Mr. Potty’s Last Goodbye - A Winter Solstice Tale

By Jane Osborne

 Once upon a time, in a far off magical land where the shillabong trees grow and the birds and the bees fly upside down, Mr. and Mrs. Potty lived in a cave beside a very special doodelee varty tree.

 Now a doodelee varty tree is a mysterious thing. It looks like a blueberry bush or even a sloe tree but each translucent little berry of the deepest blue hangs and twirls by a slender, silver thread and is in fact, a cocoon.

“Oh” I hear you say, “What is a cocoon?”

“Well” I reply “a cocoon is a little house, usually the size of a pea, white and fluffy.  Sometimes they are found in the winter, hiding in the corner of a window frame. Or in the summer you may find them in a warm, dry place. By then they may be empty because their occupants have left and flown away.

But the cocoons of the doodelee varty tree are unique because they are where the parsnip fairies come from.”

“And what on earth is a parsnip fairy?” I hear you cry and I will tell you that a parsnip fairy is also a very beautiful and fragile thing.

 By the end of every autumn, ordinary doodelee varty berries have fallen everywhere onto the dry, dusty earth. In the shimmering heat of summer, hanging on the trees, they have become hard and nutlike. And when the silver thread that holds them as they twirl and whirl snaps, they fall to the ground. Sometimes so hard that they break in two and lie open. Then, as winter approaches and the air cools, the upside down birds, who have been watching from their vantage point in the shillabong trees, will swoop down. They pick out the glittering purple crystal seeds from the little pods on the ground with such attention and gentleness. Then winging their way to the valley where Mr. and Mrs. Potty live and like jets careering across the sky, they drop them one by one into a big glass case situated by the mouth of the cave.

 After all the crystal seeds have been gathered Mrs. Potty pulls the lid across the big glass case. When Mr. Potty sees the crystal seeds are starting to expand and glisten with moisture, Mrs. Potty lifts them out of their glass case. Mr. Potty places his ladder against the trunk of their very special doodelee varty tree and climbs to the first branches with his precious cargo. He sprinkles the seeds in all the nooks and crannies of the biggest branches, as high as he can reach and leaves the tree to work its magic over night.

The next morning there are always thousands of little blue berries twirling on silver threads hanging from each branch.

Mr. Potty waters the doodelee varty tree every day and the upside down birds that live in the shillabong trees keep watch to make sure that no predators come to steal the special berries.

After a few weeks something even stranger starts to happen. The berries start to spin, faster and faster. And because they are spinning so quickly they seem to change shape, to become wider at the top and narrow and pointed at the bottom, just like a parsnip. And because they are spinning so fast they change colour. They are no longer a translucent blue but take on a glorious golden sheen, a creamy hue, just like a parsnip. Then the whole tree begins to vibrate and hum as if a colony of bees had settled in its branches. But it is the sound of spinning doodelee varty berries.

 Remember these are cocoons. These are houses, somebody’s home. Something or somebody is growing up in here.

 And sure enough, the air is suddenly filled with the sound of crackling, like fireworks or popcorn when it gets hot and starts to jump in the pan.

The sky is filled with the sound of exploding doodelee varty berries and what is this? Are they like eggs? Something is trying to get out. What is it?

As the berries crack open and the spinning slows can you see a little flash of gossamer wing, a tiny foot, a dainty hand? Out of the spinning, whirling mass fly hundred and hundreds of sparkling baby parsnip fairies, boys and girls.

 And now, even more peculiar, thousands of grown up parsnip fairies are attracted by the sound of berries breaking. They fly round the tree, sniffing the perfumed air, searching for their offspring.  For it is by using their sense of smell that each parent recognises their own child.

 Then Mr. and Mrs. Potty sit at the mouth of the cave, underneath the spreading branches of the doodelee varty tree. Their job is almost done.

 One by one, each adult parsnip fairy, holding a newly born with each hand will hover in front of the guardians of the doodelee varty tree to say their goodbyes. Mr. and Mrs. Potty sit with tears of joy and sadness in their eyes. For they have known some of these parents when they themselves were but fledgling parsnip fairies with damp gossamer wings, just born out of a doodelee varty berry.

 They sit and wave goodbye as cloud after cloud of parsnip fairies swoop and dive, then fly up into the bright sunlight and away into the clear blue sky and are gone.

 And so it is, on this Winter Solstice night, like Mr. and Mrs. Potty, that we must let go of things past and present, embrace the birth of the new and make space for that which we can sense but as yet cannot quite see.

 Love and blessings to you all, a very Happy Christmas and very best wishes for a special New Year for all of us.

 Jane Osborne 2010