I crack the bedroom window above my head to let in the cool night air, the smell of rain and to give my spirit an escape hatch. Time to head out.
As I slip through the window, Brown Bear appears. It is a dark, summer night, and he is barely visible, a shadow under the evergreens deep in our back yard. A full moon glides in and out from behind clouds. I grab fists full of golden-brown fur and vault lightly onto his back. He pads, unseen, around the end of the hedge, slips through backyards, blackberry alleys and dark passages between houses until we arrive at Padden Creek. We amble down the creek bed, past dogwood, snowberry, thimbleberry and big leaf maple. We startle deer and raccoons, following the stream as it meanders through greenways, neighborhoods, behind industrial buildings and finally, under the train tracks as it empties into the Bay.
Bear and I wade into the cold salt water until I begin to feel the floaty rise and fall of a gentle swell underneath us. I’m warm and comfortable on his back, and the cold water feels fine flowing past my feet. We swim on, through glittering swirls of bioluminescence, toward the dark hump of the island that borders the far side of the Bay. I doze, lulled by the motion, feeling secure and sure that wherever Bear is taking me is the right place. I awake as his paws touch the smooth, muddy bottom of Inati Bay. We climb out of the water, padding past the remains of cooking fires and onto a nearly invisible trail that winds through tall grass at the north end of the sandy beach. We enter the forest, tall dark fir and cedar trees, full peek-a-boo moon lighting our way then sneaking back behind clouds. Small creatures scatter as our sound and smell reaches them. We move through the brushy understory of salal, sword fern, Oregon grape and tall vine maple. We start climbing this whale’s humpback of a mountain. The trail zigs and zags, rising and falling but steadily heading upward toward the steep ridge.
We reach a kind of shelf or plateau and enter a clearing bordered on two sides by fallen trees. A bonfire with sparks shooting up into the stars lights the shadowy faces of three women gathered around the fire. The taller one, in ceremonial dress, is in the middle. The other two, of indeterminate age, flank her. Bear ambles into the circle of firelight and lowers his hindquarters, allowing me to slide off. I know we have reached our destination. Bear backs away from the circle and slips into the dark.
The woman in the center speaks, “Why have you come? What do you want, and what do you bring? I am awe-struck and, for the first time tonight, more than a little frightened. “I have a terrible pain in my head. I am footsore and weary. I keep falling, flailing and failing. I am wounded, and I can no longer walk off my pain. I need your help.”
The fire pops, shooting stars up into the night. There is a pause, a deep stillness. I wait, not hearing but sensing some communication among the three women. The middle woman, with a turquoise ceremonial collar, replies. “We will give you what you ask and a little something else besides to help you on your way.” I feel a sharp burning sensation on the right side of my forehead and reach up to finger a scar, fully healed, in the shape of a half-moon with a little tail. The shape mimics the visual aura that precedes the lopsided pain in my head. I often wish people could see what I feel.
The woman goes on, “Your feet will carry you far and wide and give you many opportunities to tell your story. Each time you tell your story and walk on with a fresh wind at your heels, your pain will diminish, Walking Woman. We accept your story, but only you can pay it forward to receive the gift the telling will bring.”
The fire in the circle of stones burns low. Only coals remain. As the last glow winks out, the three women fade into utter blackness of the forest. For a moment I am chilled by the cold and dark and the strangeness of it all. Then I feel, hear the snuffle and shuffle of Bear as he huffs up behind me. I turn and grab the thick pelt and spring up to my seat behind his shoulders. As we head down the mountain and wade through tall beach grass, I see a faint glow across the water, on the eastern horizon, promise of the new day to come.