In geology, a hiatus is considered to be a gap in the rock record. When you look at rock layers, you are seeing a representation of time. A hiatus occurs when no deposition or erosion of sediments is evident and it appears that nothing has changed and no time has passed.
In truth the rate of sedimentation and erosion are simply equal so no record is preserved, although time passed as it must.
In life, too, hiatuses occur. We become still and unproductive, even though the moon still passes overhead. Change relentlessly impacts our mind, body and soul whether we will it or not, but we perceive only our own stillness.
Time
I have had almost no desire to come to this place of words.
There is a great stillness in me that aches, leaning towards all the sorrow of our lost honor, the relentless cruelty that has publicly obliterated the image of who I knew my community, my homeland to be. Kind. I thought of us as mainly kind.
Cold, still.
Now I only wish to duck my head and weep. The record of this will remain, sadly. Would that I might be the hiatus. Forgotten.
What would it take to see a sweeter image? How much ‘forest bathing’ would clear the slate of greed, hate geared manipulation, and simple selfish evil. Is there a story to image a grain of hope?
The following story is a re-telling of one that is told in Buddhist text. Intending only to give a face and a feeling of depth to what is a simple tale. Consider it an alternative reality story, if you like. Some of it may seem familiar, but slightly changed. The ‘what-if’ is the other story of characters we never see, and how the story played out in their lives.
The story in it’s original guise concerns Sujata, who was a cow herder remembered because she brought milk mixed with rice to feed to a starving man. This man thus ended six years of being an aesthetic in his spiritual journey, and from this turning point developed the ‘Middle Way’. After obtaining several more insights, this man became the one known as Buddha.
Sujata was one of the few women mentioned in the Buddha’s life, but after 2500 years, what can be known of her? I have changed a few details, such as giving her goats rather than cows, but the story itself is about her imagined niece, Anya. There is also a tree, which has predictably wriggled its way onto the stage, it is not the much-revered Bodhi Tree, pictured above, only an old sister to it, who is now gone to dust. Let us remember her part as well.
The title mentions ‘Transmission’, which is the passing of wisdom from teacher to student, using presence, rather than words. I wished to view this as a conduit opened, rather than a vessel filled; one of limitless causes.
In reading this, I hope you will be moved by compassionate allowing, and the possibility of one more Dharma Gate to open. Thank You.
Svaha
Niranjana River, India
Anya and The Smelly Man (or Transmission is a Two Way Street)
Anya was the much-loved daughter of the widow goat herder. At six, she was old enough to help with the herding, but still so young that it seemed to be mostly play. Her hair was dark, except where the sun had touched it red in places, as it had browned her face and tawnied her arms and legs. Around her neck, her Mama had knotted a string of blue beads; a knot between each bead, so only one would be lost if the string were to break during Anya’s forays into the world. Anya loved to run. She ran after goats and their kids until she was so tired she would fall into the grass, breathless and laughing. She would run after the boys of their village and catch them, tugging their small caps from their heads. She would laugh as they gave chase in return and she out ran them and climbed old Grandmother tree, so fast and nimble they could only shout and threaten. Anya’s Mama and her Daadi (grandmother), as well as her Chachi (aunt), would shake their heads, but smile and look at each other, lifting a shoulder. All three were widows now, and Anya was the only child left to them. Much was forgiven. People of the village, too, would smile when they saw Anya running by, even the boys who had much to complain about, took a tolerant stance towards Anya, if any adult should complain. One day, Anya followed some noisy birds to Old Grandmother Tree. When she stepped under the shade of her branches, which were sweeping nearly to the ground, a terrible smell caused her to jerk back and cough. But Anya was always curious and she wanted to know what might smell so bad where nothing had ever smelled bad before. She pinched her nose, opened her mouth to breath and slid under the branches to where Grandmother Tree kept things cool beneath her huge canopy. The ground was a floor of heart shaped leaves, some yellowed and soft lying on the older crisp, brown ones. She shuffled her feet a little through them, in case something did not wish to be surprised, and walked toward Grandmother Tree’s trunk. Against this trunk, which was very wide and strong, there sat a man. He was only sitting, like any man in the village might sit, with his back straight, against a tree and his legs crossed. He was, however, much dirtier than any man that Anya might see in their little village, so close to the water of the River Niranjana, as they were. The men, women and children of their village washed themselves, and their clothing, often in the slow, brown river. The man’s hair was twisted in long dirty strings, his skin was dark with dust and sweat, and his clothing, consisting of a simple cloth wrapping his lower body and another, draped over his upper body, were grey and nearly the same color as the tree trunk. He smelled very, very dirty. Anya was fascinated. She sat down a few feet away and watched the man. After awhile she forgot to hold her nose and a little while later she shut her mouth. She only looked at him. He did not look to be asleep or hurt. He looked happy with his eyes partly open; he seemed to be looking at the ground near his feet. He had a small smile growing on the edges of his mouth and his breath came very slowly. His feet were bare and hard looking, but his hands, which lay loosely one on top of the other, palms up, looked soft and clean. Anya and the small birds that had preceded her, watched the man for a long time. Anya decided he looked like a nice man, because he looked so happy. She rested her chin on her fists and her elbows on her knees, so she could watch more comfortably. The smelly man shut his eyes and Anya sat up straight. Then he opened them and looked right at Anya. They both smiled wide happy smiles and reached out to touch each other’s hands for just a moment, like old friends meeting. Then the smelly man went