One morning, they spotted what seemed in the distance a small cluster of huts under three large trees of a kind the little mouse acrobat did not recognize. They were silver and slender of trunk, with leaves between gray and green. The Unicorn moved steadily and slowly towards this odd cluster. The little mouse acrobat sat on his back and clung to his mane, drifting in her mind as she had now for an indefinite number of days.

Imagine her surprise when she heard a voice addressing her directly.

"Well, I'm glad you've come at last. I'm very glad you've come. It's been a long time since I had a visitor. Or perhaps only a short time. Being a creature of the present moment, I forget. It's strange and paradoxical, it is. The more I remember, the more I forget and the more I forget, the more I remember, only not the details."

The speaker was a woman who seemed at once very old and very vigorous. Her eyes were green and her hair was white as snow, wild and wispy. A smile played about her lips. Yet it gave no clue as to what it was about, as if its bearer might be in so many places all at once that her smile, at once indulgent and rueful, might be about anything on the whole face of the earth.

"A little mouse looking so frightened and lost on the back of a Unicorn," she went on. "Now that's something new. No, you never know what is going to turn up here or anywhere else you might be. But tell me, little mouse, why should you be looking so frightened and lost sitting there on the back of a Unicorn? Not exactly the worst place to be, I should think? In fact, I would imagine it's quite a lovely place. It's not every mouse, after all, that gets to ride on a Unicorn's back. So why not cheer up, dear little mouse?"

The speaker's face and voice were so engaging, so cheerful and so matter of fact all at once that the little mouse acrobat was left speechless. She had no idea at all what to answer. The Unicorn's back was a wonderful place. That was true. She certainly didn't want to be unappreciative, especially since she understood quite clearly that the Unicorn had saved her life. She thought, too, with a delicate tinge of shy astonishment, not at all like her former pride, that, while there was no way to be sure, she might actually be the only little mouse ever to have sat on a Unicorn's back.

"There, there, my little mouse," went on this remarkable woman creature, "you're looking as if you feel a bit better already. Now, perk up. You didn't come her to mope. You came her because you had questions, because you were full of them, full up to overflowing. You came because you couldn't stand the noise of one of those horrid battles they're always having for no good reason at all, except that they enjoy themselves doing all those horrid things to each other because they haven't the least idea what would really be enjoyable to do. That's it, you know. They have those battles because they haven't the least idea how to enjoy themselves just as they are, just at the particular moment, in the particular place. They haven't a clue. They're nothing but confusion.

"If you try to show them how to enjoy their very own selves, they get furious with you, as if you were taking something away from them, when actually you are trying your very best to give them something priceless. So, for the most part, I've stopped. I imagine the only way I can help is to enjoy myself and receive an occasional visitor, mouse or otherwise."

The little mouse acrobat was amazed. How did this singular creature know all this? She wanted to ask. But when she pursed her lips to squeak, all that came out was a very soft sputter.

"Now, now, my little mouse," said the creature, whose name the little mouse acrobat still did not know, "there is really nothing remarkable about my knowing all this. You see, there is really nothing new about it at all. Oh, it may be new to you. It may even be new to this handsome young Unicorn whom you have befriended. I must say, you do make a nice couple, the two of you, an interesting couple.

"But this business about battles is as old as the hills and so is all the greed and the "Get, get, get!" that comes before it, as if "Get, get, get!" ever solved anything. No, it only makes it worse, because the more we get, the more we think about what we don't have, so the poorer we become. What do we really need anyway, my little mouse? A few moonbeams and berries, a handful of unicorn hair - now isn't that really more than enough?"

She paused and then added as an afterthought, "By the way, they call me Blanche, because my hair is white, as if that was all there were to me, my white hair."

With this, Blanche tossed her head and seemed suddenly much younger and more vigorous. How beautiful she was! Nor could the little mouse tell whether she was a woman or a mouse. She was somewhere in between. For an instant, she would appear a woman with the features of a mouse and, in the next instant, she would appear a mouse with the features of a woman. The effect was quite harmonious, though, so that the little mouse acrobat found herself feeling refreshed and delighted to be on the Unicorn's back, as if it were even better than a flying carpet.

"Now," said Blanche, "I know you have so many questions and you have come so far to ask them. If my memory serves me correctly, that is how it is with everyone who comes to see me. They have so many questions and they have come so far to ask them. I always say the same thing, which is that the most important things can be understood, but they can't be explained. So the first step is to forget all about all the questions that you have in your minds, not because they are the wrong questions, but because they are the right questions.

"Forget all about how far you have come to ask them and all that you have been through to get here, not because all that was not real and important, but precisely because it was and is. Give yourselves right now into the present. Or should I say, forgive yourself right now into the present."

Blanche's voice was at once very soothing and very strict, very animated and a bit abstracted, as if her mind was not entirely on what she was saying.

Blanche tossed her head, so that her hair went flying back up into the air behind her head. As it did, a sudden breeze came along and held all the white hairs aloft an extra second or two.

"I can not explain anything to you," Blanche went on, when her hair had settled so that now the breeze just teased and tugged at it, "but I do think that I can teach you to dance, to put movement to a different use than going places and getting things, than fighting and fleeing. Just because we come up with something for one purpose does not mean it can not be used for other purposes."

"Oh, I would like that," agreed the little mouse acrobat eagerly.

The strange thing was that, once Blanche told her to forget all about her questions and all about the long journey she had made to get here, the little mouse acrobat felt much better. There was a new twinkling in her toes.

"I would, too," assented the Unicorn, in such a way that the little mouse acrobat could not tell for sure whether he was truly interested for his own sake or interested but only because she was interested.

A dark figure materialized by Blanche's side.

"Ah," said Blanche, "This is Djinnsky. I never know when he is going to grace me with his presence. Sometimes he is here and sometimes he is gone. He can leap so high and whirl so fast that he disappears. He goes into the wind and the light, into all rushing water and the night. Then, just as unpredictably as he left, he is back again. Which is a good thing, because he can be an enormous help in learning to dance. One more thing before we start. I tell this to everyone, too, but I'm not sure how many ever understand it, even though it is really very simple. We dance with our feet to teach our minds and with our minds to teach our feet. We must put our hearts into both and both into our hearts."

Blanche smiled encouragingly.

Djinnsky, the dark presence, leapt suddenly into the air and began to whirl. He whirled as fast as a hummingbird's wings. He seemed almost not to be there until, as quickly as he had gone, he was back again, more powerful and darker seeming than ever, his powerful sculpted muscles gleaming now with sweat. A smile played across his features, as if to proclaim how much he enjoyed his whirling and twirling, his disappearing and his materializing.

"With dancing, as with everything else," said Blanche, "we have to begin at the beginning. And as we go along, too, we have always to search for the beginning, because invention, truth, beauty, kindness, grace and clarity are all present in the beginning, if only we know how to look for them. We have to feel our way. We have to imitate to get free of imitation. So, follow me, if you will."