#jouneying

[flamingkorybante]

Building voraciously, steps crashing downward into a mouth of the earth. A cave like a geode, opalescent fangs of stalactites in all directions, shining and dripping sweat and rainbows. Water droplets on my palms. What is here for me? Fear dissipates. Pain diffuses. Trauma equalizes. The baleen of stones filters it to mist and lets it float, become light. All is light, refracting. All is light. All is light. They hold out their hands. Scrolls. A wand tipped with a pointing finger. So much has been stolen. I give thanks for the shreds that remain. Sounds without meaning. Symbols without stories. Faces without names. A drunk old man at a bar telling a half-remembered story. Torn up letters taped back together. I give thanks. The teeth of geode leave only torn pieces of other people’s memory to gather and decipher. So much is lost. Their faces are veiled. Their hands are gloved. I cannot reach them. I cannot hear their voices. I must make my own.

Ancestor journey notes

[walkingbeyondthehedge]

Friday, 2/27/15

I am in a place that I go to often on the other side of the hedge, deep in the pines.

It is a fire pit.  But sometimes it is a pool of water.  Sometimes a tornado rises out of it, and sometimes it is an anthill.

Fire, water, air, earth.

Tonight it is a pool of water, and my best friend, who died 8 years ago (a regular journeying companion) sits across from me on the other side of the pool.  She is garbed all in white and her hair is wet with the snow and  pasted to her head.

Snow falls wet and cold all around us and on us as we sit in the midst of the pine trees.

Together we peer into the pool at a swarming mass of tadpoles, slimy and wet.  Frogs jump out at intervals and disappear into the snow.

I shape shift into a frog and jump into the pool.  I fall down a very long waterfall and land safely in a pile of wet, black shale.  

I am deep, deep in a cave, the water seems to fall from a mile up, from a small pale circle that I know is the pool where my friend keeps watch.  I see the half moon high above it, framed by the circle of falling water.  The water falls around me wet and melodic.  The walls of the cave are studded with bioluminescent mushrooms, bats fly around me, and lightening bugs.  

I sit for a long time and enjoy the music and light display.  Then as my eyes grow accustomed to the low light I see that the cave is decorated with paintings. Horses, and deer, and cattle.

I become myself again, and as one of the horses peels itself from the wall and comes to life I leap onto its back and we ride together out of the cave.

We are on a plain of snow, and snow swirls all around us.  I am wearing some sort of ancient leathers.  My breath and the breath of the horse freezes as we expel it.  My hands hold tight to its tangled, wet, cold mane.  We ride for a very long time until I make out a glow ahead of us.

It becomes an orange square in the snow.  We travel toward it and it becomes larger and a dark shadow surrounding it becomes a house.  I look into the window and see myself in bed--warm, snug, and cozy.

I feel an overwhelming gratitude for the simple gifts of warmth and shelter.