First
published in Circle Magazine, Issue 43 Fall/Winter 2005
- The Banshee,
John Todhunte
“iiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”
Piercing the winter woods, the eerie wail was enough to make anyone believe in banshees. Rising and falling like the cruel February winds, the sound traveled over the frozen ground, passing unhindered through the branches of the leafless trees. It was a shattered sound… a broken sound… a sound that seemed to emanate from all places at once with an otherworldly strangeness.
It was a sound
that was coming from my own throat.
What had brought
me to the point where I found myself shivering in the darkness, the
deep soul-pain ripping its way out of my body and into the startled
night? Spending a night pouring through journal entries from that
time, my almost illegible script wounding the yellowing pages with
angry angles and deep black ink furrows, I am shocked into
remembrance. The words rush across the paper, tumbling upon
themselves in a torrent of agony, all the while desperately seeking
to a-fix themselves to the page. Line after undulating line scream
accusingly to me across the distance of time, “How could you have
forgotten us!?! Once, we were all you had!”
The pages reek of
musty storage and ancient incense smoke. I turn each sheet of
impassioned witness and imagine them still damp from absorbing so
many of my tears. Here, a sprig of mugwort – harvested at moon
bright -- is pressed between two pages, its spindly leaves as sharp
as its still-strong sent, evoking deep memory. There -- folded and
protected by rice paper, a charcoal drawing of dark cloaked women silhouetted
against a tangle of apple branches – returning me in spirit to a
much loved ritual site, and sisters loved much more. Symbols call to
me from every page, rendered in tentative pencil strokes, seeming to
shift and change under my renewed gaze.
Such questions I
had asked myself! Such longing and heartbreak and yearning to break
free! Reading the words now, I feel like someone who has started the
novel at its conclusion– I know now the full tapestry of what was
then just unfolding – and it is almost painful to relive the
stumbling steps toward understanding. One cannot fully appreciate
all that goes into learning how to walk unless, by some
happenstance, that ability is taken away. Hard-won, the ground I
have covered between then and now, and I know I have farther still
to go. Yet, this revisiting of my personal dark night of the soul
has reinforced the direction of my journey, and I am thankful for
the courage of the old me to have walked through that most difficult
door.
Reading through
strained stanzas of free-form poetry, I see how hard I struggled to
release the burden my heart had been carrying. I had created
talismans and projects… done fasts and elemental disciplines, and
though I had made great progress, I could not unroot that great
pain. Drained and frustrated, I must have worn my discouragement
plainly, for at last a dear friend and sister sat down with me, and
fixed me with her piercing blue eyes. “It is time,” Rebecca
said, “to go into the woods.”
A long-time circle
sister, Rebecca had recently become a roommate as well. I knew her
well … loved and trusted her. Yet I distinctly remember feeling
panicked at her suggestion, much like Snow White being propositioned
by the Evil Queen’s woodsman. It was not the prospect of going
into the forest which frightened me – we did it every Full Moon
without a second thought. Rather, I think that the very something
which had such an unyielding grip on my soul knew that whatever was
to happen amid the Imbolc frozen trees would forever alter its
poisoned hold on me. Whatever my fear, I agreed to go with her, my
heavy heart sure that things could not possibly get any worse then
where I was at that moment.
The waning moon
was with us, and we planned to go out the next night. Purposefully
not telling me much of what to expect, Rebecca simply instructed me
to dress warmly, pack some cleansing herbs to burn in my cauldron,
and to bring an offering for the area. We got into her car and drove
out to the nature preserve where we did our moon work. Parking along
side the road, we slung our packs onto our backs, slipped through
the gate and disappeared into the darkness. We found our familiar
trail, but turned down a different side-path, deep into the wild
overgrowth.
Pricker bushes
tore at my clothes, resisting my passage through the heart of the
forest. The sounds of the night bore down upon us, and my
mist-marked breathing quickened as an unnamed fear engulfed me. Only
Rebecca’s meaningful stride as she lead me through the maze of
naked shrubs and stark bony trees kept me moving on my increasingly
leaden feet. An owl jeered at me from overhead, its mocking tones
sapping away the last of my resolve. What where we doing here? What
did I think I would accomplish this night that months of work had
failed to do?
Just as I was
about to give in to my doubts and misgivings, Rebecca finally came
to a stop and pulled her woolen cloak out of her pack. Doing the
same, I looked at where she had taken us, and found that we were
standing on the rim of circular indentation in the ground, carpeted
with rotting brown and yellow leaves. One side of the depression was
bounded by an enormous fallen tree that was covered with fungus and
overgrowth; the forest had already begun to reclaim it.
Rebecca placed her
hand on the largest of a copse of brooding birch trees, communing
with those ghostly guardians of the area while I kindled the
charcoal in my little cauldron. She motioned for me to give my
offering, and I poured a libation of apple cider over the roots of
the silvery birches. Jumping down into the sunken-in area, Rebecca
held her hand up to help me slide down the incline to join her in
the center of the natural circle. We set the cauldron in the middle,
and burned some balm of gilead on the hot ember of the charcoal disk
within. The sickly-sweet smoke swirled around us, as we took turns
over the rim of the cauldron, cleansing and centering. We walked the
perimeter of the depression, casting a circle of light around us.
When we were done
with these familiar aspects of the ritual dance, Rebecca lead me
back into the center of the circle. My heart was pounding fiercely
in my chest as the whole of my world became focused in the now of
this moment. She took my hands, trembling with cold and a little bit
of fear, into her own and looked deep into my eyes once more.
“We’ve talked about all that is going on with you for a very
long time. I see you trying to resolve this, to heal it, but it
isn't working. There is only one thing left for you to do. LET IT
GO.”
