Edwina Peterson
born September 1, 1953
Iron County Hospital
Cedar City, Utah
USA
daughter of Edwin Loose Peterson (37)
and Zetta Benson Peterson (37)
who watched a slim new moon rise in the darkness above
Cedar Breaks
and then had to turn around
and drive back to Cedar City
just barely in time for
September Morn
Tuesday, Full of Grace
Third girl, she is named for her father,
who could see only that sliver of a moon in the desert sky
and that her eyes were “so big.”

~

There was to have been a ritual before the girl-baby exited for earth, but the divine initiates were dancing and laughing when the sliver of silver moon suddenly came up between their toes and they realized it was time to send the baby sliding down the curve of the moon and into painted desert.

“Whoops!” laughed Terpsichore, “she’s late!”
“No,” said Urania, definitely, “she’s early! It isn’t time yet! What are they Doing-Down-There?”
“She’s early, we’re late,” said Terpsichore, “down she goes anyway.” She grasped the baby’s beautiful pink toes and kissed her on the bottoms of both feet. “Dance,” she said, “Dance. Dance. Dance. On polished floors and meadow grass, stages and carpets, all down life’s trails ~ from the beginning to the end, Alpha and Omega, spring forth with both feet into golden emerald rapture, everything heavy shall become light, body ever a dancer, spirit ever a bird.”
“Nietzsche,” said Clio.
“Gesundheit!” said Thalia and she and Terpsichore doubled up laughing.

Calliope stepped forward and laid a quill and a roll of parchment into the cradle. She leaned over and kissed the baby between the eyes. “I, as the eldest Muse, am blessed to give the greatest gift. I give you the gift of words.” She touched the baby’s third eye, “Words.” Her heart, “Words.” Her solar plexis, “Words.”
“Shakespeare,” said Clio.
“Gesundheit!” said Thalia and Terpischore at the same time.
Then they laughed so hard that they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling through the clouds.

Smiling softly, Erato came out from behind a rose bush. She kissed her fingers and laid them over the babies heart. “Love,” she said quietly, “too much, too hard, too long, too well. You will pour your heart out and find it ever full. She kissed her left hand and placed it beside her right, over the babies heart. “You will always be ruled by Love, but I give double gifts, this deep capacity to Love others, and the ability to Love yourself as well.” She took a small book of deep red velvet out of her bodice and placed it beside the baby in the cradle. “You will write of Love as well.” She smiled sadly. “Like all my gifts, a blessing and a burden.”

Clio came forward. She had a book that was larger than the baby. After a baffled moment of looking at the book and then the baby, and then the baby and then the book, she bent over and placed the book underneath the cradle with a whump. She lifted both arms as if she were conducting a symphony. “I give you the gift of Myth,” she said brightly. “Fantasy. Fable. Folklore. Fiction. I give them to you to love, to read, to dance into and take as your own. Oh yes!” She suddenly rummaged around in her bag for a moment and then brought forth a very tattered, bent and crumpled quill. “And may you write it as well. And may you write it well!” She smiled at her own words, then cocked her head sidewards considering. She began to wave her hands again in an intricate weaving dance; “may inspiration flow just like a well . . . spring of ingenuity, source of origins, fountainhead of creativity, fount of ingenuity . . .” She smiled and nodded at her own recitation. “Yes, that’s good. Very good. A deep well, a bright fire . . . aptitude, aptness, inclination, inspiration, invention, gift, genius . . .”

“Thank you dear,” said Polyhymnia moving her deftly from in front of the cradle and taking her place. Her face was veiled. “You might not have expected me,” she said, bringing forth a small rough hewn, wooden pencil and tucking it in between the blankets. “There will be Sacred Poetry.” She lifted the veil from her face. There was a gasp all around the circle and the Muses in a single movement, bent their heads. For Polyhymnia had taken on the aspect of the Great Goddess. She was Demeter. She was Sophia. She was Isis and Anna, Brigid and Kuan Yin; she was Selene and Aurora Pomona and Circe, She was White Shell Woman, Marama, Rheia and Hecate. She was Gaia. She smiled softly around the circle and then smiled directly into the eyes of the baby. “There will be Sacred Poetry.” That was all.

After a pause Urania spoke anxiously. “If she goes down the moon tonight she is going to end up under the wrong sign. Undoubtably. Am I really supposed to send her down there as a Virgo?”
Calliope looked down past the sliver of moon, past the glimmering stars and into the red canyons below. “It certainly looks that way, yes. Ready or not, down she goes.”
Urania shook her head. “OK, folks, Virgo away.” She touched the baby lightly on the top of the head. “I send you with a strange astronomy, little one. To it, I will add, the propensity to question. Curiosity. Interest. Inquisitiveness. Awe. Amazement. Wonder. A relish in seeking, a delight in finding. I will gift you with the Joy of the Quest. Perhaps it will help you discover what your strange stars might mean.” She shook her head again, “Perhaps not.”

