Let start by kneeling
Come on in, the door is open
It begins with her kneeling in a chalk circle. She is on the porch in front of the house. A dark figure walks up the path, she stands, head up high as her eyes meet his, she doesn’t look away, she stands her ground. While she’s in the circle he can’t get close to her and leaves.
She stuck her chin up, “Fuck you”
She waits till nightfall before beginning her journey, she walks up the dark narrow path into the swishing trees and then cold grass begins to sway on her calves. She turns around and says to her dad, “You were my protector, but you gave up on me.” She then disappears into the forest.
The silver axe was gathered and with all his might her father had brought the axe down on his daughter’s wrists.
An over ripe orange that the dog peed on is all she can smell. She’s wondering what’s going on in this dark and mysterious world. Her muscles freezing to the sourness. The root rivers are turning gold, the spiders are marching to find homes.
Hand cutting has just placed a major limit on her life’s possibilities and has been replaced by the necessity of depth.
She has been walking for what feels like hours. She trips on a tree root and all her pain and sadness of leaving and betrayal hits her like lighting hits a tree. It’s sharp and hot she feels like this is the end of everything for her.
She has sacrificed everything and nothing at the same time. She left her family, but they had already given her up. Now she has nothing left it’s just her and the forest.
When she next wakes, she’s looking for something to hang her heart on. While she is kneeling on the ground she cries out to the spirits for a vision. She makes a spluttering fire; it is sending smoke into the air. She’s gasping for stories that she can put in her pocket.
Call for the spirit, the one who wanders this place passionately to help all who live. The eyes of the sky open to watch over you like a child watching over a smaller child. You venture around the forest like a fairy who helps the four-legged people, so call the spirit back to help those who can’t help themselves, then help the next through the dark.
She finds herself suddenly at the other side of the forest. She could see trees swollen with apples and pears, the trees shuffled forward to feed her.
She’s kneeling in the orchard under the moon light
His eyes meet mine and he is so tall like the tallest of the fruit trees
She looks up at me and her hair looks like a bird’s nest
He looks down at me and his face looks sharp but gentle
She seems so wild and free
He offers his hand like a branch to help me up
She takes my hand but with her own which is a stump, with leaves covering it.
Down by the river, we are all walking each other home
The river twists and turns
Boat could crash and collide-
But it’s the river where crashed boats come to be repaired
To then float amongst a fleet
It’s a river where you can go to find peace
It’s a river where you can go to rinse off the negative energy
She fell ardently into the fur of his words, and a love affair began. A marriage proposal spilled from his mouth. She fell pregnant.
She tells the fastest rider to go and tell her husband who has gone to war, he has a baby boy, but a dark figure steps out and changes the message that went to the king, and the one that went back to the maiden, his wife.
It is not safe. She finds herself back in the forest this time with her baby. She is told; the forest is never the same the second time.
After seven years his beard and hair fall to his waist. There is a weight to him, a seriousness and still, he searches for them.
There in the forest amongst the wood sisters, her hands begin to grow back. They were like tree stumps, bit by bit they were sprouting back.
When she woke up after a storm, she held her baby and there was a tingling feeling. There were her hands and the storm washed away the pain and worries. She cries with joy, she has her strength back.
One of the wood brothers comes calling for all the wood sisters to come right over for a gathering. The women start walking and singing and storytelling,. When they arrive at the wood brothers’ cottage, the eldest brother comes out to the eldest sister, and they talk.
Then they put the king and maiden, his wife, in the middle of all with a veil between them. They drop it so that the king and maiden see each other.
I rewild you from what you were now you are a tender vulnerable stick insect who is climbing up the ivy vines. Where there once was a black snowstorm now before me is a loving, free playful storyteller.
Your water runs down my back and slushes in my socks
Makes the birds squawks and snap
The dogs bark and bite
You make the rivers 30 times their size and flood
You make the clouds go from black to a cotton candy pink
The son of the two of them became a storyteller telling the story of a woman who grew her own hands back and a father who never gave up.
Come on in, the door is open…