A woman stands at the small entrance to a cave, waiting for me. I’d seen her before in dreams. She’s always dressed in white. Not the bridal white we know now of a celibate maiden. This woman wore the ancient mysteries white, the white of death, surrender to light.
She wore a body of cream stone, tall, robust, but held together quietly. Her eyes were soft and clear. She smiled at me from a billion years away. Light from all the stars gushed through the slits in her eyes.
She opened the gate to the cave. “After you, child” she said and motioned her arm like a tidal wave. I let it sweep me in.
Accustomed to cave exploration, I crawled a little ways back until everything went dark. I stopped to let my eyes adjust for a moment, but the cave guardian hurried me through the birth canal. I swashed through pools on my belly until the great tomb opened before me. I sat myself before a pool of water. The darkness here swelled and gripped my belly. I felt a hallowing out. My every muscle stretched taught like a string. My whole body hummed like a harp in the wind. But there was no wind. There was only darkness. And then the woman in white was gone.
I put down my bag of medicines and offerings and began my prayers. I felt across the rocks with my hand for a natural bowl shape where I could make my altar. I dripped honey and milk and tobacco and spit. I offered my prayers to the goddess. Drenched in the mineral scent of stone and earth and water, I curled my body into a spiral at the edge of the pool. I meant to rest for just a little while.
I must have slipped in between the rocks somewhere, landing beside the same dark water, but gifted with sight. Lillies filled my nostrils. And someone, somewhere, was singing. “It must be the cave guardian” I thought. But the voice grew stronger, fuller, more abstract. It was filling the cave and lifting into me from all directions. It was so saturating I was almost irritated. I could not make out the the language, but I knew exactly what it was saying.
I stretched out onto my back and let the old song catch me. I’d been running from it for quite a while. It felt good to be trapped here like this in the tomb. Nothing to do but surrender and hum along. I must have spent two lifetimes like this, a long time ago.
I woke up and was seated lazily above the same pool on a rock like a lounge chair. My fingers danced with the waters. I was singing into the little waves I made. The words tickled my mouth like fresh spring grass. I giggled like a geyser, pouring forgotten ecstasies into the pool. Blessing was has been, what is, what will be, what will not be. The waters became clear and I drank from them again and again. I couldn’t stop. Mad with thirst.
I dove under. I swam until I could see light again at the bottom, pulsing with a rhythmic heart drum. I spiraled down into the center of the drum, dissolved into the atoms between drum and beater. The unstruck spaciousness where all sound is birthed. The origin of your heart beat and mine. I stayed there a long time. Until I didn’t see any need to decipher one from the other.
My lungs filled with some new language. Effortlessly, I rose back through the water, buoyed by that sacred and eternal pulse. I rolled my void drenched body onto and into stone and was wrapped in darkness again. My body was a humming beacon, ready for use.
I gathered my strange objects and wiggled back through the tunnel. Spiderwebs had woven their magic alphabet through the canal. I’d been gone a long time. As I passed through, the luminous threads wove around my body. I emerged glistening in the sun. I sat down next to the entrance, letting my eyes adjust to the light.
An old woman approached. I knew her immediately. I smiled at her as if for the first time and motioned her into the cave. “After you, child…”
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