back to sitting very still, eyes looking only a couple of feet in front of him. Anya waited for a while to see if anything else would happen. She was still smiling when she noticed that the cloth that wrapped his upper body had fallen to one side when he had reached out to her. Anya could see that every bone in his chest was clearly showing through his skin. Anya jumped to her feet and ran fast, calling out to her Chachi in the house. Her Mama was too far away to hear, on the other side of the village with the goats. “Chachi, Chachi!” “What is it child?” said her mild and patient aunt. “There is a very nice man under the Grandmother Tree and I think he needs to eat. He is very hungry!” Anya’s Chachi narrowed her eyes and tilted her head when she heard this. Anya had never been given to exaggeration or stories. “How hungry?” she asked softly. As always, the softer and quieter her Chachi became, the more still and thoughtful Anya became. Anya thought for a moment and answered. “More hungry than I have ever been, more hungry than you or Mama have ever seemed to me.” “And how do you know this?” her Aunt asked, smiling. “Because he is only bones now, and it makes me feel very sad.” Anya’s aunt pulled back sharply at this, and paused, but only for a moment. She swiftly pulled out the pot with this mornings rice in it and spooned a bowl full, then she poured goats milk over it all and lifting her skirts with the other hand, walked briskly and confidently, toward Old Grandmother tree. Anya danced around her, back and forth to help hurry her along. Under the tree, Chachi gasped from the stench, but shutting her jaw tight and smoothing her face, moved forward to where a man sat, thinner and dirtier and happier than anyone she had ever seen. She squatted down at his side and he looked over at her with an easy smile. Chachi smiled back and pushed the bowl into his hands. The man looked down at the bowl as if he did not know what it was, then he smiled even more. With shaky hands, he lifted the bowl and bowed to Anya’s Chachi. They sat and waited for the man to finish eating. He ate neatly, for all his trembling. First drinking off the milk and then rolling the rice into small balls, which he slid into his mouth with what appeared to be unfeigned ecstasy. When he finished, he sat breathing loudly and deeply as if he had just run a long way. Then he grew quiet and handed the bowl back to Anya’s Chachi. “What is your name?” He asked. “My name is Sujata,” she answered with a smile. “Do you feel better?” “I feel much better, Sujata. Thank you! I will never forget your kindness.” “This was but a little rice, it was nothing.” He only smiled back and repeated “I will never forget” nodding for emphasis. Sujata, who was also Anya’s Chachi, tilted her head and said “Wait here with Anya for a moment”, as if, being fed, he could have now have stood and hurried away. She returned soon with a staff and small rolled bundle, which Anya recognized as her Uncle’s old clothing. These her Aunt had saved all the ten years of her widowhood. Together, they three, walked to the edge of the river so that the man could bathe and put on the clean clothes. Sujata turned her back in modestly, but Anya, always the curious one, had to be reminded with a quick tap to her shoulder. Before the sun was high, they watched him walk slowly down the path and away from the village, staff in hand. They never saw him again, but they told the story many times to each other over the years. They did not forget either. In the ten years that followed, Anya grew in height and knowledge. She could herd the goats with her mother and find the best grazing to make the goats strong and happy. She could cook everything that her grandmother had taught her, choosing just the right spices to grind into smooth paste, which even Daadi called the best she had ever tasted. She helped keep their home clean and their things mended. In the village she was still as well loved, as she had been as a child. Though she stood tall and held her chin high, she always had a small thoughtful word for everyone, and though she always went her own way, no one called her proud or willful. If they called her anything, they called her happy, and they too smiled. Of the child that Anya had been, there remained the love of the wind in her face, of running fast and of sitting very still and watching. On the days when her Mama might leave her to watch the goats alone, Anya could sit for hours and hours, seeing everything, hearing everything to the last small chirp or rustle. Anya delighted in it all. At last, near the end of her 16th year, Anya’s Daadi took her aside and told her that she had good news. “What is that my dearest Daadi?” “I have found you a worthy husband.” “Oh!” said Anya, for she had not thought of this change in her life at all, even though the other girls her age were getting married, her life here seemed too complete to change. Her Grandmother looked at her long and lovingly before she took her hand and said, “You will not be too far away. I knew his grandmother when I was your age; they are kind and generous people. They are much respected in their village.” “It is also time for you to be married.” She added firmly. Anya bent her head and was quiet, and then she smiled, took a deep breath and let it go. Raising her eyes, she looked deeply into her grandmother’s eyes and nodded her understanding. Her grandmother realized she had been holding her own breath, and taking Anya into her arms, sighed deeply. The next weeks were filled with planning and stitching and cooking. Anya would go to her new life with new clothing, fresh spices and many goats. She would have new silver earrings and silver beads would be strung among her blue ones. Anya’s father had been a prosperous goat herder and careful of his gains. His widow, once she had put aside her tears and her daughter could stand alone, had followed the same path; raising better goats to go to better markets and diligently saving the profits. With great care and determination, the family had saved Anya’s dowry. All three women of the house had bent their heads and their hearts to the task of finding Anya the best match they could. The day came and an ox cart was hired to seat the four of them and all the gifts, dowry, food and flowers. Two small neighbor boys were hired to herd the goats, which were a part of the dowry, and all who could claim some relation, and several who could not, walked behind the cart to the bridegroom’s village, a half a days journey up river. As Anya sat in the cart, watching the river run back toward her home, while she herself traveled ever farther