A Heroes Journey Photography Series
Act I - The Oak of Rememberance
Diablo Kingdom, in the foothills beneath Mount Diablo.
The old oak stood upon the hillside as it had for generations, its enormous branches stretching across the afternoon sky.
Beyond it, the grassy hills rolled toward the distant mountain, their green slopes touched with gold where the lowering sun caught the ridges. A warm breeze moved through the valley, carrying the scent of oak leaves and dry earth.
Surrounding the great oak was the Forest of Remembrance.
Every tree in the forest was bonded to someone who had once lived in Diablo. When a child was born, an acorn fell from the ancient oak and remained with that person throughout their life. When they passed away, the acorn was buried with them, and in time a new tree would grow.
For generations, the people of Diablo had returned to the earth in this way.
Beneath the great oak, a father sat with his young son.
The boy had been unusually quiet.
For some time, he had been watching the little pools of sunlight that appeared and disappeared in the grass as the branches moved overhead.
At last, he looked up.
“Father?”
“Yes?”
“Why would someone do that to the fair maiden?”
The father turned toward him.
The boy's face was troubled.
“Everyone says she was kind. She helped people. She never hurt anyone. Why would somebody want to make her sick?”
For a moment, the father said nothing.
Three days earlier, the fair maiden of Diablo had been carried east toward the great mountains. The healers had taken her beyond the valleys and forests, to a quiet sanctuary beside Parker Lake.
They called it the Silent Healing Valley.
Its clear waters were said to reflect the purest light in the land. Even the winds seemed to rest there, and generations of the sick and wounded had traveled to its shores seeking restoration.
But no one knew whether its waters could heal what had been done to her.
The father watched the afternoon sunlight pass slowly across the hillside.
“Long ago,” he began, “there was a man who understood light better than anyone in the kingdoms.”
“Better than you?”
The father smiled faintly.
“Much better than me.”
“Was he a good man?”
“For many years, I believe he was.”
The boy considered this.
“Then what happened?”
“He became so certain that he understood the world that he stopped listening when the world tried to teach him something new.”
The boy frowned.
“I don't understand.”
The father picked up a fallen oak leaf and held it toward the sunlight.
“Look at this leaf. See how the light shines through it?”
The boy nodded.
“The sunlight helps this tree grow. It warms the soil, feeds the grasses, and brings life to almost everything around us. But it doesn't belong to the tree. And it doesn't belong to us.”
He turned the leaf gently between his fingers.
“The man I told you about began to believe that all the light in the world should obey him.”
“Could he really control it?”
“He could do extraordinary things. For a long time, his abilities helped people. But eventually, he tried to make light do things it was never meant to do.”
The boy glanced toward Mount Diablo.
“Is that what made the maiden sick?”
“Yes. Or at least, that is what we believe.”
“Why didn't he just use his power to help her?”
The father lowered the leaf.
It was a question he had asked himself many times.
“Because having the power to do something good doesn't mean a person will choose to do it.”
Above them, the oak's enormous branches creaked softly.
The boy looked toward the surrounding forest.
“Would Grandfather have known what to do?”
The father followed his gaze toward the tree that had grown from his father's acorn.
“I think,” he said quietly, “your grandfather would have told us to look more carefully.”
“At what?”
“At everything.”
The boy smiled.
“That sounds like something you would say.”
The father laughed.
“That's because he was the one who taught me.”
Just then, an acorn fell from the branches.
It landed in the grass between them.
The boy picked it up carefully and looked at his father.
“Does that mean a baby has been born?”
The father smiled.
“Then somewhere in Diablo,” the father said with a smile, “a new life has just begun.”
The boy's eyes widened.
“Right now?”
“Perhaps at this very moment.”
“Can we take it to the baby?”
“Of course. It belongs to them now.”
The boy carefully placed the acorn in his pouch.
For a while, they sat quietly as the evening light settled across the hills.
Then the boy looked east.
“Will we go to the maiden?”
The father looked toward the distant mountains.
He had hoped the healers would be enough. He had hoped the strange sickness might pass, and the kingdom would return to the quiet rhythms it had always known.
But the light was changing.
He could see it now.
Not merely in the shifting shadows beneath the tree, but in the faint haze gathering along the distant hills.
Something was disturbing the land.
He turned back to his son.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe we must.”
The boy stood.
“Then we'd better go before the light is gone.”
The father smiled and placed a hand upon his shoulder.
“No,” he said gently. “First we must learn which light to follow.”
Above them, the leaves of the Oak of Remembrance stirred once more.
And far away, beyond the valleys and the mountains, something that had laid quiet for many years began to awaken.