"Rocking Horse Lake" (Image & Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)
“There are places that do not wish to be understood—only remembered.”
In the deep heart of January, when even time seemed to slow its breathing, the woods beyond Lone Pine closed in upon themselves. Snow lay thick and unbroken, swallowing sound, muting the world to a hushed, listening stillness. It was the kind of quiet that did not comfort—it waited.
Liam left the village just after dawn, drawn by a restlessness he could not name. He followed no marked trail, only a narrow deer run slipping away between the pines, half-hidden beneath drifting snow. The farther he walked, the more the forest changed. The trees grew taller, older. Their trunks groaned softly as the wind moved through them, a low, mournful sigh like breath through hollow bones.
The snow beneath his boots creaked sharply, the only sound that reminded him he still existed. Now and then came the distant caw of a crow—lonely, accusing—then nothing again but the whispering of pine needles and the deep, subterranean groan of ice shifting somewhere unseen.
After what felt like hours, the trees abruptly thinned.
The lake revealed itself without warning.
It lay hidden in a bowl of forest, untouched, unnamed, unknown to most. Its frozen surface stretched wide and pale beneath a leaden sky, smooth as glass, unmarred by tracks or cracks. The silence here was different—denser. It pressed against Liam’s chest, as though the lake itself were holding its breath.
Then he saw it.
At the exact center of the ice, locked beneath a flawless sheet of frozen clarity, stood a wooden rocking horse.
It was old--very old. Its paint had faded to ghostly hints of red and blue. One ear was chipped, one rocker splintered. It stood upright, perfectly balanced, as though placed with intention. Not sunk. Not broken through. Simply… there.
No footprints led to it. None away.
Liam’s pulse thundered in his ears. Cold crept into his bones—not from the air, but from recognition. He had heard something once. A fragment of a story told in a low voice years ago at the edge of a winter fire. A story most people laughed off.
They said there was a lake beyond Lone Pine, deeper in the woods than Stillwater Gleam. A lake that appeared only when it wished to be found. And they said that sometimes--not often—it showed a child’s toy beneath the ice.
The rocking horse.
Those who saw it were never the same.
It was said the horse did not belong to a child—it belonged to time itself. That it appeared before great crossings: death, birth, loss, transformation. Some claimed it marked those who were paying attention. Others said it marked those who could no longer turn away.
Liam took a step closer.
The ice groaned in response.
A sound like a distant music box drifted through the trees—thin, sweet, wrong. Mist began to rise along the far shore, coiling into shapes that almost resembled figures standing shoulder to shoulder, watching. Waiting.
Understanding struck him then, sharp and undeniable.
The lake was not asking him to solve its mystery.
It was acknowledging him.
Liam backed away slowly, never turning his back on the ice. The silence followed him as he fled, clinging like frost to his thoughts. Long after the trees closed behind him, he could still see it—the rocking horse suspended in frozen time.
And he knew, with quiet certainty, that the lake would remember him.
* * * * * * * * * *
Snow and sleet fill today’s forecast, and a winter storm watch hangs over the day like a careful warning. The world may turn slick and uncertain before evening.
I stir from that ghostly reverie.
My CJ coffee mug rests close at hand, full of warmth and promise. Corelli’s Concerto Grosso No. 10 drifts through the wee cottage, its gentle sweetness threading the early darkness with grace. Here, the lamps glow softly. The windows hold back the cold. The wee cottage becomes a cocoon—safe, luminous, breathing peace.
I take a sip.
This morning, a line from Dr. Wayne Dyer settles into my thoughts and stays there:
“A life of abundance does not mean a life of accumulating but instead developing a spiritual sense of awe at the limitlessness of it all.”
What a gift, to feel that awe—whether standing on the edge of a frozen lake listening to the ice speak, or wrapped in warmth with coffee and music. Both belong to the same vastness. Both are doorways.
And so, I begin this day--
grateful, attentive,
and listening.
~Wylddane
In the deep heart of January, when even time seemed to slow its breathing, the woods beyond Lone Pine closed in upon themselves. Snow lay thick and unbroken, swallowing sound, muting the world to a hushed, listening stillness. It was the kind of quiet that did not comfort—it waited.
Liam left the village just after dawn, drawn by a restlessness he could not name. He followed no marked trail, only a narrow deer run slipping away between the pines, half-hidden beneath drifting snow. The farther he walked, the more the forest changed. The trees grew taller, older. Their trunks groaned softly as the wind moved through them, a low, mournful sigh like breath through hollow bones.
The snow beneath his boots creaked sharply, the only sound that reminded him he still existed. Now and then came the distant caw of a crow—lonely, accusing—then nothing again but the whispering of pine needles and the deep, subterranean groan of ice shifting somewhere unseen.
After what felt like hours, the trees abruptly thinned.
The lake revealed itself without warning.
It lay hidden in a bowl of forest, untouched, unnamed, unknown to most. Its frozen surface stretched wide and pale beneath a leaden sky, smooth as glass, unmarred by tracks or cracks. The silence here was different—denser. It pressed against Liam’s chest, as though the lake itself were holding its breath.
Then he saw it.
At the exact center of the ice, locked beneath a flawless sheet of frozen clarity, stood a wooden rocking horse.
It was old--very old. Its paint had faded to ghostly hints of red and blue. One ear was chipped, one rocker splintered. It stood upright, perfectly balanced, as though placed with intention. Not sunk. Not broken through. Simply… there.
No footprints led to it. None away.
Liam’s pulse thundered in his ears. Cold crept into his bones—not from the air, but from recognition. He had heard something once. A fragment of a story told in a low voice years ago at the edge of a winter fire. A story most people laughed off.
They said there was a lake beyond Lone Pine, deeper in the woods than Stillwater Gleam. A lake that appeared only when it wished to be found. And they said that sometimes--not often—it showed a child’s toy beneath the ice.
The rocking horse.
Those who saw it were never the same.
It was said the horse did not belong to a child—it belonged to time itself. That it appeared before great crossings: death, birth, loss, transformation. Some claimed it marked those who were paying attention. Others said it marked those who could no longer turn away.
Liam took a step closer.
The ice groaned in response.
A sound like a distant music box drifted through the trees—thin, sweet, wrong. Mist began to rise along the far shore, coiling into shapes that almost resembled figures standing shoulder to shoulder, watching. Waiting.
Understanding struck him then, sharp and undeniable.
The lake was not asking him to solve its mystery.
It was acknowledging him.
Liam backed away slowly, never turning his back on the ice. The silence followed him as he fled, clinging like frost to his thoughts. Long after the trees closed behind him, he could still see it—the rocking horse suspended in frozen time.
And he knew, with quiet certainty, that the lake would remember him.
* * * * * * * * * *
Snow and sleet fill today’s forecast, and a winter storm watch hangs over the day like a careful warning. The world may turn slick and uncertain before evening.
I stir from that ghostly reverie.
My CJ coffee mug rests close at hand, full of warmth and promise. Corelli’s Concerto Grosso No. 10 drifts through the wee cottage, its gentle sweetness threading the early darkness with grace. Here, the lamps glow softly. The windows hold back the cold. The wee cottage becomes a cocoon—safe, luminous, breathing peace.
I take a sip.
This morning, a line from Dr. Wayne Dyer settles into my thoughts and stays there:
“A life of abundance does not mean a life of accumulating but instead developing a spiritual sense of awe at the limitlessness of it all.”
What a gift, to feel that awe—whether standing on the edge of a frozen lake listening to the ice speak, or wrapped in warmth with coffee and music. Both belong to the same vastness. Both are doorways.
And so, I begin this day--
grateful, attentive,
and listening.
~Wylddane
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