PATHS TO THE MOONLIGHT WATER GARDEN

A small warning:

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

What follows is Sacred Text. Tread softly . . .

Entering Lemuria
Paths to the Moonlight Water Garden

I have been looking for Lemuria. I have been walking long. Walking through a barren, meaningless world; a hollow echoing emptiness devoid of words. Words that had painted my life with wonder since I first discovered them; glimmering like luscious butterflies around my ears, brushing their sweet meanings against my lips, running in rainbow rivers from my pen. Words that were somehow suddenly gone; dried into dust, parched into nothing.
Between the rock walls I could see that the air was quivering; a bright tremulous pulse that murmured of magic. I hesitated, and then plunged through. As I passed under the ancient stone arches, a shiver traced my backbone. Following the winding paths, I hardly saw the country around me, drawn forward as if by something magnetic. As I kept walking, the late sun began to fade and twilight softly pearled the sky. Still I pushed on, hurrying toward some unknown goal. Darkness descended; a curtain of soft black velvet with an old-ivory moon swimming and flickering through the tree tops.
When I came at last to the Water Garden, I stood transfixed, staring down into the bright, crystalline depth. Something inside me trembled with recognition. I knew this liquideep enchantment. I knew it carried a message. I knew it could wash me clean. More importantly, I knew it could wash me full. Iridescent moonbeams danced and reveled through the water. The water broke into clean, clear circles above the rocks. I stepped forward into ritual space and the chanting began:

Healing Ritual at the Moonlight Water Garden

This is what I want most of all, to sit here beside the Moonlight Water Garden waiting for words. Watching for conceptions and perceptions bubbling up from the depth of the crystalline water. Metaphors will come softly, lighting against the blue veins of my temples like moths with powdery wings. I will sigh with delicious consummation as they sink into my mind. Images will come with the beat of hawk wings, appearing suddenly, black against the milky moon, churning the night scented air.
When the message comes, it will not come on soft feet whispering through the dew glistened grass. It will not come with the brass bell of trumpets striding through the trees. It will rise softly and mysteriously into the hollow space below my breast bone. It will flow, fluid and effortlessly through my body, spirit and mind, smoothing the spiny, nettled hurt inside me; filling ragged holes with gentle, soothing fingers; leaving me full and whole.
Into the gentle, green woodhush, Mother of the Ages, my essence, my self, will whisper a concentrated, soul-deep, liquid word: Forgive.
It is time and I have come to the place. In the still, sweet forest darkness, with ritual silence, I begin to brush away from thought and bone, the clinging cobwebs of guilt. The ragged gray shreds are swept cleanly away, swept from flesh, swept from memory. There is no censure in the soft warm flood that has filled my knowing. A crystal rush of woodsoaked wind strips away the last raveled fragments of selfblame, leaving behind a clearer, cleaner sight. Beside the moonlit water dreams a lucid soul, innocent where innocence has always been.
The wise woman within understands this. Nothing surprises her. She has seen it all. Clear-eyed and strong, with a small half smile on her lips, she waits. She waits, for words. She knows they will come.

Edwina Peterson Cross



And come they did . . . words, images, thoughts, butterflies of light that sometimes came so fast I could hardly see them. And still they come, bubbling and welling forth from the sacred spring, clear and, clean and bright; words, images, poems, paintings . . . sweet sustenance for a creative, ambrosia for an artist . . . generously, givingly comes the life blood of this magical, mystical land . . .

Lemuria Rising . . .