The Shaman's Drum

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The Grove

A narrow dirt road ran through the final edge of tilled fields and meadows, ending at a cot and the Wildwood, where the girl lived with her Grandfather. She could sit outside on warm days with early peas to shell in a bowl in her lap and watch the farmer with his two old black horses tilling the field across the road in Spring.

In the hot Summer the farmer and his wife would be in the fields weeding and tending, and the girl watched them as she and her Grandfather cared for their small patch at the edge of the Wildwood.

When soft Autumn rains fell, she would look out over foggy sleeping fields and forest experiencing a sad serenity. Winter brought stories by the kitchen fire, and the promise of Spring’s return. Somehow she knew that they were different. Somehow she knew that this was all right.

Her Grandfather saw God everywhere – in the lightning he saw the power and majesty – in the gentle rain the gift of new life – he saw all life as Sacred. Animals trusted him, and he could walk up to a horse loose in a field and it would follow him, if he asked it, with no restraint of any kind. He let the rabbits nibble his crops because there was enough for all. Sometimes he would just stand, with a look of quiet joy on his face for the world around him. She loved him, and wanted to be like him if only she could.

He would take the girl for walks into the Wildwood, with his staff in his strong old hand to help on the steep places and his white dog now keeping pace beside him gazing up into his face and now leaping and running ahead with joy…

Grandfather always turned left past the blackberry bushes, down the hill into a deep dell, and then on up the other side through to where the trees were so close that even in summer there was no grass and last year’s leaves crackled beneath your feet. They never spoke much on these walks, but the girl treasured them and felt they helped her to grow.

And when they returned they would always have a gift from the forest with them – mushrooms, blackberries or maybe some fresh flowers or bare branches for decoration. Every winter they chose an evergreen from the Wildwood together and he would chop it down for Yule.

If you turned right at the forest’s edge, the path took you along the edge of untilled meadow, and near the edge of the Wildwood in that direction was a grove. He never went that way with her. She never knew why, and she never asked.

The years went by, and the girl grew up. The cot and her Grandfather were no longer enough to keep her happy, and she went down the dirt road into the town. She couldn’t fit in, but she kept trying. She was smart and she was persistent, but the Wildwood was burnt into her Soul, and some of the people in the town could see this and feared her. Still she tried and still she stayed.

And it happened that her Grandfather’s days were fulfilled and he passed over, leaving such a hole in her heart she thought she too should die. But she didn’t. Instead she threw herself even more into the city life. But no matter how she tried to forget, there were times when she felt the Wheel Turn, and she understood what the wind was saying.

She wanted to go home. But home was no longer there. She searched and she read books. She found like-minded people, but still…she was not home.

And then one day she took a walk and found herself at the edge of a Wildwood. It wasn’t the one from her childhood, but oh, it looked so much like it! And when she stepped a few paces within, she saw the Grove.

There was soft, golden light beneath the boughs, and the branches swayed gently. She saw a man standing in the dappled light. He looked like her Grandfather, but he was crowned with antlers and had necklet of oak and holly. “Welcome home,” he said.

She stepped within...

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A blast from the past

They came in the post.
Photos from a party held across an ocean
A lifetime away.
Expected.
Anticipated.
Awaited.
I flipped through them laughing to myself at the faces
Unfamiliar with age and the passage of time…
SUDDENLY!
OH!
I could hardly bear it!
Him.
The same.
Unchanged.
I cannot believe the ache - the flashflood of memories:
Finn MacCool’s.
“Oh Bo-ob…”.
Cruising in Emma listening to the Mamas and Papas.
Coors and pizza.
The Pinewood.
‘My Funny Valentine’.
Theatre On The Lake.
“I would!”
White Castle’s at 4AM.
Sex on a table.
Climbing on a sink.
Bullwinkle.
A Bogart impression against the wall of the Fireside Inn.
“Antlers Up!”
Great America on Labor Day.
Pontificating at parties about the state of the theatre.
Sharing a joint and being seen by my students.
Just JOY at hanging out together.
I am often asked by people, “Don’t you miss anything about America?”
I always answered a resounding “NO!” Believing it to be the truth.
Now I know it is a lie.
I miss
Him.

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