Excerpts from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones

Vila SpiderHawk�s Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones, is a book�of eight stories about women who, when facing the challenges of life, turn for advice to the grandmothers of their cultures.� Though the stories are set in different eras and cover different kinds of issues, each one reflects a reverence for the divine feminine.

Wretched with her suffering, I bounded from the fire in a single leap. But the moment my foot hit the marble floor my toe flung a bolt of scintillating pain up my leg. My whole body sparkles with agony, and I slammed against my daughter with a grunt.

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones, p 152

Cinnamon and nutmeg, ginger and cayenne mingle with the tawny dust and always make me sneeze. And the sneezing always makes me laugh. But their incense also fans in me an odd nostalgia for foreign regions with exotic names that I have never seen. I've talked to the merchants about their homelands, of course, while they scooped their fragrant powders from their spice dyed sacks. And I visualize their countries as they spin their tales. But somehow I always think I am missing something, painting for myself a water color version of something that needs to be done in oils.

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones, p. 121

Floor to ceiling bookshelves covered the other walls, and a few were still occupied. I thought I sensed s cold swish of light near where some of the books leaned against one another. Probably, I told myself, it was just a trick of a cloud slipping across the sun. Except that there had been no clouds. I went over to the books to investigate. The chill hit again, and the herb scent was stronger. There was something there; I was sure of it, something I needed to understand, something I was supposed to learn. I wandered over the titles knowing that a subtle energy I couldn�t name was trying to guide me to a germ of wisdom.

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones pp 210-211

Death angels swarmed restlessly, white as bone, fleshless and grinning, greedily salivating for her soul. I hated them with a fire�s passion. I willed them to shrivel and be washed from the room, howling and writhing in a slurry of flame. But my spell back splashed onto me. It was my heart that withered to smoking cinders. It was I who was in danger of swirling, gray as ashes, on the wraith of my mother�s breath. How would I live without her hand to steady me?

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones by Vila SpiderHawk, p 107

Everything smelled as sweet as baby hair, as if the Sun Herself had a different odor than She did in the land of snow. And there was music hanging like snowflakes in the air. From the tall plants that glistened on the plain there came a song that sounded like little bones that someone was rubbing together. And from above came other melodies, songs as sweet as forgiveness. These sounds, she discovered, came from winged animals that flew through the clouds and rested in the trees. Some of the flying creatures were as blue as a newborn�s eyes while others were sunrise red. Some were whiter than boiled bone and as fat as a woman with child.

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones by Vila SpiderHawk p. 171

�Yes, Dear. Treblinka. But there were other camps. One was the same as another. I lost relatives at every one of them, I think. My whole family was gone. Every last one of them killed, even my Anna.� Anger sparkled in her eyes. Her voice went hoarse. �The Nazis didn�t kill just the Jews. Oh, no. They killed everyone who was different. They just erased us as if we�d never existed. I don�t even have a picture left. Nothing.� The grief in her voice was worse than outright sobbing. I was so sorry that I�d put her through the memory. �So pretty, my baby girl. Such lovely hands she had, such long, graceful fingers. Not stubby like mine.� She tossed her head with a mother�s pride, and it was clear that she was no longer sitting on a dining room chair talking to a little American girl. Her body was with me, but her mind was somewhere in Europe listening to her daughter play. I mourned with her that day, though I had not yet seen the face of death. I climbed into her lap and she held me, rocking absently and humming a lullaby that her Anna liked to play. And together we wept for the daughter who had graceful hands and who loved to play Chopin. I never asked about the tattoo again.

� Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones pp 14-15

She had a scar-deep crease from the bridge of her nose to her hairline that cut her face in two. Her forehead was raked with horizontal lines. Laugh lines fanned from her eyes to mid cheek, and her cheeks were collapsed in on themselves. Her mouth was a mere slit below the hatchet of her nose. Her face was shadow smudged. Her ragged white hair limped about her shoulders and allowed her pink scalp to peek through.

