A Little Time In The Healing Hut

She came to me in the night, while Bella snored lazily nearby.  She slipped like the wind into the tent, and sat back on her heels, staring at me without a sound until I opened my eyes.  She smiled at me.  Hesitant, I returned the smile.  Something about this seemed all too familiar, and yet all too right as well.  I had known all along that she would come for me.  I had known it was only a matter of time.  I got up, rinsed my mouth with a bit of water, and followed her out into the dark.

I knew we would be heading for the healing hut.  It seemed so much closer to our tent tonight though.  I don’t think I took a total of five steps before I was ducking under the roughened silk entryway and into the dark murky caravan.  I felt her slide past me into the tent, heard her movements.  I did not need to close my eyes.  I felt as if they were already shut anyway.

I was surprised by how humid the air was in this tent.  Almost swamp-like.  The aroma was diffident somehow, strong and full of swagger, but not in such a bad way.  I could taste a bevy of herbs and medicinals on the air.  The sweat that rose to the surface of my skin from every pore seemed to clot instantly into some chitinous shell, absorbing the ichor from the atmosphere.  The smell alone made me dizzy, lifting me off my feet, keeping me aloft, holding me tight so I would not fall.

‘This way.’ the woman spoke, but I do not think she spoke directly to me.  I moved, but I was not moving.  I followed, but as I said, I was suspended over the earthen floor.  My body may have a mind of her own, but this was more than I had ever seen before.

‘Put her down here.’ Well, at least I knew she wasn’t actually speaking to me.  Merely speaking about me.  That was fine.  I was falling away, layer after layer.  I don’t know how to explain.  I was there, all the time, but I wasn’t.  Maybe it was the Me I wore every day, like some mask, these were the things falling away.  The I am a good friend Mask.  The I am a good worker Mask.  The I am the patient polite lady in line Mask.  The I am the cheerful neighbor Mask.  All of these things.  Things that were me, but were not me as well.  Here I am, lying out on a mat barely raised up off the floor.  Whatever it was that held me laid me down with the utmost care, the most respectful hands.  I knew I was safe here, even as I sensed something larger than myself coming.

The woman, bent over with age, but with such vital youth glowing in her eyes, from her skin, began to light small fires all around in what now seemed to me more a cave than a tent.  The rounded walls coloured all cinnamon and ochre.  Thick smoke wailed through the scent that claimed to be air.  It did nothing to take away from the earthy herbal aromas, but added to them a deeper, more fruitful spiced infusion.  Someone hit a drum, shook a rattle.  The drumming commenced full bore.  There was not one woman chanting; there were several; there were minion.  They yelled and shrieked and called out to me, for me.  Praying.  Praying.  For what, I had no idea.

The woman who had come to summon me leaned over, her vivid grey-blue eyes pouring out into mine.  She placed a pipe into one of my nostrils.  She smiled, said something, a quick prayer perhaps, shut her eyes and blew as hard as she could.  SLAM!  It hit me, attacked my brain, shot through my heart and skin and blood.  I didn’t notice when she changed sides.  I felt that SLAM! from the other side.  Suddenly, I was surrounded by an entire tribe, thousands of peoples, all of them circling around me, holding hands, chanting, singing, ki yi yi-ing, yipping, whatever it took to beseech the gods.

My throat hurt.  I thought my spine would pop crack break into two.  Maybe they were holding me down.  Maybe they had tied me down.  I don’t know what they expected.  Perhaps I was supposed to fly.  I did not.  I flipped over, let loose my wings, released my tail, and took off on four legs, loping like a mad creature through the forests.  It took me hours of running to realize I was again on the sands, in the pits, here again among the bones.

I rose up, drew back, stretching my wings out, fanning back and forth, throwing the dust aside without having to use my hands for this.  When I felt this had gone on long enough, I stopped.  At my feet, there was a barrier.  I would have said it made of glass, perhaps ice.  It was cold to the touch.  It was more than glass though.  More than ice.  I looked down, inside.  The surface was crystal clear.  I myself lay trapped under the ice, my hair a long golden tangle as if suspended in water.  My hands rested upon the barrier, not beating to get out.  There was no struggle.  Was this really me?  I peered down.  Those were my own brown streaked green eyes staring back at me.  That was my own coppery blonde hair, albeit longer and more multi-hued, but still mine.  There was the ring upon my finger that always did I wear.  There was a dot on her forehead, where there should be a kiss upon mine.  Symbiotes crawled her forearms, as they did mine.  A bronze snake circled her throat, as I knew there should be at my own as I recognized more than that design.  I knew the heft, the weight of the thing, wrapping itself and curling itself within me, upon my flesh.  There was my mermaid’s tail, so often did I dream of it, in the brilliant shades of golds and oranges and reds, fluttery out like some decorative tropical fish kept in some man’s tank.  I knew this woman.  I knew my self.  My wings beat the air around me again, trying to clear more space, attempting to pierce the barrier, find the edges, that I might release her, might meet her, might touch her and have her as my own.  My mirror twin smiled at me.

