2/15 (Part 5)
Continued in 2/15 (Part 6) ….
We rocked gently in the swing together, under the light of a silver moon.
The girl, still tucked into my arm and resting her head on my shoulder, hummed, purred, and then, after a while, she grew silent.
And I could feel her the softest, most vulnerable part of her inner self emerging into view as she became so, so, SO vulnerable… a result of her feeling so, SO safe.
The night sky was crystal clear. The stars shined brightly as we gently, silently, softly, and intimately rocked in the swing together, bonding in the silence.
Suddenly, nearby, a single intentional loud signal-chirp of a small bird.
The bird was Awake. And not only awake…but watching.
It was as if I suddenly hacked into the bird’s very experience, connected with him, was him – somewhere out there in the dark – and I could feel him watching as me as if I were him watching myself, in the woods, in a tree high above. And I connected with him to such a degree that I could not only see him in the dark, but feel his presence in the dark too, since I was feeling the very the feelings he was feeling too, as if they were my very own. And, incredibly, beyond that even, I could feel the inner process of meaning-making taking place in the bird’s brain as he watched and assessed everything he was seeing – his single chirp a result of having something to say about this moment, and what it all meant meant.
We had an audience.
And suddenly – in the flash of a millisecond – the onlooking audience expanded past the watching bird, and it was suddenly it was as if the whole universe and every single alive thing in it – from a bird to a bug to the bark on trees – all of the living were watching now, too, with wonder and curiosity. And like a lightswitch, total awareness suddenly flipped on in myself, and I looked around and could see that yes, we indeed were being watched by a living universe. And the gaze of the entire universe turned towards this little corner of planet earth, ours, where the man from above sat and held the girl from below, gently swinging by the fire. And the moon became what it had been the whole time, a direct spotlight on these two souls, slowly rocking their way in a Texas backyard onto the Universe’s main stage.
And I remembered all the dreams (and all the many more suppressed ones too) about being on stages and who I always see, every single time, out in the audience ( and, often, often with her husband sitting next to her).
A sense of the sacred began to swirl and swell all around. My eyes grew wide, and my arms began to tremble with the weight of the moment. I desired to say the word “sacred” aloud, to hear it from my own lips as a confession of the miraculous, mysterious, precious nature of this undeniable reality and otherworldly encounter, right here in my own backyard.
I felt the girl observing me process all this. She snuggled into me closer. And we both acknowledged what this night meant for Us, measured in the scales by the weight of what is sacred. And I could feel her stage fright as she too found herself being watched by forces greater and stronger and deeper than that which she knew.
And suddenly I felt Joy, as like the first drop from a delayed spring rain; joy, beginning to drip gently, somewhere, deep in her heart, buried beneath it, even, somewhere below……
Her fingers began to move; twitching at times, as if woken from some frozen slumber (or death).
She continued humming as her fingers started to move, lazily and curiously exploring my arms and eager to touch and know and feel. She shifted her body, moving into me closer, her head nuzzling underneath my neck as her fingers felt the freedom to move up my arms and explore my body. I turned my head to look at her, and I noticed that she was growing older, now in her early 20’s. So much older, so much wiser, so much a fuller form of woman that it bespoke to the fire of a future past, girl and witch and maiden. And her eyes grew large and she took all this in, in an instant being dethroned from the Tyrant’s High Chair she once called her Great Iron Throne.
And I looked at her and saw, suddenly, how incredibly beautiful this young lady is. Truly no longer a “girl”, both inside and out.
And I felt her soul opening to me like the bud of a flower as she observed and listened to my unfiltered thoughts.
Her fingers touched the medicine wheel in my left hand – curiously, and with some slight trepidation – and even more hidden, childlike wonder and awe. I watched as she touched each color, fingering the thread and yarns and placing her fingers into the slots.
I could feel her urge to know what this was, and how, and where I learned it, and how I came about harnessing and wielding such Great Power.
I felt all of this as she thought it.
It was only then that I realized and saw just how much I’d grown – miles and miles away from the boy I was at the start of my journey.
And another humming began, on my right hand side, and I looked and saw – that The Great Mother was sitting next to me now, on the bench swing, on my right hand side. Having come with me from the lodge when I returned to retrieve the egg, she now made her presence known. She was smiling, listening, watching, and proud. So unbelievably proud. Even more than this, she was excited to meet the tribal outsider, this young girl, and make her feel comfortable and safe and at home; an adopted member of the tribe with a special place in the interior lodge; family.
The sudden presence of the Mother seemed to surprise and shock the girl, who became aware of her arrival immediately. The girl’s hands stopped moving, as if frozen, when The Mother appeared. Her fingers ceased from exploring the threads of the medicine wheel in my hand and tracing the veins and muscle tendons on my arm with her dead fingers ~ all of this paused as the girl felt the entrance of the mother into our presence.
I could feel the girl suddenly tense. It wasn’t fear, exactly – it was…. Something deeper. Something like it, but with awe and wonder and respect and admiration. It was the kind of fear you feel when knowing you are in the presence of Someone greater than yourself.
The second thing I noticed about the girl’s fear is that she was afraid of being exposed and seen ~ exposure takes away her darkness; and her darkness is what gives her her strange power.
And the girl’s eyes grew wide with fear and she imagined all of the worst things that a person might do with that kind of power.
And I could feel her wanting to hide it – the yearning for suppression at all costs – she must give any suspicion that she is afraid, or doesn’t know, or isn’t in full control, or that someone could manipulate her – that MY job, the girl thought, and I’ve worked hard to keep it that way. And The Mother’s presence made her feel threatened.
And I leaned down and put my nose on her head. I breathed in and, smelling death, kissed the top of her blood-matted head. “It alright,” I whispered. “She is with Me. Don’t be afraid. She is A Good Woman.”
And The Mother began singing a song while working her hands, the Corn Priest lifting up a soft lullaby of her people like a dove in the night. It was an ancient song, a sacred song, a holy song and a song of her people, and she the Final Corn Priest and Great Mother of the Lodge. And only her people are privileged to hear such music; to hear it is itself the act of bestowing the song to other as medicine. The song was an offering of connection ~ to hear it was to receive it, and to receive the intention of connection from the other.
And she became afraid – and tucked into my arm even tighter….
And The Mother, looking down at her hands as she weaved a Mandan textile, smiled warmly.
Continued in 2/15 Part 5