away, her family told her about her new life. “You will need to be obedient, don’t be too quick to do things your own way!” her mother told her. “They will love you for who you are, just as we do. Just be the Anya you have always been!” her Daadi leaned forward to add. Her Chachi was quiet, but held her hand and smiled into Anya’s eyes, whenever she looked up. At the same time the bridegroom, Rujul, who was as simple and honest as his name, listened to his three uncles giving him advice. Rujul was a year younger than Anya and not yet tall like his uncles. Though he did not know it yet, he was a head shorter than his new bride. “You must be sure she understands her place. Do not let her tell you what to do!” said his eldest uncle. “Remember you are your father’s son and be proud. Your father was a strong man!” said his youngest uncle. His middle uncle simply smiled and ruffled his hair, saying “You remind me of him today.” Then shaking his head at his two brothers, added; “He was graceful and kind. Remember that.” Then he walked away with his hands linked behind him. Rujul, who had lost both mother and father when he was very small, had been raised in his grandmother’s house, and had run in and out of his uncles houses, playing with his cousins. All of his uncles seemed like fathers to him, and he wished to please them, now that he was going to be a married man, just like them. He bowed to his uncles and with a beating heart, turned toward the sound of the approaching wedding party. The day was both long and short; seeming to go on and on, full of food and music, flowers and gifts, and suddenly, too suddenly, over. Anya and Rujul did as they were told for all the rituals, both careful and conscious of propriety. Their families seemed well pleased with them, smiling over the heads of the guests, at each other and nodding their approval of a marriage well chosen. Night came and now they found themselves in the small house that had belonged to Rujul’s parents. Long neglected, it had been scrubbed spotless, given a new roof, a new bed festooned in flowers, and bits of furniture from all the family. In the sudden quiet, Anya gratefully pulled the flower headdress off and set it on a bench. She then hitched up the heavy dress that she would likely never wear again, and sat cross-legged in the center of the bed. Her new husband regarded her in dismay and in uncertain silence. Anya leaned her elbows on her knees and looked at him, much as she would have looked at anything of interest in her world. Rajul felt himself grow hot and uncomfortable. Then Anya sat up and smiled, as if she had made up her mind. For a moment Rajul simply looked back at her, frozen in surprise. Then he turned his head quickly down and away, but not quickly enough to hide his answering smile. “Come sit down with me and talk, so we can become friends.” Anya smoothed the comforter before her. Rajul felt a bubble of lightness and ease float through him, lifting his head with it, as it burst into the air. Folding his stiff coat onto the bench with her headdress, he settled into the space she had indicated. They sat quietly for some time, in the stillness that had fallen. Looking into one another’s eyes, wonder and a strange clarity filled Rajul. Then, all at once, both smiled wide happy smiles and reached out to touch each other’s hands for just a moment, like old friends meeting.
When the tree fell, I lost all belief, but not hope. Hope is another thing altogether and I am a relentless harborer of hope. I turned to Simone and brushed my knuckles along her shoulder. She was very still, which is not usually a good thing; her vibrance is part of her beauty. She is half a head shorter than I am and nearly as strong. I am one of the corn-fed, usually small in stature. No one in my home group was as tall as Simone, not even the adult males, and I had stood like the tallest stalk of corn over them since I was young. She is of the sea-fed and has the round solid musculature of the swimmer she is. She has never stood out in her community for anything other than the lovely qualities of grace and skill that are natural to her.
“Are you ok?” I asked her, meaning “Are we done here? Should we go?”
“Great.” She answered in a tone so deep and heavy, I thought it was not her voice I heard. Her meaning? “Will any of us ever be OK again?”
Survival is, in part, appropriate communication. Simone and I excelled at this. The tree fellers glanced at us, but made no move to drive us away. We posed no threat. They had even exchanged friendly banter with us when they arrived, not far from the place where Simone and I had made a home. They were from beyond the Wall, or beyond the Pale as my mother was wont to call it. Though my people’s hair matched the silk of the cob, our eyes were dark and our skin many shades of brown, as are the Sea-fed. The Wall folk are, however, so colorless that it made one itch. Light eyes, light hair, and skin that turned red in even the slight sunshine of winter. Even though they performed tasks that proclaimed them as strong and robust, they gave the illusion of sickness and fear. They were tender to any prick, bleeding easily, and flinched at the slightest wind ruffling the grass. I was grateful to have been ‘born to the corn’ as we call it.
I shifted my hand to take Simone’s, more to reassure myself that she would not simply attack them without warning. For this I received a wry look from a side-slited eye, but she squeezed my hand back and leaned into me, which meant “Mourning now, vengeance later. Do you think I am an idiot?” I am not an idiot, so I made not the faintest reply to this as we waited for the over-full wagon of murdered tree to depart. I know my sweet-heart well, you see, and at this moment she was as close as I had ever seen her to making a rash move.
For a thousand years, no tree had been cut. Walled or unwalled folk had honored this. If we made tools or built from wood, it was from dead wood. Even here there was a process of asking and receiving permission from the other nearby peoples, including the Wall folk. There was also a ritual for asking the tree if its fallen trunk or branch was ready for harvest. No answer was often the answer and considered affirmative, as the tree had moved on. The tree before us was still green leaved and its branches cast, cut and broken, before us on the ground. I had stood back as they worked on, so they would not see the ocean of grief as it began to fall from my eyes. Never give warning, my teacher told me; there is always time for discussion when danger is past. Any fool, even these, would know me then. We are a taciturn people.
