Ferrying Again

Last night I dreamed of the ferrywoman, all robed in unassuming colours. Once at the place, described as an old monastery, I felt quite uncomfortable. Some memories are strange in that they are one-dimensional, and don't show the whole experience. The steps were worn from centuries of use, and at one point I could see water marks, indicating tidal changes. A salty sediment left it's own mark, gleaming white in the half darkness. I felt like I couldn't find anything new in this old place, with its hauntingly beautiful sky, like the march of history never changes. Women were marginalised, not achieving their dream, or only allowed one dream, not allowed choices, etc. So I was in a kind of mood where I knew what I would see. A modern cynic.


It wasn't until I actually went to this place in reality, did things emerge. Of course the ferrywoman wasn't real, her robe was a memory, translucent and flowing. I checked my watch was working, and it was. "Now" time, not "that" time. The rocks and stones that formed the foundations of the monastery were old and crumbling. Memories, shapes, signs and things shifted in the swelling mists, made by the crashing sea that encircled the place, as it chose. People were there, but they are since gone. The steady procession marked the passage of time like definite drumbeats. I went below -- there was nothing to see above -- and heard the sound of water, different from the sea that rushed and swelled.

"Whose land was this?" I found myself saying, touching the cool stone walls, going deeper underground. I didn't know and no-one answered. A Salamander glowed in the half-darkness, slipping over the watery rock floor of the cavern I had come into. This place smelled fresh, like standing near a waterfall. A clean smell. "Have you ever seen an Amazon?" asked the Salamander, all of a sudden, on the wall beside my ear. I shrugged, and said, "Not that I can recall. I don't think there ever were any." "Hmm..." said the Salamander and rushed ahead, quickly across the stone walls of the narrow walkway I was heading down. A green haze appeared, as if it was moss in the air, glittering with water. The Salamander raced across the wet cavern floor now, toward a pool of light water, surrounded by a veil of moss. "There she is. There is one at least," it said, before soundlessly disappearing into the pool. And there she lay, undisturbed for centuries, a tall, stone woman in a mossy aura, serene and lovely, like a stone sleeping beauty under glass.


I put my hands in my pockets and leaned back against the damp wall. The air was sweet with water and moss. I knew why she stayed, why she was there. There was no place for her upside. Hadn't been for centuries, but at least I had seen one, at least I knew she was there. I stood in the intense quiet for a few minutes, and then turned to leave, and go back to the upside, to "now" again. The Salamander had been right about Tara.

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.