She was bent and so thin that she looked quite frail, yet she had the grip and grace of an athlete. She stooped to pick up a grain of sand and straightened in one nimble swoop. With lizard claw fingers she placed the grain in my palm. "This is a single grain of sand," she said as if I couldn't see that. The panther purred noisily and nudged her free hand. She absently scratched the animal's ears. "You can spend an entire lifetime learning everything there is to know about this single grain. And if you accomplish that you will have done well. But you will have learned about that solitary grain."

She swept her arm to indicate the rest of the beach. The cat's head followed her motion. "The universe is like this beach, Heraulta. And each grain of sand, like every snowflake, is different, complete. Each has its own history; each is rich with its own lore. Learn your grain. But when you do, understand that you've taken a single step toward wisdom." And before I could blink she and the cat were gone, leaving me to stand open mouthed and flat-footed, staring at the glowing granule in my palm. What had I learned in all my years? Had I used my lifetime well?

Excerpt from Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones P 137

�You see, Spider continued, seeing the blank look on her student�s face, � before a soul leaves this cave it knows exactly what kind of life it will have. It knows its gender, its health, and its circumstance. It agrees to every detail of the life it will lead before it enters the womb.�

"Listening for a while to the rhythmic thumping of the loom Tichu thought about what Spider had said. �Why would a soul deliberately choose to become an Unchosen One?� The pain of her memories seeped into her voice. Spider shrugged.

"�Perhaps to learn a lesson that will enhance her spiritual growth. Or to rise above her circumstances. For some, I'm sure, it's to, how did you put it, to provide a service that she couldn't perform if she birthed a babe every year. The reasons are as many as the souls, Tichu. Only the soul knows the reasons for her choices.�

"And so it went. Tichu carded and spun and wove while she and Spider talked of courage and life. In the depth of the cave, there was no way to measure time, and Tichu had no idea how long she'd been there. She had settled into a pleasant life, enjoying her work and the Spider's conversation. And she was genuinely torn when Spider said it was time for her to make a choice. �You have learned what I'm willing to teach you, My dear. You can take that knowledge and give your people cloth and bring hope to the Unchosen Ones, now that you understand how brave they are. Or you can stay and learn the rest of my wisdom. But if you stay, you must remain until you start a new life.�

"Tichu tried many times to leave the Spider, but each time she reached the mouth of the cave she turned and fell weeping into Grandmother's arms. And every time she was resolved to stay she remembered the children of her tribe and would run for the mouth of the cave. It was Spider who finally convinced her to go. �I'll be here eternally, Tichu,� Lady Spider reasoned. �Your people are suffering now, and you cannot help them unless you return.� Weeping and kissing Spider over and over, Tichu packed up her treasures and left.

Excerpt from Vila SpiderHawk�s Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones PP 169-170

Instead, she stood and let her arms drop, hands open, palms forward, smiling sweetly as her feet faded into the tree. Told myself it was a trick of the fog, though the sun had long since burned it away. Paralyzed with incredulity, I watched as her legs melted up to her knees. When her thighs dissolved and I finally understood, I convulsed with the horror of the scene, breaking into spasmodic screams and bobbing uselessly as I struggled to loose my fear-frozen feet. I dropped the cloth into the dusty street and willed my feet to flee as the tree absorbed her torso. I tried to shriek, "My child! Please help my child! Get out of my way! Move!" But I could not push the words from my mouth. I hurtled through the crowd, shoving people aside, tripping over table legs and children. I growled and snarled, panted and bayed. I fell over a dog and scraped my knee. I yanked myself back to my feet to run, to fly if I could, to save my daughter. Her shoulders were gone by the time I reached the edge of the crowd. A single round syllable escaped from my mouth and grew into a full-blown wail. I raced across the meadow, my feet entangling in the undergrowth. I swore when my dress caught on a bramble. Somewhere in the race, a comb had fallen out. My hair fell loose and whipped about my face. I did not care. I lost a sandal as well. I knew my foot was bleeding. Sharp stones cut painfully into my sole with every step. I cared nothing for that either. My breath came in ragged gulps, the stitch in my side stabbing with every jarring footfall. "Cara, Cara," I tried to scream as I fought for breath, as I jabbed through the thick and humid air. But by the time I was within arm's reach all that remained was her luminous face peering serenely from the wrinkled bark as if she had become the spirit of the tree. And then she was gone, leaving not even a halo in the dark and weathered wood.

