Remembering

She lay barefoot on the riverbank. A daisy nudged its way between her toes, a great grandchild of the flowers with which she used to make daisy chains as a child. For a moment this unexpected greeting and the movement of light on the water’s current was enough to occupy her mind. The blackberry bushes invited her to their table and she accepted. They left their inky blessings on her fingers. She took in the scene around her, and the scene took her in. It was enough, and she was enough in it.

A sinister swish in the undergrowth - the kind of disturbance that makes all sentient beings watchful - broke the riverside peace. A darkness slid up the back of her neck and wound its way around her throat. It cloaked her mind and perception. The scene in front of her had not altered, save the eternal running of time: the replenishment of the river, the grass curtsying to the wind. But the darkness began to speak to her of a different reality:

“You are wasting time. Don’t you realise that time is scarce? You won’t survive if you sit here watching the grass. What are you achieving, what are you earning by sitting here? Your purpose is not to love this grass, to loaf with these blackberries, but to go and make something of yourself. Go and prove your worth to the world, go and earn your living, your right to life.”

In this voice was all the fearful rhetoric she had heard throughout her life speaking in unison. They were just words, words of peers, government, teachers, and parents. Words in papers, words humming in the air on the street. Just words, but over time they had become believable due to their sheer volume and weight. By believing their message, she permitted them access to her insides, opening a door for the darkness to make a home within her. It shaped her experience and allowed fear to take root in her body.

She was cold now, and became aware of her aloneness, despite the the presence of darkness lurching like a drunkard in her path, its breath and sideways grin unbearably close to her face.

Out of despair she asked for help and searched the river with her eyes. The reply rose up as a flicker of light weaved into the water. It was the moon. Water had received her orison and carried her word to the moon. Moon spoke:

‘In a time even before your first memories, you asked me remind you to alchemise the darkness. Converse with life, nature and the sacred presence you cannot see. Just as you called out for help, speak often to the divine, even if you think nothing hears you. If you can overcome the rebellion of your proud rational mind, and speak into the void enough times, life will speak back.

‘Use ceremonies to draw up a seat at a table where the other chairs appear empty, and sing, tell jokes, offer fellowship and reverence. Forge a friendship with the divine in this way, or in any way that feels most true to you.’

The moon ended its speech and began to grow large in the sky. She watched it expand until she could no longer hold it in her sight, and feel where she stopped and the moon began. She was at once a messenger and the one who was being reminded.

There soon would be a great awakening of which even the blackberries would form a part. The counsel of how to make it happen would be delivered on the wind.

Zoe Wood

Previous
Previous

Does slavery still exist?

Next
Next

Pájaro contra el borde de la noche (Bird against the edge of the night) by Luis Naón