The Hanged Man: Part 6: Ostara
Post #53: In which the cycle ends, bringing new beginnings ...
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As he finished speaking, Artemis appeared and motioned to him. “Come with me.”
Kunik followed her to a stretch of fence from which both the women’s and men’s fire could be seen. A single skull perched on top of a fence post.
“Light!” Artemis commanded, and the skull lit from within, casting flickering, warm light on the pale bones of the fence. Rose Red stood, waiting. The sight of her face gave Kunik a sudden feeling of tenderness. It was a face that had felt a storm of emotion. It was the emerging face of a woman, beautiful in wisdom and peace.
Impulsively, Kunik embraced her. They’d hardly spoken to one another before, but she was altogether precious to him in that moment, vulnerable and strong, and they came together in the mystery of the initiation. She returned his embrace and it was like holding some wild, lithe animal, her curly black hair like fur against his cheek.
Artemis sat and the other two joined her, facing one another.
“It’s time for you two to recognize each other,” said Artemis. “You’ve shared a wound. The places where you tore yourselves from your tribes and families are exposed. With the help of one another you can begin healing. Do you consent to do this?
Rose Red reached out for Kunik’s hand. Their hands met and linked, first his right to her left and then his left to her right. It was answer enough.
“Rose Red, look into his face and imagine the face of your mother.”
Rose Red’s hands tensed and tightened in Kunik’s and he rubbed his thumbs gently over their backs. Her hands relaxed slightly.
“It’ll be all right,” he said quietly, though he didn’t know what Artemis’s intention was. “I’ve got you.”
Rose Red looked searchingly into Kunik’s face.
“Tell her, Rose Red,” said Artemis, “’I’ve abandoned you.’” Look into her eyes and speak your truth.”
Kunik felt shocked. The unexpected cruelty of it! The unfairness! His grip didn’t change on Rose Red’s hands, for he was determined to support and protect her, but he felt anger against Artemis. He hadn’t expected such tactics from her.
Rose Red’s expression changed as she looked into his face. It flowed like wax melting and then hardening again. For a moment, she looked like a child, her features soft and immature, and then a hardness made of pain and strength transformed the child into a woman. Yet her eyes remained steady and peaceful. They looked directly into his, though he thought she wasn’t seeing him at all.
“I’ve abandoned you,” said Rose Red clearly, enunciating each word deliberately. “I’ve left you.” Her gaze never wavered from Kunik’s, but tears began to course down her cheeks.
Her hands relaxed trustfully in his own, and Kunik felt a sense of release, of letting go. He felt her relief. He suddenly understood Artemis wasn’t being cruel. She was allowing Rose Red to speak the truth at last.
“Kunik,” Artemis said in the same quiet voice. “You’re her mother. Her mother speaks through you what she can’t say by herself. ‘I completely understand. I love you. I only want you to be happy.’”
Kunik opened himself to this unknown woman, the mother of this beautiful, vibrant, shy, wild young creature with her mop of curly black hair. He brought forward his tenderness and his love, his artist’s sensitivity and intuition, everything his own hungry heart longed for from his own mother.
“Rose Red, I understand completely. It’s not your fault. I love you, my daughter. All I want is for you to be happy.”
Rose Red’s face contorted. Her nose ran. She didn’t sob. She held tight to Kunik’s hands, as though for comfort, and made no effort to hide her emotion.
Kunik said it again.
Rose Red cried.
Kunik said it again.
The skull above them flickered like a fire on the hearth or a good lantern. The air felt soft and cool, smelling of wood smoke and crushed grass. Kunik felt at peace. He didn’t want to be anywhere else or doing anything else. He didn’t think about past or future. He was here, in this night. He belonged here. He had a place within the circle.
“Kunik.”
Rose Red stopped crying. She released his left hand and wiped at her cheeks and nose, using the hem of her tunic. She took Kunik’s again, and now he became conscious of her strength and tenderness directed at him.
Artemis said, “Look into her face and imagine your parents.”
Kunik didn’t remember the faces of his parents, but he reached easily for the memory of the carvings he’d seen in the cauldron. He looked into Rose Red’s wide, steady eyes and he saw an ice bear, the long muzzle, the small black eyes, the thick half rounds of furred ears. He thought of the round face of the warrior woman, imagined hair like a black silky wing against her neck, her dark, slightly slanted eyes and olive skin. He brought each face to life in his imagination and he laid them gently over the face in front of him, first one and then the other.
“Speak for them, Kunik. Speak for yourself.”
“Mother.” The word felt strange in his mouth. He’d never used it before to address another human being. “Mother. You abandoned and betrayed your people.”
He stopped, not wanting to diminish the truth of the words, not wanting to rush by them as though they hadn’t been said. He let them rest in the ears of the listeners. He let their meaning unfold.
“I understand, Mother. I understand. I love you. I hope you found happiness.”
He looked into the face across from his and saw his father.
“Father. You abandoned and betrayed your people.”
Again, he stopped, thinking of the solitary shaggy ice bears making their way across frozen land and sea, the males coming together in dreadful strength and violence during mating season. He thought of them swimming, powerful shoulders working. He thought of mothers and cubs moving together through the landscape, the cubs playing like puppies. He thought of his father and mother facing each other across the starry snow.
