November 30, 2019 - The November Witch

I have a velvet alabaster scabbard, a bit worn with time but still fine and beautiful.  The directions for its making were in a blueprint that was given to me at conception.  I followed the formula exactly when making it.  The seams are all but invisible, seen only in the brightest of lights, which reflect off the rich alabaster depth.  I have woven many symbols into the scabbard with fine ruby-red threads that dance and pulsate upon the surface of the soft velvet as well as throughout it, surrounding and enclosing the contents in cryptic warmth.  It is always with me.  We are inseparable.

And it was with me today as well when I headed into the woods to see off the November Witch.  I wanted to be sure she left on schedule because December is weighing heavily upon me.  I can only take so much.  I was patient as I walked, but I knew she would find me.  It is a child’s game we have played for a long time now as I am not young.  The signs were everywhere—frozen pools of water that just a couple of weeks ago would have still been running down the slopes of the woods, icicles hanging from rock formations, the putrid scent of an unlucky animal caught by the coyotes the night before.  Everything said “Witch” to me.

There was no ambush this time, no slings or stones or arrows.  There was no hidden trap and no poison mushrooms.  Instead, she sat upon a rock waiting for me, as if waiting for a good friend or a long lost lover, her tattered dress of forest leaves hanging down in a long train that was still beautiful, albeit bedraggled.  Her once beautiful face was slightly swollen now and lined with time.  She smiled and waved when she saw me, and I warily raised a hand in response.  I will never trust the November Witch.

She rolled her eyes at me.  “Oh, greet me like the friend I am!” she said.  “You and I have known each other for a very long time.  That must count for something, at least.”

“What do you want, Witch?” I asked.

“Nothing.  Can’t I talk to an old friend and be welcomed?”

“An old friend?”

“Why yes, of course,” she said, “Do sit down.” 

But I did not sit.  I could smell the trickery in the air.  She is an old adversary, but old or not, she knows the woods as well as I do, maybe better.

“So you’re going to see Him, then?” she continued on, seeming not to notice that I kept my distance.

“Where I go is not your concern.  You have done your level best to stop me.  Again and again you have tried, and with the help of Mercury this time, you almost succeeded,” I said.

“You are brave.”

“You are flattering me,” I returned.

“You are smart.”
“You are cutthroat.”

“Will you speak so ill of an old acquaintance who only wants to see how powerful you have become?” she asked.

I turned to leave, but she stood up quickly, much faster than I would have imagined she could, and I was reminded that there was not much distance between us.  In fact, we were closer than I would at first have thought.

“Please,” she said, holding her hand out, “I know I have been beaten this time, and yes, I will be back again next year.  But I can at least acknowledge when I have been bested.”

She still held her hand out, a small and delicate hand after all, and I moved closer and reached for it.  Why not? I thought.  Let’s have a truce, if only for a moment.  But as I reached, I felt an icy breeze on the back of my neck and I froze in motion, my hand only a few inches from hers.  And then I backed up—quickly, very quickly, feeling angry and foolish.  How close had I come to a final embrace with the Witch?

Her hand fell to her side and she smiled, a smile that never reached her eyes, a cold smile that froze upon her face as her entire body froze before my eyes.  She turned to crystal ice, each white tooth in her mouth frozen and exquisite.  And then they dropped out of her mouth, one by one, and fell to the hard rocks at her feet, smashing with a tinny, tinkling sound.  Her gaze was frozen in time, and she could no longer see me.  I had witnessed for the first time a slight brush with the Great Alchemist.

I turned as fast as I could and ran into the woods.  I knew I should not turn around and look at her.  I did not want to tempt fate, having witnessed the alchemy, and I knew I was lucky to be alive just now.  Then I heard a large crash as her entire body of ice crushed and fell to the forest floor, like the sound of the stained glass windows from nine hundred and ninety-nine cathedrals crashing to the ground.  The Witch was dead.  Again. 