Excerpt from Donnata, Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crone, PP 83-84

With Grandmother gone the woods had gone dark. Great tenebrous shapes hulked all around me with wide hunched shoulders and small angry heads. They loomed high above me and skittered under my feet, as if some would trip me so the others could pounce. They threatened from every side. They closed in on me like giants and gnomes. I stood dead still in my bright white dress, hoping that if I didn't move I would confuse them into believing that I was one with them. Moving only my eyes I looked for a friendly face, but there was no one to protect me, nobody to hover.

I thought I heard my mother sing and nearly lost my nerve. I wanted the comfort of Grandmother's lap, the melody of my mother's voice. I wanted their stories and

laughter and songs, their fingers fondling my willful hair. I wanted sunshine on Grandmother's roses and Dora's apple cakes. I wanted my puppy's dirty paws. I wanted the safety of the garden wall where life was predictable, shielded and secure.

I taunted myself. "Is this what it's like to become a woman, to be scared of the shadows and weeping for home?" But even as I dared myself I searched through pointy-fingered shades to find the way back. There was none, for when Grandmother left she had taken the footpath with her.

I had not realized how quiet the forest had been until she'd gone. Not even a cricket chirped. My heartbeat clamored in my ears. My breath roared like a storm. I squared my shoulders. I even hummed a little martial song that I had heard a few times at the market. "If you don't feel brave," Dora always said, "pretend until you do." I pretended as hard as I could.

When my eyes adjusted themselves to the dark and the phantoms became just the shadows of the trees I tried the gate. It was locked. Somehow I'd known it would be. I stepped back and sat down to assess the situation.

The buckle of a gray stone wall that spread deep into the forest fog, the gate was huge, much taller than anything I'd seen back home. Silver and stout and made of graceful scrollwork except for occasional cross bars, its uprights, which were more like vines, were too close for me to squeeze through. Nonetheless, I thought that if I could just reach over my head and grasp a bar and prop my foot on one of the scrolls I could probably boost myself up and over the thing. I was satisfied. I had a plan.

I got up and dusted dried leaves from my dress and clapped debris from my hands. I hiked up my clothing so my legs would be free and tested a scroll with my foot. It held. I stepped back, took a running leap, and reached as far up as my arms would go, pulling myself up a little off the ground. But when I hung by my arms trying to find a foothold the gate went limp as if it had decided to melt. Still kicking, I sagged with it to the ground. For the briefest of moments I counted myself lucky. I saw myself simply stepping over the flaccid bars. And then the bars moved.

They slithered across the ground, poking up against my feet, their silvery bodies curling and coiling amongst themselves. Little forked tongues darted in and out. I understood. My breath knotted in my chest. My stomach lurched, and I went cold with fear. I had a primal urge to run. My whole body screamed to run. But I could not move my feet. Snakes curled around my ankles and tasted my heels. They slithered, cool and dry over my insteps and toes. I shivered in horror. I struggled to scream, but I had no voice. I was paralyzed, utterly immobilized with fear.

Excerpt from Cara (Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones) PP 46-48

It's getting dark. The drums have already begun, and Mama hasn't finished with my hair yet. She has been unbraiding it, combing it with her fingers into loose, black waves down to my waist. Her fingers tremble, and her eyes are teary. But she's proud as well as sorrowful. While she's losing a child, she's about to gain a sister, for this night I shall be recognized as a woman.

