Among the Goddesses

Marie Moving, Book 6: Demeter

67 Book 6: Demeter As we stood on a curb in Ohio, Brigid so glad to be with me again after two days in the luggage compartment, fresh sun shining into the bright spring, so much denser, more humid than Oregon, life seemed just starting. I phoned Demeter for directions; I knew she’d be there, since she had told me to phone from the bus stop and that she’d be outside, working in the garden. So Demeter found me, or rather, I found her when her tomatoes were nodding and green under the shelter of the side of her barn near an acre of fields, wild with an orchard, the long grass pushing up under the trees, and hyssop, bee balm, lavender, chicory, mallow, johnny jump up, love in a mist, coneflower, blackeyed susan, lavender, broccoli, in her circular garden that curved from the earth. Kouretes: Here is the mother who’d watched her own daughter given away, and ruined the earth, who now put out leaves, and nurtured the earth, When we walked up, she was crouched in that circle, picking peas from a strong tangled vine. I waited and watched, while her mountainous body filled my vision until I was quiet, and the arms of the planet held me alive. Her hands were as wide, cool, and earth-stained as mossy old rocks that a forest has patiently grown up around, died around, fallen near, and pulls through the earth. Then my body was hers, 68 spine in the planet, blood in the wind, as she dropped the peas in the aluminum bowl, and sparks turned my thinking into its own waves. Demeter (murmuring quietly in the background): Caves run hollow until I can fill them with silent energies seeding new quiet . . . Lily stands up suddenly at the word “crystals” and speaks as Demeter continues murmuring. Demeter: . . . crystals to form, and roots to come down into their veins; with water that pushes. with stems reaching, trunks reaching, leaves setting bone. “Turn,” I thought, and she turned around towards me, smiling easily, just like Eve, looking up at me while her face danced in joyful images deep in its crevices. I knew everything old about Eve then, everything I had wanted to know, while the planet shifted around me. Eve, the face of Demeter now taught me, rose from fire as well as earth: Eve was the full gleam of light on the water. Lily ( forcefully): I’d been invaded; the baby was not mine. Why should I carry it? Here with the mother who’d watched her own daughter given away, and ruined the earth, who now put out leaves, and nurtured the earth, Eve fell beside me, and rose and fell; dark Eve, my own loss, my heartbeat, my sister, 69 spoke to me often without loss or damage in my heart from the place of the dead, the place of the openings that I had found. Lily (forcefully): I’d been invaded; the baby was not mine. Why should I carry it? Kouretes: Coneflowers blew fuschia and silent, as if there was laughter, Lily: from the breeze that was suddenly simpler, as if there could once more be joy. It has been months since I’d felt like myself, like Lily; months since my life has moved for me. Idly, I’d been pulling deeply at some weeds growing down in the herbs. I made a small pile on the ground beside me. I thought again about the decision, and suddenly I felt very tired, and very afraid, Demeter (finishing picking and rising, stretching): When my darling Persephone was young, she cried every time I pulled weeds. It was hard to see that. It’s hard to let go. We need to. I felt very tired, and very afraid, and, suddenly, filled with the earth’s oldest memories, held by Demeter in an echo of caves. Caves run hollow until she can fill them with silent energies seeding new quiet crystals to form, and roots to come down 70 into their veins; with water that pushes. with stems reaching, trunks reaching, leaves setting bone. I’d been invaded; the baby was not mine. Why should I carry it? Coneflowers blew fuschia and silent, as if there was laughter, Demeter puts her arm around Lily. They go inside the barn together. Kouretes: silent energies seeding new quiet crystals to form, and roots to...