I stood still in my tracks.  I could hear the wing beats of the usual suspects, those who always come at death.  My heart moved with pity—it shouldn’t have, but it did.  I expected no more from her than what I had gotten, but from me I expected no less.  I decided it was not for me to judge the Betrayer.  There was another Judge who waited for her, who waited for all the Betrayers.

“Come you angels of mercy,” I whispered, “and take her to the Summerland where she will be safe from the bloodlust of the night woods.  Come Epona, and carry her away like the wind!”  No sooner did I say it than I heard the massive hoofbeats behind me.  They seemed to mingle with the drumbeats I could hear in the distance ahead of me as I walked forward into the woods.  I did not turn around to see the transmutation.

I kept walking and I was reminded of Dante’s Inferno.  "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" said the sign on the Gate of Hell.  “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”  There were nine circles of torment that the soul had to journey through, each worse than the one before it.  The first was Limbo, the second was Lust, the third was Gluttony, the fourth was Greed, the fifth was Wrath, the sixth was Heresy, the seventh was Violence, the eighth was Fraud, and the ninth was Treachery. 

The ninth was saved for the Betrayers.  For surely there is nothing worse than those who claim to love us and betray us.  The inner ninth circle of hell is saved especially for them, and rightly so.  This is the realm of the traitor, of the oathbreaker.  The Betrayer of friends, of family, and of country.  But most especially, the Betrayer of love.  Abandon all hope.

Goodbye to the November Witch for another year.  I continued on my walk, the threatening drumbeats in the now darkening forest growing a bit louder and deeper still.  I reached for my alabaster scabbard and looked within.  There inside was a tiny stub of an old candle, which I always guard like my life.  A glowing ember sat at the tip of the wick, giving off a soft and warm light.

“We are almost there, my beloved,” I said out loud.  “Will you trust me?”  But who was I talking to??  I did not know, nor did I know the words would escape my lips until the very moment they did.  I was afraid.  Even after all this time of being cared for, I was still afraid.  “You can go back and be the seed that never sprouted, or you can be the one who burst and bled his soul upon the Earth in a holy sacrifice.  The choice is yours.  The choice has always been yours,” I said.  To him.

That was enough for one day.  I am only a woman, and I am tired.  But, of course, I will fight.  I was born to fight.  I move on, then, to icy December.

November 22, 2019 - Shattered Souls

It occurs to me that a great many people are walking around wounded today, more than I have ever seen before.  So many, in fact, that I am inclined to believe something foul is afoot.  I am not talking about uncomplicated wounds—broken bones and cuts, bruises and contusions, colds and fevers, simple terminal illnesses—no, not them.  Those are the easy wounds.  Even the ones that kill the body are simple in comparison.  No, I am talking about people walking around with their souls in filthy and shattered pieces.

There’s the man who waits in line at the coffee shop and rocks back and forth on his feet ever so slightly as he stands at attention with a faraway and haunted look in his eyes.  He squeezes his fist over the dollar bills in his hand and his breathing is shallow.  The muscle in his jaw tightens and releases as he grinds his teeth together and releases them, remembering for a moment where he is until he forgets again and his face goes pale and the grinding continues.  He is not sick, but he is dying just the same.  Every day he dies a little more.

I see the pieces of his soul all around him.  They lay on the dirty floor of the coffee shop, and people walk all over them as if they are nothing at all, as if they are garbage….  Nothing but God incarnate lying in the gutter as the empty people laugh and walk by.  And I want to walk up to him so badly!  I want to walk up and say, “Excuse me, sir!  Is this your soul lying on the ground in pieces?  Please, let me help you pick it up.”  Please….so that I might be able to forget about my own soul, just for a moment.

But I do not say it to him.  I cannot.  If I did, he would run away in fear at having been discovered to be human.  Then his soul would be left on the filthy floor, and the filthy people would kick it back and forth like an old can on the street.  He would have to return later in the dark of the night and pick the sooty pieces up and pretend they were beautiful and that he loved them.  “How beautiful you are, my love!” said King Solomon.  “My beloved is to me like a cluster of henna blossoms.”  Or a soul in pieces on the floor of a coffee shop.

