Shaman

To worship the storm....

My friend and partner Meg is at last sleeping after a troubled night. Today is the birthday of her second child, Sean, who would have been 36. On this day in 1990, wracked with severe pre-eclampsia, Meg was in Intensive Care and struggling to survive after Sean was born by emergency Caesarian section at just 27 weeks gestation.

Meg lived. Sean went into cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated but suffered catastrophic brain injury due to prolonged oxygen deprivation. The result was profound - overwhelming - disability with no hope of meaningful recovery, but Sean survived, after a fashion, for another 20 years.

My wonderful woman seldom speaks of this but allows herself a day or two of grief and reflection at this time each year. Usually I try to take her out into the wilderness somewhere beautiful and peaceful to camp far away from other people, but this year that turned out to be impossible, so Meg is sleeping here at home while I keep watch.

We are all of us the sum of our experiences and Meg has a love of life which is tinged with a range of subtle colours. One of these is an acute sensitivity to … I might call it fate, or the future. Perhaps it is her Irish genetic heritage or perhaps it is her proximity to grief, and a near death experience herself, but I sometimes think she senses things most of us do not sense - even before they happen.

She has been, amongst many things, a Nurse. In an earlier age she might have been a healer or a wise woman - or a spiritual guide. I have certainly learned much from Meg, including some wisdom, all of it leavened with love.

In my recent post - “Trackless” - I visited a cave shelter in a rainforest, once home to the original First Nation Worimi and Awabakal peoples who are the first owners of this part of the land we now call “Australia.” You will see a photo in my Post of a hand print stencilled on the rock in red ochre.

Returning there after a long absence made me think of the way that hunter gatherer peoples are - of necessity - so deeply attuned to the natural forces around them.

If I could go back far enough in my own - or Meg’s - lineage, I would eventually reach ancestors who lived a similar way of life.

When we are out together in a wild place - that is, a place largely ruled by natural forces and less modified by modern technology - we can feel in touch with that past and far more in touch with the natural world of which we are all (despite our illusions) a tiny part.

Sitting here today, thinking of the woman I love while she sleeps, I cannot remove her grief and she would not want me to do so even if that were possible - we are, as I said, the sum of our experiences….

What I can do though, and what I have done (I hope), is to reflect on what it means to me for us to be together and how the Wise Woman within her is in many ways my guide - even if I don’t always hear her the first time……

I have expressed this in writing below, thinking of days and nights when we have watched through a storm together and thinking of how our ancestors - without whom we would not be here now - must once have done the same. I hope you enjoy it.

My wonderful Substack friend Holly Lamond ( Poetry Tracks In the Snow ) recently included me in a Haiku challenge which is a bit like a Haiku chain letter.

I apologise here for not responding, dear Holly, but in case it is of some compensation, the poem below consists of 6 linked Haiku verses.

A storm is coming …..

It is night.

Storm seen from our home on the river….

Shaman.

Not knowing, ever -

are we the sudden flash, or…

the darkness after?


We wait for the sound

of atmospheres imploding,

listening, breathing.

Carving memory

out of this obsidian -

auguries, meaning.

Guiding each other,

hearing the thunder calling

our names - summoning.

Outside rain, falling

Inside your laughter, lifting

lightening - lightning.

My mind is my cave -

hand prints stencilled on walls. You,

always my Shaman.

For the sequel to Shaman, please click here.

Pink flowering eucalypt - found by M last week.