I rested my forehead against the refraction of her being.  We touched, sharing one common soul, united between us, throughout the worlds.  This was she; she was this.  Such was I.  The dragon’s tail, whipping back and forth, driving us ever onward as we seek the myriad of paths that are our own.

I heard an eagle’s shrill cry, calling me Home.  Now, this time, I took to the air, wings pulling through the air, muscling my way into the sky.  I spun, twirling, having fun with the wind, teasing the clouds, as I sought out that which was mine.

I hit my cot without pausing.  There was a WOOF from the ground beneath before I curled up into a neat ball, not so little, and fell asleep.  The drums reverberating still within my head.  The canopy of grace falling upon me and over me to cover me in my sleep, as I went off chasing these dreams of mine that never let me touch them in the light of day.

I’m coming.  I am coming.

The Morning After

I hear Bella stirring.  I hear her rambling past, muttering amiably under her breath.  I don’t think she wants to wake me.  I can’t really say if I am awake or not yet.  I am cramped, my body stiff and sore all over, especially in tight little places I wasn’t even sure I could possess before the pain showed up.  Bolts of striping pain shooting all over the place.  I groan as I roll up, sitting more upright, instead of the slumped over squat that I apparently slept in last night. There is already a pot on the fire, which has been stoked and built up.  That donkey is utterly amazing, but I think this was a bit beyond her capabilities.  The pot is full of water.  I lean over to check it out, catch a whiff of brewing herbs.  Tea for breakfast.  Yum.  There is no one nearby, no one around.  All noises from the healing tent have gone silent.  I dig around through our stuff, find my metal cup, and dip myself a cup of this indefinable morning tea.

I can taste chicory, some sort of wild grass, maybe even sweet grass.  There is pine.  Thyme.  Some lavender.  Things I cannot identify.  It’s all sweet too.  It doesn’t seem to be honeyed, but I don’t know.  I usually react badly to any form of honey, but this is going down like mad magic, soothing and filling and relaxing.  Hmm.

I look around again.  It seems to me the landscape has changed while I was away in the world of floating dreams, excavating the bones of my past, giving them flesh before throwing them on the funeral pyre.  No longer does this place seem so arid, so confined.  There are batches of tall thin trees, not quite palm trees, but similar.  There are wild wide patches of grasses, much like on an untamed prairie.  There are green bushes covered with big plump berries.  Why hadn’t I seen those last night?  I might have considered them a mirage though if I’d noticed them last night.  I can smell wild flowers on the light breeze that ruffles my hair away from my face. I both see and hear the birds playing tag back and forth not too far from me.  Little bugs scurry around not too far from my feet.  Ok, fine, I am not all together overjoyed by the big scary insect antics, but at least they aren’t heading right for me or anything.

I sip my tea, waiting for the day to appear, waiting to figure out what it is I still need to do here.  I have a sense of business finished.  Time to move on.  Yet, I am still not the one in control of my destiny these days.  There is the woodpile to replenish.  Maybe I can pick some berries before we go too.  I can whip up a mush with the tea and some oats in the pack, along with the berries, for Bella.  That will make her happy, I know it will.

The sun glimmers over the tops of trees I hadn’t noticed last night, peeking out at me, smiling, bringing me new hopes, new dreams.  So many good things are coming my way now.  I can feel it.

Peeling Away The Layers

Images appear before my empty eyes.  I cannot tell you if my eyes are open or shut.  It does not seem to matter anyway.  Memories surface, some I have hidden forever, stuffed into steel boxes, shoved into lock boxes, hidden in the attic of my brain, never to be brought out again.  Yet, here they are.  Are they here to torment me?  Or to release me?  I am not sure I know how to let go….

An image of me, far too young, am I six or seven, down on my knees, in front of Him.  The evil man.  The hurting man.  The fear I feel is too palpable even now.  Will he kill me?  And I do not mean, will I be punished?  Will he spent me and send me to my room?  No.  I mean, will he pick up the ax handle he beats the dog with and beat me until I bleed and die, since there is no one here to protect me from him?  Will he pummel me with his fists and not stop this time?  Will he slam me into walls?  Throw me into things?  Stomp me under his nasty feet?  Drive the car over me?

Where is my mother?  Oh god, I hope she doesn’t come in.  I hope and pray she doesn’t see this.  If she does, she’s going to blame me.  She’s going to hate me.  There is no defense here.  It is my fault. It has to be.  It is always my fault.  I never do anything right.  She’ll spank me.  Break the metal spatulas on my backside, yell and scream and make me feel worse and worse and worse.  I am so sick inside.  I don’t know what to do.  So, I go away.  I don’t know what else happens to that thing that is my body.

My darling kitten.  My mother drove us all over to find us a kitten to keep me company.  I can tell by the way it moves as he throws it up onto the roof it is dead.  I don’t understand why my uncle is aiding and abetting the evil man.  I don’t know why he is laughing and telling me that cat will be all right, when I do darn well, even at my young age, it will not.

