In the ending, True North shifted.
The Grandmothers felt it. So they, too, shifted. Now True North isn’t a direction. It’s an orientation. An alignment. So the Grandmothers re-oriented. They re-aligned. And each one felt a click. Right here, in her heart chakra.
The Grandmothers clicked in and there was a change in the air. Subtle. Almost imperceptible. It was like a breath on the Grandmothers as they stood, facing True North. Like a blessing.
The Grandmothers began to hum. Oooooooooh.
Their bodies vibrated with the hum. And there was a crumbling. Not really. But yes, really. A facade fell away. An illusion disintegrated.
And in the distance they saw a Mountain. In fact, it had always been there, but now the Grandmothers were attuned to its frequency.
They sang: Ooooooooooooh!
And the Mountain sang back: Ooooooooooooooh!
The Grandmothers began to lilt, to sway with the Song. They started to move, a little bit forward, a little bit back. A little bit this way, a little bit that. Their arms caressed the air. The Mountain danced, too. Not really. But yes, really.
And the Grandmothers danced a Bridge to the Mountain.
They made the steps up as the went. They knew about bridges. About transitions. About descents and caverns and birth canals. They knew how to bend without breaking, how to step around peril, how to join together to resist, how to join together to prevail.
True North shifted. And you felt it. And everything felt off. Until you, too, shifted. Until you clicked in. And then with an oooooh it was all on again.
And when you saw the Grandmothers dance past, you followed. You heard the Song. You didn’t know there was a Mountain, or maybe you did.
The Grandmothers danced backwards so they could look you in the eye and smile at you as you learned the steps. Except for that one Grandma who made faces to make you laugh.
And that one Grandma who looked like she was scowling, but that’s just her face, back off.
It didn’t always look like a dance. Sometimes it looked like a stumble, like a fall. Well, sometimes that’s what it was.
Some ran away from the dance. Some refused to dance, scoffed at the dance, got distracted and stopped dancing.
You didn’t judge them, you just danced.
Some were too numb to dance and you dropped love notes and daffodils and yellow gorse in their path as you danced by.
Some denied there was a dance at all, but you saw the Grandmothers. You heard the Song. So it didn’t matter what anyone else said. You danced.
You added your own steps, and so did you, and you, and so the dance evolved into a complex diversity of movement and noise and gesture that somehow really worked.
As the Grandmothers danced the Bridge, they told stories and shouted riddles. They burned frankincense to cleanse and bless the passage. Because they knew about transitions.
They encouraged and affirmed and passed around motherwort and mugwort because they knew about birth canals. They knew what it takes to make it through to the other side, what you go through before you emerge, crying out in pain and joy.
They showed you how to move this way to bend without breaking, how to move that way to step around peril. They showed you how to join together to resist, how to join together to prevail.
And then there was a squuuueeeeeeeze and you thought oh, god, I’m dying. And you were. Oh, god, you were dying! You died in that moment, surrounded by Dance and Song and Grandmothers, and in that same moment you were born and it was all One. You were right where you had been. Only now you saw the Mountain.
You breathed in deeply.
And you breathed out the Song. Oooooooooooooh.
Katie Carey is a spiritual midwife, community herbalist, and theater artist devoted to real-izing the Emerging Story. Katie spent 10 years doing theater in the Northwest, followed by 8 years of theater in Chicago. She then decided what she really wanted to do was raise a family in a hand-built hobbit hole in the middle of a mud puddle on a Montana farm. So that’s what’s happening now. Katie's works include How to Re-Ignite Your Internal Fire, Foul-Mouthed Mystic, Vasilisa + Baba Yaga (or: How to Destroy Your Enemies without Losing Your Soul), Excommunicated! The Musical, New Creation Stories for the Emerging Paradigm, The Real Life Adventures of Lizzy and Rilla, and Solitaire.
Katie has degrees in theater and spirituality, so she can act like she cares.
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