The end had arrived for this arbor moratorium, but surely not the deeper reason. As yet mature trees were still few and far apart and the young ones were still struggling, but the struggle proved long. I never imagined that the end of this agreement would be taken up by murderers, greed mongers, and betrayers. What else could these be? Anyone could see that the results of a millennium were not yet what they should be. With an effort, I turned my back, guiding Simone with me, letting the grind of wagon wheels move away unobserved, so a backward glance would raise no suspicion.
Together, we made our way to my mother’s home: a building without a single beam. She and my father, now long passed, had built it from the humbler and stronger form; stone. Well broken and fit, it had taken them three full seasons to build. People teased them, calling it “Three-Year House”. It was round, and held a roof of weave and thatch that rested upon the craftily formed lip of a central stone chimney. The center hearth was not used in our area, but my father came from some distance away, where it was. My mother and I were shamefully willing to extol its virtues, even now. Each pie of a room entered the warm family setting directly. I hope someday to build one like it for Simone and myself.
“Korn! Simone!” my mother welcomed us with her usual joy. She named me not for the plant, but for it’s spirit, the one who saved us all.
“Hello Mother”, Simone addressed her. They love each other well and so I am twice blessed with a peaceful family.
“What has hurt you?” My mother’s sensitive wisdom is what makes her such a skilled doctor and herbalist. She is a wise woman indeed and I am proud to be her kin.
“The Wall folk have cut the linden tree.” Simone has always been able to speak with complete candor; she balances my still silence. I let them do this work now, I could not.
“No! To what end?”
“They claim the call of commerce, and the right of law.”
“They bring evil on their hearth. They will bring the results down on us all!” These two women of my life leaned in together and holding each other, wept. I had already wept my fill and felt strangely cold. I stood back.
When they stood separate again, I took their leave. “I need to walk,”I told them shortly. They both nodded and I, holding some emotion now, that I could not name, walked back to the place where an old friend had once stood. When I arrived, I could see her sap still flowed and my heart constricted. I did not feel the same uncertainty though. I had changed. The words “commerce” and “law”, spoken by my Simone, had struck it from me. These ordinary words, which should indicate healthy interaction and agreement in a community, had been twisted to hide “greed” and “aggression”. As I have told you, Simone and I excel at translation, and whatever the means to set this right, whatever the interpretations, and actions required, I had not lost courage or hope.
He insinuated himself into the room, weaving and turning, flowing and slithering. The moon was his friend, neither revealing nor hiding any aspect; it provided the perfect backdrop. She knew he was a Wu. Xiang Gu, named for the fragrant mushrooms that grew beneath the oak tree, had heard and remembered all of her Grandmother’s stories about the Wu, the Shamans who could enter your dreams, influence your life, and change shape at will. She was terrified, or was she thrilled? She wasn’t immediately sure.
“You are young.” He stated it as if youth were her particular failing.
“I’m a woman!” she heard herself tell him this sharply, and then felt herself blush, her courses had begun only a month ago and womanhood seemed a particular prize in her short life. She was, none the less, glad that her red face was hidden by the darkened room, as the moon was by a passing cloud.
He snorted. “How many years? Eleven, twelve?”
“It’s not your business! Leave my room.” Her voice ordered him like a clear chime, but she held her coverlet bunched at her chin, balled up hard in her fists to hide the trembling.
He smiled at her and she shivered. “Already feisty, aren’t you? But this is useless, a useless excursion.” He turned his back on her and paced the small room, picking things up at random and setting them down with a clink, like men have always done in frustration, or through a dimly held rage. Then he turned back to her, and held out his hand. She shrank from him and he laughed again, the hand held steady, not touching, as if to cup the air around her. “They will bond you to the unworthy ones. Those will mark you for better things; your wounds will illuminate, you will SHINE!”
Timidly she lifted her eyes back to his face and saw the light that emanated from his hand, reaching toward her through space. His eyes glinted and his face held something vital, so odd and confusing. Xiang Gu gasped. Not at his demonstration of power, though that was shocking enough, but at the uncanny feeling of knowing him, recognizing him from somewhere she could not place, as clearly as she might have known one of her father’s fellow merchants or a teacher from somewhere nearby in their province. As she drew the next breath, the breath that was filled with ‘who are you?’, he was gone.
In the next month Xiang Gu’s life changed, again. Her mother had died the year before, shortly after her father brought Second Wife into the home. Her mother had only borne one child and that a girl, which had been bad fortune enough for all of them. Some said she died of that sorrow. Xiang Gu never agreed; her mother’s contorted face was caused by physical pain, the foam on her lips attested to the fact that something bad had entered there. Her Grandmother had agreed, but kept her council, carefully watching the new wife.
Things would have been very hard were it not that Xiang Gu’s grandmother loved her so well, and that her father treated her so kindly. She had been her father’s only child, and though a girl child, he delighted in her, he saw she was bright, curious, and laughed with ease, just like her mother. So, he gladly brought her into his life of merchant, letting her play in the boxes and bins of things ready to be transported to some far shore. Seeing her curiosity, he eventually taught her to read and write and add figures, to the outrage of his wife and mother. He shook his head at them, but agreed that it would be their little secret.
