Fifty

I saw locks of hair attached to a line, blowing in the wind, like clothes to dry. There was also hair lying around on the floor in my mother’s kitchen, and outside, all over the yard, half-covered by sand.

Suddenly, they became butterflies and flew towards the cemetery where my father is buried. I wished they had brought him to me alive, instead of visiting his grave.

Then there was a little girl whirling two bowls of fire attached to two strings. She turned around and around herself. Now she transformed into a very small man with a burnt face and now she was a little girl again.

Next, we were surrounded by a herd of paper birds. I was worried that they would get on fire. They did, but with such fragile beauty… they were burning in all colours until the wind carried them away.

The night was approaching fast and the burning paper birds became iridescent, weaving their light into the darkness like northern lights.

Then I saw little girls jump off a cliff, one after the other, spinning in their fall. They floated in the air for a moment before they plunged, as if dancing. The Siberian man stood right under the rock and caught them each, one by one.

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Thirty-Six

There were two big bodies of water that met in a single line, but they did not mingle. As if there was a piece of glass between them… but no. I could see the arms and legs of a woman dancing, but could not see her face or torso, she herself was the line dividing the waters.

She was slowly pushing them apart, and in the space between the two walls of water, there was a woman bending close to the soil, and another one coming right behind her. All of them were far-eastern, with almond eyes and long, black hair. The first woman bent to the ground after each step, and put a seedling into the wet black soil. The second woman was slowly dancing behind her, her hands raised above her head, and with the delicate movements of her fingers, she touched the walls of water and freed some drops, gently sprinkling the seedlings.

The third woman was standing still, keeping the waters apart with her palms. I was facing her, doing the same, with my legs wide apart. When the two women finished planting and reached me, they crawled through between my legs and stood behind me. Then the first woman let the waters meet again, and we were all deep undersea.

The light of the Moon filtered in gently, and the women danced, their hair whirling freely. The seedlings started to grow, they were tall grass now.

Twenty-Eight

I was in the water, ice above me. I could vaguely perceive some kind of commotion above me: people or animals running all over the place.

Then I was on my feet, the Siberian man behind me, holding my shoulders. I was staring into my belly, it looked frozen: turquoise and light purple.

Next, I was lying on my back, on the ice and two polar bears tore my belly open and started to feast on my guts. I couldn’t move. I didn’t feel pain, but it was strange, watching them eat me. The Siberian man knelt down at my head. “It’s okay” he said. The bears transformed into people and they were looking for something in my belly, searching around with their hands.

Out of a sudden, I was in my childhood home, in the kitchen, at the entry of the room, staring at the colourful fly blind.

Then we were outside, and I saw our pine tree decorated with naked, shabby dolls, hanging by the hair. There were also two people unearthing dolls buried in the yard. I started to feel dread.

We were inside again, and the dolls were now tied by the hair to the strips of the bug blind… then they all disappeared. The strips started to move, as if there was a draft, and I wondered if somebody had left the kitchen door open. I turned to check, and I saw a group of dolls marching in.

The Siberian man hugged me from behind. “It’s alright” he said.

I wanted to run away but I didn’t move. I needed to understand what was happening. A dark cloud entered the kitchen, like a thick smoke, like a huge, black cotton candy. I was afraid. The Siberian man kept on whispering in my ear “it’s okay, it’s alright, you are doing well”. The darkness was filling the room, and I was close to panic.

“Breathe. slow. And now, we’ll walk out”

“But it’s in the way, it’s blocking our way.”

“We will walk right through it. Ready, steady, go.”

And on we moved, slowly, step by step. The Siberian man was gently pushing me. The darkness felt like a huge, thick, sticky spiderweb.

“is the spider around? is it a black widow?”

But the Siberian man didn’t reply, just kept saying “one more step, one more step, we go, we go, we keep going”. And we were outside, in the yard. The whole house was swallowed by this dark cloud, this thick spiderweb.

“is he inside? my father?” I asked the Siberian man.

“not now, now we walk away”, was all he replied, gently grabbing my arm, pulling me towards the gate, onto the street.

“But maybe he’s inside, we should go back for him.”

“no, not now.” he said, closing the gate. I wanted to go back and search for my father, but the Siberian man blocked my way. “Not now. really not now. you’ve had enough” he said, in a soft but firm voice. He hugged me, and gently pushed me until I started to walk away with him.

Twenty-Two

It is the time of my solar return, and I wanted to meet the Sun in my birth chart. I went to the dark, underground forest where he  took me the first time. I saw him sitting on a chair, with golden hair reaching a bit beyond his shoulder. The Siberian man was gently combing his hair, and I was wondering whether the Sun was male or female, it was not obvious at all. He stood up and he started to turn and turn, and once he was a man and once she was a woman. Then he came to see me, a young man around 18 or less.