“I understand, Father. I love you. I hope you found happiness.”
Kunik turned his thoughts to his time in the village. He allowed himself to remember the hunger and loneliness in his heart. He tasted rancid meat again. He thought of the jeering faces of the young hunters, the smell of the dogs as he slept among them.
“I abandon you,” Kunik said to them all. “I leave you. “
“Kunik.” Rose Red spoke steadily, looking into his face. “Kunik, we completely understand. We love you. It wasn’t your fault. We only want you to be happy.”
Kunik heard. He thought, my parents loved me. I was born of their love. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault.
His face worked and Rose Red repeated for him, as he had repeated for her, the exquisite healing blow.
“It wasn’t your fault, Kunik.”
MIRMIR
“So much guilt and shame,” murmured the Hanged Man. “I’ve never felt like that. I wonder why?”
“You weren’t outcasst and you’re not female,” whispered the snake. “You’re not taught to feel it.”
“We weren’t ashamed, Dar and I, nor Mary and I. She won’t teach the children to be ashamed.”
“No,” assented Mirmir. “Shame doesn’t turn the ssircle.”
“The circle must turn,” said the Hanged Man dreamily. “Go on telling about Rose Red holding Kunik’s hands.”
“Rosse Red held Kunik’ss handss and thought about the terrible burden of shame and guilt. She thought about forgiveness and love and not-forgiveness and not-love. She thought about exiles and wandering in the wilderness and finding pieces of home. She thought about searching for oneself, about Me! Not Me! She thought about the electric feel of the fox’s tongue on her lips and the smell of blood.”
“The fox was called Rowan,” said the Hanged Man. “Like the tree. They were lo…”
“Not yet,” hissed the snake, mouth stretched in a smile. “That came after the initiation. You’re rushing me.”
“Oh, very well. Tell it your own way, then!” said the Hanged Man grumpily.
Mirmir’s throat quivered with mirth as he resumed.
ROSE RED
Rose Red stood with the others in a silent circle around the iron cauldron. The sky paled in the east from black to tarnished silver. A blush of lavender overtook the silver, cool and fresh. The strengthening half-light revealed the new green of the trees.
From the woods stole the sound of the flute. It was hard to say if the dawn played the music or the music played the dawn. The notes moved delicately through the mesh of trees and spring growth, shy but sweetly persistent. The melody wove in and out of the circle, binding each figure to one another. The piper outlined each corner, border and edge in his silvery music and then erased them, passing through boundaries as though they didn’t exist.
Before them lay the last step over the threshold of initiation. Baba Yaga had thrown them into her black iron crucible, stirred them brutally with a grease-coated spoon, and plucked them out. Rose Red saw in the faces around her exhaustion, ebbing despair and a kind of quiet exultation. The long night of story, revelation and catalyst ended. Dawn broke. Secrets had been told and hiding places discovered. Fears had been unmercifully exposed to the gaze of every eye. Each had seen. Each had been seen. Each had surrendered. Rose Red joined hands with Kunik on one side and Vasilisa on the other.
Dawn rose from the cool, dewy grass, rose from the dying embers. It rose with outstretched pearly arms, rose and rose up slim tree trunks, spread into branches where birds stirred and opened their throats, lifted to meet the sun’s first rays. The piping stopped abruptly, leaving an expectant silence behind.
A beam shone through the misty green trees and fell on the squat shape of the iron kettle. They heard a crack, as though a cosmic egg cracked on the star-studded edge of the sky’s bowl, and the cauldron fell into two pieces. Packets of seeds spilled out with a soft sound like falling sand. They were unstained and dry. With a graceful leap, a brown rabbit sprang out into the morning sun and sat, scratching unconcernedly at its ear.
Baba Yaga, with a grunt and a rattling fart, stooped and scooped up a large egg lying between the cracked iron halves of the kettle. In a single motion, she rose, drew back her arm and threw the egg, and Death, standing outside the circle, put up his hand and caught it easily. Grinning, he entered the circle between Kunik and Radulf, who moved apart to admit him. Death stood, cradling the mottled ivory egg in his cupped bony hands. In the morning light, egg and bone were indistinguishable. Slowly, Death raised his hands as though in offering, turning on the spot so everyone could see the egg. The rising sun shone on his slim forearms and delicate hands, though the rest of him was still in dawn shadow.
They heard another crack, and a hole appeared in the side of the egg as something struggled inside it. The hole widened, bits of eggshell falling onto the ground between Death’s fingers. No one spoke. The morning air filled with a strengthening chorus of birdsong. Out of the hole struggled a limp, bedraggled, wet creature like a piece of chewed up golden string. The Firebird was born again.
The sound of the flute rose again, but more distant. Hesitantly, restless now, it passed once more around the circle, weaving in and out of the still figures. It brushed by Rose Red like an invisible presence, moving against breast, thigh and belly in a brief but assertive caress. She felt the breath of it at the nape of her neck and then it moved away, becoming fainter, meandering through the bright morning and slowly, slowly fading into the music of the birds.
(This post was published with edition #53 of ‘Weaving Webs and Turning Over Stones.’)