And anyway, you cannot touch the raw elements of another person’s soul without their permission.  The penalty is too great.  He who goes into that light comes not forth again.  It is death to touch the mysteries unprepared.  So I leave his soul on the floor, and I try to walk around it.  But the nagging thought stays:  If I help, I could redeem myself, make myself worthy again.

We all know it isn’t just him, though.  They are everywhere.  Maybe you are one of them?  One of the people with a splintered soul?  There was a time when souls were regularly examined and cared for and healed and loved and put in a special place befitting their station.  We all knew it.  We all did it.  And when we found the occasional broken soul, we rallied together and fixed it as best as we could.  Not anymore.  Something somewhere has broken.

Maine’s November ghosts haunt me deeply now as the days turn grey and cold.  The mirror on the pond beckons.  “Mirror, mirror on the wall.  Who is the fairest of them all?”  I don’t dare look.  I might see my own soul in pieces as well, and I don’t want an answer because then I would have to act on it.  Maybe the mirror would tell me to go back and find the man in the coffee shop with the broken soul.  Or the woman in the supermarket.  Or the nurse at the doctor’s office….  All of them bleeding sanguine soul light onto the unswept floors.

The November Witch laughs, but still there is hope.  She does not know Who comes at the solstice, and I can wait.  I can carry my own pieces until then.  It is not too great a burden to bear.  And while I cannot pick up the pieces of my fellow man’s soul, I can still offer him a simple smile.  A smile that fills.  And let me tell you if you do not already know (but I am certain you do), you never know just how empty and bereft your soul is until it is filled by someone else.

Something has happened in this world, and it’s high time we undo it.  If you have gotten this far in this article, you know what I am talking about.  Put down the electronic devices, just for a few minutes.  Examine your soul.  Allow your fellow man to experience his pain in silent comfort instead of an agonizing and macabre display crushed into the ground by your own boots.  Give him a hand.  Smile.  Please.  We don’t have to keep doing this dark thing.  We can return.

November 15, 2019 - Where She Treads

WHERE SHE TREADS

They danced as if there were no tomorrow
the evenings filled with their sighs
and man and beast grew fat on the wealth
languishing now where at first they thrived
with no thoughts to the future
or the turning of the leaves
or the cold moon
or the wolf.

 

The Lord of Winter comes now
demanding obeisance and adoration
every knee bent
his hawk's eye upon the lady
possession above all else
conquering
with woman treading softly now
the magical music long since gone
and the King imprisoned or dead.
She seeks the one who will wear the crown
in His stead.
It is good now, the cold, the snow
with memory mercifully fading again
blessed silence and dreams
and walking in snowy fields
no footprints made
no seeds
until the blood-red sky challenges the black heavens
again
and He remembers.

November 12, 2019 - I Will Build a Fence

Now the cold season comes upon us, and it is time for all creatures to go within.  This is the natural order of things.  So I will build a fence, a strong fence made of old oak logs.  I will not worry about the wet soil and the ravages of the icy Maine winter because the oak is the King of trees, and he will protect me.  His strength is unparalleled, and he is so good for fences.  Post after post will be set into the ground, following a secret ley line of the land known only to me.  Each post will be set with a tear, with the ley line in silent agreement, seeming to say, “Yes, this is the way.  Etch out and fence in the esoteric secret, and put it in plain sight where it will surely be ignored.  This is how it has always been done.”

Post after post of the Oak King will stand straight and tall on the arcane ley line.  And around each post I will wrap a thick rope.  Not just any rope, but an unbreakable nautical line, the kind that wizened old sailors embrace because they know the value of the line and entrust it with their very lives.  I will wrap the thick rope around the oak posts, and even the old Oak King will bow to the rope and say, “Aye!  The best in the world has been bested!”  They will become fast friends.  And November will grow colder still and the fence will grow longer, because that is what fences have a tendency to do, especially in November in Maine.