Her father, however, though still kindly, had grown distant, with her mother gone and the new wife at her own zenith, he stayed longer at his work, alone with his sorrow. Xiang Gu spent most her time now with Grandmother, she always knew she was safe with her. But, sadly, Grandmother died as well one night, the same month that saw her stepmother conceive. Bad luck, but after all, everyone said, she was a very old woman. Before the month was finished Xiang Gu found herself contracted as the third wife to a man whose life was all but spent. His first two wives were long gone and he lived with his eldest son and that son’s two wives and children. When her step-mother told her this, she wore a very happy little smile, as if she knew some small joke. Dancing a gold bracelet between the fingers of one hand, her step-mother displayed this piece of her mother’s jewelry and then hid it away, over and over; a mesmerizing sleight of hand.
“I know your new husbands’ family very well. I am certain they will enjoy you.” The sound of her voice smooth and sweet; the mice in the walls huddled together and covered their eyes. Second Wife smiled her slim, uncomforting smile, and turned her back with a swirl of silk, to glide away.
The day that she turned 13, Xiang Gu entered her husbands’ home. The eyes, of her new step-son’s first wife, were narrow and hard as they welcomed her, the second wife was quiet and distant. The step-son, the man whose home this really was, assessed her top to bottom, without any hurry. She drew her wedding robe close about her and stepped back, bumping into the chair where her husband had already fallen asleep. She could hear her step-mother’s tinkling laugh as she left by the door beyond, along with the departure the wedding party. Her father had held her hand and kissed her cheek, but she had not been able to reach him in his eyes.
At first this new life had seemed easy, if lonely. Xiang Gu spent her days caring for her elderly husband as he told her stories (the same ones over and over) or gently stroked her hair as if she were a cat. She slept alone in the small chamber within his rooms. Her new husband seemed to never wish for more. She sometimes wondered if he knew she was his new wife, or thought she was his first one, long gone. The other wives in the house had chores and children, so they mostly left her alone with a single servant to clean and serve.
Xiang Gu was still a child when she arrived, for all her protestations of womanhood. She was small and thin like a child who might run through the house or climb a tree in the garden. However, she grew quickly in height and in curves over that first year, and her step-son began to notice. She would find him waiting for her in the hall or he would visit his father and watch her as he spoke. He would look at her as if she were a thing, not a person. He would run a finger down her neck and smile. It made her sick inside.
Then change followed her here too. Xiang Gu began to read aloud to her husband. It was a simple thing; he had found her reading one of his scrolls to herself, and since his eyesight prevented him from working out the words himself, he was thrilled.
“Read to me, Little Cherry (as he chose to call her, she decided he could not remember her given name), this story is old and full of magic. I always loved it!”
And so, they would sit for long quiet hours in mutual happiness as Xiang Gu read book after book, quietly finding more to read from the family library, so they were never, yet, forced to read the same story twice. Until something very bad happened. As she read aloud, a sound of something falling to the floor caused them to both look sharply up. Across the room stood the step-son. He had knocked his father’s walking stick from where it rested against the wall, but he did not bend to retrieve it. His eyes and mouth were open wide as if in some sort of horror, as he stood watching them. His father began to giggle.
“Yes, son, she can read! You have given me a gift indeed in a wife who can match my mind.” For once her husband was not wavering or confused and his son’s face changed from horror to outrage. His father leaned forward as if to make sure of hitting the mark, “She reads far better than you ever did. I imagine she will be able to aid me in checking your book work as well. I know you have troubles with the numbers.”
The son kicked the stick into the room and turned to depart, pulling a tapestry from the wall as he left. Xiang Gu felt a cold wash of fear as she sat, unmoving by her husband, who continued to chuckle to himself for some time, before falling asleep in his chair as he often did.
That night was the hardest one of her brief life, not even the deaths of her mother and grandmother could match the pain of what came next. After the servant had helped her put the old man in his bed and cleared away their supper, Xiang Gu prepared herself for bed, alone. He was waiting for her within her alcove; the son and his lifelong hatred of his father, his fear of being unworthy, and a rage he could no longer house within himself, were all waiting to fall upon a girl who could read.
She did not call out, at least not that she remembered. A life of having been taught the movements of respect and honor, for family, for men, for elders, did not contain the instructions for fighting back. To cast your eyes down, to obey, to bow, to kneel, to self-efface; those were the actions of a good daughter, a good wife, a good step-mother. In any case, he was too unsure of what he wanted himself, for there to be some sense to his actions, something definitive which she might have acted against, or even objected to. He wanted to beat her, to rip her clothes from her, to own her, to destroy what she was, to bewhat she was. He was confused, and when there is no direct path, it is difficult to find your way to where you are going, or to avoid what is there when you arrive. In the end he raped her and this probably saved her life, since the change in his body chemistry brought him back to himself somewhat, and shocked at his own excesses, he departed, pulling his own torn robe, bloodied with innocence, about him. She lay there, bleeding from her mouth and a long cut by her ear, where she had fallen against something, and from between her legs, where the dull, then sharp, then dull, beat of having had everything intimate and sacred striped from her, refused to be forgotten.
In the morning, the second wife found her, Xiang Gu chose to call this one ‘Elder Sister’; she was the kinder of the two, and so, out of respect and because the words ‘Second-Wife’ had already left a bad taste in her mouth, she had called her Jeh-je. Xiang Gu might have been surprised on an ordinary day, since Jeh-je had never entered these rooms since her wedding day. As it was, the thing that did surprise her was the gentle concern that creased the young woman’s face, and the sudden softening of her eyes.