The fear builds as I am left alone with my newborn baby brother.  I don’t know what to do here.  The baby is crying.  He doesn’t want a bottle.  I am not allowed to pick him up.  I so carefully unpin his diaper and take that off, but it wasn’t really wet.  I try to talk to him.  I try to play with him.  Mom said she’d be right back.  She had to run to the store or something.  I don’t know what to do here.  By the time she gets back, I have stuffed away my tears, but the fears still choke me.

There is relief here.  I don’t know why.  I can ride my bike up and down the dirt road in front of the house.  I can ride to my friend Johnny’s house and see his horses.  I cannot fathom why everyone is so upset.  I am eleven years old.  I left a note.  I so did not run away.  These people are so messed up.

I have never met him before tonight.  I don’t care who he is or where he’s from or anything else.  I have something to get rid of this little piece of skin and I may not be able to get out and away anytime soon.  Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Relax’ playing on the radio.  My belt is tied on because my waist is too small for conventional belts to do me any good…and stirrup pants never stay up without a belt to keep them up.  I wish he’d just get it over with.  There is nothing to it.  It’s boring.  It’s really not all everyone said it could be.  It’s done.  I go home.  I take a bath, wanting to feel dirty, unclean.  Wanting to worry, could I get pregnant.  But none of that happened to me.  It was all very, empty. I am glad I never have to see him again.  I refuse to take his calls.

The world colliding.  He said he was married.  He also said it was almost over.  Divorce was in the works.  He forgot to mention he’d been married for three months, or that her parents were paying for darn near everything, and he was too cheap to think divorce.

I knew this one was married.  He was playing Mr. Mom to his three kids, the youngest only a few months old.  He had just been snipped…and here he was telling me at seventeen how he wished he could get me pregnant in order to keep me, to show me how very much he loved me, what I meant to him.  Why do men lie to themselves, I still wonder….

She was gorgeous.  Too full of life and fun.  Blonde, bodacious.  She drank too much.  She snorted too much.  She handed me the pipe far too often.  We smoked and laughed and partied.  I watched her die.  They held me back, or she’d have died in my arms.  I remember screaming, but not hearing it.

The tiny little face, after the nurse brought her to me.  Cradling her in my arms when he came to visit.  The crushing blow to my soul as he turned away, refusing to see her, afraid he might ‘get attached’.  Hating him was too easy most days.

The drugs pounding through me.  Pain still clear and far too there.  But I didn’t care.  The look on the face of the doctor when I refused to touch the crown, ordering her instead to pull her out just get her out.  The fears I felt as they would come in and take her away from me.  Even though they had no real reason to do so.

The gentle wise look from the boy as he entered the world.  The way he looked at me, at his sister.  His smile still thrills me to no end.  His laughter is that pure.

The lies he tells me.  We are getting away to rebuild everything.  When in truth, he takes me all that way to lose me, to force me to be without anyone and anything, to tire of him and to leave.  Which I do.  But not after so much pain.

He doesn’t whisper anymore.  He looks me right in the eye when he says it now.  Now when he says it, not only his eyes move, but his heart moves.  Unfettered now, when he tells me, his entire body and soul, they show me, give me, the truth that is in his words, in his worlds.

The gun in my hand.  The metallic taste still in my mouth.  Blood dripping into my eye from where he hit me.  No one stops me when I point it at him.  Too bad my aim is so far off.

Ceramic figurines I made with my own hands.  Carefully painted, one for each.  Now I am no longer good enough.  No longer welcome.  I shatter each figure against the wall.  I take a hammer and pound the larger pieces into shards, slivers, finally dust.

Little pieces.

Sunlight burning down through the tree leaves.

Lizards running across the back porch.

Puppy breath and puppy yips.

Solace found sleeping all alone curled up around pillows.

Bareback riding through the meadows in the middle of the night.

Jumping into the lake, diving off the cliff, knowing I can’t swim and could die and not caring even a little bit.

The car spinning out of control on the ice, spinning round and round, while he laughs maniacally and I nearly wet myself, certain he is going to kill me.

The truck tumbling over and over, bottom over top, and me watching everyone inside die a hundred times over again.

Standing in the snow, hip deep, thinking now I shall die, the cold will suck me dry, kill me as I stand.

The cold slimy tube being pulled back out of my throat, my stomach pumped out again for another night.  No death this time.

Flowers blooming over the edge of the fence, bright orange trumpets.  Soon the neighbor will chop them down and I won’t see them anymore.

Honeysuckle drifting in through the windows.

Throwing grain out to the chickens.  Wondering which one Gran was going to pick out for dinner tonight.

Dreading the whole family reunion Sunday dinner routine.  Avoiding the child’s table, as well as the adult table, and still being able to grab some food before returning to hiding.

Raindrops pattering down on my head.  Splashing into my eye.

The surf, roaring and crashing and grabbing at me.  I will play in the shallow, though my heart longs to dive in ever deep.

