the otherworld

The sandy soil gives way to clay and then rock. The passage opens and I get to my feet. I can walk by stooping low. I pass two rock pillars with featureless faces carved out of them. One appears to have breasts. The natural light is gone and it is very black. I walk ahead trailing my right hand against the stone wall of the passage. I feel very alone and a little afraid until I see a flicker of warmth ahead. The dancing glow of fire flame. I hurry forward to enter a room, hollowed out of the earth and rock. There are animal skins on the floor and a wizened woman waiting by an enormous fire place. She could be of any race or the mother of all races with her ancient cheekbones and hair parted in two plaits. We have met many times in dreams when I have been in great need of comfort. I walk into her arms and she hugs me as a grandmother hugs a beloved grand daughter. I have lain encircled in her arms in a small fold in the ground and watched the earth spin through its seasons through a window of dreams. I have fled the storm to her desolate peat-roofed cottage and have been bathed clean of soul weariness in her cauldron of hot water. She is my comfort within, the calm eye of the storm where everything howls and shrieks around us. She tends my wounds and I become a child again but a child safe and beloved. There are never words only shared thoughts.

She guides me to the back of the cave to where a sleeping niche has been carved out of the stone walls about the size of a four poster bed. There are blankets woven out of a soft red wool. Overwhelmed suddenly by deep weariness, I crawl in and surrender to sleep, door of doors.