A Druid could totally take a Ninja… plus, I summoned Merlyn.
By: Jay Horne
Tags: Halloween, Druidism, Merlin, Graveyard, Samhain

Last night, I was a mile deep in the dark woods and totally unarmed. Even a has-been ninja is going to eventually get a little tingle in his Medulla Oblongata that far into the wild.

I had started repeatedly telling myself that I should have at least brought my katana (I’ve always kept one in my trunk) in case a panther thought me an easy meal. As it were, I was pretty vulnerable… though I did eventually convince myself that if the need arose I could act pretty threatening with this bag of pumpkins.

It doesn’t matter how old you get, you still remind yourself of the same old lessons. The one on top of the list of most recited that night was, Fear is the mind killer.

While I made my way through the uncharted forest, I had to remind myself many times that there is no fear where there is no imagination.

Copyright 2020 Bookflurry Inc.

I passed beneath uncountable spider webs, Banana spiders and Orb weavers the size of baseballs. In the light of my headlamp, I always saw them coming, always that is, until I started worrying about them.

As soon as my mind wandered to that place of fear, my imagination would override my awareness and I ended up with web in my face.

The imagination can make you blind.

If you let your mind get you into a spider’s web, you better get a hold of your senses quick.

Accidentally swat at a hand-sized spider and you’re liable to get bitten.

When I was a kid I use to pluck spiders right from their web and watch them run across my hand and descend to the ground on a piece of silk. Nowadays, my four-year-old son does something similar, smiling all the while. Of course, it scares the teens to tears.

I had an experience that brought me back to those days when the trail disappeared into an uncertain stretch of rolling sand.

A mile deep into the forest, it was an unnatural sight. At first, I assumed some machine must have been through there and turned over all of the soil, but there was no indication of how it would have gotten into or out of the large clearing.

As I crossed the pale dirt, I realized that tiny green emeralds peppered the whole area.

At least, out there in the open, I wouldn’t have to keep my head up, worrying about catching a spider’s web in the face.

Emerald Eyes | Copyright 2020 Bookflurry Inc.

I moved forward more freely and scanned the surface of the sand with my head lamp. Sure enough, more and more tiny green diamonds appeared. There were hundreds of them!

I reached down and scooped a handful of dirt into my palm, it had a particularly concentrated number of jewels, and lifted them for closer examination.

To my brief horror, I realized that I was holding a handful of nickel sized wolf spiders. They were running in all directions to escape my grasp.

I sucked in a sharp breath and wrestled to control my emotions. Looking back, I’m thankful my face wasn’t an inch closer or I might have inhaled one of the eight-legged-freaks.

To be fair, they’re not really the little freaks people make them out to be. I was the only one freaking out.

When I realized that the green shimmers were just the reflective eye-shine of the little creatures, I leaned down and released the more cooperative ones back onto the ground. Then I saw that covering my boots and the entire forest floor was a sea of life. Nocturnal ground spiders out to hunt under the cover of dark.

I can only assume J.K. Rowling must have once had a similar experience, because I felt like I was in a real life version of Harry Potter’s forbidden forest. There was literally no escaping the reality. There were arachnids in the trees, and arachnids on the ground. The only safety was in soundness of mind.

Perhaps that’s the only safety there ever is?

What do you do at a time like that? Well, the only logical thing you can.

I turned off my head lamp.

Problem solved. Out of sight, out of mind.

Then I kept heading north, saying a little prayer to the Oaks I had awakened along the path.

My hope was that I wasn’t injuring any of the little guys as I walked softly over their terrain. I wouldn’t want their combined wrath!