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| Image by kind permission of Adam Batchelor |
Home. Water to water to air to water.
Celts know Salmon as the oldest being. Salmon lives now in the Sacred Pool, eating the nuts of inspiration from the nine hazel trees, the poets' trees. Salmon is wise; knows how to live in three worlds, knows when it's time to return. Salmon now is charged with keeping counsel for those who are ready to seek it out, who are ready to give away their old life for the sake of the new.
Those who approach Salmon at the right time in the right manner will be given the ability to see through the veils between this world and the other.
Those, on the other hand, who arrive too young, too unformed, or who have hungered for the wrong thing or grown fat on that which belongs to others will not make it up the falls; not this time. Or if they do, they will find their fingers burned – so close, so far away; the itch of the search for wisdom never quite assuaged.
Like calls to like and the woman hears the call.
The woman has been travelling a long time. All her life, in fact. All her life she has struggled against the current, feeling in her blood the pull of the Sacred Pool. Her long skirts are ripped, her hair dishevelled, her feet torn and muddy. She is alone, apart from the old grey mare with whom she has travelled so far.
The woman is no longer young. Like calls to like. The woman is no longer beautiful to the eye. The woman does not care for adoration. Now, at last, she is free. She can glide through the shadows without being noticed. She can watch, she can learn.
She knows what it is to be betrayed by those she trusted. She has had her words and her dreams stolen, the lifelong work of her heart. She knows what it is to be loved, then to be cut off for not fulfilling another's dream.
She no longer cares about about false friends, false promises. She does not care. What she cares about is the pull of the Well, the Sacred Pool. She knows the songs of the birds, she can speak with trees and plants and animals. She knows how the planets move and the way the tide sings just so on the shore.
And she knows what it is to be loved; deeply loved. More, she knows how to love; and the cost of an open heart. She knows this is all.
She is no one's servant, though she will serve the true of heart. The pony mare is her sister; the morning mist her friend; dusk a cloak she can wrap around her. Rain does not trouble her, nor hunger of the ordinary sort.
Like calls to like, and she can be true to the calling, only to the calling, which means she is true to herself, to everything and nothing. In her freedom she can smile into everybody's eyes, through to their core.
Salmon has been waiting all winter, feasting on the fat of the hazel nuts. Visitors are few.
The woman kneels in the rushes and mud at the edge of the pond. A breeze whispers in the willows. The woman maybe sheds one tear. It's been a long hard journey. She can barely breathe for the shock and joy of arriving here at the heart of the world.
Salmon swims slowly over. She is huge, magnificent, a queen of all waters.
The woman kneels, asks permission of the waters' guardian to be here.
Salmon disgorges a nut, soaked in inspiration: Awen, the eternal fire in the head.
The woman lifts the nut from the water, holds it as if it were gold, gazes into Salmon's eyes.
In that moment she learns what will finally change her life: there is a current beneath the current; a reverse current that will always take her, without struggle, to where she needs to be. All she need do is nose it out. All she need do is surrender, relinquish control. Water will find her, take her.
Then she will have brought her life into balance: the perfect tension between the path of least resistance and the path of the will; the path that will take her beyond need, beyond striving, to the heart at the heart of it all, which is Love.
© Roselle Angwin, October 2018
NB: The insight about the reverse current is thanks to Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm
glad to be awed, drawn by the closeness, released to my own journey
ReplyDeleteColin, thank you. I'm so pleased you still read this blog after all this time; and although for me there's a terror in being visible in this way, it is always confirmed by the people I like, love, trust.
ReplyDeleteRx
From Jeff: 'I am so struck by your latest post.
ReplyDelete'It is so beautiful, but although it seems determinedly positive, yet it leaves a sad taste behind it. Doesn’t The Woman (shall we call her TW?) realise what an effect she has had on countless lives? So many people who have been helped, coaxed, driven to produce writing that just had to be born? So many lives changed fundamentally, so many people shown a different way to live? So much love given, so much affirmation, so much growth? Sure, TW has been betrayed by lesser people. And the demands TW has made [as a mentor] have seemed at times beyond strength – though a month later, or a year, or more, a seed perhaps has germinated. A life such as that of TW, of such integrity and passion, creates whirlpools, sure, but it is also exemplary; the eddies it leaves in its passage sweep lesser people to a finer way of being. Or so it seems to me.'
Jeff, you know how much your kind words and continuing general support mean to me. Thank you.
DeleteAnd of course it is both me and not-me – archetypal journey to elderhood, everywoman, perhaps indeed everyman.
From Miriam: 'I’m very moved by this lyrical, mythical prose poem, which clearly comes straight from the heart. For some it might seem difficult to understand but I have a very strong feeling of its meaning without needing to understand absolutely everything. And isn’t that part of it? The sense of mystery and other worldliness. Most of all there’s the intense sense of sadness which brings tears to the eyes.
ReplyDeleteI like the close connection between woman and salmon and the way in which the woman’s disillusion transforms into a final revelation which isn’t revealed to the reader, but surely heals and offers optimism to all who read it.
'Oh Roselle, you have so much to offer us all. Each day I check your blog and it’s always a treat to read the latest one, go back to older ones. Your absence of late has worried me though please don’t see that as pressure to produce something when you might not want to! Life’s difficult enough without the needs of others. And life would be a sad place without your mentoring, the annual visit to Iona, everything you offer.'
Beautiful and generous words, Miriam, that move me. Thank you. Here's to the companionship that joins us all – a community of wise women, wise men, who know that any breakthrough involves a struggle, and who are not afraid to take that journey.
DeleteAnd incidentally I have been LONGING to write blogs again - far too many ideas and far too much of Life getting in the way. I'm so pleased you feel they're worth reading. As I said to Colin above, it's terrifying to be so visible at times; and that's also what authenticity requires. After all, I demand it of my course participants.
From Chris V:
ReplyDelete'Bradàn Feasa, what a moving story. Do I read you in this and if I do, hold tight to that nut, that last treasure. Or are we all, us women, part of that story, stripped and bruised, betrayed and let down. As I read it I thought of you, I thought of myself, of another dear friend who is continually struggling and then further out, to those brave women I am still to meet.
'I send all of us strong women, (because we are you know, we must be to have come this far), and especially to you, a big hug, from my heart, filled with a piece/peace of that love.'
Thanks dear Chris. Yes, me and not me; all of us indeed.
DeleteThe treasure, when truly won, never fails us, I know. We need not to forget, or go back to sleep.
We are all in this together, aren't we, hands linked. Thank you for being part of this community of the heart.