Never's Remedy

I've started reading "Clever Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm's Fairy Tales", which is both a biography about the lives of the Brothers Grimm, but also a tale of their sister and her female friends who were major contributors to (and writers of) many of the stories in their collections. This coincides with the recent collaboration of three extremely talented, female comic artists (including Gina Biggs of Red String!) who have created Erstwhile Tales, an adaptation of Grimm tales into web comics.

And of course, this means I'm re-reading a lot of Grimm tales, and came across this site, which offers plain text versions of the Grimm Tales. The current one Erstwhile is focusing on for the next four weeks is "The Bird, the Mouse, and the Sausage", which I don't recall ever having read before tonight. Quite gruesome, with its own message about collaboration and knowing one's place in life (or alternately, seeing the harm that greed and laziness can bring, depending on how you interpret the ending).

Nevertheless, Grimm has been on my mind of late, and like many waves of subjects in my life, they seem to be coming at me from different directions at once.

Away from the Grimm brothers' tales, I've just finished (finally) reading The Color of Heaven, the third book in a Korean manhwa trilogy about the life and development of the artist's mother and grandmother. Kim Dong Hwa's style is wistful, elegant, and when necessary, just a tad silly. She presents female growth, sexuality, and development from a particular point in time and space, and blends all the emotions of transformation with an understanding of the flora around the village and the changing of seasons. Ana's been reading this trilogy with me, and enjoying it just as immensely as I have. Tomorrow, I give her the final book to read through before I return it to the library. A definite diversion from the usual fantasy and horror manga and graphic novels we read. It's captivating in its display of the ordinary, and makes every moment seem lush and worth noting.

That being said, I'm thinking about taking on the 50 Book Challenge, something that shouldn't be too difficult for me given all I read in a year, but lately, I've been flagging. Most of the books I haven't read at home or I've checked out from the library lately, have just sat on the chest in the hall or in a drawer in my bedroom, going unread until I have to return them again. I need to start making time again for reading.

(Of course, reading book 3 of Eila to Ana over the last week was quite a treat for both of us. It was quite rewarding for me to be able to read it aloud, even in its raw, "draft zero", form, and Ana helped me see where clarity and changes will need to be made. But it was significantly rewarding when, after finishing the scenes of the intro, Ana looked at me, and whispered, "wow." She's already demanding to see book 4, but we've not finished it yet!)

“I’ve been on the path to Shamanism all along, but never realized it until now.”
I wrote that after reading the book “Witchcraft and the Shamanic Journey” by Kenneth Johnson.


Dec. 27th, 2001; Up the World Tree:

Went up tree to ask three questions which I placed in my shirt as three cards representing each question. One was the Soulmate card, the second was the Writing card, and the third was the Message card.

I started at the base of my tree, climbing the ladder nailed into the trunk (like a ladder to a child’s treehouse), then I climbed the branches to the first layer of clouds. From there was a rope ladder which mid-way solidified into wood so I could climb a bit easier. The next layer of clouds provided me with a single rope to climb and at the top, I had to reach through the next cloud layer, hold on to the rope knot and hoist myself up.

An Eagle swooped down and grasped me in its claws, flying high over the clouds. It dropped me over an ocean like cloud filled with jumping orkas who bounced me into the air as if I were a ball. They bounced me so high I landed on the back of a giant raven with a white underside and a top side that changed from black to blue to purple to green and continued to change, “a raven of a different color.” It set me down on a cloud, which I realized was a layer above that of the whales.

I sat and calmed myself after the journey. First, I pulled out the Soulmate card to remind myself to ask, “when will I meet my soulmate?” A scorpion scurried by and snatched the card from my hand with a pincer and started to continue on. I asked my question again and it stopped, turned, and in the cloud I wrote 200, and started to write “1” and it scratched out the “1” with its stinger and wrote “4”. It scuttled away clutching the card.

I pulled out the Writing card and asked, “Will I be a best-selling author? Should I continue my writing?” A badger quickly came over, snatched the card from me and began ripping it into tiny pieces with its little hands. I began to become downhearted, but continued to watch as the badger sprinkled the pieces on the “ground” and then swept them up into a ball of cloud, stuffed it into its mouth like a giant ball of cotton candy, and ate it. It scurried behind me and climbed onto my shoulder, a typewriter appeared before me and I found myself surrounded by stacks of books. I typed furiously and aggressively and looked over my shoulder at the badger, still unsure of whether I should continue. It turned my attention to the typewriter, instead of paper rolling out as I typed, a very large leather-bound book came out and the Badger climbed on my head and then onto the now floating book which opened at Badger’s approach. It climbed up the page on the right hand side and found what it sought, it had me stand and look in the book with it. My name was printed there in small, bold letters. From there proceeded a listing of words, only a few I was able to read (the majority of it was gray and hazy unlike the very clear black lettering the Badger allowed me to read). Somehow the Badger highlighted the bolding of the words after my name that read “best-selling author” and were close to other words like “mother” and “model”. The rest I couldn’t read. The Badger pushed me away from the book, bent down, dipped a feather pen in ink and began to add more to the ledger under my name. Then it very quickly left, removing the presence of the books and the typewriter.

