate. He had never seen such wonders before.

There, before her eyes, were magnificent objects radiating a beautiful energy. Stones by the hundreds, these marvels of the earth with their pure colors and distinctive shapes. He met the eyes of fascinating statuettes that filled him with emotion. Above his head danced flags imbued with powerful prayers and here and there magical singing bowls and The sounds and vibrations emanating from these bowls seemed to represent the beauty of the Universe.

Every object radiated color, every object seemed to be inhabited, every object sang to the listener.

The whole was bathed in a purifying smoke of delicately chosen herbs.

He knew then that each of these objects was there to enchant the world. He knew that whoever chooses one with his heart will have the opportunity to have a precious help in order to Be in the joy of balance.

He then knew that from now on, he would bring these treasures to the people for whom they were intended, that he would be a kind of "smuggler" of magic.

Then he approached a bowl, took it in his vibrating hands and instinctively tapped on it with the mallet lying beside him. And then, to his amazement, he saw Emala, his childhood sweetheart with whom he had so often traveled the worlds, emerge from the bowl in such pure sound.

Aurora, winter 2018