And there will be an anchor as well.  Yes, an anchor on the land, holding down a fence that cannot be moved and a rope that cannot be broken.  But one cannot have enough safeguards, and the symbolism alone will be enough to frighten off all but the strongest of ley hunters as they search for the pattern.  I will wrap the rope around the huge anchor, starting at the bottom and going up in a spiral.  And the Caduceus of Mercury will stand in broad daylight, but no one will know because no one is paying attention.  They are on the other side of the fence, after all, so how would they know?  And besides, they have their own Double Helix, and in the end, there is no difference.  As above, so below.  But I will not concern myself with them because it is November, and I must build my fence quickly now.

At long last after a great deal of effort, the fence will be finished.  I will be on one side and the world will be on the other, and we will agree that it is a fine fence, the finest ever made, a decoration on the landscape.  The secret ley line will be drawn out and hidden in plain sight—as are all of the darkest secrets in this world—an energy line of such power, it could burn the entire world to cinders.  But in the end, it is just a map of my own heart anyway, and there will be no burning of the world—this time.  After all, one must know how to read maps, and surely that is a disappearing talent in our modern world of clever, sterile geniuses.

People will look at the fence and say, “It is a very fine fence, a very safe fence.  You have done well in corralling yourself.”  Then they will return to the pasture and the true corral.  What good is a fence if you have nothing to fence in (or out)?  The fence must do its job, and the world is a willing volunteer led to the slaughter along the boundary line.  Only the ley line hunter knows how to scale the fence.

I languish in November now and it is cold and it is time for fences again.  So be it.  The warmth of friendship follows the sun, and he is nowhere to be found.  They say he went out west, but my eyes could never gaze at his brilliance anyway.  I am tired.  It is a time for deep introspection within the safety of November’s fence.  No one need know the secret lying in plain sight.

November 9, 2019 - This Land

It has been my luck and my great pleasure to fall in love with land.  The gentle slopes, the grassy curves, the spiky outcrops of granite, the slick bogs and marshes, the deep woods, the treacherous cliffs surrounding the sea—all of it lays down like a lover for me.  All of it entices me, enthralls me, envelops me, consumes me.

There are those who say we do not own the land but are only stewards in our lifetime.  I tell you now, those people are wrong.  They do not have vision.  They do not understand that we ARE the very land upon which we walk.  We pull our nutrition from it, and in turn when we die, we give it back.  The very plants and animals raised on the land have turned its once inanimate ingredients into a walking and breathing mural.  We in turn consume the mural and become the walking land.

The animals know what most humans do not:  We are one with the land, the only difference being one of degree.  We come from the soil; we return to the soil.  My ancestors’ blood has soaked back into the clay on countless occasions—red rivers blackening the hungry soil—only to bide its time, seek me out, and spurt back into life in my own veins.  There is a real connection here.  They lived and died so that I might live.  And die.

This is why many people who leave their birthplace feel a real disconnection for a long time.  Sometimes they can forge a new connection in their new territory.  Sometimes not.  It depends upon how deep their roots have gone and how sensitive the living are to the vibrations of the dead around them.  It depends upon whether or not they can unite in an erotic embrace with the new land around them.

There are those with a dark agenda who understand this only too well.  They seek to sever the connection between the living and their ancestors by displacing them from the land in order to rule the world.  They know the secret love affair between man and the soil, and they seek to destroy the union.  The man without a country is a man adrift in a sterile sea.  He has no roots, he has no lifeline, he has nothing to love and nothing to protect.  When he loses the land, he loses his blood.  When others attempt to take what is rightfully his, if he gives it away without a fight, he has given away his own life.

