Willow Wood Road: Lavender and Sage

by Micah Sherwood

  “You experienced something horrible, something so bad your mind blanked it out. You faced death twice in less than a year. Throw in Guy’s passing, and is it any wonder that you’re having bad dreams.” Monsignor Mathias took the boy’s face in his hands and looked him in the eyes. “Do you believe that you did something wrong?”

  Micah shook his head yes. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you remorseful and do you want forgiveness?”

  “I need someone’s forgiveness, but Harry isn’t here to ask. Can God really forgive me?”

  The man smiled, “He already has. Now you need to forgive yourself. Do that, commence a dialogue with God, and your soul will be healed.”

  Micah smelled roses and jasmine. He looked toward the back of the weight room, and standing there in brilliance was the Lady in Blue who watched over him when he was sick, who appeared to him in the ‘hole’ at Willow Wood after his mother’s beating. Then the Black Mother stood next to her, and they became one.

  At that moment, he felt forgiven.

  Chapter 25: All-That-Is

  Micah was removing his cassock following Mass as Monsignor stepped into the sacristy. “Well Father, you have any great plans for Christmas?”

  “Stillness, a retreat of contemplation, that is my plan,” he sat watching the boy fold his vestments. “And you, what are your plans?”

  “I’m going skiing in New Mexico with the Derochers. Dane’s coming too, so between Wednesday and Sunday, I’ll either be flying or falling down the slopes. It should be fun.” He put away his vestments and commented to the Monsignor, “You know, there’s only ten months left of my sentence.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said that my penance was to be a server during Mass for a year, and I only have ten months to go.” Micah pulled on his jacket ready to find the Krigsman’s and his ride home.

  “Is it that bad, Micah?” The cleric asked. “Do you hate it that much?”

  “I could do without wearing the dress, but it’s not too bad,” he grinned.

  “How are your dreams?”

  “You worry way too much. Harry’s gone. I’m living my life and no one else’s. I’ve been meditating, doing my own little retreat several times a week which centers me and keeps me firmly planted.”

  Mathias studied the boy who was calm and contented, not troubled like he was during his confession two months earlier as he spiraled downward into an abyss: lost, afraid and verging on defeat. Somewhere deep inside he found the strength and will-power to pull himself out of his anguish and self-loathing.

  “I am glad that you discovered your faith,” the man spoke.

  “I only misplaced it. I’ve always had faith in something greater, but you focused me, forced me to listen to my own advice. The boy that I was, I still am only now at peace with myself, with whom I am and what I am.”

  “I told you about the Black Mother, how she gave me a little book called the Desiderata.[8] Well, Ehrmann says, ‘Be yourself,’ and that’s what I’m doing. He also said that I have a right to be here.”

  “I have a right to become who I want to be, to fulfill my destiny. Cory called me a chameleon because I assume the emotions of others. I promise, Father, I am my own person. That’s what Grandma Sherwood meant when she said fear was unacceptable, because I was terrified that I was inadequate alone as myself. So it became my nature to assume another’s identity: so when I perceived Tom’s love, I became loving; when my mother became disgusted with me, I also became disgusted; when I jumped into Harry, I assumed his hate and perversion as my own. You see what I’m trying to say?”

  Monsignor Mathias nodded his head yes.

  “I’m not afraid anymore Father—never again!” He looked at the priest for a moment before stepping out of the room and heading to the parking lot and his ride.

  The old man, Tandy and Dane were waiting in the corral for Micah and Cory. The boys had spent the best part of their time since August tending the cattle at the new house, but today they would fly through the prairie and race around the playa; spending the day together as a brotherhood; a religious act no less spiritual than the Mass they attended that morning. Tom rarely came along with them, but today he felt the need to feel the wind on his face and his horse beneath him. They sped around the open range in the 50° temperatures, and for hours they became the young braves of the Antelope Clan from long ago, before a tragedy set in motion the desolation that followed them through uncountable years and worlds. And after their play, they sat at the edge of the dry lake eating jerky.