“Come, Little Cherry” (Did no one know her real name here? She thought wearily through the haze of pain.) “Come, I have dreamed of a Wu in the form of a snake. He told me how to save you.” The woman tenderly washed and bandaged her, then left to tell the household that Little Cherry had a fever and must rest. When the son woke at last, from his release of expansive fury followed by deadening alcohol, he did not question when Jeh-je told him Little Cherry was ill, nor when she informed him how much it would cost to obtain the correct medications. He hung his head. She wordlessly laid a cool hand on his neck for a moment, and then swept the coins briskly into her bag.
It was said that Little Cherry died of her fever. Her husband was briefly, but sincerely stricken. Although she had never borne a child, he insisted that her name be included in the family records, an unheard-of concession. Confucius taught otherwise. His son did not object, which caused his father to draw his lips very thin, and to eye his son with a momentary and calculating contempt, before sliding back into his own distant thoughts.
Jeh-je had made many trips out of the home, during the time that Xiang Gu took to heal from her most superficial wounds. The scar by her ear would be spoken of all of her life as an identifying mark and sign of courage, the deeper, unseen, scars began the galvanizing that would make her into something powerful indeed.
At the start of her 14th year Xiang Gu made a brothel in Canton her home. It was located along the coast and was patronized by a somewhat higher class of clientele than some, occasionally foreign, mostly not, nearly all traveling by sea and busy in the world of trade. Jeh-je paid the Madame well for the privilege of keeping Xiang Gu away from the customers until she was older, or until she, herself, agreed. The Madame was intrigued with Xiang Gu’s story and was happy to use the girls’ scholarly skills to maintain the other quiet business she kept: trade of luxury items, including, but not limited to, the unsanctioned trading of Turkish opium for tea, and providing miscellaneous silk, art, and trinkets of any kind for the foreign traders.
Before she left, Jeh-je bent and kissed Xiang Gu’s cheek. She whispered, “I will think of you. Your Wu will protect you. Remind him that I did my part.” Xiang Gu nodded and her eyes filled with tears which she angrily wiped away.
“I, too, will remember.” She told her. Then Jeh-je was gone, and only the story remained.
It is an uncertain thing to have a Wu care for you; is it a gift or is it a curse? Do the attentions of a Wu lead you into more dangers or protect you from them? Xiang Gu thought about these things, but then she was a bright and resilient girl who thought about a lot of things. She found herself happy to be far from anyone who knew her, and her position of book keeper, gave her a new and pleasing status. She was asked by one of the lady workers to teach her how to add up her earnings, another asked her to write a love letter to a young man. In return they would tell her their own stories, each unique, they would bring her special treats, and include her in the few hours they had of ease. She had entered a world of family and friendship. She tried to forget the Wu.
But a Wu is like a sliver in your thumb, or a grain in a back tooth that your tongue cannot dislodge. Xiang Gu would have dreams that she could not hold onto, that troubled or frightened her but refused the light of day. Once she saw a snake in her room and smacked it with a broom. This one got away, but at least it never returned in that form. In moments when she did not expect to see a Wu at all, such as in her bath, she would catch his face in a mirror and watched as he blushed and fled, or seeing him departing from one of the girls’ rooms, as he boldly frowned at her and stalked away, she would wonder what he wanted.
“Who was that, just with you, Mei-mei?” She asked.
Mei-mei laughed. “Him? Still a boy! But he brought me gold. She flashed the small ear hoops still in her hand. “Maybe he will come back. Why do you ask?”
“He looks like someone from home.”
“Then maybe it is better to not be seen?”
“Probably.” Xiang Gu nodded thoughtfully. She wondered if he meant to been seen, though, or not. Once again, she reflected, he had seemed flushed, as if caught out.
Xiang Gu worked hard for the Madame. She not only felt grateful, but she loved the freedom to write and calculate, to use her mind. Eventually she saved enough earnings to purchase the narrow scrolls and ink for herself. There she wrote what few things she knew; the story of her childhood, the story of her brief marriage, the stories of each of the women with whom she now lived. She felt at peace, she was happy for the first time since before her mother died.
Eventually, yet again, the one certainty of life caught up with Xiang Gu: change. Some men came in a group one night. There were six of them, all sunburned and strong from their shipboard life. They were generous, and the girls liked them. They came back two more times before leaving port. Xiang Gu mostly stayed above in her little work alcove and sleeping room, but on their last visit, on her way to the kitchen, she happened to pass the door of young Mei-mei, as one of them departed. He was beautiful and exotic in his way, wearing silks that clashed, but accentuated his slim form, and he wore gold on his neck and arms, as if it were of no account. Xiang Gu ducked her head and moved swiftly down to the lowest level where she shut and bolted the kitchen door, for this one had looked at her in such a way, and her traitor body had responded. With her back to the door, she placed a hand over a heart that beat too quickly.
They came back periodically, but Xiang Gu stayed in her room with great care. One of these nights, Madame came to see her. She stood in the room and asked Xiang Gu to stand, nodding approvingly as she walked around her. Xiang Gu had grown tall and she held herself straight, her neck long and sinuous. She was not haughty, she was certain, and the certainty had grown, bit by bit, story by story, from each girl, from her own story, and showed itself in her posture and her eyes. Xiang Gu knew exactly who she was, and she had, consciously or not, made up her mind who she was going to be. Not. Property.
