Ritual of Gratitude at the Moonlight Water Garden

On this day of remembrance, I come to the stone doors of Lemuria. These doors of stone which were made of my bones, my bones which were made of these stones. I trace a spiral on the lintel of the outer door and then lay the flat of my palm against the rock and speak.

“I seek entrance at this gate. I am a weaver of words; a minstrel of a later day; a bard of imagery and imagination. I am a dancer of dreams; an illusionist of air castles and rainbows; a pilot of myth. I am a scribe of memory; an aspirant of inspiration; I am the stareyed child of the Muse. I am a poet. I seek entrance at this gate.”

I look up to see the Muse standing on the far side of the walls. She is taking me at my intention and has not come to play, she is not smiling and she is not wearing her running shoes. She is robed in her full shining, Grecian white regalia and from her brow, twined within her bright hair, lift two elegant, heavy antlers.

“Greeting My Child, on this Keepsake Day, I welcome you with ceremony though a door already opened.” Her voice is lucent and clear in the cool evening air. “What do you seek? What do you bring? Where will you walk? Who comes with you?”

“I seek words. I see sanctuary. I seek . . . much. I bring words. I bring poems to leave in small token for all that I have taken away. I will walk the pathway to the Water Garden. I have come alone.”

The ghost of a smile plays across her mouth, but does not stay. “Not alone, I think,” she says, “glance up from your words, poet, and look about yourself.”

The first thing I notice are the crowded shadows on the ground. The last rays of the setting sun make them lengthened and elongated, like silent menhirs stretching across the green ground of Lemuria. I turn and look behind myself and smile. Well, I should have known. I make an amendment.

“I seek words. I see sanctuary. I seek . . . much. I bring words. I bring poems to leave in small token for all that I have taken away. I will walk the pathway to the Water Garden. I do not walk alone. With me, as always, walks my Support Fellowship. Seen, or unseen, they walk beside me, like a strong staff in my hand, like a net beneath me.

With me walks a mystery; Goddess Moon as child, maiden, mother and crone; the secret, scented wind of El Duende; the continual, musical mirror of synchronicity; shape changing birds of lilac and ebony; a woman named Marta who carries a broom; a Bard with ink stained fingers, wearing doublet and hose; his shadowed sister whose soul I share; a deep-eyed Wizard with a bone white beard, wearing many faces; two Canadian singers, a man and a woman; a barefoot dancer in white Grecian robes; a plethora of poets . . . an ear-enchanting Irishman, a love-weary woman who smells of the sea, a joyful Sufi-mystic out of time, a beautiful Gypsy who dances with darkness, an English Lord with the blue mystery of twilight in his hand . . .” I gaze at the figures behind them that stretch forever, into darkness. “There are so many here! So many . . .”

Someone pulls on the tails of my shirt. “Ah yes, a small, fat, golden bear in a red vest; three radiant figures bloomed of roots and wings: the Starshine Angel, the Sunlightening Angel, the Moonblaze Angel; An Oxford Don; a contingent of otters; an ageless woman with a halcyon heart and a pink poetry book in her purse; a Word Warrior, slayer of dragons, who shares my face and my name; a woman of giving who carries the Christlight; a vast array of visitors from Faerie; a grove of Dryads with ivy and lilly-of-the-valley twined in celebration through their wild hair; And the radiant, sharing residents of this fair land, they are all here. They come singing and bearing the bread of heaven.” I pause and swallow a breath, “a woman is here, robed in blue, holding high a lantern of unwavering rays they show a sweet, intangible, moondark shadow.” I look over the vast crowd and my eyes fill up with tears. “And . . . and you lady, if you will walk with us.”

The muse now allows herself the smile as she surveys the crowd behind me. “Are you sure you have not forgotten anyone?”

"Not sure at all," I answer. "It's quite likely that I have."

She nods. "Very well, My Child." Her voice rises again and all else becomes still. "In Ceremony and Ritual, Come into this Land of Myth and Mystery, where you have walked in joy, bring your Support Fellowship and walk the path you have walked before. I am honored to walk beside you, where I will always walk, when I am bidden."

She lowers her eyes and I can't resist a small, repressed, snicker. This is an old joke, for, of course, she by no means always comes when I call. Perhaps I just haven't learned yet exactly what it is she means by "bidden."

I tuck my first offering, a small prose piece titled "Why the Gates Make You Shiver" into the cracks between two stones and I pass under the Gates into Lemuria, a tiny shudder tracing my backbone like a fast rolling marble of ice. On the other side, I find that the Muse has mellowed, the horns have melted from her brow and her robes are golden now, her feet bare.