I am still wearing my child's garb, a plain, dull dress of ordinary tan with no ornamentation. But soon I'll be arrayed in my ceremonial white skin shift. Mama and the other women of the tribe have been working on it for months, bleaching the skin and drying it in the sun, making the fringe around the hem and across the bodice just above the buds of my breasts. They have beaded it, too, with bright red, yellow, and green painted orbs made of wood and of bone. The beadwork is intricate, forming twirls and swirls into patterns as mesmerizing as a wise woman's eyes. My moccasins, too, have been carefully made. I helped with them, chewing the leather until it was as soft as a baby's cheek. And I sewed them together, though I had to rip out the stitches several times to get them right. Gray Cat did the beadwork on them, because she has the skill as no one else does. They are incredibly beautiful, more like boots than the moccasins we wear for every day. I keep thinking about those beautiful clothes. I can't wait to put them on. I fidget with excitement. Mama scolds me to be still. Her voice is harsh and impatient. But she's not angry. She's only nervous.

Last night I was too. I was as jittery as a rabbit at a buffalo hunt. My stomach was tight, and I could not eat the special meal that Mama had worked so hard to prepare. She smiled wanly when I apologized. And I tried not to notice the disappointment in her eyes, tried not to see the hurt. She sacrificed for the meat that went into that meal, giving away her favorite dress to trade for it. But the smell of it made my stomach lurch, and I feared that I would be sick. So I left the cook fire and walked into the woods where the smell of roasting flesh would not assault my senses. When I returned to the camp the cook fires were dead and the smell of food long gone.

I tossed on my pelt pallet, worrying and fretting until exhaustion finally wrapped me in sleep. In my dreams Buffalo Calf Woman came and held my hand. She whispered in my ear words that I cannot remember now, and she kissed my cheek. When I awoke I knew that everything would go as it should, just as it does for every girl whose time has come to take on the rights and responsibilities of womanhood. Now, however, Mama worries, and it is I who must reassure her instead of the other way around.

Silver Water is so jealous! I guess I didn't help the situation when I put on airs today, making a great show of fasting while she gorged herself on a breakfast of honeyed meal and berries. I really must apologize tomorrow. It would be the mature thing to do, and I am, after all, a woman now.

We've never gone anywhere without each other, even when we explored the caves that our parents warned us not to enter. We have stood up for one another without fail and even lied for one another. Sometimes we even got away with it. I'm sure there were never sisters as close as we. In fact, everyone calls us the twins, though I am two years older. Now, however, she must stay on this side of the stream. When I cross the water I shall do it alone.

My hair feels so strange hanging loose. It has always been braided, even in my sleep. Mama used to braid it twice a day until I got old enough to do it for myself. Sometimes, for feast days or other special occasions she would plait colored strips of cloth or feathers into my braids, which always made me feel beautiful and important. Later, once I got the hang of it, I added bits of shell to the ornaments. But tonight my hair has to be loose and free of adornment so that my energy may flow.

She is done! And not a moment too soon, for the sun is almost fully set. The sky is blood red now, a good sign for a woman's naming. The drums are insistent. They call for me. And I am ready to shed my child's name as a snake sheds its skin. I am ready to meet my future.

Silver Water approaches. She is so solemn. She walks so slowly, just as Mama taught her. How self-conscious she looks. She's trying too hard to get it right. I want to hug her, to hear her giggle. I want her to race up to me and grab my hand and run like the wind with me into the hills. I do not know this sober child who looks so earnestly into my face as if I were a stranger. Tears ache in my throat. I cannot say her name.

It is time to hand her my doll, for, now that I am a woman I must give away my childhood things. It is a beautiful doll that Papa made for me from the wood of a distant forest. He traded pelts for the log and made a bowl for Mama and a whistle for Silver Water and this doll for me. She is so lovely, her burnished body glowing deeply red, her eyes as black as a cave. I named her Mystery, because she came from a place where I have never been. She wears the first blanket I ever wove, small and rough. It is faded now, but it was pretty once, dyed bright red and trimmed with green. I have slept with this doll every night for seven years.