“Will you meet with him?” Madame asked carefully. She remembered this one’s story, and was ready, still, to let her choose. Xiang Gu spoke with much more certainty than Madame had anticipated. It made her smile.
“I will take tea downstairs. Will you join us?”
“It will be my pleasure to watch you take tea, my child.” And she left with the message curling around her mouth as she went to find the man, who thought he owned his world, but was mistaken.
Her second husband, the one who had captured her heart, once asked her as they rested in his bunk, sated and sweet, if she knew a Wu.
She raised herself on an elbow and looked at him with a smile. “Why would you ask me such a thing?”
“Because there was once a Wu who foretold my good fortune. He described you to a T.”
“What did he look like?” Her husband wrinkled his brow and thought.
“Strangely familiar.” He said at last.
As her son bent over her to adjust the covers, Xiang Gu saw her Wu enter the room, weaving and flowing through the shadows, as was his way. She lifted a finger toward him to stop him from moving closer and he stopped short, a look of intense curiosity on his face.
“My Son” she said, her voice husky with the pain of cancer. “You have done enough.”
“No, My Mother, you will be well again, let me care for you.”
She only looked at him, waiting, watching. At last, he finished with his pulling and smoothing of her coverlet and looked directly into her eyes. He saw something there so strange, that startled, he went to turn and look behind him. With an effort, she grasped his arm to prevent him, and her old strength rolled through her. He smiled to see it.
“Ah, Mah-ma, see, you will grow strong again.”
“No Son, you have been my guide and protector, but you are no necromancer. I will not allow it.” Her eyes were focused beyond him and she would not release his arm. “The time is correct for this. You have loved me well. Now go.” And her son, the Wu, turned and wove his way from the room, leaving himself at her bedside as he did so. She released his arm and her son turned slowly to see the empty air behind him. “Simply an error in timing, my darling child. You always had trouble with that.”
“But Mah-ma!”
“No! I have only one more wish.” And here she stopped to pull in enough breath to speak.
“What is it?” He asked gently.
She quirked up what she had left of a smile, “Teach your daughters to read!”
Some of this is history, a true story, if vague, contradictory, and hard to find (she was called by so many nick-names, you may not find her at first); read it if you like. Some of it is retold with a look to magic in the ordinary, not that Xiang Gu was ever ordinary.
She negotiated her own marriage with the pirate she chose. She settled for 50% of everything. She spent her own, early life as a pirate, at sea, with hundreds of ships, thousands of employees. She made rules that honored women, as well as the rights of her employees, and she maintained the right to exact death if crossed; a pirate to her core. She ended her life where she began it, in Canton, now owning a brothel and gambling place, having married thrice, borne four children and obtained amnesty from the crown, (The Qing Dynasty who gave up trying to capture them), for herself and her crews. She negotiated to keep her gains and to allow her crews to find employment in the Navy. She flouted tradition and won, but was oddly lost to history.
Xiang Gu was born in 1775, became a pirate around 1800, retired in 1810 and died at home with family in 1844. She happily raised that family on stories, including her own. She taught that to love life, was to embrace change. She also taught that to survive life was to bend just enough not to break.
Story telling is a pleasure, it is that simple for me, as long as I don’t let other things color it. For instance, I do not wish to see myself as your teacher, that is of course unless you will promise to be mine as well. It is not simple entertainment either; it is more like the out going breath after a moment of awe. Not all of my stories do as I wish, some bend or break in the making and I share them anyway, hoping the listener will see the wabisabi in them.
I remind myself, that to dance well, you must dance. So here is a story; rain after a dry patch.
The Manifester’s Dilemma
I have always been a capable manifester. Hey, that’s how I got the gig as a Bard. I can imagine darn near anything, and that is over 50% of any story or song. I was never intentionally careless about the results either, I made sure to get to know my audience and what it was they needed to change in their world, before any performance. But it’s not the sort of thing that you can really control. Manifesting, really good manifesting, comes of its own accord, and even the best of intentions aren’t powerful enough to prevent the roll of creative energy, when it gets going.
By now, I bet, you’ve figured out what the problem is here. There is no way that I can ever settle down. Sometimes I need to get going fast, before the sun comes up, before I see what the results have been. They will know, the people who heard me speaking, singing, playing, flinging a story sky high. They will know. They will blame me, and rightly so. I am the cause.
The reason this is true, is that I am weak. I want so badly to be a part of their world, to stay for a while, to be accepted and loved for my creations, for myself. I will meet with a few of them and hit it off. The mothers and shop keepers, the kids and grandparents, the old crones and gaffers, and occasionally there will be a special someone who smiles so beautifully that it makes your heart ache. It makes me long for the things that I sing about, for the things that I make true just for them.
Right there is the hitch. You can’t really manifest your own world. If you did, well, you would go around being some sort of demi-god and greed would be your amulet. No matter how determined you might be to be the good guy, most humans (and I definitely fall into the ‘ordinary’ category) slip right into greed when they have too much power. You’ve heard the saying ‘drunk on power’? This is where it comes from. Imagine someone, kind of like me, who can make things come out just the way they want them, out of nowhere, and being able to say “l’ll just have the one, thanks…”. It is not going to happen.
