“Catch me,” he begged the wind. His dainty parachute, fluffy and white, pined for just a breeze. Afternoon in the valley warmed the meadows and streams with promise. Fate, and the joy of a purpose fulfilled, waited across the weave of daisies and clovers. Somewhere, tomorrow morning winked and smiled an innocent’s answer.

In the night, so many years back or forth, the old shaman’s essence dreamed a real dream. To be here, or there, or anywhere—it was as much the slice of a knife as it was a heart’s loving notion.

And so, it went. It was a feeling sure enough, it was contentment.

“I see before me… only life.”

Then the wind came, summoned by the cradling benevolence of his ancient will. “I’m away!” he exclaimed, grinning in his mind’s eye. It was a rush to twist upward into the sky, nothing weighed him down. He breached across the cerulean extent, and plunged into its tangerine sundown.

The valley floor carried a river and her fish, and those fresh waters called to the seed. “Kind waters, thank you,” he said, “but, I am expected somewhere else.” And so the shaman whooshed up again, the little seed danced through the air on humble gusts of divine wind.

From the east flank, the seed crossed over the meadows, the river, and the farmer’s pastures, to find itself floating against the sorrowful frets of a child’s broken heart.

For the first time that night, he felt the weight of consequence, as he dreamt there, in his bed. And truly, the weight pulled him happily toward’s the nose of the child. He whispered left, he whispered right, and brought the flighty little seed to its intended station.

The child stopped crying and crossed its eyes to focus on the tip of its nose.

“Huh.”

“It’s a dandelion seed,” mother said as she rubbed the little one’s shoulders. “Let’s go and find a spot in the garden.”

What a lovely dream...