“Let it go?” I
repeated incredulously. “But that’s what I've been trying to do
all of this time!” My lip began to tremble, and I knew I was going
to start to cry.
“No. You’ve
been trying to fix it… to make it all better. To do anything but
have to close the door – to acknowledge that there is no way to
change all that has happened. You cannot heal this because of how
hard you are holding on. You can't heal, you can't change, you
cannot even see this situation for what it truly is. You must let
go… and you must do it now!”
Tears slid down my
cheeks as I recognized the truth of what she was saying. “How?”
I whispered desperately.
“Just give it
voice. Just find it inside of you, and let it out with all the power
of your voice.”
“Name it, you
mean.”
“No… more
basic even that that. You need to release the energy of it… all
that is bottled up inside of you. Don’t get stuck in your mind
with this – that’s been part of the problem. Reach down into
your root and find it there. Don’t think -- just do it”
I closed my eyes
and tried to do as she said. A low and tentative tone vibrated in my
throat, dying down into a self-conscious giggle.
“Come on,
there’s much more in there than that! Let me help you to
begin…” She raised her voice in full tone, holding the note long
and clear. Emboldened, my voice jumped to meet hers. We toned
together for some time, weaving the sounds into powerful dissonances
and beautiful harmonies… opening our energy centers and breaking
through hindrances. When we were
done, we could still hear the sounds of our voices echoing through
the forest, joined by the distant hooting of an owl.
Rebecca placed
more herbs on the charcoal and stood to face me once more. “Now,
take a few minutes to really connect with all that you have been
carrying around with you. Fill yourself with the feeling and let it
overtake you.” I closed my eyes and pulled up as much of the
energy connected to my pain as I could. Rebecca quietly watched my
breathing as I dug deeper and deeper into the dark well within me,
spilling out over my cheeks and onto the ground.
After some time,
she whispered, “Okay, let’s try this again. Repeat after me.”
She let out a soft yet mournful sound, extending it into the
darkness. Still feeling somewhat foolish, I mimicked the sound she
had made. Over and over again she sighed and moaned, and I followed
suit, slowly forgetting my discomfort and losing myself into the
sounds. Her pitch changed and the sounds started to come faster,
building one upon the other, sounding for all the world like a
frenzied weeping. By this time, though, I didn’t need to follow
her lead. Somehow, the sympathetic energies of what she was doing
had triggered a resonance in me, and soon I was sounding out alone.
Rebecca stood in
silent witness and grounded support as I was overcome by the moment.
The wails of deepest sorrow… the railing screams of rage… the
howls of grief and pain… I know not how long they lasted, but they
drove me to knees, wracking my body with the power of their torrent.
I rocked back and forth in time with my strange and inhuman keening,
rising often to a crescendo of ear-splitting screaming. All the
tears I had already shed were just runoff compared to the deep sea
of despair that ebbed out of me that night. I had never cried so
much or screamed so loud or rendered myself so completely vulnerable
before another in my entire life.
When finally the
last sobs subsided, I opened my swollen eyes to see Rebecca standing
over me, her own eyes brimming full with tears. She extended a hand
to help me to my feet, and encircled me in her arms. We hugged and
wept softly for a few moments, before breaking away to face each
other. I wiped my cold, wet face and took a deep cleansing breath. I
felt so light… so clear and open! “Rebecca,” I breathed
incredulously, “its gone! I'm…. I'm free!”
And I was.
“I know,”
Rebecca said softly, “all of the darkness around your eyes is
gone.”
I tried to thank
her for holding the space for me, for accompanying me into the
darkness of the woods and the deepest heart of my shadow. Yet,
she would have none of it. “I could only do this for you because
someone else once cared enough to do it for me.” Again, we wrapped
ourselves in a sister’s embrace…
Gathering our
things together, we headed back to the main path, but not before I
thanked the area for receiving the energy of my release. In the
still darkness, my only reply was the hooting of the owl which
seemed to follow us back out of the black void of the overgrowth and
into the edge of the preserve.
How incredible is
the power of keening, that primal soul-cry releasing grief and
guiding the shades of those that have passed into the next world!
This ancient Celtic tradition has survived into modern times from
its primeval Pagan origins, its magick in helping not only the
departed souls, but those left behind with their loss. I had no
doubt of the regenerative ability of keening, for that night a dead
part of me was released into the Otherworld, carried by the
unconscious shrieking torn unbidden from my raw throat.
My body was sore
for several days afterwards; the corners of my mouth were cracked
and bleeding, my abdominal muscles were stretched and achy, and my
voice harsh and raspy. Yet the most startling after-effect became
apparent that very night, when I was washing my face -- a face made
tight and blotchy from all of my weeping. I looked into the mirror
and saw two rings of small red dots around the perimeter of my eye
sockets; a path of pinpricked broken blood vessels attesting to the
violence of my screams. Perhaps I should have been horrified,
thinking of all of the questions I would have to answer about the
reason for my appearance. Instead I smiled, seeing in my reflection
the unmistakable mark of the eyes of the owl. Indeed, I had looked
into the darkness that night, and emerged with my vision sharpened
and my perspective widened. I wore those wounds with pride, for to
me they were a hard-earned badge of great growth.
I
close my journal, lost in remembering. I have not seen Rebecca in
many years; she left for the West Coast, studying – appropriately
enough – to become a midwife. I will never forget the gift she
gave to me that night, chaperoning my progression through
woundedness into wholeness. That one night was a turning point in my
life, and in many ways, paved the way to my becoming the woman I am
today. I learned to have faith in my process, to have courage in the
face of my darkness, and to seek healing in the source of my deepest
pain. But most importantly, I found strength in the power of
Sisterhood – that bond of unconditional support which sees us
through to the other side.
- The Banshee, John Todhunte
© 2005 Jhenah Telyndru
