Years ago, while hiking in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, the Bone Goddess came to me. She is a Numina, a Spirit of Place, a capricious Goddess who is content to be unseen, even forgotten. Yet She spoke to me in the hot sun, the shimmering mirages that hover just off the trail, the eternal rustle of the wind through the saguaro and cholla needles. In fact, she just wouldn't leave my imagination until I wrote her story about these hot and lonely places. I think She is related to the old woman of the wolves and arroyos, "La Loba", that Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote about in Women Who Run With The Wolves. In her own way, the Bone Goddess sings over the bones as well, and restores bone-dry souls to life, if they can come to her empty-handed. And if She feels like it.
THE BONE GODDESS
I was the first one. I am this land, and you no longer know me. Ah well. So what. I've been here a long time. A long time.
In the beginning, I was alone. Alone in this place. Me, and Old Man Mountain, sleeping beneath the hot sun. We were young, once. His teeth were ragged peaks, then, his breath was fire, his mouth was always open, hungry to eat the sky. Hey, Old Man! Do you remember me, do I still figure in your dreams? Do you remember me when my hips were full, my breasts round, when I was full of juice? Or do you just sleep there beneath the stars now, dreaming of dust? And they are always digging, cutting at Old Man Mountain.
I was the first one. Beneath the young sun, waking up the People: Ho, Snake, Hare, Mallow. We spoke together then, laughed more. These ones, they think they own the place. Ha. They dig and dig, but they will not find me.
Listen, I will tell you something, since you have come here with your hands empty. You are full of holes.
Sometimes a person stands up and walks outside and keeps on walking into the sun, and does not know why. Comes a time when you have given so much of yourself away that there is nothing left, when you can be seen through to the bone. That is when you find yourself in my country.
Walk into the desert, and sit beneath a cholla and be silent, and notice the shapes of bald mountains. Old Man, sleeping. The shape of his shadows, the shape of the sky, the color of shadows. That is when you must find beauty in a cholla, crack in the sun like an old bone. That is the time when you must collect your own shadows.
Bring your offerings, I will give them to the Bird People, the Mouse People, walk in the shimmering heat, the silence, you may find me. If I want you to. I may tell you stories that wrap themselves around old bones, quartz and turquoise, pottery shards, stories of Snake and Coyote and cracks in the land like a spider web, full of light. And I may not.
THE BONE GODDESS
I was the first one. I am this land, and you no longer know me. Ah well. So what. I've been here a long time. A long time.
In the beginning, I was alone. Alone in this place. Me, and Old Man Mountain, sleeping beneath the hot sun. We were young, once. His teeth were ragged peaks, then, his breath was fire, his mouth was always open, hungry to eat the sky. Hey, Old Man! Do you remember me, do I still figure in your dreams? Do you remember me when my hips were full, my breasts round, when I was full of juice? Or do you just sleep there beneath the stars now, dreaming of dust? And they are always digging, cutting at Old Man Mountain.
I was the first one. Beneath the young sun, waking up the People: Ho, Snake, Hare, Mallow. We spoke together then, laughed more. These ones, they think they own the place. Ha. They dig and dig, but they will not find me.
Listen, I will tell you something, since you have come here with your hands empty. You are full of holes.
Sometimes a person stands up and walks outside and keeps on walking into the sun, and does not know why. Comes a time when you have given so much of yourself away that there is nothing left, when you can be seen through to the bone. That is when you find yourself in my country.
Walk into the desert, and sit beneath a cholla and be silent, and notice the shapes of bald mountains. Old Man, sleeping. The shape of his shadows, the shape of the sky, the color of shadows. That is when you must find beauty in a cholla, crack in the sun like an old bone. That is the time when you must collect your own shadows.
Bring your offerings, I will give them to the Bird People, the Mouse People, walk in the shimmering heat, the silence, you may find me. If I want you to. I may tell you stories that wrap themselves around old bones, quartz and turquoise, pottery shards, stories of Snake and Coyote and cracks in the land like a spider web, full of light. And I may not.