It was hard to leave the cottage of Bluebird Woman and Wren Woman. I dawdled through the day, caressing each flower in the garden, inhaling the fragrance of each herb. I worked slowly at each homey task, as if each were a prayer. In a way I suppose it was. After lunch I heated water over the hearth, bathed and put on my clothes. I owed my life to these kind women, and had no way to thank them.
Each took a hand as we walked the miles to Duwamish Quay. We walked slowly, saying little. Bluebird Woman hummed sweet melodies, as was her wont. The shops were closing, the streets were empty of the usual bustle of commerce. We made our way to the docks, where the ferries were lined up.
Ferry Women sat conversing with each other. Some were roasting apples over a barrel. Others sat at the bow of their boats whittling or whistling. Some puttered aboard their vessels. A few called to me to take their ferry across the bay. Others ignored me completely. I remembered what Wren Woman told me, one would be a kindred spirit. I just didn’t expect her to have purple hair and a pierced nose.
She ginned at me. I grinned back. Wordlessly she held out her hand, calloused but her nails were impeccably manicured, polished black with purple lightning bolts and tiny jewels. She cast off, the nails not interfering with her skillful handling of her craft.
I hugged Bluebird and Wren Woman one last time, kissing both the soft cheek and the hard. “Thank you,” I whispered, squeezing one last time.
“Blessing be to you, dear,” they replied in unison. I waved and watched them until the dock was lost from sight. Then I turned to the grinning Ferry Woman.
“Welcome aboard the Calabar Felonway.” Her welcome was accompanied by a bewitching smile. “I am Captain Anita Marie. You, I understand, have no name?”
I found myself smiling back, feeling as if having no identity was nothing out of the ordinary. “You are correct, I have no name. But I hope I will learn it on the Isle of Ancestors.”
“If you don’t learn it there, you won’t learn it anywhere. Canny place, the Isle of Ancestors.”
“What do you know of the
Island?”
“Never set foot on it myself. Hate to think what the Ancestors would make of me! The Ancestors-to-be tend to be a bit conventional in their thought. Hell, they’re rigid traditional. There are shelves full of photographs going back to the invention of the camera of stuffy ancestors back home.”
“There must be one radical among them. After all, doesn’t every generation have its black sheep?”
“Possibly,” Anita Marie looked as if she was thinking about it. “But why tempt fate? You have a good reason to go. Me, I’m happy as a piranha on painkillers.”
We talked about everything and nothing. I feasted on looking at her. Purple hair and carnelian lips. The jewel in her nose a ruby. She had a skull and crossed bones tattoo on her right hand. Her Missouri River Boatman shirt, Folkwear pattern #204, was purple silk, sashed with a multicolored woven belt. From which hung a heavy leather bag and a shrunken head hanging by its hair. Her legs were encased in supple black leather. Bright red boots rose past her knees. I caught a glimpse of a jeweled hilt of a dirk peeking out of each. Besides the nose ring, she had multiple ear piercings, each sporting a jewel of a different color. “I have my belly button pierced,” she confided, “But I draw the line at my tongue or eyebrows. One can be too latitudinarian.” She wore many bangle bracelets, and interesting pendants on interesting chains. But no rings. “They catch on things.” Her jewelry made a wind chime sort of music as she poled us across the bay.
The night was clear. The waxing, near full moon shone brilliant in the sky. It was no more brilliant than the innumerable stars. I could see the Isle of Ancestors coming ever closer. It seemed too soon that we arrived.
