THE SONG OF MEDUSA
Lauren Raine


SPIRAL


From THE BOOK OF GAIA
Vezhna 3 MS 2379
Linear B, Codex 4

Once upon a time, the Word for World was Mother.
Mother was the Song, and into Her Song
She wove all things,
the rain falling,
and the serpentine rivers,
the tall barley shining in the meadow
the oak in the glen
the salmon leaping in the stream
and the lives of the people.

*****

And I was Her Singer.

Sibyl they called me in later times, and the Pythoness, but before that I had no name. I was a Singer, and that was enough.

I was called at an early age; I was but a girl, not yet in my bloods. Careless I roamed the forests of my home, singing the songs of the river, and the deer, the blue crab, and the wild honeybee.

When the Elders came to me, they asked if I desired to follow the serpent, and become a Singer. Young as I was, I knew I followed a dappled path, walking in the play of both light and shadow. And so I was willing and they took me into the caverns, into the darkness silent and rich with memory and becoming, Her belly pregnant with the voices of the ancestors, and those who were yet to come. Here I learned to listen.

And in time, they gave me to the Serpent, and I lived, although many do not.

All my long life I have served Her, and Her serpent has shaped me. We are, at last, one.

My hair is white now, and the Serpent still flows between my fingers, still twines in my hair, still rises in beauty up my spine, still sees the shining world with my eyes, still sings loudest in my blood. For this I am glad, and fulfilled. They gave me to the Serpent, and I lived.

The Mysteries are lost now, and I will take them with me. The Mysteries that were given to me shall pass with me, for a little while in the circle of the world. For I am the last Singer. The Serpent sleeps deep in the Earth, among stones of granite and quartz that sing and are no longer heard.

All that remains of Her Singers now are stories told to frighten children. They have said of us that we beguiled men to their death, or turned them to stone with a glance. Stories to frighten children, and a strange twisting of the truth.

The Serpent will wake again when the time is ripe, and those who seek, those who dare, those who can listen to the very bones of the Earth will find the winding path again. But I sense that many generations will flower and diminish first.

Our temple was a deep chamber within the caves of my homeland, with a crevasse that opened to a wide courtyard above, so that when we were within our voices rose resonant from the Earth.

When the moon was full, or it was a new moon, when it was the longest day or the longest night, when the Festivals arose, each in its own season, our people gathered to hear the Singers; and we tuned our bodies to the hum of the deep darkness and loosed our spirits with the serpent drought. Then we sang of the planting of wheat, the finding of healing herbs, the coming of storms and the meanings of dreams. And sometimes we sang the Songs of the deep places.

And then She walked among the people
and the animals
and the waters
and Her beating Heart
was the Song of our lives.

And so the years passed, and I grew in the singing, serving the needs of the people and aging but little as is the way among Singers, for we are held by the Song, our discipline, and the power of the Serpent draught. I could not bear children, for the Serpent takes that from us.

And in the year that my sister's daughter passed over and was returned to the Womb of the Earth, there came among us a man, a stranger.

* * * * * * * * * *


Stone, speak to me.

What secret waters
that vein and course
the darkness
shaped you? Tell me
of falling years,
of bones and pottery shards,
of fossils, played out
smoothed by waters
past memory or telling -
Stone, you will be my teacher.

From ENDARKENMENT, The Collected Works of Shannon Drake,
pub. 1999, Wren Press

* * * * * * * * * *

From ANA - An Informal Biography of Ana D'Mitriev
by Leial D'Mitriev

By the time Jason Sumner, Ana D'Mitriev, and Dan Hanchrow had measured the limestone casket, and created an detailed photo documentation of it from every angle, they were at last ready to open it. They were also utterly exhausted. But no one suggested turning in for the night, if indeed it was night in the world above. Not one of them would have been able to sleep.

Up close, the female figure carved on the lid of the casket was even more striking. In her exhausted state, Ana could swear that the richly patterned snake coiling around the casket undulated from time to time.

Fortunately, while the lid fit with ancient precision neatly into the casket, it had a wide lip which allowed them to raise it without too much difficulty. The three of them slowly lifted the heavy limestone lid, and placed it on a padded cotton blanket.

Within the casket were six or seven ceramic urns or vases, stacked horizontally. Unglazed and unadorned, they were made of red clay, and each seemed to be a little under three feet long, with a diameter of about seven inches. Each had a ceramic seal, cemented into the mouth of the urn with unfired clay. There were no other objects.

After Hanchrow had photographed the interior of the casket, and the pottery urns had been carefully tagged and numbered to determine the order in which they were stacked within the casket, Sumner was at last ready to remove the top urn.

Very slowly, he lifted the long vessel with his gloved hands, and carefully placed