Liv Unravelled

by Donna Bishop

  Ross won’t be coming home tonight — it’s 8:30 and there’s no way he’ll be sober enough to drive the hour and a half home. I’ve always thought Ross had a problem with alcohol, and I know he takes a lot of pretty strong medication for his migraines, but what if he’s ‘on something’ else?

  Which is worse? The idea that her husband has a drug problem and she doesn’t even know it? Or the fact that people — the woman at the day camp and how many others — have observed his behaviour, are talking about it, feeling sorry for her? Do they know he’s been cheating on her too? It makes her feel cut off and alone. And beyond exhausted.

  3

  ~ Into the Deep ~

  Celeste draws Liv into the living room and ushers her to the overstuffed, burgundy velvet couch. Liv has spent many a happy time in this room, but today she feels awkward and nervous. Celeste is different in her role as therapist, a bit more business-like. They hugged as usual when Liv arrived, but Celeste moved directly to the purpose of their meeting. Liv had hoped to chat until she felt more comfortable. She feels rattled as she takes her seat on the couch. Celeste pulls an oriental brocade stool into position in front of Liv and sits.

  “I know — it feels weird, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, Liv. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis — I’m only teaching you how to access your unconscious mind. I promise I’m not going to make you bark like a dog or anything.” Their laughter washes away most of Liv’s apprehension.

  “Okay, Liv, remember that you can stop me at any time. You’ll still be right here with me — just your consciousness will be doing a bit of travelling and you’re in charge of the journey. It may not always be easy — there needs to be some dying in order to get some rebirthing.”

  Celeste reaches for Liv’s right hand.

  “Please take this soapstone pebble and hold it in your hands. It was passed down to me from my Métis birth mother. See the thick white band that goes completely around it? To me, it’s a symbol of all things being one. The stone will help you to stay grounded and free at the same time. Are you ready to do this?”

  “Yes,” she murmurs, flashing a quick smile at her friend. Not so sure, but at the same time willing.

  “Past, present or future? What do you think?”

  “Let’s give the past life thing a try,” Liv replies, trying to sound brave.

  “Okay. Speak out loud to me and I’ll record it, so you can revisit it later.” She presses the button on the recorder and Liv’s heart contracts. We’re doing this thing now.

  “Take a deep breath and relax into the softness of the couch. Look around at your surroundings. Notice the Buddha stained glass in the window on the left — yes, the one you’re always begging me to make for you — and the red begonia hanging in the window on the right. Notice how its lush green leaves are reaching for the light. Feel how the roots are stretching down for the nourishment from the earth. Every living thing is the same in this way, reaching for the light above and growing from our roots beneath.”

  Celeste adjusts the position of the stool, places her strong hands on Liv’s knees and continues.

  “Plant your feet firmly on the floor. Imagine them heavy on the worn old carpet, strong and sure like the feet of an elephant — grounded and remembering all. Focus for a few moments on the intricate warp and weft of the rug. Imagine your past like a beautiful woven carpet, filled with the stories and adventures of the people who wove it and those who walked upon it.

  “Breathing easily, you are moving deeper into relaxation. Your conscious mind is gently falling to sleep, making room for your sleeping mind to slowly wake up.”

  Liv feels her body relax as if collapsing, while simultaneously her mind opens and focuses solely on her friend’s calm, level voice.

  “Walking down, down, down a narrow forest trail, green cedar branches swaying lightly in the breeze. Smell the cedar and feel the soft mulch under your feet as you go further down, toward the sea. You arrive at a set of wooden stairs and you can see the shoreline and the distant ocean. Count your steps down, starting at twenty…nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…. There you are…fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…through the light mist…twelve, eleven, ten…feeling the rhythm of the ocean…nine, eight, seven, six, five…moving gently across the sands of time… breathing out...four, three, two, one…here you are. Breathe it in….