“Why are you so young?” – I asked him.
“Because you want to see me that way. When your daughter was born, you decided I was not up to the task of raising her and set me aside. You decided I was childish, that I cannot function well enough in the real world.”
“And can you? You are hardly aware of time, for example. How could you feed her, or how could you fetch her from school in time? How would you notice she’s grown out of her trousers and needs a new pair? and so much more. Mystical realms is one thing, but my daughter is the most important in the world, and she needs someone who takes care of her, whom she can rely on. I doubt that’s you.”
“That’s fine, but can’t we do something better than this? How long do you think this can go on?”
“I have no idea. As long as she needs me, I guess”
“Please. You really underestimate me. I am not a child. And I’m not so childish, either.”

He opened up like a flower, and there was a woman, smiling. Then she opened up and there was a very old man. And he opened up and there was a very old woman. And he opened up and there was the young Sun, again.

“Alright” – I said. “I am sorry”.

I took his hand and we started to walk out of the dark forest, through a tunnel. I could feel his hand change in mine, and when I looked back, he looked more like a woman. Then we got out of a cave, and she was the ever-changing, dark haired, almond-eyed woman from my other meditation.

The Siberian man ran to her and hugged her, then ran to me and hugged me, too. He was very happy.

Twenty-One

I could see some thick, knitted material, dark blue, with some dark purple embellishment on it. It reflected light in a beautiful way. First, I could only see this piece of textile, and felt the wind, it was quite fresh and salty. Then I could hear the waves.

And then, I could see the sea. We were on top of a plateau or a rock, it was green around us, wildflowers, moss… the sky was covered, stormy, but there was no rain yet. A young woman was sitting on a rock, she had long, dark hair and Asian eyes. It felt very peaceful being around her. She was covered by a thick, dark blue-purple blanket.

I could hear footsteps, and as I turned around, I saw the Siberian man approaching.

“Meet my daughter” – he said.

The woman looked at me, smiled with her eyes and nodded slightly, then turned back towards the sea. I was to her right, observing her profile. She looked around twenty. I turned back to the Siberian man to estimate his age, and he seemed somewhere between fifty and sixty, or around sixty. Difficult to say.

I turned back to the woman, but she looked older now, around my age. I must have made a mistake a minute before. She looked at me for a second, then turned back to the sea. I watched the water, too, and the sky, and the flowers rocking in the wind.

When I turned back to her again, she seemed to be in her fifties. I realized she was ageing in front of my eyes.I peeked at the Siberian man, wondering what was going on. He was not getting older, he stayed the same age. He smiled. When I took another glimpse at the woman, she was quite old, her hair was all white.

“Will she die in front of me?” – I wondered.

The Siberian man stepped closer, he was standing right behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I glimpsed at the woman again, she just disappeared, the blanket fell onto the rock, her hair transformed into mist and the wind blew it away.

“She’s gone” – I thought to myself.

The Siberian man stroked my back gently.

Then I noticed something below, a small dot coming out of the sea. It was getting closer to the rocky slope, and I realized it was a toddler, in a long, white shirt. Suddenly, I heard a cheerful cry:

“Father!”

The Siberian man waved back, smiling. The little girl was climbing towards us, growing. She was around 11 or 12 when she reached the top, and greeted us with a big smile and sparkling eyes, giggling.

She sat down next to me, where the old woman had been just before. The Siberian man took the blanket and put it around her. She bowed her head, and blushed slightly when she looked at me. She was probably around 18 now…

Seventeen

I wanted to meet Jupiter, but I could not see him anywhere. I was on the rocky side of a mountain, very high up. There was hardly enough room for my feet. I looked up and saw a figure standing on the top, with the head of a bull.

“What the hell”, I thought to myself, and I remembered that I had Taurus intercepted in the tenth house. I started to wonder what it actually meant to be intercepted. I was hoping the Siberian man would turn up soon, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. I could smell snow, and I was visited by a memory from my childhood: my mother and I were walking in the town centre, it was already dark, and soon it would be Christmas. I needed a pair of boots, and my mother was dragging me by the hand, pulling me to go faster, faster. I was staring at the shopwindows as we hurried by, I knew my mother wanted me to hurry so that I wouldn’t see them, all the Christmas decoration, the toys, the lights… our Christmases were always disastrous, lots of tension, rows, and cold… it started to snow, and it looked so beautiful, snowflakes glittering in the lamplight… my mother was talking to me but I couldn’t get myself to listen, I just wanted to let go of her hand and stay there, staring at the sparkling snowflakes dancing between my fingers…

Suddenly, I was back on the rocks, again, very high up, and I remembered that I had always thought that’s how I would end up one day: jump from a very high place. On my way home from school, I had to cross a railway bridge, and each time I stopped in the middle, stared down and imagined what it would be like to jump. I wouldn’t have to go home, never again. And then took a deep breath and walked away, walked home.