Manifesting though, that happens. It just pours out of me when I least expect it. It is not at all like the performances that I plan, the ones where I am thinking about how these people in the pub, in this little village, will be drawn together and see a common cause, or find a deep need to care for their elderly, or teach music to their children, or anything highly useful and remarkably prosaic, like that. What does happen, is I will get an audience that I really like, one who seems to get who I am and gives me the impression that they honor me. They get generous and friendly, buying me a few too many, wanting me to try some concoction that only this place sells: “we’re famous for it”! The evening gets on and only a few of us are left around the fire and someone asks for something special. They want a ghost story, or a warrior’s tale, something with a witch and a beautiful woman, and I am doomed.
You imagine that I should be able to stop myself, to hold back and put them off, but that is not how it works. I am not the creator; I am a conduit. Otherwise I would have a big house on the hill and six fat babies and a cow and someone else to milk it. Instead, before I can remember all the other times, it starts. I open and the story just rolls out into the air, clear and new and vulnerable and intensely dangerous. Sometimes I sing and play, sometimes I whisper and shout, but I have no way to stop it. I wish I did.
The last time was just six months ago. I was in a place very like the one I am in now, with a small valley, leading up to a more mountainous area. Plenty of grazing, a built-up place that does trading with the cities that are closest, it had a school with two teachers, and a hat shop. It’s the hat shop that really makes it, I think. An ordinary little village makes its head gear at home; they knit and sew and felt out all the pretty utilitarian things a community might wear for themselves, but a place that has made the next level has a real milliner all its own. I made the mistake of going into that shop and ended up talking with the guy who owned it for several hours. I will never be able to forgive myself.
I sang songs of love that night. I don’t usually do that right away, but the place smelled of springtime and was full to bursting with courting couples. The milliner appeared to be on his own. He was a widower of two years, I was told by the bartender, and you might expect that he would be ready to find someone to be with, but he was alone. I was so caught up in the mood that I had set, that when he asked me to tell a romantic ghost story, I fell right in to it.
I smiled and took a slow sip of my wine, heady, not sweet but remarkably fragrant. The lights lowered by themselves, blowing out with the opening of a door, or guttering in their own wax. The fire flared. All they could see was my face, caught by the flickering flames beside me.
“There was once a man who lived in a small village. He considered himself to be remarkably fortunate, for he had found a profession selling cloth.”
(Close, but not too close, there is a trick to including listeners in their own stories).
“It pleased him, because his character was such that he loved to trade and sell; he was a friendly, chatty, sort. Because he was also fair and diligent, his reputation was good and he became a success, both in his own village and the surrounding ones as well. This allowed him to grow in the esteem of all who knew him, so when the prettiest, brightest, and feistiest young woman in the countryside went looking for a husband, she came looking for him. His name was Rath and hers was Reeta. They seemed made for each other.”
(You don’t look worried, and you are right, these stories can only be told once, with consequences. After that they are only the husks of stories: beautifully scented, but empty.)
“Being individuals of romantic nature, they spent the days of their courtship walking the paths and ranging in the hills of their valley and resting under trees. In short, they spent their time doing what lovers have always done: nothing and everything without the slightest complaint or expectation. Each day brought them closer and they discovered just how similar and how different they were.”
“Both of them were bright and curious about every little thing. They spoke of their neighbors’ lives, the workings of a caterpillar that spun his cocoon, the flavor of cheeses and of the sweet tips of grass pulled along the way. Where they differed was less obvious, Rath was very driven to work hard, as was Reeta, but she displayed, over and over a turn toward adventure, a way to expend her vast energy, that he did not understand. As simple as a race up a hill or leaning well out on a limb for the ripest fruit, Reeta put the tiniest bit of thrill in, wherever she could. When she found out that Rath held back from these things, she began to implore and then to pull him into her world. Mostly he only smiled at what he thought she would outgrow in time, but sometimes he let her have her way, and bemused, follow her on some inexplicable route to a cave or (in only the warmest of weather) out into the river to tred the rocky island there.”
“Eventually, but not before the years end, they were married. Rath may have expected Reeta’s vibrant wildness to fade after they began a family, but that was not to be. A year went by, then two more and no child was born. The baby things that her mother had given her were put away, but Reeta danced all the more, laughed, and ran as if nothing should stop her. Rath agreed in his heart, but he also knew this person, his sweet friend, and he worried. He worried that she danced a bit wildly, laughed a fraction too loudly, and ran with such abandon that he wished to simply reach out and sooth her. If only he could catch up.”
“It was on a Sunday ramble, a picnic carried up to the highest view of their village, that she fell. Just out of his reach, she stood and followed a butterfly, leaping as it fluttered up. When Rath saw the direction of her leaps, growing wilder and more energetic as the butterfly rose higher and higher, he called out. He jumped up and shouted as he ran. In the high grass the edges of the cliff were hidden.”
You can see how this was going; the solitude, deep sorrow, the ghost who renders his soul whole again. His playful lover returned to him for all time, so that his neighbors thought him mad. I did that to him, a lonely man who might have had a life, a future, a family if he had not had the bad fortune to meet me. I did it because of this ‘gift’, this ‘thing’ that uses me as its brush, its mallet. That is why I cannot stay.
He came and found me, after only a few days, nearly 30 miles away. I thought that he was going to kill me and I hardly felt anything about it. It would mean I could finally quit and find my own peace. He thanked me! He told me that he had never been happier, now that they would be together always. I felt like throwing up, but I took his hand and wished him well.
That is why I will be homeless until I die. I can’t make this my home, or you my lover. No. But I agree, if you come with me, the way you sing, the way you play that lute, the way you kiss, we might have half a chance.
The Myth of Trees 