The Lizard in the Fire Chapter 03 The Wildman version.
The Lizard in the Fire Chapter 03 A time of instruction. The wildman version.
One in a time before time was strapped to the wrist of all people. There was a village, not unlike this one. In this village, there was a hunter who had a son. The son came to the age of instruction, so the father took him into the forest and began to teach him the ways of the forest.
This took as long as it took, for easily a tale is spun but with less speed, a deed is done. It came time for the son to live in the forest on his own depending on his skills alone. As the father prepared to leave his son and return to the village he said “If you see the Wildman stay away from him. Because going with him means you will die” Then the father left.
The son lived for many days, no one knows how long. Depending on his own skill and resources until one day he found the sign of a strange animal. It was one his father had never taught him. He tracked it to a watering hole and found her a Wildman. He crouched at the water’s edge with long tangled hair all over his body. The Wildman saw the boy and said, “Run with me boy” “We can run all day you and I”. The boy replied, “you are the wild man my father spoke of, saying that if I run with you, I will die”. Well, that could be so” said the Wildman “It’s your decision” The boy decided to run with the Wildman and so they did. But it wasn’t long before the boy died.
To start at the beginning with the statement there was a hunter who had a son. The son came to the age of instruction, so the father took him into the forest and began to teach him the ways of the forest.
Remember that whoever is mentioned first in a story refers to the psychodynamic of the story, the Father-son relationship, the son’s rite of passage, and his testing in his return to the Village. remembering that the hero has to bring back and show the village what he has learnt in his descent, the night-sea-journey.
To be a Hunter is to be searching for something, in the way that readers of this story are searching for something, not necessarily game to eat but a substance to fill another hunger. This father knew the way of the forest. This forest is more than a forest of trees, this forest stands outside of time and lives eternally within us. This is the place where the hunter in the Firebird story rode through searching for his adventure, his own heroic journey to Kingship.
This forest is a metaphor of the “Great self” all that we have been outside of time. While our Ego’s memory and experience is limited to this lifetime the Great self is not, rather it is eternal. the story tells us this in the very first line. One in a time before time was strapped to the wrist of all people.
The son came to the age of instruction, so the father took him into the forest and began to teach him the ways of the forest.
How fortunate to be this boy. To have a father that can take you to the forest “The enormous forest” of the Iron John story. The place where the split-off parts of our psyche go and live when we amputate parts of ourselves to be accepted into the world of Ego and the status quo.
The son came to the age of instruction, that is the time of fourteen years, the time when we climb to the top of the garden wall to see that there is a whole world out there for us to explore. This is the time of the pedagogues where the young boy were taken out of the women’s compound to the various temples for further instruction in ancient Greece. This is the time when the biological alarm goes off, that it is time to separate from the mother’s realm and move toward the father’s realm. In fact, it is the time that fathers need to step in between the boy and his mother and take the boy to the enormous forest as happened in this story.
This took as long as it took, for easily a tale is spun but with less speed, a deed is done. It came time for the son to live in the forest on his own depending on his skills alone. As the father prepared to leave his son and return to the village he said “If you see the Wildman stay away from him. Because going with him means you will die” Then the father left.
There is much to learn about this timeless forest. Whole religions have been devoted to this task, grand libraries faithfully recorded historical accounts of that forest. However, none of this was yours or my forest. The forest is as personal as the individual observing it. It is something that has to be experienced rather than read about. We can say no more about that except for the Wildman.
The Wildman and the forest are one and the same, the Wildman the mortal lover of the Great Mother. She is always looking for a younger consort to continue creation with. The Wildman as King of the forest knows that Kingship is always sacral and he must give way to the younger king as his predecessor did before him. But we get ahead of the story.
Next Chapter 04 The boy runs with the wild man and dies.