Anita Marie tied her barge to the
Island dock. She helped me out and up. I pressed the gold coin Bluebird Woman gave me into her hand. She clapped me on the back with gusto. “Good luck and fair winds to ye. When you come back, I’ll be waiting. I’ll tell the story of my little friend here,” she tapped the shrunken head with the gold coin, “on the homeward trip.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
I laughed and waved and turned my face to the path leading from the landing into the
Island itself. The path wended jaggedly through an ancient apple grove. Some of the trees had fallen, some were saplings, and some were full mature. The trees were in all stages of ripeness, some bore blossoms, others bore small, hard fruits. Others bore ripe apples in every color of apple. Still others were bare, perchance an apple clung here and there to the branches, while the other fruits and leaves decaying at the foot of the tree. The moonlight filtered through the trees, illumining my way clearly. I ate several different apples, amazed at the variety of flavors, yet all distinctly ‘apple’.
From the rotting logs of the fallen trees grew a small white flower, odd as it bloomed at night, when other flowers have folded inward. Its scent was like apple blossoms and roses together. I picked a thick fistful as I followed the path where it would lead.
The path wandered gently upwards. It ended at a lake, a green hill rising from its center… A stone bridge crossed the water, and the path continued, spiraling up the hill. On the leeward side of the hill, halfway up, the path ended at a doorway. The door and doorposts alike were massive stones, carved with ancient interlacing creatures. The door was stone, balanced perfectly to open the barest touch. They were topped by a massive lintel, raw stone of a different kind of stone from the door posts and door. Later I would learn the lintel was meteorite copper.
I had an inkling of where I was. Avalon, the Isle of Apples.
Torches were thrust into buckets of sand on either side of the doorway. Peering in I could see only blackness. Taking a torch I entered. The path spiraled down in the opposite direction it had spiraled up the hill. I descended until the path flattened and opened into a large, circular room. There was a fire in the center. Through the flames I could make out a bench at the farther end of the room.
I sank my torch into a bucket of sand at the opening of the room. Slowly I walked moonwise, around the circle. Something in me wanted to dance. I sensed I was in an ancient, a holy place, where mere walking was not reverent enough. Something in me wanted to break out of myself and dance. So I danced. As I moved my heart filled with joy. Love over flowed as tears down my face. In the overwhelming flood of love, was peace.
When I reached the bench I stopped, breathless and excited. Dancing was holy here, worshipful in this place. I belonged here.
I calmed my breathing as I waited.
Before long, from the opposite side from which I came, a hooded figure walked toward me. I could see it was a woman, as she neared to me. Sitting beside me, she slipped off her hood, revealing copper colored hair flowing over her shoulders as a veil. It glowed like molten gold in the firelight. Braids held it back from her face. Her face was not pretty, exactly, but kind. Eyes the color of a winter sea were framed by blond-red lashes. Freckles sprinkled her nose. She smiled tenderly at me, and took my hands into her own.
“Blessed be, daughter. I am your ancestor. I lived long ago, before the Christian missionaries came to the Isles, when we still worshipped the Goddess. She is still worshipped in this place, for here we are out of time. As you descended into the past I ascended to the future. I bring with me the wisdom of all the women in your lineage up until now. You may ask me one question, only one, about anything, and I will answer. Keep in mind, I cannot promise you will like the answer, or understand it. I only promise to tell you the truth.”
There was only one question I wanted to ask. It burst from lips before I could consider the wisdom of asking.
“Who am I?”
“I thought you would ask me a difficult question! Listen to the story of Creation and be answered.
“In the Beginning, The HOLY ONE created the heavens and the earth.
There was nothing beyond the consciousness of The HOLY ONE, a void, emptiness, infinite, impenetrable dark.
The HOLY ONE spoke, “Let there be light!” Light exploded from the center of The HOLY ONE spiraling into infinite space as matter, energy, radiance, beginning the dance of creation, the music of the spheres.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE spoke again, “Let there be order, an ever unfolding symphony of place.”
The music and dance of creation formed itself according to the Word of The HOLY ONE.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE spoke a third time. “Let there be time.”
At the Word of The HOLY ONE creation moved into constant orbits, galaxies around The HOLY ONE, solar systems with in galaxies, planets around suns, moons around planets, all spinning, swirling, in the dance of creation, to the music of the spheres. Thus day and night, seasons, the wheel of the year came to be.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE spoke a fourth time. “Let life begin in the waters. Let life begin on the land.”