Alone only briefly, I sat again and began to draw the Message card out. Before I had removed it from my shirt, a small and slender Phoenix lightly landed on my shoulder and took the card in its beak. I asked, “What message should I bring back to spread to the world?” The phoenix sweetly intoned in my mind, “All will be well.” I protested, I already knew that, surely there was something more important I should say. The message was only repeated, “all will be well.” I looked at the phoenix, Phoenix looked back at me and flew off.

I looked around for the raven who almost immediately landed to allow me to return to its back. It flew me down to the whales who tossed me back in the air by their noses back toward the edge of their ocean-cloud. The Eagle (or Hawk?) seized me and brought me down to the cloud below where I had to feel around the cloud to find the top of the rope. I shimmied down the rope, climbed down the ladder, swung down from the branches, found the steps along the trunk and returned to my starting point. I breathed back to reality.

Dec. 29th, 2001; To the Underworld/Otherworld:

I couldn’t see or hear clearly, there were many outside distractions which kept me from my highest concentration. I chose to go down through my own personal “hole” to ease the transition down into the Underworld (the tunnel to which relocated itself inside the back of my hole).

I didn’t hear anything in the tunnel (I was told I would hear water), nor did I hear the deep blue glowing river which flowed to the left. I saw a sliver of a glimpse of a pale coloured bridge of stone, but when I began to set my foot upon it, I saw a bridge of syringe points – a fear I expected to encounter.

I knew I would not truly be harmed and placed my feet upon them, though it was as if I walked on a rubber cushion between my feet and the points. I was slightly nervous and became anxious and impatient as the bridge, once a short distance from one bank to the next, expanded with each step. I wasn’t overcoming my fear or not seeing the real fear.

I thought first I wasn’t really feeling the walking and really placed my foot decidedly on the needles, only to find a solid smooth stone with each step. I came to the other side, my heels against the edge of the floor, over looking the river, I faced forward and tried to see into the shadows. I walked into the darkness, trying to see the spirits there, but only seeing a mishmash of asymmetrical shapes. I started telling myself it was all in my head, it wasn’t really the Underworld, this was all just fantasy and a creation from a poor imagination. I turned to look back and found that I’d never taken any steps forward, I was still on the bank.

I walked forward a few paces, stopped and looked behind me. I hadn’t moved at all. Then it occurred to me that I was still on the bridge. My fear was truly that it all wasn’t real and as I struggled with this I continued to walk on the bridge of needles. Stone or needle, I wasn’t getting anywhere and the bridge began to curve and loop and slope like a rollercoaster track.

Finally, I accepted that this might be real, I said to myself that I am special and I am meant to do this—to walk along a Shamanic path. I coughed amid these thoughts, and when the coughing stopped, I stood on the other side of the bridge.

Something on my right foot tickled me warmly along the arch. I felt some energies near and others far. I focused on the darkness and the image of a face flashed in my view. I couldn’t retain the image, but I knew it was a woman – young, about 20’s-30’s. She had similar features I attribute to my mother when she was a child. Something familiar about the girl/woman, but not a definite association I could make to anyone I knew who had passed on.

ME: You may speak
WOMAN: HELP.
ME: How may I help?
WOMAN: Go. Go to ...
ME: Go to? I am having trouble hearing. You may speak.
WOMAN: Go to Mary. She will guide you on this quest. (Or something like go to Mary to get help on your quest – the intent was toward the Shamanic journeys and practice)
ME: Is there anything I can do to help *you*?
WOMAN: Going to Mary will help me.
ME: What’s your name?
WOMAN: (I couldn’t here her clearly – it was Vallery or Virginia or some other common female name starting with “V”)

I left the dark hall, crossed the river on a breath, passed through the tunnel and re-entered my hole. I only stayed a brief moment to nuzzle the kidlets, and to visit a friend’s hole to see the shape it (and he) was in. I headed back up the tunnel and out to my tree. Slowly, I breathed back in to the real world.

Though I started my journey excited and energized, when I emerged thirty minutes later and walked out to tell David I was done (I asked him to check on me if I wasn’t back by a certain time), I felt weak. My body was tired and I had trouble reorienting myself to the environment around me... I was very dizzy.

I sent an e-mail to the only “Mary” I know, my mother’s friend who is a Shaman. We shall see what she has to say on the matter.

I attempted twice to go to what is called the “Land of Youth,” but every time I tried I fell asleep just after getting there.