Mother

The childhood I wish I had

MOTHER

You want a story. Here’s a story known true in the realms where the heart and the

soul dwells eternal.

My mother was born Crow Clan. As a child I spent more time amongst crows than

I did our villagers. Mother was fluent in four languages, the language of our

people, the language of crows of course, and the languages of both trees and

wind.

We lived on the banks of the River Hu. The Hu was a river of many moods. She

could be playful, joyous, laughing and splashing gently over the boulders lying in

her bed. She was sometimes angry, sometimes sad. The Hu gave us our water,

Mother gave back her love. Mother loved to sing, and she treasured the days

when strong storms raged in the mountains, and the Hu grew powerful, noisy,

swift. On those days Mother could always be found seated on a folded blanket

beside her beloved river, singing, for hours blending her voice to the song the river

sang. When very young, I feared the Hu when she was full of storm. I would creep

just close enough to hear their song which left me bewildered yet bewitched.

When older I sat beside Mother, although I never had the voice to join in their

harmony.

All her life Mother took her meditations seated below the closest of the ancient fir

trees. Tuning her heart to the vibrations of wind and tree, after many years she

found she knew their languages, she could listen in to conversations of those two

old friends. Mother told me of their stories. She said they had been together for so

long, tree and wind, they sometimes forgot who was who. Sometimes their talk

was but a whisper, sometimes a loud happy holler. Now and then Mother would

return from her meditations sad and silent; the entire remaining day she spoke not

a word, not even to me, and I learned to hold back my pesky questions for the next

day. Mother did later explain to me, that these two inseparable friends, now so

old, had seen times of great sorrow, times of death, and occasionally they spent an

entire day in remembrance of those times.

Coming down the road, one knew our home by the sight of the gnarly old apple

tree in our yard, it’s limbs almost always filled not with fruit, but black crows of

Mother’s clan. Coming closer, one could sometimes also see empty fruit jars hung

from limbs. At the time of full moon, Mother spoke a secret spell over each jar,

then she had me hang them by day. When the moon rose that night, each jar

began to glow as it slowly filled with moonlight. Come dawn, this light did not

dissipate, and Mother had me gather them back inside, where the jars filled our

house at night with the soft moon glow.

Mother was an herbalist and a healer. I learned to expect the knocks on our door

that could come any time of day or night. Many villagers turned to Mother for help

and healing for maladies ranging from a broken finger to a broken heart. She was

also thought by some to be a witch, for Mother had the Sight. She could

sometimes cast her awareness into the Timeless Realm, returning with foresight of

things yet to come, glimpses of the future, strange knowings that if voiced left

people uneasy.

To Be Continued

Reviews

[Adriana]

This is so beautiful. I felt drawn in fron the first sentence. A truly amazing story