An Unearthing of Goddesses

An Unearthing of Goddesses Part 32

Kate and Adam continued in their wolf forms for days, prowling the forest, hunting, mating, cozying up in their snug den at night and talking for hours in their animal language. Then one day, they reached the edge of the woods and Kate saw Maeve staring at her from across a field. It was time. She looked at her black wolf mate and nuzzled him softly.

"Until we meet again."

"When?"

"Whenever I can."

She padded to Maeve's side, and as she transformed back into human form she heard the lone, mournful howl pierce the night. She lay in bed that night in her treehouse room, crying into her bedsheets of linen and yearning for the soft moss of her wolf bed and her mate's limbs curled against hers.

***

The next day Kitsune took her on a long walk to their next training.

"Are you all right?" Kitsune's voice was soft as a floating leaf above them.

"No. But I will be."

"Sometimes when I am sad, I go to sit in a quiet place, where wild things soothe my heart. I watch the blue heron soar mutely overhead to his place at the pond's edge and I lie down in rest, knowing I will rise stronger, for a time."

Kate cocked her head. "You get sad? I thought goddesses were beyond emotion."

Kitsune nodded. "Of course we do. We get sad, we get mad, we get jealous. You have read mythology, correct?" She giggled. "There are many stories of our emotions. Niobe is the goddess of tears – after her children were killed, she pleaded with Zeus to turn her emotions to stone – he turned her to a rocky cliff on a mountain where her face still cries endless tears. We have all the human emotions – the results of them are just more catastrophic. Yet after millennia, most of us have learned to control them. But, there are still times when I feel sad. And, I am sure you have seen how cross Maeve becomes when Marta does not behave!"

Kate laughed. "Yes, I have. Kitsune – will I be able to spend time with Adam again? As a wolf or – as a human?"

"We will meditate on it," Kitsune stopped at an outcropping of rock that jutted from the ground. Stooping down, she showed Kate a dark opening.

"We will ask the Spirits of the stone. Now we enter our next place of learning, the Earth caves."

They stooped and entered the caves. When they had walked through the narrow entrance, the pathway descended and opened up to the spacious rooms within. Cavernous ceilings rose above opalescent walls. Spiky stalactites and stalagmites surrounded them, and they wound their way around the labyrinthine walks until they came to a seemingly endless lake, reaching as far as the eye could see. It was a spectacular crystalline blue and at its edge was a small beach where a fire burned. They reclined beside its warmth and then a lone figure approached them. An indigenous man, with weathered face and feathered head. He nodded to them briefly, then sat at the water's edge and quietly chanted. He lit a smudge stick and waved it, strategically making patterns in the dim light and moving the smoke to create the sacred blessing, acknowledging the spirits that moved among them in the Earth caves.

The man danced solemnly, shaking a medicine stick, and calling to the ancestors to answer their prayers.

He called to the Great Spirit

Whose voice he heard in the winds

And whose breath gave life to the world.

He called to be made wise so he may

Understand the lessons that were hidden

In every leaf and rock.*

Kitsune and Kate watched respectfully. At Kitsune's urging, Kate approached him.