This is not about ownership of “property.”  This is about birthright.  So be careful that you do not hand away your birthright.  Be careful that you do not whittle away the solidity beneath your own two feet in slippery slopes and tiny degrees—all for the shiny baubles of the merchant.  The land in which you were born and upon which you walk and live and move and breathe, is your connection to not only this life you live now, but to your ancestors and ultimately deity itself.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  Vita mutatur non tollitur.

November 7, 2019 - Raw November

Now those inviting waves that lapped against my ankles in the summer and gave relief from the glaring sun, turn cold and biting and cruel.  The tide comes in quickly like an advancing army, and I have to run or it will overtake me.  But instead I pause and turn to see a father and his son on horseback off in the distance, and I smile, forgetting about the waves momentarily. 

But they have not forgotten about me, and while lost in my reverie, a wave crashes over me and instantly chills me to the bone.  Now I must pay for wasting time.  Then the wind joins in and whips against my soaked pants, laughing as I tremble in the biting cold.

“Is this how you always were?” I angrily ask the ocean.  “Back when I loved you in the summer, is this how you were??”

“Most likely,” he responds.

“But you seemed kinder then and playful and full of hidden shells and treasures.”  And now I am sad for the realization before me.

“You cannot be such a cold and biting creature,” I say.  “I will not believe you are such a cold and biting creature!”

“Look again, girl,” he says.  But I back up, having belatedly regained the tiniest bit of common sense. 

November and her soldiers begin to conspire against me.  The wind whips and mocks me, singing, “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies!  Ashes, ashes, we all fall down!” 

And I wonder why I would have been so foolish to have come so far down the shore on my own.  The sun darts behind the blackened clouds, which he had promised to vanquish.  What a liar.  He was always such a liar.  I look for the travelers on horseback, but they have already disappeared, having quite the advantage of speed.

It is two miles back at least, and the day ends very early now.  I start walking.  Shivering.  I would follow my own footsteps back, but the ocean has already eaten them.  He has always had a monstrous appetite.  Now I must remember which outcrop of beach grass I came out from when I first arrived.  They all look the same, though.  My legs are cold, but I do not see many choices before me, so I will keep walking.  I ignore the ocean when he asks me if I want to come for a swim, but he knows that I hear him.

“Just a quick swim,” the ocean teases, and I am not sure if it is gulls hovering overhead or vultures.  And in the great scheme of things, I do not think it matters much anyhow.

“Just a quick swim,” the wind laughs as it whips the salty ocean spray into my hair.  The gulls are circling now, following their own hidden currents of desire.

Just a quick swim, I think to myself.  A final swim.  It is just too easy, though, far too easy.  And I shan’t have things be that easy.

The court assembles.  Kings and Knights everywhere you look, and I am the only pawn.  The wind grows stronger, and I keep walking.  I am on my own with raw November.

November 3, 2019 - The Secret Kiss

They only meet on occasion and always in secret.  The hidden birch waits quietly, while around her the riotous green growth of the other trees and plants dominates the landscape in a fantastic cascade of breathtaking being.  Then comes the masquerade ball where they all wear their most colorful costumes, and the band promises to play forever while they waltz away into the night, singing carelessly and childishly.  Yet still the birch waits silently and patiently.

But the band has not told the truth.  It does not play forever, after all, and one by one the guests leave, their costumes dragging behind them.  Each covertly holds the idea that surely this time they have gone too far, and atonement looms on the horizon.  There are no flowers to be found anywhere.  Now they fade off into obscurity and impoverishment.  Still the birch waits quietly for the fleeting moment, the secret.

Then the Sun hits a certain angle in the western sky as He arcs toward the Underworld, and finally the secret is revealed.  He bathes the birch in kisses of gold light that drip slowly down her trunk, and the two embrace in a passion of long lost love found once again.  The surrounding area is hushed in the brilliance of the embrace, watching a timeless and ethereal enactment of "I AM."  Then He dips quietly below the horizon, and the world falls quickly into dusk.  A cold wind picks up seemingly out of nowhere.  All eyes lower to the ground, and the birch waits silently and expectantly once again.