The Dancing Water Spirits

  There has always an air of mystique about the Bayou.  Tell someone that you live on a Bayou and they immediately start thinking of all sorts of things....some good...some not so good.  From my way of thinking, it is all good.  While, admittedly, this life is not for everyone, it suits me just fine.  Folks from other places have proclaimed that they would be "scared to live with all the critters".  Me?  I am more scared to live with all the people.  That said, I guess it is best that I stay where I am.

  The mystique does not stem from much other than an active imagination.  Let that imagination veer toward the dark side and things will seem bewitching or maybe beguiling, to say the least.  Let it swing over to the lighter side of things and the same occurrences will seem more enchanting or charmed.  This morning, it was not hard to let the imagination pendulate between the two.  

  Just as the sun was peeking above the pines on the far shore of the Bayou, a mist started rising from the water.  These mists or "water spirits", as some folks call them,  twist and twirl about as if doing some sort of magical dance, The water spirits rise above the water's surface and twine themselves into the marsh grasses.  There,  they gather together and rise up until they are floating over the marsh.  They dance upon the north breeze all the while catching sunbeams as they go.  The sunlight gives a golden glow to whatever it touches including the water spirits.  This glow makes the water spirits appear even more mysterious!  

  This morning, the water spirits were alive! They danced among the reeds and captured sunbeams before wisping their way out of the Bayou and onto the Bay waters.  Sometimes, if the moon is just right, the water spirits can be seen dancing at night.  It is no wonder that folks used to believe that these spirits could steal souls as they danced.  Legend has it that if a weary traveler spied the "lanterns of the Will of the Wisp, he would be lured into the swamp. Once there, he would not be able to return as the spirit would steal his soul."  The Will o' the Wisp tales can send chills up one's spine for sure!  My "water spirits" are merely a thing of beauty and something that draws me to the Bayou.  Perhaps I am already in too far to ever get out.  Perhaps the Will o' the Wisp already has me....or, perhaps, as one niece tells me....I AM the Will o' the Wisp....hmmmm?