How to be a better candle

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Once there was a teacher who lived

in a small town next a great river that ran through a lovely valley surrounded by rolling green hills. The teacher worked very hard, sometimes late into the night, but she loved teaching, and her students blossomed like bright flowers. Before long, she became renowned in her land. Parents were happy to learn that their daughters and sons would sit in her classroom, for they knew that she carried a flame within her and she passed the flame to all those who came to be in her presence.

One day, the principal of the school came to her and told her that she must take on an additional task. He wanted her to supervise a great group of students who would be assembled each day to sit together at tables arranged in rows in a great hall.

"The students should be studying," said the school's master. "You will not have to teach. You just need to keep them quiet and orderly."

The woman accepted the task, but inside, she felt cold. "I am a good teacher. I work hard. Why should I have to do this? This is beneath me," she said to herself.

And as the days went by, she learned that the task was much harder than she had been led to understand. The students often had no work to do, and they found many ways to disrupt the work of the others. Still, she persevered, and for the most part, she managed the task capably, though she thought it a waste of her time and her ability.

One day, though, she was summoned before the school's master.

"We have a problem," said the master. "It has come to my attention that some of the students in your care are writing on their tables. I told you it was your responsibility to keep them quiet and orderly. You must do better."

She was stunned. She had never heard any words of praise for her teaching from the principal, and now she was being censured for a task that she hated and knew she was not suited to perform! Icy anger filled her body. For days, she was resentful, and she went tight-lipped through each hour. In the hall, she proclaimed the rule in a loud voice: No writing or drawing on the tables! Even in her regular classes, some of her students knew something was amiss.

"What's wrong with our teacher?" they wondered. "She seems cold and aloof."

In the great hall, she walked the aisles and inspected the desks and woe to the students who were found writing or drawing on a table. But write and draw they did, for such is the way with students. So she took to scrubbing the tables after the hall emptied each day. Bitter tears crept into the corners of her eyes as her white rag turned blue with the ink from the table tops.

Then one day, as she took her bucket and rag and prepared to wash the tables yet again, she stopped and gasped. There, before her, on one table in the corner of the hall, the surface lay covered in blue, blue writing and blue drawings from end to end! Blue names ornately lettered, blue trees and what looked like a river flowed across the table to where there were more blue names and now blue houses and drawings of little blue people and animals. The desk took her a very long time to clean. She was near to despair.

"And what shall I do about this?" she wondered. She went home thinking of the blue desk, thinking of the principal's instructions to her, thinking of the great hall and how she hated to be there and how all she wanted to do was to teach.

The next day she came and sat in the hall and said nothing. The students again filled the hall, but she did not proclaim the rule. She did not walk the aisles. She did not speak a word to anyone. She did nothing at all; she just sat. The minutes ticked by. Then, at last when the hour was nearly done, she got up quickly and walked to the far corner of the hall, and yes, there, there the desk was blue with ink again and this time a young face looked up at her as she loomed over a small boy.

"Here!" she said loudly, and with a bang she put a strange looking book on his desk. Then she stood and waited.

The student's face was white as he looked down to see that the book was very, very large and very, very flat and had a great gray cover, and when the boy reached to open it, he looked at the teacher and she nodded, and he opened it with his blue-stained fingers trembling and--he found nothing. Nothing at all. For the pages were empty. "What kind of book is this?" he wondered.

"Your drawings are lovely," said the teacher. "I hate to wash them away at the end of the day. Use this, and keep them safe."

And the student thanked her and took the book, and at that moment the hour ended, and all the students crowded around the boy and began to talk at once about what she had done, and the noise grew as they walked together out of the hall. Then it was quiet again. She turned out the light, and as darkness again filled the great hall--for a brief moment, she thought she saw a flickering light upon the walls.

to be a better candle
we must be who we truly are

Lessons from The Gaian Tarot:
The Five of Fire
The Eight of Water

Dedicated to Pamela Pieters, Tarot Sister, in honor of her birthday, 18 January.

Read more from the "How to be a better candle" blog circle:
Read more from the "How to be a better candle" blog circle:
Go Back and read October's blog !.
Go to the Next One and read
Stephanie Francis's blog! or head to...
31 TABI http://tabitarot.blogspot.com/

Learn more about Arwen's marvelous blog circle here:
www.facebook.com/groups/tarotbloghop/