Olli & Annu

Monoflora: Part One

We walk together in the sheltering forest, familiar and luminous like a loved home. Moving along at a comfortable pace, there’s no particular plan. No rush at all. Just walking. Sometimes we find a small surprise like these delicate pink mushrooms. Anders patiently waits, while I stop to record them in my notebook.

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From Greta Anderson’s Forest Codex,

Vaasa, Finland, 1891

Dear One,

I first wrote to you about my Great-great Grandmother, Greta Anderson, last year in a piece called You Are Not Lost. And I have continued to think about her while hiking in the forest throughout the microseasons of this year.

Greta’s story has been lost to time. Census records show that she came to America from Vaasa, Finland in 1892, with her husband, Anders, who likely worked dangerous jobs and died quite young. I’ve been told, in vague anecdotes by relatives, that Greta’s sorrow drove her into a deep depression from which she never recovered. She died impoverished and alone in The Minnesota State Hospital for the Insane in 1928.

I find this heartbreaking, and I desire something better for her. I want to visit her and hold her hand. I want to offer her something loving and hopeful. So I began writing her a fairytale, as a way to connect across a century of silence. It is both fiction and devotion.

In making this for Greta, I believe that love really does continue to transform us in ways we cannot begin to understand.

I hope you enjoy Monoflora. It will be published here, in one small part per week.

Part One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten

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Part One:

Remember this, kultaseni,

a tale told in darkened hours when shadows moved with purpose of their own, when winter wind carved its runes into the bark.

In deep forests, where ancient trees held up the Nordic skies, there lived a woodsman named Olli—strong of arm and gentle heart—who walked among the pines with reverence that few have ever shown.

His axe would sing its silver song each day, but never would he cut a tree without consent from every trunk, and branch, and sacred grove. For trees have memories written in their rings.

Take only what you need;

the forest keeps a ledger.

Take only what you need to keep you warm.

—Finnish proverb

Olli married his love, Annu, in the spring when Trout Lilies bowed their golden heads and Bloodroot bloomed like tiny lanterns shining from the forest floor.

The wind arose around the stone altar where they stood. As thunder rolled beyond the distant hill, they spoke their vows beneath the darkening sky.

Their cabin stood where cultivated earth met wild—a place where she could tend her herbs and he could whistle along with birdsong in the resin-scented air. Warm days passed this way in synchrony, before the forest spirit came to test the measure of their tender mortal hearts.

What trials came to pass?

What price was paid for love that runs so deep?

These secrets lie within the telling, still. Passed down like rings that bear the weight of years, and hold the names of those who wore them once. Now you, who lean in close may hear the forest wailing, may hear a voice that sings a haunting tune.

Lyrics, half-known, that grow from seeds of long ago.

The forest writes, and ancient oaks recall.

Monoflora, rakkaani. One flower.

To be continued . . .

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From the Finnish:

kultaseni : my darling, or my sweetheart: Kultanen means "gold" in Finnish, and it's often used metaphorically to refer to something precious or valuable, like a loved one.

rakkaani : my love : Rakkaani is the genitive singular form of "rakas" in Finnish, meaning "beloved" or "dear". It's used to indicate possession of something that is cherished or loved.

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Photo 1: Pink mushrooms at Cedar Falls Park, Chapel Hill, NC

Photo 2: Bloodroot at Johnston Mill Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC

Photo 3: Forest Labyrinth at St. Francis Springs Prayer Center, Stoneville, NC

Photo 4: The little cabin where I spend my silent retreats, Stoneville, NC

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