On the boat, not really sailing any more, just out for the night, playing.  Watching the dolphins play.  He watches me dive in, waits to see if I come up for air.  Ocean water holds me upright.  My own death saves me, it seems.  He dives in, drags me back on board the boat.  The dolphins continue to pounce and play.

Hawks overhead, shrieking and diving.

Roses, growing, blooming, thriving, all over the side of the way.  I feed them dog food.  They are very healthy and beautiful.

Golden red leaves whirling from the branch to the ground.  One catching in the stream beneath, spinning off downstream.

Soft warm furry friendly body, even as he launches himself from the couch up onto my shoulder, fifteen pounds of big black cat who wraps himself around me and purrs to show me how much he loves me.

Unable to move while I sleep, one dog’s back pressed tightly against mine, one dog firmly planted between my legs, using my thigh as her pillow.  At least I am warm and I am loved.

Crying in the bathtub, all alone, knowing he will come in tomorrow and I will swallow his lies even though I know the truth and he will congratulate himself for being such a good liar.

Prising up the soil with my bare hands, planting seeds, one at a time.  Using a watering can to pat things in.  Spring is here again.

Memories.  Unconnected and disjointed.  Each a layer, a window pane.  Some I thought I had surrendered and sent away.  Here they are, back again.  I set them up here, for the sun to reach this time, to burn away the ugly, to enshrine and immortalize the beautiful.

Let me let go of all the horrible things.  They did not kill me.  They broke me.  For a long time.  I am still a healing piece in action.  Let me not sink back into their mire.  Let me burst forth, the lotus from the mud.  Let me have my wonderful new life, still with pitfalls and pratfalls and embellishments, but still nicer all the way around.  Let the bitter fall back into the shadows, to grow their own things, in their won way, and to never come in contact with my venues ever again, not in this lifetime, nor any other.

The Cave In the Middle of the Valley

There is digging, and then there is digging.  Although I have always longed to be an archeologist, to lay belly flat against the baked sands as I toil away with a toothpick and a paintbrush to dust away tidbits and flakes of sand as I struggle to reveal an ancient piece of treasure caught in a bit of clay, my reality is a bit more…cozy.  I am not very patient.  If you hand me a pick ax, I can go to town.  You give me this little child-sized version of a hammer and chisel and tell me to carefully go about whacking things very softly, you and I are going to have issues.  Subtlety is not always my forte.  I am more of a nightclub bouncer, brute force and massive power.  That is just me.  Raw energy barely contained, even at the best of times.

Many of the tents we saw from the ridge are actually abandoned.  No, abandoned is too strong a word.  Someone obviously comes and takes care of things.  Some of the tents are structures that are more permanent.  I can hear now someone singing, rattles shaking quietly, a keening wailing, coming from another tent, one that as we passed as we first entered this valley, Bella muttered something about a ‘healing tent’.  The very idea appeals to me even as it repels me.  We’re in the sand, yes, but this is not true desert.  I wonder what sort of healing can be needed out here.  I can taste the damp salt in the air.  We are somehow close to one coast or another.  As if I have any clue where we are.  The donkey takes me where she will.  Every day I see different things, but they all blend and meld together so that it seems more of the same day after day.  Bella has picked on me repeatedly the past couple days for it seems now that I have taken to singing as we go along.  I have been under the assumption that I was sleeping, not singing.  Although there are some very haunting melodies that drift through my dreams.

Bella has sought refuge inside our tent.  There was a pile of wood off to the one side, one I shall replenish before we leave.  I started a small campfire in the ash-littered circle not too far from the tent we chose for the night.  I say we, but it was all Bella.  The silk is thin, but very sturdy.  It has red and purple stripes all around.  I love those colors together.  There is even orange trim around the edges of things, like the orange fringe that has little fluffy balls on the ends that goes all the way around the sloping roof.  This is a troubadour’s tent. To me, it is like something out of the Arabian nights stories… decadent and beautiful and sensible given the stormy sandy circumstances.

One on side of camp is a fallen tree.  It has obviously been here quite awhile, as most of it seems to have rotted out and away, falling back into the earth from whence it spawned.  It still makes a good seat in most places, and no matter its condition, it’s still big enough and sturdy enough to rest your back against when you sit in front of it.  That’s what I am doing now.

It’s dark out.  No moon to see.  The stars seem very few and all too far away tonight.  Other than the whisperings going on in the healing tent, which is on the far side of the compound, the night is quite silent.  Even the crackling spitting of the fire comes across as rather subdued.  I do not have a bad feeling about things, but that doesn’t always mean I am safe here, now, does it?   I still pick at dinner, the remnants of a loaf of bread from the lady at the house of soles…we still have more food in our packs.  She and that boy loaded us up well on supplies.  I am most grateful to them.  And to her.