Then I noticed the Siberian man, he arrived at last. I asked him: “What is Taurus doing there? he’s not even my actual midheaven, he’s intercepted. I wonder what interception is about anyway…”

The Siberian man started to laugh “why don’t you ask the Sun? He knows all about it”. I shrugged. “I don’t know, all that Scorpio stuff, I don’t feel like meeting the Sun, it would be like being a child again, I hated being a child. Do we have to see him?”. The Siberian man stepped closer, embraced my face with his hands and looked deeply into my eyes. Suddenly I could see myself through his eyes, as if we swapped bodies.

And behind me, I saw the Sun climbing the rocks. He was young, probably under 18, wearing a long, white shirt, like a dress. His hair was blond, and he had golden flames around his head, like a crown. “Oh, shit” I thought, and I was myself again, “what is he doing up here?”. But the Siberian man shrugged, smiling.

Then I felt movement above us, too, and I saw that Taurus was descending, he was coming to meet us. The Sun arrived, smiled at me, but I was not at ease. He offered his hand, and I took it. By that time, Taurus arrived, too, and he took my other hand. We were staring down into the depths, and I understood what we were going to do. I got frightened, looked back at the Siberian man behind us.

“Won’t you come with us? please come with us.” – (“Don’t leave me alone with them,” I thought, but didn’t dare to say it out loud, I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the Sun and Taurus).  The Siberian man nodded and hugged me from behind.

And we jumped.

We were falling, falling, falling into darkness. Sometimes I saw roots of plants, sometimes I smelled soil. When we landed, we were in a night forest.

“is it always dark here? do you live in darkness?” – I asked the Sun.

He smiled, holding a candle in his hand “I am kind of a midnight Sun, after all. But no, how could I live in darkness, I am the Sun, I take light with me wherever I go”.

Of course, I thought to myself, I was stupid.

I still had no clue what Taurus was doing there, but he was coming with us anyway.

At one point, I saw something like an owl on a tree branch, but it changed into something else, with strange eyes, and it was shifting fast, couldn’t even grasp how many things it was at the same time.

“What is that?” – I asked the Sun.

“Oh, it’s one of Venus‘ creatures”

“Is she some kind of a witch? did she bewitch that poor animal into some kind of a hybrid?”

The Sun started to laugh, and so did Taurus.

“No, Venus is not a witch. She doesn’t make these creatures, she gathers them”

“Gathers them what for?”

I suddenly saw something like a cross between an old woman and some kind of an animal, but again, changing shapes so fast I could not even register what was going on.

“Is she one of them?” I asked. “Is Venus some kind of a hybrid? or a monster?”

“Don’t say that, she’s hurt enough. She’s not a monster” the Sun replied.

Then I saw a young woman, who came to meet us. Her hair didn’t look like hair, more like feathers, and I noticed she had feathers on her arms, too. I couldn’t resist touching her, and I felt embarrassed, hoping I did not offend her.

Three

I was in the forest. I recognized it from a series of dreams I had some ten years ago.  They were powerful and scary dreams, but I only remember the last one in detail: I was facing an army of the dead, and in the end, I buried them all with water, fire, soil and Sun.

This time, though, I was just there, not sure what I was, man, bug or stone,  lying in the grass. I saw a huge yew tree, but I was not sure whether to visit… so I just stayed there, in the grass, the wind gently blowing, and the days passing fast, evening, night, dawn, morning, afternoon, evening, dusk, night, and so on, a day in a few seconds, I don’t know how many weeks. Then I was in a field, it was the field where my mother took me a few times to harvest cucumbers, from morning till evening, hard work. But now it was just me there,  nobody else, there were no cucumbers, either, the clouds sweeping fast in the sky, and I could smell the soil. Then I was in another field, where we harvested corn when I was a kid, and I remember playing hide and seek with my cousin in a haystack when the adults were not watching. This field was empty, too, it was just me, the grass, the sky and the smell of hay… Then I was in yet another field, this one in France, where we once stopped with my husband to have a picnic and stayed for quite a while, just enjoying nature… now I was alone here,  too, surrounded by  wild flowers, feeling the Sun on my skin and enjoying the smell of wet grass…

Then I was in yet another field, one that I did not recognize. And, lying in the grass, I noticed a young woman stretched out not far from me. I saw her from the corner of my eyes, her skin was very pale, her hair long and reddish, and she did not move. “Is she one of the dead?” I wondered, and started to feel uneasy. I could not turn my head to see her properly. “Don’t worry” the bee said. I didn’t realize she was with me, until now. I wanted to perceive more of the woman, but she did not seem to move. I tried whether I could smell anything, and there was some bittersweet smell, I could not tell what it was… the bitter part reminded me of moss, I did not recognize the sweetness, though… I wondered whether it was some flower nearby, but I could not look around. And that’s when I realized that I could not move at all. I felt puzzled, but not scared.  “it’s okay” the bee said, and I opened my eyes.