Ceremony

With each stroke of the mallet against the chisel, she could feel his movement, see the motion, hear the sounds of wood becoming. She could feel his movement when he went into the dark forest to get the rich dark wood. She remembered how he would walk the woods, and talk to the trees. How he would sit on the ground How once he found a stand he liked and just look at each of the trees. Eventually, he would talk to each tree and listen to their stories. She would watch him place his hands on each tree as the conversation went on and on, tree by tree until he finally had talked with each of them. He’d finally found the tree, a tree just right. And then he would sing to the tree, a song of gratitude, filled with sadness. Then he would pull away from the tree, still singing and calling it by name. He pull out the saw and the axe, and begin cutting down this one tree so that he had wood to work. This tree was special as was what it would create.

She’d grown up in these woods, with him after her mother died. He’d come to the woods after his time away. Much older than his years. He’d come to forget the sounds and smells of death and dying. He’e come to forget the holding them as they passed from this life to the next. He’d come to forget the failures of his healers hands. The practice that followed each person, so their soul could move gracefully across the threshold as it left their body. He’d come to forget, to find the silence so his soul could heal. Instead, he’d found her in the wood, alone. Somehow, she called him by name. She took him deeper into the wood, to where her mother brought her. She brought him to the bones.

She came to know and feel his movement. As he fell the trees,. As he shaped the logs. As he sawed some into lumber. She came to know his silence meant more to her than words he spoke. She would whisper his name at night and he would come to silence her fears. Like a ghost, he would come and hold her safe. She loved to watch him work. She would listen to his songs as wood became a house, a bed, a table and more. Each swing of a axe. The sound of hammer against wedge as he split long logs into boards. The motion as he sawed each plank or beam out of the logs. In the evening he would go to the outlet of the pond and bathe. Then cook her meal, then wander into the wood to sleep.

She could feel him shift when they got to the bones. Her mother’s bones. He kneeled beside them and started to sing. As he sang he arranged each bone, making sure he found every bone. He sang a song of rebirth. She hadn’t told him her mother’s name yet his song pulled the name from the earth. He wrapped the bones carefully into a woolen blanket, duge a grave and lowered the bones. into the ground. While releasing the soul into the heavens. She watched as the energy of her mother joined the stars.

He built the house for her, and everything in it. Each month when his money came to him. He would make sure she had every thing she needed. And sometimes she got some of her wants. Filled too. He made sure she went to school and that she was known by the people of the town nearby. He wanted her to know of the world outside the wood, always believing she’d return to it.

She could see the way his face moved and changed and flowed, Mallet against chisel, chisel against wood. Slowly he cut each dove tail, slowly each joint formed by his hands. This wood was special. Deep and dark. From rare trees in the wood. A gift that knew what it was destined to become. It wasn’t what he expected from that grove but this tree said that it was the right tree, the right wood for this creation.

The first time he came to the wood, he came in winter. He crossed the pond on the winter’s ice. He’d come to die, to leave this life. And the wood told him that he still had work to do.

Each stroke of the mallet she felt. The muscles of his arm, shoulder, his back, his stance. She felt the chisel in his hand. The cut of the wood. She worried, it was taking him too long. Soon the ice would be off the pond and he would not be able get across in time and the work would be in vain. She felt no rush, no hurry in his motions.

She knew that he took her to town, to school so that she had a way back into the world. That he expected her to go. That her home, that he built for her would sit empty after she was gone. That he would be alone, after she was gone. His work had become to care for her, To raise her, into her gifts, and into the world in a way she could be safe.

She felt his body as he pieced the joints together. She felt his hands as he wove fabric and sewed the fabric together. She felt the muscles in his back as sanded the dark wood until it was smooth. She smelled the flax oil as he pressed it form the seeds and smelled the oil as he boiled it. She saw the character of the wood take form as he did, as he added the oil to the wood.

She left him in the wood that day. And went into the world.

The ice was on the pond as he started to cross under the full spring moon. He could hear the moaning of the ice, and yet he started across. The thaw was beginning. Soon, so very soon he was to see her.

He built the house for her. Never expecting it to be standing after she left. He just couldn’t take ti down. She was a child then. Left for him to raise. He’d wondered if he did good by her.

The sun was rising as he approached the house. She was in a blanket on the porch.

“Welcome Husband, The time is here.” she said.

He carried it into the house and set it in her room. Then he started to sing, and she could feel it in her bones, in her muscles in her body. She could feel their energies merge and flow together as one. The ceremony that began so long ago was coming to a place of change. She remembered when their energies first blended as one….

“She has your green eyes” he said

“And she has your song”

And the cradle rocked slowly back and forth and their magic was combined.

A new ceremony had begun....