The 12 Days of Christmas Blog-hop – Spirit

  Days grew shorter and the promise of winter hung in the air in the mornings.  The little village, its inhabitants and the creatures around it, started to prepare for the cold times.

One clear, moonlit night, the Spirit of Love drifted around the little village. First, in the form of a huge stag, it bounded down the hillside and blessed all the creatures with the shadow of its antlers.  They passed over the otter family, snug in their new holt. Frog turned restlessly in his sleep as the silver hooves paced over his nest. Hawk felt the blessing as a gentle breeze that ruffled her feathers as she roosted with her head under her wing. Every animal on whom the shadow fell, knew a peace and contentment in their heart that would still be there in the morning. They would awake to find themselves fitter and stronger to face the coming winter, the blessing like an energy in their souls.

The Spirit of Love peeped into the window of Granny Wytcher’s bedroom and blessed her in the form of a moon beam that caressed her lined face under a formidable row of hair-curlers. It blessed her for instinctively knowing what to do and having the courage to follow that instinct. The old lady dreamed of her younger days in the sun and smiled in her slumbers.

Farmcat and vixen, prowling the countryside, stopped to look up at the moon and felt the Spirit reflected in their eyes. Even Tiny, sleeping with his head outside of his kennel, twitched his nose as the moonbeams stroked it and dreamed of bones and biscuits.

The Spirit of Love sprinkled a blessing of sparkling silver over the whole village and flew away, knowing that they would call it frost and would not know that they had all summoned the Spirit there by their loving kindness to each other. No matter. Invisible blessings still count.  Granny Wytcher knew that.