Stories

The Medicine Girl

By Leah Cox on August 3, 2021

Though she was only five years old, people travelled from all around to visit the girl. Sometimes they walked for days from a neighbouring village to reach her, such was her reputation for healing the sick.

No one knew how, but all had heard the stories of miraculous recovery people had experienced after visiting her. The girl didn’t mind. Listening to the herbs and plants was a game to her; one she’d always known how to play.

Someone would come with a weeping wound on their arm and she would go out into the forest and silently ask the Earth what she should use to help make it better. Then all she had to do was be quiet and listen and she would be drawn this way and that to collect leaves, stems, buds, bark or petals from the plants and trees.

Before returning to the house, she would always kneel on the forest floor with the treasures cupped in her small hands and ask the Earth how she should best prepare and use them. In the silence, the answer was always given and by and by she would return home to prepare and offer the medicine. Sometimes it would be a thick paste to rub on the body; sometimes a cup of tea to sip; sometimes a steaming infusion to inhale. The girl was never surprised when the people got better, though the people themselves often were.

She wondered why they did not play the game with the plants themselves so that they did not have to walk miles to visit her. One day, whilst she was playing in the forest, she cast out a question from her heart to understand why this was the case. In reply, the Earth told her that the adults used to play as she did now with the plants and trees but that as they had grown older, they had lost their connection and no longer believed it was possible to communicate with the world around them.

The girl pondered this a moment and then asked if she, too, would lose her connection to the forest and its messages. The Earth replied that she would never lose her connection since she had been chosen by the spirits to maintain a bridge between the seen and unseen worlds. For now, the Earth told her, she must simply continue to help whosoever came to her but that as she grew older her task would grow to include showing the adults the way back to the connection they had lost so that they could begin to help themselves.

The girl accepted what the Earth had told her and didn’t question further. She simply returned to her playing in the forest, thinking how nice it would be when more people remembered how to play as well.

Woman Rising

By Leah Cox on January 26, 2021

On the edge of a small village, on a cold winter’s night, as the ground was freezing hard under a clear sky, lit by an almost full moon, and whilst all the usual inhabitants slept warm in their beds, a lone woman, clothed only in some dirty torn rags, lay shivering and exhausted in a field under a great gnarly tree.

The crust of salt around her eyes told of the tears she had shed yet she was now too tired even for that. All that she could now manage was to let the flesh of her body fall over the ground, close her eyes and give herself to the blue-cold night. She was broken and defeated.

She had been a woman of reasonable status, according to the world. She’d had a reasonable job with a reasonable income, a reasonable home, a reasonable social life and a reasonable family life. She had every reason to be content with her lot.

And yet she was not content. Beneath the surface of the life she lived, her inner self was parched and worn. The light of her creativity had grown dim and she had wandered far – too far – from her true self.

And so little by little, and then finally with great speed, she had watched as her reasonable life crumbled around her until all that was familiar to her was gone. Her job, her health, her finances, her family life – all were in desperate tatters and she did not know where to turn.

And this is how she had ended up lying in the field under the great gnarly tree.

If you had been there that night, you would not have been able to notice by eye what happened next, but it was happening nevertheless.

Through the icy ground, the warm pulse of the earth’s core rose to meet the woman’s body and whispered, “You are made of this earth. You came from this earth. You belong to this earth.”

And the stars in the clear sky sent down threads of silvery light which met her body and spoke, “You are made of these stars. You came from these stars. You belong to these stars.”

And the great, almost-but-not-quite full moon reached down a golden arm and wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders and sang, “You are one with all things. You will not be left alone.”

And then out of the forest on the far side of the field, a line of women appeared and moved, whilst singing something low and sweet, towards the lone woman.

They knelt to form a circle around her body and set about their work. From their hearts they breathed love and warmth into the woman’s heart, as other women had once done for them. With their hands they reached out to soothe and comfort her tired body, as other women’s hands had once reached out for them. With their mouths they spoke to her of her goodness and worth, as other women had once spoken such words to them. And with their bodies, they prayed for her to know herself and rise.

And so with the warmth of the earth, and the silvery threads of light from the stars, and the golden arm of the moon, and the tremendous love of the women, the woman found her strength and rose. A great woven shawl was wrapped around her body and a simple silver ring of sisterhood placed on the second finger of her right hand.

Together now and led by the light of the moon, the women retraced their steps across the field, back into the forest and beyond to wherever they were needed next. Somewhere, another sister was in need of help.

Come morning, no trace was left of what had happened in the field under the great gnarly tree and the inhabitants would never know about the strange events that had occurred on the edge of their village that night.

But somewhere out there, one more woman’s heart had returned to life and the whole world had been lifted a little more out of its darkness and further into the light.

A Young Couple Wander Through the Woodland

By Leah Cox on December 11, 2020

A young couple wander through the woodland as night begins to fall. They are chit chattering about the problems of the day. Complaining and worrying about this and that.

Suddenly, out of the growing darkness, a sweep of white feathers glides right across their path and then disappears upwards and out of sight.

The couple stand in silent stillness, gazing at the place where the owl disappeared from view. The crumpled lines of worry across their foreheads have been replaced by wonder and delight.

On this particular winter evening, in this particular patch of woodland, this particular young couple have been offered a gift they didn’t know they needed. With a sweep of white feathers they have been pulled from their heads into their hearts. They have been severed from their shallow thoughts and reconnected to the real.

With nothing left to worry or complain about, they walk silently hand in hand amongst the trees, the peace of love pulsing in their hearts.

Do You Remember the Time?

By Leah Cox on July 28, 2020

Do you remember the time when we moved with the sunrise, waking with the birds as she cast her first hopeful light over the horizon? Do you remember the time when the soles of our feet were familiar with the soul of the earth? Or the time when our muscles ached with joy at day’s end?

Do you remember the way we told stories by moonlight and made music with our voices and hands? Do you remember the time when the food on our supper plate still tasted of the earth from which it came? Do you remember what it was like to own a little and love a lot? Or what it was like to feel a part of things? To know our place in things? To feel the gift in every breath?

Do you remember the way things were, before the way things are?

Do you remember? Do you remember what it was like? What it was like to be alive?

Love and courage,

Leah