Now I bless my sister as she stands before me clutching the doll that she has always coveted. But she does not look content. It is not the doll she wants. What she wants is for things to stay the same.

How small she looks in her little girl's body, so slender and flat. How vulnerable she seems, so in need of protection. Suddenly I fear for her. Suddenly I understand why Mama hovered so over me, for now I want to hover over my little dove of a sister. I place her hand in Mama's and turn my back to them so they will not see my tears.

The air is cold as I remove my child's garb. I stand naked before the autumn moon, and I shudder, not just because of the chill. I am hungry and confused. I want this ceremony more than I have ever wanted anything. Yet I am walking away from the life I know. From this night forward my relationship with Mama and Silver Water, indeed with everyone in the tribe, will be different. I don't know that I am ready for this. My body says I am. I have, after all, shown my first blood. But my mind clings to the security of my mother's lap.

Passages: Excerpt PP 26-30

People think living in the city is anonymous and solitary, and maybe it is for some. But the block I grew up on was as intimate as a small village. I lived in the corner house at the end of a row of stone and brick homes on a narrow tree lined street in the shadow of the elevated trains. Each house had a small patch of dirt in front that most of our neighbors planted with ivy and rhododendrons, which would flourish in the shade of the elms that grew just at the edge of the curb. People spent time outside. They talked while they swept imaginary dirt from their patch of sidewalk or while they weeded their front yards. And on summer evenings they gathered on their front porches and chatted over the railings that divided them. As children we knew we could knock on any door on the block and be welcome. All the neighbors watched over us as if we were their own.

In our neighborhood we all addressed our elders as Mr. or Mrs. and their last names. Even the adults followed that rule. There was only one exception. An old woman who lived in the middle of the block had a long and unpronounceable name that no one could remember. We called her Mrs. Po, though behind her back people called her other things. Mama called her D.P. I didn't know what that meant, but I knew by the way she said it that it wasn't nice. I thought it was a bad word for which she was using initials, the way she did when she said G.D. Once I asked Mama what G.D. meant and got smacked for the question. I allowed D.P. to lie in the realm of mystery.

The children called Mrs. Po a witch, because she was a solitary old woman who didn't go to any of the local churches and because she was dark skinned and spoke with a slight accent. "Don't go near Mrs. Po," Kathleen had warned, tossing her black braids knowingly. Though she went to Holy Innocence School and I went to Francis Hopkinson Elementary, we were best friends. She was a year older than I and had adopted me as her little sister, since both of us had only brothers. "She'll cook you in her oven and eat you for dinner," she had promised. And, as proof she cited Hansel and Gretel.

Everyone in the neighborhood was afraid of Mrs. Po. Though the adults pretended to be civil with her, even they gave her a wide berth and never initiated conversation with her. I found her fascinating the way people are fascinated with car wrecks along the side of the road. Though I lacked the courage actually to knock on her door, I found my eyes clinging to her house as I walked past to run errands for my mother or to go to Kathleen's house to play. Then one autumn afternoon I saw her on the porch. "Hello, Susie-Q," she smiled. And I giggled. She knew my name was Jody. Everybody did.

Her playful voice cracked a bit, but her eyes twinkled, and her face erupted in a smile that overtook her entire body. I could hear Kathleen's voice warning that witches wore charm like a new dress when they wanted to lure unsuspecting children into their lairs. But I liked the lady in the babushka and flowered apron who smiled down at me from the shadows of her porch. She looked pretty much like any of the other women of the neighborhood. She wore the same brown oxfords as all the mothers. And, like theirs, her hose were rolled in garters that showed just above the knee as she bent over her broom to sweep the autumn leaves from her porch. Her faded cotton house dress was cheaply made, as were the dresses of all the mothers. To me she looked like any other woman on the block except that she was a bit darker and she wore a black wool shawl instead of a sweater. And, of course, she was old.

I had never seen anyone as old as Mrs. Po, and that, too, fascinated me. I stood transfixed for what seemed like a very long time. Then I ran.

