Becoming Elves

When the winter rains invite me out, I go work on a wonderful, open series of fields and hills. Technically, I’m trespassing but it has an absentee landowner so I’ve never felt bad about it. Instead, I’m reminded of the fairy tale, “The Shoemaker and the Elves.” Each morning the shoemaker awoke to find that the elves had created beautiful shoes during the night, which he was able to sell that day and buy more materials. I feel like an elf out there, dancing around in each rainstorm when the shoemaker is “asleep”, doing the work of making his land a bit more prosperous.

But then, instead of the landowner being the shoemaker, maybe the earth is the shoemaker and we humans can be the elves, cavorting about, rearranging the rocks and leaves and rills so that more energy accumulates upon the earth and it grows more green and full of life.

That thought made me remember how envious my daughter, Dawn, was of the elves in Lord of the Rings. The elves get to be immortal. They have long sight. They cross rivers by prancing across a single rope stretched across. They shoot bows really well. They ride horses bareback by being able to talk with them. They get to teach the trees how to speak. They just get to do all the really cool things.

We can be the elves. We can do all the really cool things—we can make the earth more green, teach the rocks to lie in patterns that change the conversation of water, teach the rain to fall more often, teach the soil to grow deeper.