Dialogue with the Moon Bird Woman

I.                    On Women and the Night

She comes to me in a waking dream, glowing, an owl’s face on a middle-aged woman’s body. Wings with hands, soft hair and softer feathers. She touches me, and I remember. We are women, she says. Of our men, we may demand passion. We may accept poetry. We may ask for pardon, or understanding, or even mercy. What we should never ask, is permission.

 

We are women. There are places underwater where only we may walk without drowning. Counsels that only we can hear. Intimate pains that only women know.

 

The Night is a living creature, mountain-size, with giant wings. She is female, too, influenced by unseen forces; unpredictable. Sometimes, as a woman, those wings wrap you in fondest memories. Like a grandmother, she rocks you to sleep by the lullaby of the wind. Then there are nights, like these, where the ancient claws embedded at the wing joints emerge, memories sharp as razors, honed like obsidian. They slice you open down the midsection with an agonizingly destructive tally of each one of your shortcomings. Of all time. 

II.                  About the Moon

The strongest women learn to make an ally of the moon. “Look at her tonight,” she advises me, “a sliver of light thin and sharp enough to cut glass.” She teaches me to reach into the sky, and wrestle that crescent moon from her place hanging on the walls of the night like a trophy. She shows me how to weave grief, disappointment, love, and hope into a good strong thread. She tells me to thread the moon with it, like a surgeon’s needle, and pass it through my own flesh, my own midsection- and repair what the night’s memories have torn asunder. “You will cut your hands, too, in the process,” she says, “and that is ok. It is to be expected.”

 

“Your instincts will kick in from there. There are some kinds of sutures, some kinds of knots, that only women know. You will get it right.”

III.                The Men Who Serve Us

 

Years ago, my friend Ruth advised me, “When you marry, marry a gentle man.” It took years of knowing violent ones to make me appreciate her words. I ask of the Moon Woman, “How do I know he is a good man, when we are all flawed- when we all fear being too committed to either this world or to each other, in some fundamental way? Men, women, we all have these gaping wounds.”

 

She takes me to a place where delicate things grow. “Women suffer their wounds, at night, in the dark; men hide theirs in the shame of broad daylight.”

 

The heart muscle is much too strong to be the home of the human condition- but flowers sprout from all the places where your blood flows to nourish the earth. All those places where you have made your mistakes, suffered your greatest violations, endured your greatest losses. They are holes where seeds can be planted. She touches the raw edges of the incision I have imperfectly closed, gently, reverently.

 

The man who is worth your time is the gardener of beautiful things in these places where we hurt the most, as women. You will make mistakes, and still love each other. He may look like a lover. He will always look like a friend. He will plant seeds where you thought nothing more could grow. 

 

 

IV.                You

Maybe I was surprised by your vulnerability that day, too. Those places you showed me where water and sunlight do not reach- those deserted fields where men also bleed. Holding you, there was truth in the Moon Woman’s every word. If the blessing is in the knowledge, the gift is in the surrender. Your hands make seedlings sprout from my deepest scars. Would you ever let me do the same for you? I would bring moonlight to your desert, and teach you to love while it painted a tired world, silver and blue. Maybe I can even become something with wings, too. For you.

 

 

Author's Note

In the Cree culture, there is a story of a guardian spirit, the Moon Bird, who appears in the lives of some select women in times of great need, when they are facing almost seemingly insurmountable challenges; alone, afraid, and/or in danger. She takes to the form of a woman with an owl's face, and with blended arms/ wings. Last week, I surprisingly dreamed of her.

The poem is a recounting of that dream, blended with some other meditations. This month's theme for our writing group is "memories;" so I also focused on the role that memory serves in the life of a woman, and our special connection to what Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls "The 2 Million Year old woman" who is the keeper of the entire history of feminine mystery and wisdom. I believe that woman who are connected to this world through spirit are also connected strongly to her- she shows up as instinct and judgment.

Reviews

[An owl on the moon]

What beautiful dreams and visions flow through your words, these worlds found in meditation and deep memories. May we discover new dreams for these new days, and visions that can carry us beyond the horrors of this wild earth... yes, on wings of the wind...

[Marie Anzalone]

Thanks, owl. This piece was heartrending to write, and defines a true story. my connection to the "other side" has been growing stronger and deeper with the passing of time. Receiving this visit frightened me as much as it honored me. I appreciate you stopping by.