Melpomene came forward tentatively. Her lips were shaking and her eyes were full of tears. She held out one hand and, on her fingers, caught three tears. She touched them to the babies closed eyes. “I give you the gift of Tears.” she said softly. “I gift you with it, for you will understand it’s worth, though many do not.” She smiled then, and touched the baby on the throat with her wet finger. “To balance this radiant, dark gift, I give you another. I give you passion to balance your pain. I give you tears in your throat for the great happiness you will know, and for the exquisite sorrow . . . and I give you all the emotions in between. You will feel them all. On this alter, you will lay your greatest gift, it will fill your heart to over-flowing. It will break it.” She brought out a thin, black, feathered quill. “And, of course, You will write of passion, you will write of sorrow.” She stepped back quickly into the shadows.

Euterpe came forward and into the small pink cradle she placed a coiled silver string. “I give you the gift of music. To love it. To interpret it and render it, flowing through your body. I give you just enough ability to give you a intense, strong love, an almost understanding, and a deep yearning that will never be fulfilled.”
“Ah!” breathed Thalia through her nose, “that is so unFAIR!”
Terpischore rolled her eyes as all the Muse’s intoned at the same time, “Who ever said life was fair?”

“ME!” cried Thalia. “Oh, OK, not fair . . . but glorious and delicious and divine!” She leaned over and cupped her hands around the babies cheeks, gazing down into the little face as if it were a cup. “I give you the gift of Laughter. She looked up at the other Muses with slightly narrowed eyes, “I make this gift so profound and strong, so powerful and lusty, so mighty and dynamic that it will almost always conquer the pain and the sorrow, the agony and the heartache, the grief and the . . .” she glared at Euterpe, “disappointment.” She looked into the babies wide eyes with a slightly twisted smile. “And I’d make that ALWAYS, instead of almost always, if they’d let me!” She pulled a pen out of her pocket. It was pink and full of glitter. “Me too with the words,” she said, “Comedy. Idyllic poetry. Anything that has a FLOURISH! That will be from me!”
Suddenly the baby giggled, cooing and gurgling while waving her little arms in the air. “Bingo!” said Thalia.
“Gesundheit!” yelled Terpsichore. The baby crowed with the clear, joyous sound of utter delight and soon all nine muses were laughing so hard that they cried.

Calliope brought forth a little lap loom. “This is a metaphor. Again, little one, I give you one of your most profound gifts. You will see the world this way, understand everything through the prism of the metaphor. It will make things hard to understand. It will turn the little freshet of your words into a racing, rushing, river.

This tiny loom is but a metaphor for the many looms you will weave on. You will always weave with thousands of fine, multi-colored strands. They will get tangled and twisted, they will be complex and convoluted and complicated. They will give you rainbows to work with and yield beauty you will be able to be proud of.

“Ok, everybody,” From a fold in her robes she produced a pen. She held it up and the other Muses gathered around her. It was an oddly styled pen, made of plastic, rather than feather. It held no ink. “Virtual,” said Calliope as if tasting the word. “Late in life you will be given an extra gift ~ from all of us” There was nodding and smiling around the circle of faces. “A gift with no rhyme, for no reason. We will gift you with image as well as word, with color and form. You will have to wait for this gift, however, and you will not know that it is coming.”

Urania shook her head again, clicking her tongue. “She’s got to go, Calliope, they are getting impatient down there.”

“Well then!” Terpischore leaned over and kissed the baby on the forehead again. “You are ready little one. You have your loom, your quills, your books. You have our kisses and our tears. You have your own hollow heart, which will hold more than you will ever be able to imagine.” Impulsively, she kissed the babies feet again and whispered, “you are mine, little one, never forget it!”

Calliope reached down for a moon beam and wrapped the cradle securely. And with a whoosh she sent the cradle sliding down the silver sliver of moon into the red rock canyons below.

Far below, the woman smiled at the crack in the ceiling that looked like Abraham Lincoln and snuggled the tiny baby against her shoulder. She had come so early, she was so small. In only ten days they would pack up everything they owned and leave the red rock canyons, headed for the sea. Through the open window came the scent of juniper, cedar and sage. The man came from the window where he had been gazing at the sliver of moon. He looked down into the babies face and smiled. “Her eyes are so big!” he said. “She is all eyes. Welcome to the world Sovnoka . . . little girl with the eyes of an owl.”