The Trip
 

The morning Ravena decides to
leave it’s Mabon, the Fall Equinox,
the Wiccan Sabbat in September
celebrating the harmony in life,
a day of perfect balance when
light and dark reign equally. As
she lights the traditional candle,
a red taper positioned in a bowl
of popcorn, burdock, nuts, and
dried beans, Ravena shakes
her head at the growing lack
of harmony rocking her relation-
ship with Odell. After casting
a Mabon spell for harmony, she
hears a crow in the woods behind
the house and stops to watch it
through the living-room window,
a radiant bird, swaying like a
glossy black boat in the top of
a leafless tree. Jumping from
its perch, it disappears into a
thicket of tiny trees, a tangle
of branches weaving a net of
gray mist. Intrigued, she opens
the sliding glass door and steps
out into the cool shock of
autumn air and bright sunshine.
The crow reappears. This time
in a tall pine close to the house,
where it shrieks loudly, almost
as if asking her to follow, to
come away, to shake herself
from the weariness of a life that
suddenly feels like a jacket two
sizes too small. She muses
how a little money saved from
her bank deposit each week
would provide plenty for a short
trip in May, a month wrapped
in ribbons of color like a present,
the perfect month to get away.
She waves at the crow and says,
"Thank you, Dark Mother, for
the surprise of your Mabon gift."
Then she smiles. "I’ll do it!"

A few days after Ravena cast the
healing spell she made an appoint-
ment with Dr. Chan. Waiting in
his office for a consultation, she
never felt alone. Bast accompanied
her, standing in the corner of the
room next to the window, floating
a foot or two above the tile floor,
her arms crossed, the expression
on her cat face calm and comforting.
Every aspect of the Mystic Health
Center pleased and delighted
Ravena: the parking lot jammed
with cars, the soothing CD of
Native American wood flutes
gliding through the intercom, the
massage therapist who could see
her patients’ auras, the fascinating
glimpse at a room full of men lying
on tables prickled with needles,
the friendly nurses and receptionist.
Ravena felt as though she’d come
home at last. She waited for
an hour, occasionally glimpsing
Dr. Chan rushing past the door
to attend to his many patients.
Eventually he arrived, her chart
clamped beneath his arm, a tall,
energetic man from China with
a contagious smile. He asked her
a few questions about the herbs
she used, pronounced her reddish
tongue indicative of a sluggish
liver, checked her spine, and
performed a short exam in the
area of the fibroids. He prescribed
one chiropractic adjustment to
stimulate her liver and then six
months of acupuncture treatments,
including a regime of Chinese
herbs to regulate her hormones
and improve circulation, while
assuring her that she wasn’t the
first patient he had treated for
large fibroids. She would receive
two acupuncture treatments each
week for one month, and then
one treatment a week for the
remaining months. At her first
session Dr. Chan placed the needles
in her feet, shins, ears, stomach,
hands, and one on top of her head.
A heat lamp positioned above
her stomach intensified the effect
of the needles in the area of the
fibroids. Surprisingly the procedure
felt as painless as a fingernail
flicked against her skin. "See
you next week, Miss Ravena,"
the receptionist chimed, smiling
as brightly as a June sunflower.
Ravena opened the door and
walked from the serene waiting
room into torrid heat and sunshine,
feeling certain she’d been guided
by Bast to this medical oasis, the
last track of her healing journey.

* * * * *

An arid starkness blankets Columbia,
this land charred by excessive
summer heat and now in October
brown and shriveled with the
promise of winter. This land,
dry and flat, so unlike the Blue
Ridge Mountains, the place of
her birth. Ravena has flirted with
the idea of leaving for some time,
struggling with an intense desire
to distance herself from the angry
people in her life who chase her
with their neediness, blistering
her with prickly words and actions.
Odell teeters at the top of the list,
followed by certain members of
her family. Ravena’s mind whirls
in this cyclone of thought for an
hour, while she tries to finish
a new batch of toys. Suddenly,
Cherry dashes through her office
and leaps onto her worktable,
scattering the pile of catnip she’s
been stuffing into newly sewn
mice. Ravena cups Cherry’s head
in her aromatic hands and kisses
the creamy fur behind her ears.
"Funny how people often think
others must be the same as them-
selves," Ravena whispers, the
cat purring in response. "And
I’m no different," she admits,
always believing in the goodness
of people. Yet she marvels how
Odell and her family speak to
her as if she were also angry
and negative. "No one knows
me," she says, moving Cherry
to her lap and gathering the last
of the catnip into a plump muslin
mouse. Every time she sees the
bare oak in the backyard she thinks
about shaking these people from
her limbs like acorns. "But now
that I’ve decided to leave, where
will I go?" she asks Cherry, who
meows loudly, and rolls over.
Then Ravena laughs. "I know!"
She’ll go to the place she dreams
about. A place where firs green
the land all year, touching the
sky, a place humming its sweet
song whenever she closes her
eyes. She’ll go back to Asheville.

* * * * *

Thursday, and fields of red and
orange poppies swim past her car
as the mountains of the Blue Ridge
loom before her. A pleasant day
for driving, the second week in
May, the sky as blue as summer
butterflies, while pines paint
the earth with yellow dust. She
waited until the day before she
left to tell Odell about the trip,
that she wasn’t traveling to
exhibit at a craft fair or cat show
but leaving on a vacation, only
for a few days, that she needed
to get away, relax, do nothing.
Odell didn’t understand why
they couldn’t vacation together.
"Is anything wrong?" he asked.
Ravena smiled. "I just need
some time for myself," she
replied. Odell frowned. "But
why?" he asked. She compared
it to his golf trips with friends,
no different, nothing to worry
about. He didn’t seem happy,
but said he knew he couldn’t
stop her. She washed the dishes,
fed the cats, and packed quickly
this morning. Now white daisies
pepper the grass like snowflakes
and stretch for miles on either
side of the highway. As the
altitude increases the grass
changes gradually to a burnished
red, three feet high, drooping
at the top. Long washes of blue
grass, almost silver in the sun,
paddle like heavy brushstrokes
across the land. Last week she
bought a moonstone and left it
on the windowsill to be cleansed
in bright sunlight and then
charged with moonbeams under
a full moon. She carries this
charm for safe travel in a small
bag belted to her waist, and
as the miles slide by she sings
a favorite protection chant:

"Fierce Durga, Great Goddess of Travel,
protect me whether I drive or amble.
Bless this trip with abundant success.
Lead me safely, guide my steps."

Red clover carpets the hills
along the highway, while
Ravena’s thoughts wander
as rampantly as these scarlet
wildflowers. She thinks about
how often she chooses not
to speak, since silence seems
to offer the best response to
Odell’s cranky fits. This choice
leaves her feeling oddly aloof,
yet somehow at peace. Ravena
knows she continues to grow
and change every year, a task
she welcomes, one that fits
snuggly with what she considers
her purpose in life: to saturate
her world with good words
and thoughts for as long as the
Goddess allows her to walk the
Earth. But how can she learn
to live with this new person
she’s becoming, this woman
so comfortable and at ease
not only with silence but being
the silence? This woman who
waited until the day before
she left to tell her husband she
was leaving, and felt nothing.

©Laura Stamps, 2006