  “Any more dreams?” Tom asked.

  “What is it with you and Mathias? I always dream, but not the bad kind. They have been wonderful. Want to hear about the one last night?”

  “Yeah Bucky, let’s hear it.” Cory saw his friend, the one that had been missing for so long, and he felt like celebrating now that the real Micah was back with his tenderness and his wild, fathomless imaginings.

  Micah looked at his four companions, at the people whom he loved most in the world; and more importantly, who loved him. And as he spoke, the atmosphere shifted and appeared like an out-of-focused camera for an instant before clearing to display a place outside of time and space; and he once again told the story as it was unfolding around him:

  “I sit on the edge of a cliff under a big fir tree surrounded by All-That-Is. Now and then I peer at myself through Her eyes. I feel Her thoughts and sense the world through Her mind. The air is warm and breezy, interweaving through the heavens and sending clouds whirling and spinning. In this place, in this magical land lying beyond our world yet encompassing it, colors become fluid: so the indigo sky, the land, and the mists are always in flux; merging and separating and then rejoining once again whole, perfect and complete.”

  “Eagles swirl in the updrafts, circling—circling—circling, enrapt in their own shadows dancing upon the land below. The meadow is dotted with a hundred lakes surrounded by fields of purple blossoms. Each pool reflects the firmament in its turquoise water. In the far distance, appearing like a finely brushed oil painting whose strokes flare like iridescent fire, mountains hurl their flinty surfaces toward the sky, their summits snow-covered. The voices of the Shadow Choir roll through the alpine valleys onto the grasslands and mixes with the wind and cricketsong; all flowing from a basilica called Creation.”

  “Lavender flowers dance with the wind and mix with the scent of rose petals and jasmine, and I breath the perfume in deeply because the fragrance baptizes with perfection and serenity; its aroma pulls me down into a perfect sleep, dreaming within a dream about a place even more fabulous in a universe unknown; where exists only the malleable hues of paradise, of a home where there is no pain or fear, only bliss without sorrow, a playground for the soul. And in this magnificent place, Guy explores the ocean depths and surveys the highland pinnacles, happy and free. One moment he hikes through flowers the size of trees; then runs and suddenly leaps upward to become part of paradise. Raggéd, when he sees me, jumps and smiles and runs figure eights, then pounces on top of me licking and showing his affection.”

  “On the adjacent mountaintop, Harry stares. The man is no longer in a self-created hell. I study him. He studies me. I place a hand over my heart giving him my forgiveness, and he absolves me. Cherubim from the Shadow Choir dance and sing the Oneness of All, and Harry joins them surrounded by Her Glorious Majesty.”

  “Sitting on the Opaline Thrown, Earth Mother’s compassion permeates all of creation and She says to me, “’You are this.’ And I submit, falling down in adoration, vanishing into the Eternal Always.”

  Willow Wood Road: I am With You Always, Forever

  Willow Wood Road Series: Parts One and Two

  Micah lay in the darkness of his room assaulted by whispers cascading around him, a nighttime assailed by murmurs, audible but not understandable, composed of many voices: deep bassoons and treble toned vocals combined into a frenzied dirge. They did not come from a specific place in the room but from eve
ry part of the room. Sometimes they were nearby, close enough that he could feel a cool breath touching his ear; a moment later they were coming from the closet and then from the opposite wall.

  The boy tried to comprehend the words. Was it a dialogue, a discussion among the unseen or just irrational syllables strung randomly together? The boy closed his eyes, but the mutterings would not stop. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, straining to see anything, but there was nothing except blackness. He hid his eyes beneath a sheet as he laid his head on the pillow.

  After what felt like an eternity, he slept until jerked awake, eyes wide opened. The closet light glowed brightly, flicked on by unseen hands. A mumble, a single undecipherable voice echoed through the room. Micah tossed the sheet aside and sat-up looking toward the foot of the bed at a scene that made his heart jump and race, thumping inside his head. Three shadows stood unmoving; black shades watching him, considering him. Their bodies absorbed the closet light, outlines of men, enigmatic and ephemeral. There were no lips or eyes; only a spectral nothingness existed where their faces should have been.