At the Word of The HOLY ONE life began in the waters. Life began on the land.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE spoke a fifth time. “Let life take wing.”
Life took wing and danced in the air, according to the Word of The HOLY ONE.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE spoke again. “Let us create beings in our own image, to love and cherish.”
At the Word of The HOLY ONE, beings like The HOLY ONE were formed, beings able to feel, understand and love. With great tenderness The HOLY ONE created these beings.
And it was good beyond comprehension.
The HOLY ONE blessed them, and said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply. Replenish the earth. Over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth, you are the most beloved. The creatures will serve you. Name them, know them, and tend them. The HOLY ONE said, “Behold, I have given you every herb, and every tree yielding fruit, every grain, of this earth, to you it shall be for meat. Not only for you, but for every living creature on earth, in the sea, in the air.
On the seventh day The HOLY ONE spoke again. “Let there be rest, a holy Sabbath to celebrate the creation of life.”
All of Creation celebrated the glory of The HOLY ONE
The creation of human beings was like this:
The HOLY TRINITY, The HOLY THREE AS ONE, formed a human of humus, an earthling of the earth. The HOLY TRINITY breathed into the created’s nostrils the breath of life; and the created became a living soul. The HOLY TRINITY planted a garden and there The HOLY TRINITY put the living soul, to dwell in comfort, peace, and joy. By word The HOLY TRINITY created birds, fish, and animals in two genders. By hand The HOLY TRINITY created only one living soul. The HOLY ONE said, “It is not good for our living soul be alone; The HOLY TRINITY caused a deep sleep to fall upon their living soul, from the flesh and bone of the living soul, The HOLY TRINITY created another living soul. The HOLY TRINITY woke the living being to each other. The living souls looked on each other with love, “You are bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: we complete each other.”THE HOLY TRINITY called the living souls ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’, each a part of THE HOLY ONE, created by The Fashioning Hand, the third part being the Breath of Life. Therefore shall a man and woman leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto each other, and they shall be one flesh, completing each other, becoming mother and father themselves continuing the circle of life. They were both naked, the woman and man, and were not ashamed. They rejoiced in the wonder of their love.”
The story enraptured me. Deep in my core, I could physically feel the rightness of the story. But I did not understand how her story answered my question. My ancestor seemed to understand. She smiled and said, “I told you that you may not understand my answer. Meditate on this story, this history of our race. Now I have a question for you.”
I braced my self, fearful I might not be able to answer. And my fear was well founded.
“Who are you?”
I sighed, and thought for what seemed a very long time. Here, as elsewhere on this journey, time had no meaning.
“I don’t know.”
My ancestor smiled again. “You will find out.” Her encouragement reassured me.
“I have a gift for you.” She caressed my bald head. I felt a tingling, then an itching, then a tickling, as hair began to grow. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Thank you, thank you!”
“My pleasure. Even in your world, you inherited your hair from me. And I received my hair from the Goddess.”
She kissed my forehead.
“What gift can I give you?”
“Ah! You are only allowed one question!” Her shining eyes let me know she was teasing.
She kissed my forehead again as she stood. “Plant an apple tree in my honor, nurture it, and remember me.”
I also rose to my feet.
“Follow the circle moonwise until you come to your torch. Do not look back. Ascend the path upward to the door you entered. Still, do not look back. Replace your torch and return to the quay. Anita Marie will be there. Then you may look back.”
We embraced our farewell, holding each other tightly. One more kiss and we took leave of each other, I traveling moonwise, she traveling counter-moonwise. Difficult as I was, I did not look back until I was in the boat to return. As Anita Marie pushed off I looked at the
Island. The rising sun looked as if it were blooming out of the hill, a sea of apple trees, in bloom, bud and fruit reaching hands in joyous worship. I could hear the sound of women singing across time, the beautiful voices of my ancestors.