I pull out of my pocket the strange map she made for me.  I still do not understand it.  The rough topography.  The visible lines and cracks and fissures.  I think I can discern rivers, streams, maybe a lake or two.  I have no way to be certain.  I wish I knew how to read this thing.  Maybe it would help me, help me find my way.  I don’t know.  Some of the areas on it are burnt black, reddened and scarred.  It’s very strange.

Do I notice when I fall asleep here?  Do I hear the siren’s call, the glistening golden voice streaming through my brain waves, echoing the call from within my own heart, within my own soul….I don’t think so…

I find myself in the Cave.  I know this Cave.  I have been here before, many times.  It is all too familiar here.  Usually, I am alone in this Cave, except for one person.  When I was younger, that person was usually a male.  Sometimes a young boy.  Sometimes an old man.  Lately when I find myself in the Cave, a woman waits for me, to take me places, to show me things.  This time, things are very different.

I find myself surrounded, by a large crowd, of women.  Not men.  Women.  I know these women.  I have seen them before.  They have come before me.  There is my sister, the one who lives so far away, who has her husband and her life, and who is so busy.  We have little contact, by her choice.  There is my other sister, the other one who also lives so far away, living with her girlfriend, keeping to herself and whining how no one ever reaches out for her or them, blaming it on her lifestyle choices, when it is merely her communication style, or more her lack thereof, that keeps people from reaching out to her more.  There is my mother, chubby little crone, smiling and wicked and so happy to be free this time.  There is my granny, wizened, sparkling, breathing freely.  Her whiskey-soured voice vibrates still in my mind.  Her mustache is darker now than it was last time I saw here when she was alive.  There is my aunt, caught in the clutches of a Fundamentalist husband and thereby in the hands of a severe church, both of which have driven the joy and the hope from her soul, from her eyes.  Part of her is still crying out, still longing to be brought into the fold and loved unconditionally, despite all the pain she has wrought.  There is my other grandmother, spine stiff so we know the poker is still firmly wedged up her backside.  She stands around the outer edge, obviously disgruntled, as if forced to appear here, by her very own mother, and grandmother.  They too hover closer to me now.  There are generations upon generations of my Ancestors, my people here.  I cannot name them all.  Many are shadows, mere outlines crowding around to touch me, to stroke my hair.  I don’t know what this means.

My aunt, the one I always said was the only family member I even remotely resemble, comes to me, takes my hand.  There is no mistaking that gleeful glint in her eye, the one I have always loved.  She was always so beautiful to me.  So unattainable.  I never understood her when I was a child.  As I grew older and heard of the choices she made, I understood some, but never all.  This is the woman, with the black hair and the green eyes, that leads me over to the Pool.  I too know this Pool, having dived into it many times over in my Journeys here.  It is time to go in and go under.  To be baptized.  To be reborn.

I must return to the Womb.  Release all these … things… that I have carried as an adult and let myself again be as a child.

It sounds like such a simple process, doesn’t it?  If only it were so easy.  I turn to look at the group of Elders behind me.  They had gathered closer, now holding hands, swaying back and forth, not really singing, but more vocalizing in the back of their throats, urging me on with their spirits and their love.

Then my aunt shoves me in, with a healthy two-handed push right in the center of my chest.  There is no way I could have stopped my tumble.  I have the moment free to think how I hate feeling like Alice falling down that rabbit hole, before the icy cold waters reach up and take me in, swallowing me whole.

As soon as it is cold, the water is warm, flesh warm, roasted warm.  Soothing like a saline bath.  My eyes are closed.  I am breathing, incorporating the amniotic-like substance as if it were air in my lungs.  There is nothing here.  Not even nothingness.  There is just Me, and I am dissolving, one layer at a time, melting away.  The layers of an onion peeled away, thin membrane after transparent membrane, until not even a core remains….

Lo, I Walk Into The Valley

We stand at the rim overlooking a great valley, looking down over the dust and boulders.  A series of tents dots the landscape.  Some are clustered close together.  Others are scattered farther out, as if to avoid contact with the others.  The path leading down into the valley is steep, sharp and narrow.  Perfect for a little donkey to navigate.  I give Bella a loving pat on the rump.  A feeling of dread wraps its chilly hand around my throat.  I am not looking forward to this part of the journey at all.

‘What is this place?” I manage to rasp, my throat raw and tense all of a sudden.

Bella shakes her head to chase away some little bug buzzing too close to her ears.  I reach out to adjust her hat.  The sunflowers had passed away days ago, but I have been picking flowers along the way to replace the ones who fade away.  This evening her brim is circled with honeysuckles still on the vine.  ‘This is the Valley of Bones.’ she whispers back at me, the awe in her voice is unmistakeable.

I lean closer, resting more of my weight against Bella’s solid side.  ‘What does that mean?’  After all my combined escapades here in this land, I am not all together certain good things are coming, not when this place has the air of a plundered tomb clinging to it.

Bella pushes back into me for a second to let me know she’s there for me, to get my attention.  ‘It’s the place to come to recover the lost pieces of your self and your history.’