  “Take a few moments to become grounded, Liv. Notice your body, breathe evenly and connect with who and where you are, knowing that you are safe. Let yourself be open to meeting a past version of yourself. Can you see yourself in this place? Where are your feet? Ground them. Where are your hands? Watch them move in this place. Look for the luminous spirit line that is your connection to another from your past. Follow it and you will find someone who is connected to you.

  “You are facing several paths to different horizons, with the ones on the left being the far distant past, moving towards the present as you look to the right. Your strong intuition will help you to choose. What is your soul seeking? To heal or to shed light within itself? What are you curious about?”

  Indeed, Liv sees the paths. Before her are sandy trails through waving grasses, swimming in blue light. She is drawn to one trail on the left that curves over a rise, out of sight. Under her gaze, the light converges, illuminating this route more intensely than the others. She steps toward it with her mind and her consciousness follows suit. Her body floats.

  “Now that you have chosen, you become acutely aware of your senses. When you feel like speaking, Liv, tell me what you see and feel and hear.”

  Session No. 1 transcript, Aug. 30, 1987

  Hannah, 1855

  I hear the sounds of birds overhead — sea gulls, I think. When I talk, my voice sounds distant in my head.

  I smell and taste the salty air. I feel a gentle wind on my face and it’s blowing my hair. I feel like I’m in between one place and another, and also like it’s all only in my imagination.

  “Heart to heart, mind to mind, body to body, soul to soul,” Celeste says gently. “Let yourself be in this time and within this being that you have chosen to explore.”

  My feet are in sand right now. I’m being drawn toward the sea. The mist parts and shows me the watery route I will travel.

  I’m not afraid at all as I step onto the path and move through the tunnel of swirling blue light across, across and across an enormous body of water…like I’m crossing a huge, long bridge.

  Now I’m slowing down. I have arrived at my destination in the middle of a dark, cold, stormy sea. Far below me, a wooden barrel floats slightly off kilter, bobbing in rough waves.

  I feel like I’ve been turned into fluid and I’m being poured into a vessel from a great height. Everything is black — no, my eyes adjust and I see a child. I join this child — in a barrel in the ocean. I suddenly share her senses, I actually feel her body, feel her emotions, think her thoughts. She seems vaguely familiar.

  The sky that is visible through the top of the barrel is bluish black. The only part of her body that is feeling warm are her wet, leather-clad feet. She’s sitting in a few inches of whiskey, from the smell of it.

  Her hands are small and blotchy and icy cold, clinging like lobster claws to the sides of the cask as it’s tossed around in the angry sea. It’s dark and loud with the thumping of waves. She’s terrified. Her name is Hannah and she’s lost. The language she’s thinking in is Dutch, but somehow I’m able to understand.

  Celeste, I’m panicking. I have to say your name so I know you’re still there. How did this little girl get here?

  “Breathe Liv, remember to breathe and remember everything is as it should be. Let her tell you her story. You are only there to see and feel, not to change anything.”

  Okay. It’s as if I see with my eyes and think with my mind but her fear and despair overwhelm me.

  Hannah begins to sing. Her voice is heartbreakingly sweet, surprisingly full for a child so young, although the flow of the song is broken by her shivering. It’s a childr
en’s poem — a lullaby.

  Winken, Blynken and Nod, one night, sailed off in a wooden shoe;

  Sailed off on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew.

  “Where are you going and what do you wish?” the old moon asked the three.

  We’ve come to fish, for the herring fish, that live in that beautiful sea.

  “Nets of silver and gold have we,” said Winken, Blynken and Nod.

  She thinks if she sings loud enough she’ll be heard and someone will rescue her. She’s singing for her family, whom she fears are lost under the cold, dark sea.

  The old moon laughed and sang a song as they rocked in the wooden shoe.

  And the wind that sped them all night long ruffled the waves of dew.

  Her throat is a mass of raw nerves from trying not to cry. She can no longer contain her fear and pain — her small chest is heaving, tears are running down her face. She is struggling, forcing herself to sing, trying desperately to project her voice out of the barrel.

  Now the little stars are the herring fish that live in the beautiful sea:

  “Cast your nets wherever you wish never afraid are we!”