Before us stretches the land of Lemuria, verdant, green and mysterious as resurrection moss. The sun has set and twilight is twining it's cool blue fingers among the newly budding trees. A soft, white mist is beginning to gather among the lower hills and the moon is just peaking up from behind the black velvet shoulder of the mountain. She is a waning crescent tonight; later, her liquid reflection will hold the questions that bubble up in circles from the Water Garden between bright silver horns.

We have a lovely walk together through the lower hills of Lemuria in the twilight. I leave more words at the bridge where the path crosses the river. As we near the Water Garden, my company drifts off one by one, two by two, into the clear, still Lemurian night. Some go to hear the symphony that will play beside the river tonight and some go to dance at the Dryad's dancing lawn. Some have gone to supper, some to share a bottle of wine over a table filled with candle light; some have gone home to a book; some will cross through the stone portals back into the world. All have walked me this far, in remembrance and support; all knew that I would keep this last vigil, as I began, alone.

I come at last to where the Lemurian Water Garden continually asks it's round, cycled questions of the night and stand transfixed, once again, staring down into the bright crystalline depth. I sit beside the water and, brushing the healing waters with my fingertips, enter Ritual Space.

Here I came and was washed clean, washed full. I come here today, in gratitude, to say thank you.

I asked to sit in silent contemplation beside this water waiting for words, and this I have been granted. Supportive Solitude. There has been camaraderie and fellowship when I wished it, solitude when I needed it. And the words I asked for have come; the conceptions, perceptions, metaphors; not like the single papery moth I imagined, but circling and whirling like a thousand iris butterflies, lifting my hair, brushing magic against my eye lids, sinking into my mind so fast and furious I could hardly see them as they flowed into the blue veins of my temples and gushed out of my fingers as words. I was here to greet the beat of hawk wings when the night scented air churned with image; I was here with my fingers on the keyboard.

I sat here a year ago, in the gentle, green woodhush, and forgave myself for my pain. That pain did not leave me, in fact, I think it is worse, but when I washed away the blame, it left a breathing space. And into that expanse of breath; within my bones; through my thoughts; woven around my experiences and memories; spiraled all about my being, the words came pouring. The pain is a thing apart from the words now, for they can move, breathe, exist apart from it; around it; in spite of it. This is an unimaginable blessing, one I never knew to ask for, but one that has made all the difference.

A blessing that has allowed me to write more than I have done in years and to begin to paint as well. For, to my great surprise, there are nonverbal butterflies in this magic meadow too. They sunk into my temples right along with the rest, but when they started coming out of my fingers it was one of the greatest shocks of my life. Walk warily in this land, dear stranger. You can't really begin to expect them, but don't be too surprised by any miracles that happen by.

I take out the poem that I have prepared, unfold it and leave it on the thin marbled rail, above the ferns, held in place by a small rock. It is titled "Concentric Circles" and mirrors what I am seeing in the dark water. This is all. I move the flat of my palm across the water, moving out of Ritual Space and then sit quietly, alone, listening to the limpid, sweet song of the water and the still, crystal hush of the Lemurian night all around me.

Not totally alone in the end, it seems, for here is my old friend St. Irony suddenly standing on the other side of the water, his face unsmiling. "Words?" he says, "you are thanking the universe for words with . . . words? don't you find that just a little . . . Ironic?"
"Oh, yes," I answer, "deliciously so." I look at him closely, narrowing my eyes in the moonlight. He looks like an ancient, but upright Portugese man dressed in the flowing black frock coat of another time. If I squint just right, however, I can see a coyote head superimposed on his hard, humorous, old face. Hummm. I thought so. "If the world gives me macaroni and cheese," I tell him, "I will cook up such a pot of macaroni and cheese in return!" He raises an eyebrow and his lips thin. He regards me narrowly and sniffs. "You are irreverent and disrespectful to the gift you have been given." A rich ghost of laughter floats in from the darkness. "And so are YOU," he adds to the night in general.

"Poets!" he complains, managing to look both haughty and indignant, "luckily there are not many of you left. You make my job, most difficult." I open my eyes wide and the ghostly canine head disappears leaving only a frowning old man with an inscrutable look on his face. "Well," I answer, "I, for one, certainly do try." This is too much for him and without even bothering with a pop of displaced air, he is gone. In the darkness floats a ghostshadow, a lingering canine smile. I hear the deep, warm laughter floating like a shadow out of the darkness once again and I smile. Distinct or shadowed, manifest or obscure, bidden or unbidden; in truth, my Muse is always there.

Edwina Peterson Cross