The Motherwalk

Page 2

In the beginning, there was the Way of the Witch. The Way meant balance, fostered harmony; required equilibrium and responsibility. As a colossal web woven around and through the world, producing and maintaining the sublime nature of nature, the Way is that which lives--and doing so, both fills and empties, creates and destroys. Immortality is a painful temporal chimaera. Even the universe will someday expire. When it does, there will be the Way.

I will take the Walk tonight, and I will remember the Way, and tomorrow, after I have rested to regain my strength, the convocation will gather.

But now, the sun has retired, and I gaze upon my consecratrix, in all her finery and delicate raging power. She is the High Moon tonight. My Walk shall arise in Her light, and I will fear no evil.

There comes to my vision an awareness of the color upon the trees of our sacred grove. From where I look out I am struck by the array of shadow and light; a sinuous, ever-changing shimmer, weaving and stirring through the fleece of the woodlands beyond, whispers a name I wish to hear. The night is come, and I am relieved. I taste of it--the cool darkling breeze of nature's eve--while around me the world grows larger, and deeper, and unnamable. There is mystery, and teeming life, and there is something else as well, but I cannot place it--rather, I sense a vague itching under my very skin, a buzzing, crawling portent which leaves my spirit chilled, my body undone.

There comes a rap at my door. Phantom, the bobcat who chose to be my familiar, leaps straight up from the sill where she has been curled in a ball, watching the night and hissing softly. I go to the door and open it, to find Katya, one of our young neophytes, standing in the doorway, dressed in a thin, shimmering blue gown, her eyes full of dire expectation.

"Why Katya, whatever is the matter child? You look as though you expect me to drop dead in front of you any moment."

She drops her eyes. And then she looks up at me and speaks in a trembling voice. "There's great power in a Motherwalk, I've been told. No one knows what may be involved. I want you to be all right."

And what is there to say to that? "I shall be just fine little dove. You should not fret so, your dinner will be jumping and keening in your belly. I want you to go to bed now, and come sunup I will bring you a fresh bouquet of dawning poppies." I stroke her flaxen hair, so she nuzzles up against my side. Would that I felt the confidence I espouse.

With a wordless mewl, Katya turns to go, but she has forgotten something. "Aurora? Vanya and Elspeth are waiting for you in the exploratorium. They sent me to bid you join them."

"Thank you, love. I will join them, and I will be sure to tell them of the fine job their messenger has done. Now be off with you."

Katya smiles shyly, as only young girls may, and ambles off down the hallway. I suddenly feel very lonely. The air is stale, and the mice in the rafters are strangely quiet tonight.

I will fear no evil.

The door to the exploratorium is carved of a single slab of jasper, shot through with veins of turquoise. It swings open, silently, with the slightest of touches.

Seated at a long transparent table in the middle of the room, my sisters of the Goddess sit quietly throwing a hand of Tarot. Where is it taking them, I wonder? And has it yet shown them the aberrant night, breathing vastly just outside the window? Do they choose their omens even now, as my departure approaches? I hear, through the windowpane, the bullfrogs in the pond taking up their nightly song, and where before they have always allowed me a certain tranquility, I can now find in their throaty rumblings only a dissonant irritation which seems of a piece with the nameless affliction secreted in the woods.

"And what is this I find?” I begin most sternly. “You card gaily 'round the vision table while my own Motherwalk approaches? For shame and tsk tsk, Vanya. And you, Elspeth--I am quite disappointed, you can see." And then my sisters can contain themselves no longer, and they begin to laugh, and then of course I join in.