So school after report cards was dull, for the most part. Teachers were either pushing to get work done “before holiday break,” or not starting anything that couldn’t be finished “before the holiday”. It was like going from a sugar rush to a crash. I hated it.
But there was something really neat about December, too. It truly was magical for me. In chorus one morning, we were singing a “winter” song that had been written by a pioneer in the late 1700’s. It was a haunting song about a man hunting for skins that he would sell back East, and how he missed his family, and how lonely his life was. It also was about the beauty of the land, the rivers and woods that were already falling to farmers moving westward. As we sang about the beavers and doe, I closed my eyes and got so caught up in the song, then all of sudden, for brief moment, I felt a breeze on my face. I opened my eyes and for just one split second, standing right behind Miss Beach, our teacher, I saw a deer-headed man. It had to be a man, because there were antlers….he nodded at me and waved, then he was gone. And I fell off the risers that Miss Beach has the chorus stand on when we sing. I’m only on the first riser, at the very end, so I didn’t get hurt. But I was embarrassed!
I was in a daze for the rest of that day. Something about this apparition made me feel like jelly inside. Sure he appeared like some well-built guy, maybe a little older than Jake, my companion on that Thanksgiving walk I posted about. But no one had ever made my pulse race like this!
When I told Aunt Lina, after school, she was surprised that I’d had such a complete vision. When she was my age, she recalled catching creatures out of the corner of her eye that would disappear when she looked at them straight on. She asked lots of questions about my feelings for the antlered man, and then told me that I’d probably met a relative of the Stagman himself. The Stagman was a spirit of spring and desire; the pulse racing was a natural reaction to being around one of the spirit’s clansmen. If the Stagman himself had appeared, a lusty chaos would have ensued.
Aunt Lina began to tell me stories. Some were about the spirits; some were about the Bear clan. And some were about my particular clan-- Cougar clan. I’d heard some of the stories about the spirits before, but now they weren’t just tales. They were history. My history.
There were clans for the various animals. Aunt Lina is a daughter of Mother Bear herself. She said I’m the great-granddaughter of Grandfather Cougar. As one of the last few children-of-the-spirits still living here, it was her duty to raise me after I was born. It’s her job to train me, to teach me whatever a child of the spiritblood needs to know.
Aunt Lina also began to tell me more about the Spiritworld and how things happen there. It’s been rather interesting. Since the otherworld might be fully open to me at some point as I get older, she felt I should learn about its dangers. She told me how some spiritchildren, especially those who had tired of living here, would just disappear directly into that world, while others, especially the trickster-types strayed between both worlds. According to her, I am both a shifter and a spiritchild. It is a tough but rich life to live. Apparently Grandfather Cougar, also known as the Ghostcat, was never one to stick around after fathering a child, and thus cougar shifters are rogues. It explains my situation somewhat.
She told me that it’s common for shifters to slip in between the worlds; it’s one of the ways we are protected by our ancestral spirits. It’s also these disappearances that have given rise to the exaggerated stories about werewolves, ghosts and vampires. That makes sense. The first time I saw Aunt Lina go there, I thought it was supernatural.
When she was young, Aunt Lina could only travel in between worlds when she was near a sacred place (one of the areas where the divisions between here and there were thin), or during certain times (like the solstice, and other sacred days). But as the balance of nature has shifted, so has things in the Spiritworld. And this wasn’t just happening here in the Western Hemisphere, either. In Europe, the spirits were less visible as Christianity became the dominant force.
All cultures have tales of sacred spaces. Standing stones and temples were built over some of the gates, in hope of neutralizing or utilizing pagan powers. Sometimes temples, like the Parthenon were destroyed by conquering forces to show their might and power, yet somehow the spirits would intervene to save things. Why did the early Greek Christians convert the virgin goddess Athena’s temple into a church dedicated to the Theotokos –aka the Virgin Mary, instead of just destroying it? Why was Lord Elgin so adamant about salvaging as much as he could from the former Temple of Athena after the Turks blew it apart? He was said to have been obsessed, using his own fortune to salvage the sculptures that are one of the highlights of a visit to the British Museum in London.
Why is Greece so adamant about getting those artifacts back, hundreds of years later? Because the Parthenon hill was a place of great power, as was the temple.
In neighboring Turkey there is another place where the curtain between the worlds is thin – the Hagia Sophia. This former-mosque-turned–museum began its existence as the “See” or seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople-- the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom of God. After Constantinople was overrun by the Ottoman Turks, the Cathedral was desecrated, and became a mosque. Although designed by Greeks as the ultimate cathedral, it’s become the typical blueprint for most mosques. Not only was the place reused by the conquerors but so was the building model.
I’m learning more history from my aunt than I do at school. These conversations started in early December and lasted past Christmas. Trying to put everything into one post would be boring, so I’ll continue next time.
Until my next post….
Randi
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