  Some folks say ‘twas a dream they dreamed of sailing that misty sea.

  Now she’s remembering the last time she heard this song. Her mother was tucking her and her little brother into their yellow-painted trundle beds in the bedroom they shared. She’s envisioning it, and I can see, I can feel her memory — how lucky she felt to have the best Mama and Papa and brother and home in all of Amsterdam. Soft blue curtains frame the windows of the two-gabled room. Down in the cobblestoned street, the clip, clop of wooden shoes and horse’s hooves. The wonderful aroma of apple cinnamon streusel wafts through the window, which is open just a crack, causing the curtains to billow inward. Her memory is so detailed….

  Now she hears her mother humming downstairs as she prepares supper for Papa, the murmur of them sharing a joke she cannot hear and their light, warm laughter. Hannah longs to linger in this lovely memory forever, but this thought brings the present crashing back. She takes a fortifying breath, deep into her diaphragm, and resumes singing.

  Now Winkin and Blynken are two little eyes and Nod is a little head.

  And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies is a wee one’s trundle bed.

  So close your eyes while mother sings of the wonderful sights that be.

  And you shall see those beautiful things as you sail on the misty sea,

  Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three – Winkin, Blynken and Nod.

  As she sings the last verse, there’s a fullness, a harmony — there’s the sense that her mother’s voice is accompanying her, completing the sound, and their journey together. Suddenly, and with terrifying clarity, Hannah knows that her mother has drowned. Her spirit has come to say goodbye. She feels the loss like a stabbing pain in her heart and she slumps into the depths of the barrel.

  I can’t let her give up. I have to try to encourage her to survive. I reach into her mind with mine, trying to emanate hope and positive energy. She rouses slightly. I urge her to sit upright, further out of the whiskey that sloshes in the barrel.

  She begins to rub her freezing hands together to warm them, but it hurts terribly. With difficulty, she unbuttons her fine woolen coat and tucks her icy hands under her armpits. They begin to feel a tiny bit warmer. Her mind returns to the near certainty that her Mama and Papa and little Finn are dead. In her heart, she feels that this is so.

  She’s getting too weak to balance against the rocking barrel, which lurches and reels in the waves. I want to help her, but a particularly large wave slams the vessel to one side, knocking her sideways. Her head cracks heavily against the hardwood cask. Hot pain in her skull, then sickening dizziness.

  The sky — at least the small part of it she can see — turns purply black, then a blacker black. She’s passing out.

  4

  ~ Swallowed ~

  Session No. 1 transcript continued, Aug. 30, 1987

  Hannah, 1855

  Celeste's soft voice echoes distantly in her consciousness.

  “Breathe, Liv, breathe. You’re in a safe place. Feel the cool smoothness of the soapstone in your palm. Have you had enough?”

  No, I want to stay. It’s so good to hear your voice, though.

  “I’m right here. We’ll stay with Hannah. You’re doing well at telling me what you see and feel.”

  The sun is coming up — I can make out the edge of the barrel. Hannah is awake again. She stands and tries to climb up to the rim. Every movement threatens to tip it. Finally, she manages to peek out. She gasps the fresh, salty air — such a relief. The surrounding ocean has calmed.

  Now that it’s brighter I can see what she looks like. She’s pale, and her chestnut-coloured braids hang limply.

  Overhead there are hundreds of birds — all sorts of birds that I don’t recognize. Some look a bit like the seabirds I’ve seen in Europe and others look strange and cartoonish, purplish grey with long red beaks and pink eyes. They’re swooping and whooping and screeching.

  Hannah calls out to them in a sing-songy voice, “Help me, help me, birds.” It’s like she’s trying not to scare them — she wants to befriend them so they’ll help her. “Pretty birds, fly me out of here. Our ship has sunk, my parents are drowned and my brother is lost like me.”

  She’s just making up the mournful words as they come to her.

  “Can you see Finn? Fly to him!”