Ok.  That gives me lots of pause.  Delving into the depths of my psyche, all the hidden and suppressed memories and pieces of me, looking into my genetic ancestry, or anything else, it sounds so horrible and time-consuming and useless.  Not to mention, by the set of my Bella’s shoulders, I can tell, there is no way I can get out of this one.

That won’t stop me from trying.  ‘What about all these other people?’ I have to ask.  “Won’t we disturb them?  Won’t we all get in each other’s ways?’  Hey, it seems a good avenue for me to try.

Bella is not buying my shtick though.  She merely snorts and shoves against me hard enough that I nearly fall over.  I cling to her momentarily to maintain the semblance of balance, even though she does know better.  ‘Each one who enters the Valley enters within their own stream.’ She informs me.  ‘If that party desires the company of others, then the streams of consciousness can connect and overlap.  Many who come to this valley prefer to dig on their own without interruption.’  Bella shook her head to clear it real quick.  ‘Often, after a day of digging all alone, many will need the company of others in order to assimilate and integrate the bones they have found.’

‘Bones?’

Bella nods gently.  ‘It is called the Valley of Bones for that is what this place is.’  She flicks her tail against my side.  ‘You must dig to find the truth of things, to put the flesh back on the bones, that you might be more whole as you go along your path in life.’

That’s a lot to swallow all at once.  I climb carefully onto her back.  There is no way I can not be afraid, but in order to deal with all the fear currently racing from my gut into my throat there is nothing else to do but forge ahead.  I do not want to go into this valley, but there seems no other choice for me.  I would avoid it if I could, but where would that get me?

‘So,’ Bella asks me, ‘are you ready to go down there, my friend?’

I can feel the tears burning for release as I reply, ‘Let’s go see what we can find.  That which I have seen already can do nothing more than make me stronger in the re-telling, right?’

Bella nods as she begins to pick her way down the rocky path.  That which does not destroy us only makes us stronger, it is true.  I heartily pray that holds for me as well……

Sole Print

This Is My Map

This is my map.

Not only was it made for me;

It was made of me.

I don’t know what it says.

I have no clue

How to set about

Reading it.

I know it begins

At the heart of all things,

The heart that is me.

But all these branches?

All these tributaries?

I don’t understand.

Some are black.

They seem to be dead.

Others terminate.

Some loop back around.

Many are branched,

Seem to be questing.

Others are clean,

Open pathways into

Other things.

Some of this is my past,

Much of it is the future

As yet not laid out

All bare for me

So I cannot pick and chose

As I rattle the bones

The way I do in the nether realms

Of memory.

I have to pick.

Have to discern and decide.

I am not content

When things make no sense

To me.

Visiting The House of Soles

I don’t know what’s going on.  Bella stops in front of this very interesting looking tree.  All branches and roots reaching in many directions, all at once.  One of the lower branches has a cushion tied to it.  Many pretty ribbons decorate that area, as if someone spends a great deal of time sitting in the tree, like a little girl.  I can see that.  A young girl, sitting, swinging her feet back and forth, singing to herself as she weaves ribbons among the leaves and stems.  I smile to myself.  I dismount Bella.  Only now is the hunger nibbling at the edge of my stomach again, gentle questing fingers pulling along the side of my brain in tentative reminder.  Almost before my feet hit the dirt flat, Bella settles down on the ground as if she plans to be here for awhile.  While I give my donk an inquisitive look, I no longer feel the need to question her about things.  She closes her eyes, relaxing into a nap, just that quick.

I shake my head in disbelief at the absolute tranquility of a donkey.  I have to have faith in her.  Surely, this wise creature knows best.  I have trusted her thus far on my journey.  I have no reason to believe she would take me any place other than where I need to be.

I don’t notice the house tucked in amongst the shadows of other trees until the door cracks open.  Dark eyes peer out at me from a low height.  ‘That must be the little girl I had been imagining’, I think to myself, smiling in what I hope is encouragement and friendliness.  The door smacks shut quickly.  I can hear a high-pitched child-like voice squealing something, but I can’t quite make it out.  There is a general thumping and bumping now from behind the door before it swings back, wide open, and a small woman, taller than the height of the peering eyes of before, stands there grinning widely at me from the doorway.

She does not speak to me in words I can logically follow.  I hear what she is saying, clearly, in my head and I understand it all perfectly, but as I watch her lips move, I know she is speaking some other language, one unknown to me.  I make my smile match her smile, and pray this linguistic thing works both ways.

She has asked me to come inside with her.  There are great quantities of food to eat.  The smell of warm cooked things is wafting out, wrapping me in invisible arms and drawing me in to see what it has to offer.  I don’t notice that I am walking slowly forward, into the house.

I try to explain who I am and where I’ve been, but the woman pays me no mind.  I am not completely sure I have spoken aloud, so vibrant is the woman in carrying on her side of the conversation.  A young boy, not a girl, brushes past me, rushing outside.  I get the feeling it is his job to take care of Bella, and he prefers that job to having to deal with me in any way.  The woman is talking a mile a minute, about so many things, I am hard put to keep up.