  Only one spoke; his words were clear and distinct; the language was throaty and familiar. Micah became immersed in the monologue. The sentences flowed rapidly from the presence. The boy knew that their meaning and he were one, an experience of palpable dread. He was immobile as the apparitions studied him, lying frozen for several moments before covering his head and listening, his voice paralyzed. The ghostly oration persisted, and Micah continued to hear the twisted verses from beneath the bedclothes. Time seemed to halt as the speech droned on-and-on through the darkness without pause until morning light broke and the whispers stopped.

  He peeked from beneath the sheets. Faint sunlight peeped into his bedroom. His heart fluttered crazily. His sheets were damp from perspiration. He ran out of the room and up the stairs. Everyone was still asleep, but he needed to be outside to feel the wind flow across his face. Raggéd met him on the deck. The boy lowered himself onto his knees, hugging the dog, weeping briefly. But tears could not free him of his vision. The boy stood at the tipping point of madness, his mind on the verge of collapse. He rocked back and forth on his knees. The fiction he had been feeding himself was splintered, his reality annihilated, and he was unsure how to repair it. Micah was being absorbed into obscurity, sucked into the emptiness of his otherworldly visitors.

  Micah’s Ride: Imaginal Verses, Phantom Dreams

  The knowing of God, to express something in words that ultimately defies expression. Is it possible? No, but one has to try.

  Many mornings at the breakfast table as a child, pops would ask to hear about my previous night’s dream, and I would energetically tell him my tale. He would listen, get this weird look in his eyes and shake his head. After one fantastic revelation, Poppi told me to write down my imaginings. So I started a journal. Micah’s Ride is mostly a collection from these childhood writings.

  Those early sentences never approached the vividness of my imaginal world. After a couple of entries, I learned that verse more closely matched the tenor of my dream visions than prose, and words had nuances of meaning and color that became the palette used to paint and capture the vibrancy of what I needed to say.

  So at eight years old in the early 1960s, I started writing. Fifty years later I reread my scribbles and discerned that they shared common elements and themes with an underlying fusion binding them together. I was reminded that the deeply held beliefs I have today crystalized when I was very young. This was my real discovery: God talks to each of us individually and uniquely. Sometimes we listen and sometimes we don’t. If we fail to perceive the Divine, it is not because there is no discourse; it’s because we refuse to hear. This is somewhat trite, something said a thousand times before, yet it remains true.

  We should listen to our imaginings because this is how the spiritual often speaks—in the language of symbol and metaphor; but we let the mundane or our prejudices stand between us and enlightenment. It is we who loose contact with the Creator. God never loses intimacy with us. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for their loss of dialogue with the Holy. Individuals, who are so rooted in the letter of the law, often forget the compassion and love of God which is the source of divine discourse. All of creation is embedded within the Being of Christ.

  Finally, I write this for me as a recollection of a childhood lived on the Texas High Plains, reliving the 1960s which was a moment in time that set in motion things that ultimately tinted the rest of my life. We all have memories and stories to tell, people whom we loved or hated, tragedies and celebrations. I don’t want those memories to disappear when I do. This is selfish. Forgive me, but these poems are a reminiscent, a memory, an honest recollection of a young boy trying to forge an understanding of God and life—my story.

  Notes

  * * *

  [1] 2 Samuel 6:14…. “David whirled with all of his might before God….”

  [2] Help me Earth Mother. Enclose me with love and your strength. I have fears. Conquer them. I have doubts. Give me your faith. I have life. Preserve it. Receive me!

  [3] Numbers 6:24-26

  [4] I love you papa.

  [5] Vision-Quest

  [6] Based upon Psalm 63.

  [7] See the writings of Mercea Eliade.

  [8] by Max Ehrmann