  She’s going through all the possible scenarios in her mind — maybe the ship didn’t sink after all, or her parents were able to survive and are floating nearby. Surely the lifeboats are drifting close to her and will spot her and reunite her with Finn. She starts to sing again — Finn’s favourite lullaby, just in case he can hear her.

  Slaap Kindje Slaap

  Sleep, baby sleep,

  Outside there walks a sheep,

  A sheep with white feet,

  Who drinks his milk so sweet,

  Sleep, baby sleep.

  The song complete, she succumbs to despair. She conjures an image of a ship sinking below violent waves, voices screaming in the dark, splashing sounds and then nothing. Nothing but the incessant thunking of waves drumming against the barrel.

  “Swoop down, bright birds! Lift me up, magical wooden shoe! Lift me and my family out of this cruel sea! Take us home, take us home!” She’s singing even louder, her voice now raspy. I’m amazed by this little girl’s fighting spirit.

  A sudden wave makes the barrel sway dangerously and Hannah is jolted sideways, losing her footing. Afraid that the unsteady barrel will topple and fill with water, she slumps back onto the floor. At first, I think she’s losing consciousness, but her mind is still working away. She escapes into memories again — no, more like a dream world that I seem to be privy to.

  I see her mother’s face, then her father’s, then Finn’s. Fleeting images, sort of scrambled. A beautiful old wooden steamer ship. There’s some kind of lounge, with plush seats and polished wood. I can smell the polish, it’s like the stuff in the tins we used when I was a kid.

  Hannah sits with her father. He’s a dignified looking man, well-dressed, with dark hair and a trimmed beard.

  “Papa, how much longer will we be on this ship?”

  “We will arrive in Edinburgh tomorrow morning. Your Aunt Rachel will be at the dock. She can’t wait to finally meet you and Finn.” His voice is rich and deep, his dark brown eyes are serious, yet kind.

  “It seems like we’ve been moving forever and we’re still in the middle of nowhere,” she says.

  He laughs fondly.

  “It may seem so, my little one, but we’re really in the middle of everything. If you go that way, you would find France, and over there is Norway.”

  “I know about France because it’s next door to Holland. I’ve never heard of Norway.”

  “It’s a vast, wild country. Its coastline has many fjords — long, winding ocean bays surrounded by steep
mountains. Many years ago, it was the home of the Vikings."

  He has piqued her curiosity.

  “What’s a Viking, Papa?”

  “They were a warlike people who were farmers, but also accomplished sea travelers. They built long wooden boats with great tall dragon heads carved on the front. They navigated by the stars and traversed the world by sea.”

  “Like pirates?”

  “Yes, very much like pirates. Only they had metal hats with big horns on them.”

  “I wish I was a Viking so I could explore the world — but I don't want to wear horns on my head.”

  Papa laughs and reaches to lift her into his lap, where he hugs her close.

  “You are such a delight, my dear child. Please don’t ever change.” Oh, the feeling Hannah has when he holds her — protected, adored.

  Beside them, Mama is reading a story to Finn, who sits enrapt, clutching a small wooden flute. Hannah gave him that flute. She flashes onto a memory of the two of them at home, her coaching, him doing his best to keep up. She has a grand dream of being a brother/sister musical duo — she envisions Finn becoming a virtuoso flautist, and pictures herself seated at the piano, mesmerizing audiences with her fluid fingers and her voice.

  What was that? Strange noises. A loud cracking sound and then a thump that vibrates throughout the entire ship. It tilts abruptly, causing a few people to lose their balance. Papa holds Hannah more tightly. Mama flings her arm and pins Finn protectively in his chair. Her eyes are wide with alarm.

  The crew is running in all directions, struggling to stay upright against the increasing angle of the ship and barking orders at each other.

  “I am sure it is nothing serious, darlings,” Mama says, her voice wavering. “The captain is probably having some trouble cutting through this icy water.”

  Distressing shouts and creaking noises. It’s serious — the crew are in a panic, and the passengers, in response, begin to push out onto the deck. Everyone is talking at once — in the jumble of words, the rumour spreads that the ship has run aground on submerged rocks and the hull has been damaged severely.