She sits me down at the dining room table, piling food high on my plate.  She continues to talk while I tuck in.  The food is fabulous, but it is the warmth of the woman’s voice that knocks the final chills from my bones and loosens the restraints that hold my soul in so tight.  She does not rush me at all.  She keeps up a constant bounty of blather, now about the fields and the forests and the growing of things.  There are hot cups full of thick sweet coffee to sip after the meal.  I grow dizzy with all the food and the sunshine of the speech, all this positive attention directed towards me.

Once I set my coffee cup down for the final time, the woman, whom I have come to understand is called Esmeralda, picks the cup up and stares down into the fine grounds at the bottom for a few minutes.  She flashes me that motherly smile, takes my hand and tugs me off into another room.

This room seems to be some sort of workshop.  There are leather things here and there.  Tools of sorts I cannot name scattered about here and there.  Pencils and crayons.  Vials of colorful powders.  Papers.  Tablets.  Stone.  Stretched canvas in various stages of production and creativity.  Piles of wads of  yarns.  Vases full of sticks with the leaves still clinging to them in wrinkled dried out clumps.  She leaves me to stand in roughly the center of the cluttered little room as she rummages around on top of one table, shoving piles of things this way and that as she searches for something.  She chitters and chatters away the entire time, only my mind has drifted off into another place.  I can smell cinnamon and honeysuckle.  I have no idea what it means, but it blows like the wind across my soul.  I hunger now for movement, to move on, to go about my way.  I will not be rude to this lovely woman who has so taken care of me and entertained me.  I listen to the gathering forces in my soul as her voice dapples over my consciousness like a stream bubbling over wide smooth stones.

She flops a box-like thing down at my feet and bids me step into it.  Perplexed, I do as she asks.  She immediately pours some thick gummy substance all over both my feet.  It looks to be the stuff paper is made of, pulp made up of odd bits of this and that.  It smells absolutely gruesome, as if some carnivore evacuated its last meal of road kill out onto a hot road where it baked for hours before being eaten by something else…and this is the final result after digestion.  That aroma brought tears to my eyes that no amount of blinking could push aside for long.

I can’t say how long I stand there.  Esmeralda hums and dances along her workspace, bustling around, pulling this out and twisting it about, before moving on to the next thing.  My mind wanders.  I can see vast prairies billowing out in front of me.  I can feel the desire to run, like a wild horse, stampede across the wind-swept plains, free.  Free.  Free.  Ever moving.  Ever going.  Moving.  On and on.  I come back to myself when I hear my own sigh.  I try to focus more on Esmeralda.  Her voice ripples up and down as she ruminates on many topics, not at all monotonous, but still quite hypnotizing in her own way.

She scampers over to me periodically, checking and poking the stuff around my feet.  Amazingly enough, it dries quickly.  As it dries, it shrinks—as well as stinks less to boot.  Or maybe my scent sensors have died away from that stench.  I would say the material itself shrivels away.  Esmeralda had plunked it around and on top of my feet no less than ankle deep.  Now as I spare a peek down, I find the gunk has retreated to below my feet.  Although it still feels sticky and more than a bit squishy to me, she says I can step out now.  She offers me a chair, while handing me a bunch of damp towels to clean my feet off.  I lean over to sniff my feet.  I have to, after the horrid ick that hit me from the first as she poured that … stuff … out over me.  My feet actually smell pretty decent.  I can smell tanned leather more than anything else.  Whatever that stuff was, it did turn the bottom of my feet a rather deep shade of red.  Rather like the color of a henna tattoo once it has finished drying and the henna brushed away.  I wiped them off as well as I could anyway.  The red did not budge even the slightest bit during any of my ministrations.

I had been so busy with my feet, I hadn’t noticed Esmeralda busy whacking and weaving at her table.  Her back is towards me.  Her arms fly back and forth.  Her body shimmies and shakes with her effort.  Now she doesn’t talk.  Now she hums.  Some steady rhythmic tune that brings dark visions to mind, writhing in the night around a campfire.  Daring romantic images.  I like it.

With a triumphant flourish, the tiny woman whirls around and presents me with… this… thing.  At first. I do not know what it is, or what to do with it.  I take it in both of my hands and I look at it.  Esmeralda’s calming voice fills my ears.  It’s a map, I gather.  I do not recognize the topography.  She says something that makes me look up, questioning.  She repeats herself then, adding more detail.  I swear to you, my lips are not moving, but this woman hears me just fine.  It is a map.  A map of my soul.  This is the way I have come.  This is the way I must go.  I can do nothing more than stand there, dumb-struck, until she pats my arm and leads me out of the room, out of the house, into the stable, where my Bella stands, leaning into the boy as he brushes her with a stiff wire brush.  He has tied this ridiculous hat onto her head, with holes for her ears to stick out.  The sunflowers stuck haphazardly through the brim are delightful.  I cannot stop the grip that splits my face in two.

