The Hanged Man: Part 5: Imbolc
Post #42: In which the wheel turns again ...
(If you are a new subscriber, you might want to start at the beginning of The Hanged Man. If you prefer to read Part 5 in its entirety, go here. For the next serial post, go here.)
Came freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw, and then a warm night during which the sound of flowing water filled the forest. The next morning Artemis told Rose Red to make herself ready for a journey.
“There’s nothing more I can teach you, my daughter. You’re ready. We travel now to a place of initiation. We’ll meet Rumpelstiltskin, who will bring Vasilisa and Jenny, and go on together.”
“Initiation?” asked Rose Red nervously.
“Yes. A formal ritual between one level of growth and another. You, Jenny and Vasilisa are part of a group invited to come together to honor your journey thus far and make choices about going forward. The group consists of three men and four women, as well as those who help turn the cycles. There will be guides. I’m one of them.”
“But why am I chosen?”
Artemis looked into her anxious face. “Be easy, Daughter. You’re chosen because you’re ready. Each of you is chosen because each of you has broken away from his or her tribe and goes forward out of the tribe’s knowledge and understanding. In order to fully claim your own life, you must fully understand your past and come to peace with it. Hidden information will be revealed, secrets exposed, feelings and emotions faced and given expression. Understand, though, you’re invited. You need not participate unless you want to. No one is coerced. Will you travel with us? I give you my word you’ll be free to leave if you want to.”
Rose Red assented, with many misgivings.
Three days later, she threw her arms around Jenny and Vasilisa in turn.
Neither Jenny nor Vasilisa knew much more than Rose Red about the initiation, neither where it would take place and who else would be there, nor what kind of rites and rituals it might involve. Rumpelstiltskin, when questioned, merely smiled. Jenny’s trust in Rumpelstiltskin was such that her curiosity was not mixed with real worry. Vasilisa hardly seemed to care. She was quiet and distracted, but possessed an air of joyous anticipation. Rose Red wondered what was in her mind.
As they set out, the forest was alive with birds and moving water. Rose Red thought of the Night of Trees under the full moon. The feeling of green power hadn’t left her palms or her nerve endings, nor had her body forgotten the fox’s thick brushing tail. She wondered what lay ahead.
For two days, they traveled together, moving steadily through springing woods and birdsong. On the second day, they met a strange child with ancient eyes and gold earrings. A beautiful young woman with thick honey colored hair traveled with her, and told them her name was Mary, saying it hesitantly, as though unsure it belonged to her. Together, Mary and the child pulled on a cloth knotted around a lumpy burden, dragging it on the ground behind them. It was a strange encumbrance and they made a strange pair.
Artemis and Rumpelstiltskin greeted the child with a surprising degree of respect, and the two groups joined.
The next day the piping started, fresh and flowing, green fire and dripping ice, and led them to the threshold of initiation.
MIRMIR
“Baba Yaga,” breathed the Hanged Man, “and that foul cauldron of hers! Gods know what’s in it!”
Mirmir’s mouth stretched in a thin-lipped smile.
“Within the cauldron, tangled up with drumsstickss, greassy bones and malodorouss clothing, liess a ssmall pouch of wrinkled skin with a few coarsse, curly hairss attached. Once, the sac contained a man’s swimming seed in a thick, salty colorless sea. Now it contains sleeping marbles, quiescent, waiting, clicking gently together, murmuring an inaudible song to themselves in their dark, soft sac. Waiting to see. Baba Yaga gloats over them, shooters and ducks, swirlies and steelies and puries. “Soon,” she whispers to them, “soon, my dearies, you’ll have friends. I’ll show him how to play keepsies! I’ll show that miserable mibster what a champion is!”
“Of course,” sighed the Hanged Man ruefully. “I might have known!”
(This post was published with this essay.)