The Elder Berry Woman, part 3 by Sara Wright

Moderator’s Note: FAR will be on hiatus for the month of January. We wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Before we head into our hiatus we will post a four part serialized story from our long-time contributor Sara Wright. This is part 3 of 4 parts. It is her personal wisdom story. Enjoy!

I thought of the 30 years I had spent celebrating monthly and seasonal changes through earth – based ritual. Every rite had one requirement that included some kind of letting go, surrender, or death of a quality/attitude no longer needed. I had learned that some types of ‘dying’ were part of an ongoing cyclic process requiring endless repetition. But in all these years I had not been able to feel my physical death as part of that round.

“Could it also be that dealing with the fear of death was partly developmental? Maybe I am just moving into this psychic region of influence now? At 70 I am starting to feel that one day, in the not-so-distant future I shall die.”

“What you just said is important. Dealing with dying on a personal level is to some extent developmental. The fact that you are starting to feel death looming as part of your future may seem frightening but is another positive development. You must be able to feel those feelings and one day the child must join you to reach a point of acceptance.”

“I am so tired of stupid fear,” I whisper.

“For now, it is enough to admit this truth,” the Berry Woman replies kindly. Her voice is fading, and I realize for the second time that twilight has fallen.

For the next few weeks, I kept on writing, though I was experiencing more confusion and uncertainty as to where I was headed with such a difficult and upsetting story.

The Berry Woman hadn’t materialized again, and I was starting to feel nagging doubts…

I wrote about recent illnesses and my growing distrust of doctors. A positive result of this distrust is that I was starting to take responsibility for my health on a level that I never had before. I tried to listen to my body more carefully. I was taking Elderberry daily.

I recalled my recent oral surgery. When I first looked in the mirror after the extractions, I saw a toothless old woman staring back at me. Vaguely, I recalled the fact that all the women in my family lost their teeth around the age of seventy. Lightning struck. I had gotten stuck in two “events” that were related. I turned 70 and had teeth extracted three weeks before! This surgery and my birthday had forced me to encounter the “old woman” in myself.

And I had to admit that I was very much afraid of her.

 Up until mid-life when I began to celebrate ritual everything, I believed about old women came from the biased (Christianized) fairy tales I read as a child, the Christian tradition, the actions of my mother, and my life experiences with actual women.

In fairy tales some of the “old women” are powerful, envious, toothless, ugly, and mean.

In contrast I learned as an eco – feminist, she was also a powerful figure that empowered old women, but the original story lived on in my psyche obscuring more ancient roots.

 Goddess figures intrigued me. I sculpted them before I knew who they were. I loved the story of Baba Yaga who lived in the woods with animals in a house that moved around on chicken feet. She was ugly, toothless, ruthlessly honest, and powerful. She befriended animals and was not the least bit sentimental. Oozing false declarations of love was not part of her nature. She could be fearsome, but she could also choose to help when approached with honesty, integrity and respect. I wanted desperately to embrace this more positive older figure, but the child’s fear of the old woman was the stronger of the two in my psyche.

I had just finished this reflection, when the purple berry appeared on a twig of one of the grapevines. It was a soft pale blue afternoon. The Berry Woman was dancing in front of me –  a translucent oval twirling around in a small circle of light. Now I could clearly see the seed inside her.

“Berry Woman, I am so happy to see you. I must acknowledge the mean old witch of my childhood fairy tales as a powerful shadow part of me, don’t I?”

“Yes, you must! You know the phrase ‘keep you enemies near’ and this is sound advice. That old troll can strike when you are least expecting it. She’s at home just below the threshold of your awareness. She’s full of envy; she’s dishonest and manipulative; she’s either a killer or uses “kindness” and dismissal as a weapon. Often, she’s most deadly during the monthly full moons. She also holds hidden power, the root of your fear of her. Your mother unfortunately had many of those qualities and she wielded power at the expense of relationship, so you have some idea what you are up against. It didn’t help that your mother refused to see you for the last twelve years of her life. How she dealt with old age is a question that will never be answered. To do more work around forgiveness will help you. You also need to tap into the kind of power I can offer you, to use it in a positive way.  This is a challenge because you learned that power destroys relationships. Finally, it’s critically important to recognize that both you and your mother were socialized into a culture of woman hatred.”

Her words about my mother upset me greatly. I believed I had come to terms with who she was. I thought I had taken full responsibility for my part in our disastrous relationship. (Woman hatred was a reality I simply lived with and was forced to accept as a member of this culture). The thought of returning to the mother issue again filled me with dread.

Before I could express my concern the Berry Woman’s translucent body began shrinking into a single point of light that pulsed like a star and then, pouf, she was gone. No doubt she knew exactly what I was thinking.

I mulled over what she had said about my mother and forgiveness, my mother and power. In my heart I knew I had more work to do. I also owned that my fear of my mother was tied to the mean ‘old witch’ of fairy tales and for that reason I needed to re-examine this figure. I wandered outdoors into the mist- laden forest, papery orange maple leaves crunching under my feet. When I reached the brook, I lay down on the moss covered ground between some rusty red pine roots and stared up at the evergreens feeling a deep sadness wash over me. My eyes grew heavy and I slept.

In the dream I have a clear image of three bare trees. The biggest of these trees, the one in the center, has black puncture holes in her trunk and some dark resin pours out from what appears to be deep wounds. Although all the trees are leafless, it is after all deep autumn, two seem quite healthy. But the holes in the center tree make my stomach ache. I imagine invisibility, loneliness, depression, loss of physical strength, fear of dying… how can I attend to such wounds? My stomach clenches with involuntary fear as I awaken. This is the Mother Tree.

I must have slept through the night because the sun was streaming through the trees when I awakened. In front of me leaning against rough bark perched on an evergreen branch the Berry Woman sparkled – plump and ripe. With a shock I note that I spent the whole night outdoors in the cold and never felt it.

I raced up the hill to take care of the dogs.