The boy snorts derisively at me and stalks away.  Bella groans contentedly.  She has a fresh blanket to go with her hat.  There are new and now full saddlebags on her back.  My own leather satchel is stuck in the mix as well.  The woman is wishing me well, patting me on the back.  This weirdly leather-like map I continue to clutch in my hand.  Esmeralda gives me a few more pats, and then pets the donkey some, before turning her back on us, leaving us to our own devises in the stable.  I can hear the murmurs of her voice following her back into the house.

Bella nudges me from my revelry.  ‘Are we all good then?’  I nod, biting into my lower lip as my mind refuses to tell me what it is thinking.  I hoist myself onto Bella’s broad back, hunkering in and holding on tight, still clutching the map in my left hand.  It seems a frail thing, but still bears the strength of steel.  I don’t know what it is made of, but here it is now, to guide me as I continue.

K’s Approach

She’s coming.  I can feel it.  About time for her to get back too.  I struggle up off the ground, trying to get up on my feet.  I have to shake my body loose a bit to be able to stand proper.  Won’t do that child any good to see me laying down on the job.

Time works funny here, I know.  I feel as if hours and hours have gone past.  K may feel as if she’s been gone only a few minutes—or maybe several months.  Won’t know which til she gets here.

Hope she really took care of business at that surrender well.  Poor miss.  She sure was wound tight and all whipped when I found her.  Lady E was on the ball when she sent me out after K, insteada waiting for K to crawl into town on her own.  Don’t know if she could have made it on her own.

Whoa.  Didn’t hear her come through the trees there.  Well, looka that.  She’s just shining now, isn’t she?  Although I have to wonder at the fool that dressed her head to toe in white.

Oh yeah.  She sure took care of business here.  Look at her.  She is radiant.  She doesn’t seem to even be touching the ground underfoot as she walks.

She smells, oh, she smells of fairy grass.  That explains some things.  Like how she got so golden pale.  That thing on her finger.  Lord’s alive!  It’s moving.  I wonder if she knows that thing has a life of its own…

‘Hop aboard!’  She is still in dreamland, poor thing.  At least she’s compliant enough.  Up on my back, easy as pie.  Little wisp barely weighs a thing.  We’ll have to feed her up once we get to town.  Hope these roads don’t go shifting on us.  She may be in a daze right now, but soon enough that human body of hers will wake her up hungrier than a bear after winter sleep.

Off we go now.  Hippity hop.  Can’t wait to see where this path leads us this time out.

Dialogue

‘Do not speak unless spoken to directly.’ the blue-haired one tells me urgently.

‘Do not fuss or fidget.’ says the shorter red-eyed one.  ‘She so hates that.’

Knowing glances fly, heads shake, lips are pursed, in regards to that one.

‘Mind your manners.’ Leoni is back now.  ‘Let me do all the talking.’

Keeping my mouth shut, I curtsy, neat and low, careful not to muss my skirts.  I feel a bit more reassured now after my spa treatments.  And especially now that I am dressed.

‘Right.’ my minute green companion snaps.  ‘This way.’  Boy, is she tense.

I keep my eyes cast down from the moment we enter the Chamber.  It must be some sort of enchantment.  I would never do this of my own volition.  It’s not how I was trained.  I must remember to ask Leoni after all of this is over.

‘This is the one?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘It has been taken care of?’

“Yes, Your Majesty.’

‘Has everything been returned to her?  All her knowledge?’

Pause here.

‘No, Ma’am. Your Majesty.’

Another, longer pause.

‘She has the majority of her Real Self back in place.’

More silence.

‘It will take more time for her True Self to reclaim its place within her.  Your Majesty.’

‘Ahh.’  The royal voice once more.  ‘Give her Safe passage and set her back upon her Journey.’

Slowly, feeling small and low to the ground, and not really in a good way, I start to back away, exiting the room, body caught in mid-bow.

My body jerks rigidly to a stop, after only three or four steps.  I am held in place.

‘Be certain she bears a Token.’

‘Yes.  Yes.  Your Majesty.’

My body is released from its stasis, the stalled backwards progress now permitted to resume.  I never even saw the hem of her skirts or anything.  Caught the smell of spiced raw flowers, but not much more.  Nothing I could taste to identify…

‘Fare thee well, Lady.’  I almost miss that regal whisper as I slide through the doorway and out into the hall.

The door bolts shut behind us.  My body releases completely and I am myself again.  Leoni has gone from her normal verdant green to a strange shocking pale pale blue.  Her wings flutter haplessly.  She must be terrified, still.  Not that I blame her a bit.

I feel faint now.  I feel—as if—I’ve come—more than undone—I’ve come—redone…buttoned up and ready for more…even though I can’t quite say how…

I am in the ocean.  Again.  In my own ocean awash in the sea of the released tears that I have been shedding for days and years.  This time, I know for sure, this is the right thing.  I am in the right place, doing the best thing.  A very good thing indeed.