All afternoon I felt bad about running. On reflection, it seemed like a cruel thing to do. I made up my mind to apologize the next time I passed her house, but I didn't. I could not force my feet to climb the steps to her front door and knock. So I went home and ate dinner with the family and went to bed feeling mean and ashamed.

I found excuses after that to pass Mrs. Po's house as often as I could, hoping to find her on the porch. It was a week before I saw her again. "Hello, Susie-Q." Seated on a rocking chair, both her hands busy shelling peas, she nodded her greeting.

I forced myself to speak. "Hello, Mrs. Po." Then I heard my voice ask if I could help her with her work. Where had that idea come from? What if she really was a witch? What if she snatched me up and cooked me in a great iron pot and fed my gizzard to the huge statue of the Devil that Kathleen told me was in the corner of her living room? Though it wasn't particularly cold, I began to tremble.

"That would be nice." She smiled her whole-body smile and patted the green wooden rocker next to hers. I ascended the steps as if I were approaching the dentist's chair.

Hidden Passages: Tales to Honor the Crones, Mima Po PP 1-3

Kathleen�s mother was ghoulish in her vampire outfit, her lipstick blood trickling down her chin, when she took us trick or treating that Halloween night. She swooped and swept her cape over us and laughed her deepest, most menacing laugh in a parody of the vampire movies we had all seen. Feigning terror, I squealed with delight. Immune to her mother�s antics, Kathleen constantly adjusted her silver foil tiara and complained relentlessly about the itchy pink tulle of her ballerina�s tutu.

- Mima Po, P 5

Silver Water approaches. She is so solemn. She walks so slowly, just as Mama taught her. How self-conscious she looks. She's trying too hard to get it right. I want to hug her, to hear her giggle. I want her to race up to me and grab my hand and run like the wind with me into the hills. I do not know this sober child who looks so earnestly into my face as if I were a stranger. Tears ache in my throat. I cannot say her name.

- Passages, P 29

I was entombed in Rabbit's pain. Oh, that bottomless pain. It closed in from all sides. It crushed me from above and sucked me in from below. My vision went black and my mind went numb. I felt as if someone had ripped open my belly and robbed from me all that would keep me alive and then filled me up with broken glass. And for a moment I thought I heard my mother's cry.

- Cara, P 51

"You don't know? You can't feel it? This is the cloak of life. It's made of the generations, Donnata, of the cycles that they make. See how they interact?" She traced a coil of blue. "See how Grandmother dies and returns as daughter, how the babe grows to be Crone and dies? See how the cycle never ends but feeds on itself, swirling backward, swirling forward." Her finger followed the intricate pattern on my lap.

- Donnata, P 96

Frantic for my child, I scoured the fire calling on all my power to pull her back, but there was nothing except orange flame, braiding and unbraiding, mockingly hissing as it churned charcoal into heat.

- Heraulta, P 135

Tichu considered what the women had said. The fire festered like a wound, melting the snow around its base to a sickly oozing slush. Sitting cross-legged, the women waited, still as ice, unwilling to disturb her reflection. At last Tichu drew her hand from Harugi�s, kissed the Crone on both her cheeks, and rose to speak. Her eyes flashed defiance. �When I die,� she poked her chest fiercely with her finger, �it will be in Grandmother Spider�s arms, not on the end of a spear.� Her voice, sharp as flint, chiseled between her clenched teeth.

- Nanu�s Story, P 179

Bruised under my eyes with sleeplessness, I did look abused, and my normally plump cheeks had gone dark and hollow. My clothing folded around my body as if I were a child wearing her mother�s dress. I was evaporating swiftly, as inexorably as tea water screeching from a kettle. I couldn�t remember when I�d eaten last.

- Gita�s Journey, P 201

White light and the smell of antiseptic surged over us. I stepped backward bumping into Helen and stayed there, back pressed against her breast. A persistent and annoying beep punched through the light, its monotonous pitch striking something behind my eyes giving me a headache. I winced and massaged my temples.

- Lavinia, P 256

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