Walking Beyond the Hedge

Monday, 3/2/15

Sunday night I am so upset I cannot focus.

Tonight I breathe for a long time before I venture out.

I sit at the roots of the oak tree that guards the house.  I reach through the ivy and lay my hand on the bark.  I feel its pulse and breath slowly in and out.  

Soon I feel the pulse of the moles as they tunnel through the moonlit yard, the deer as they nibble at the privet at the very back of the hedge, the hawk pair as they roost for the night, the foxes as they slip through the fog.

I pull the ivy back and there is a small door at the base of the tree.  I shed my skin and shrink my skeleton until it is small enough to open the door and walk through.

It is raining.

I walk through the pine woods for a long time until I get to the fire pit.  L. is there and my skeleton collapses in her lap and sobs.

She pulls a mug out and holds it  to the rain until it is full, from inside a pocket she pulls out a bottle and drips something into the water.  She holds it into the fire.  Her hand and the mug are both licked by the flames.  She hold it there until it boils.

She pulls her hand out and passes the other hand over the mug.  When she hands it to me it is pleasantly warm.  I drink it.

Immediately my guts wrench and I feel sick.  I look down and there is a tornado forming above my pelvis where my stomach should be.  It grows and grows and grows until it spews out of my jaw bones.

I scream the tornado into the pine trees around me and tear into the trees with it.  I snap them like twigs.  I tear off branches and throw them high into the air. I continue to retch and puke the thing out until I am dry heaving and the woods are nearly destroy.  

But I still feel rage and despair.  I grow my skeleton until I am a giant and I stomp on the trees that are left until I am surrounded by a plain of destruction.

I sit in the middle of this moonlit, black expanse of shredded wood for hours.  I continue to cry but it is calmer, a release.

Dawn appears on the horizon and Sunna follows.  She touches her fingers to the rivulets of tears around me on the ground.

Sunday's reading.  Hexagram 17 Following and Hexagram 25 Innocence.

I am hanging from the tree again.

This time it is a mirror image of the one that grows in the backyard.  The dead one covered in ivy.

I am bound by vines.The stars move in the night sky and snow falls around me.  Lightening bugs join the snow fall and the stars.

The vines in the trees grow with each breath I expel.  They know no seasonal laws — the ivy is joined by wisteria, trumpet vine, honeysuckle, muscadine, and green briar.

The snow continues to fall, the lightening bugs to glow, and the stars to move as the green briar thorns and tendrils begin to cut into my flesh.  With each breath I expel the vines continue to grow and cut deeper until I am flesh no more, but only bones.

A wren takes up residence in my ribcage and builds a nest.

Overhead the birds migrate — Bohemian Waxwings, Pelicans, Egrets, Scissor Tail Flycatchers, King birds.  They come and they go.

My bones disappear and the flowers continue to grow, the vines to run wild, the birds to migrate, the snow to fall, the stars to move, the lightening bugs to glow.

Hail Mani, the Moon.

Hail Nerthus, the Earth.

Hail Ing Frea, the Wild Wood.

Hail Freya, primordial Woman.

Hail Thunor, Wind, Rain, and Snow. Thunder and Lightening.  Fair sky and foul.

Hail Woden, Seeker and Hedge Walker.

Hail Jesus, The Christ, whose teachings I follow.

Hail the Disir, my Fore Mothers.  May they watch over me.

Hail the Land Wights, with whom I live, and whose breath I share.

My Gods who are over the hedge, and under the hedge, and all around the hedge, Hallowed be your names.

May your Kingdom return and your will be done in the present as it was in the past.

Give me this day my daily bread.

Forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me.

Lead me not into temptation and deliver me from evil.

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.