Tending Joy

            For this exercise, consider that you are the author of a piece of writing with a witch in it. The witch is standing behind you as you write, dictating how he/she should be presented. What is the witch telling you? Is it a list of rules? A monologue? A story in itself? Random thoughts and phrases? A recipe?

            The Witch. She stands behind me, looking over my shoulder. She plays with my  hair while she watches what I am doing.

            The Witch. She sits in my lap, snuggling for warmth. She reaches for the  food on my plate.

            The Witch. She stands before the mirror at midnight. She stares into my eyes  and wonders if I can see her. I wonder if she can see me.

            She blinks. I hesitate. Something's happening.
  

            The Witch looks out the window, watching the dark woodland as the wind blows. The moon, just rising, lights the faces of the streaming clouds as they flee beyond the thrashing trees. By its light her face is thinly reflected in the glass. Behind her, the mirror shows my face.

            Something's happening.

            I've waited a long time for you, she says. You're older than I expected. What were you doing with all that time? No, don't tell me; I'm sure you thought it was important, or someone else did. Or you thought someone else did. It doesn't matter anyway; you're here now, and time is all Now to me.

             I listen, spellbound. She turns, regards me. Am I to speak? Apparently not, for no words come.

             At least you're healthy, she says, and complete. Last time we met you'd already lost a leg, a breast, most of your wind and a great deal of your disposition. Why was that, I wonder? --No, never mind. You don't remember anyway. It was a long time ago, and that wench has been dead these many centuries.

              A shadow zips through my mind and is gone before I can catch it. Was that an owl hooting? the smell of woodsmoke? Did I see a speckled mirror hanging from a nail?

              Sit down, she says, and a chair appears in the gloom. My chair, the pink silk I inherited from Griffin Lovelace's wife. The chair I lost in 1969.

              I sit; what else can I do?

             We've much to accomplish, she says, and time is short. You've much to do before death claims you this time.

             She gives her attention to the hearth a moment. I sit silent. Ideas and images float chaotically inside my head; my awareness feels speeded up and jumbled. I remember ...
            
             I remember Katie asking me, "What would you do, if you knew you could not fail?"
             ("Write the 'Great American Novel'," I said. A host of other things flew out of my mouth after that -- the seminar that would revolutionize teenage angst and bring accelerated maturity, reduced pain, improved self-confidence, greater freedom to the youth who were willing to do the work; the movie, the book, the public-speaking career, the ashram, the yoga practice, the sailboat. Dozens of dreams I hadn't allowed myself to know came flooding out.

            That list is still there. I know where it is. I could look it up.)

            I remember Chris telling me I was in charge here, though I'd forgotten it was my turn to lead.

           (And the wonderful group Tarot reading we manifested, in the sacred space we created at my direction, that people still tell me about).

            I remember my shocked delight the moment a piece of homework from grad school turned into 125 pages of useful and fascinating material.

            I remember beginning to write poetry in an online class ... and the strange sensation of finding a different 'myself' at the keyboard. It's happening again, this awareness of a different 'myself.'

            Are you willing? she asks. Don't tell me if you're not -- it won't do you any good. The time for saying No is past. But look within yourself: Are you willing? And if you find that you're willing, then look again: Are you ready? Do you choose to focus your attention? Do you choose to pay the price? Do you imagine you can choose to ask the price first, and then decide? or will you just commit yourself? Which will it be, then? No, don't tell me -- it's not me you need to answer.

            Be clear, she says, for clarity is all that will serve you now. Speak only what is true and certain. Say only what you choose to manifest, for your every word has power in this place. As it does, as it has, in all of your life -- as you know by now. Be clear; be honest; speak wisely and well.

            You must work daily, she says, watching me with narrowed eyes. Each day that you skip practice presents an opportunity for the work to fail. You must work this each day, the dailiness is part of the work. And the deeper truth is, you are working each day whether you do the work or not. Practice shapes the day in one way, and unpractice shapes the day in another way, and both ways forge the work as it goes forward. You must choose, and choose again, though the time for choosing otherwise has long passed.

            You must focus, for if you do not then the work will be fuzzy and unkempt. Each time you are wayward the work will be made waywardly. Choose focus, and then choose again.

            You must persist, for the work will still need doing if you do not do it; and if you do not do it, you will return to have it to do again. Choose persistence, and then persist, and then choose again.

            She stirs the fire she has made, and the flames leap up. By their light I see that her gown is blue, not the black I had imagined in the darkness.

            Have you listened deeply enough? she asks. Can you smell what the work is, yet? Is there any doubt in your heart or mind or spirit or body? Do you doubt that you know what the work must be? doubt that you can do it? doubt that it is time, and past time, to begin it? Do you know, yet, how challenging the work is? (and how much harder it would be to 'not do' it?)

            I nod, still dumbstruck. I know exactly what the work is. I know exactly my place in the work. It is the place that has been mine all my Life -- this life, and the one before it, and the one before it, and the one before that. Not one single word of it forms in my mouth, but I know it.

            The fire quiets. She turns her back to me, her blue robe sending a purple shadow along the floor.

            A bird flies across the face of the quarter moon. The fire buzzes and hums. Music sings in my imagination's ear, or memory's: "Give yourself to Love, if love is what you're after ..." and then "It's in every one of us to be wise, find your strength, open up both your eyes ... " and then "You are the crown of creation ..." and then the singing fades, and I am left with an orchestra in my head -- Rhapsody in Blue, and Take Five, and the drums of Babatunde Olatunji. I am crying; I wipe my face.

            When I raise my head she is gone. The woods are quiet, and then absent. I'm sitting in the cabin of a small sailboat, at anchor in a sunlit harbor, this computer on my knees.

            Already my experience of her is fading, but I don't seek to edit it. Every word is the plain truth.

            NorthLight, March 13, 2007, 6:15 pm.

            Yikes.

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