The Ceremony of the Trees - Part Two...

Some time ago now, someone new moved to our valley. He talked about animal rights, countryside acts and the freedom or right to roam...he re-opened all the bridleways locally and bravely stomped through Bull filled fields and quarry land to demonstrate his status as an Eco-warrior. He works for a local television station and is never without his camera...he'd die for a tree, has found God, and threatens tractor drivers who dare assault a tree branch with their spikes.

I was always unsure...in theory he was a man of action, and I agreed with much of what he did...then.

He became and still is a public nuisance. He harasses the local council and lies quite happily to satisfy his private wants and needs. He has vandalised equipment and threatened to demolish neighbouring land owners stables if they won't bend to his whims, he has blocked off entrances to our land and tried to evict me from my legal home; the Police are beginning to think that this population of 25, may need an office of their own! To add insult to injury he bought the woods...the right to roam stops there... he owns it, it's his property and he has reinforced this point with both fencing and barbed wire. He has closed the two footpaths that I rode through as a child and usurped the local fishers from their fun. He drove a stake through the heart of the Sisters Wyrd and in doing so he banished me from my friends.

The Deer cannot pass this way, the otter and the badger's are contained, no one sees the Salmon jump or the Heron's glide...and a little girl was driven from the woods.

I had a dream shortly after it happened...I was down the woods, part of me or another me was buried in the ground and as I struggled to pull her free...she startled me with a screamed, "No!" her gaze falling behind me. I turned to see him stood there with an ax raised high above my head. As my eyes roamed the earth it revealed dismembered bodies, women torn and scattered limb from limb...I say women, they were me...I looked into my own eyes, those of this other self, "I'm sorry", I cried, "I can't help you, I have to save myself," I turned on my heels and ran. I ran harder than I ever have, I could feel him panting at my heels, as I fled for home in fear and despair, tears blurring my sight. We were gathered in the kitchen, the women of my line and as I told my tale, my sister looked increasingly disturbed; she climbed out of the window and ran, "bugger this I'm out of here," was it, and she was gone...and with it fled the vision of my dream.

My sister did leave after that, perhaps it was her aching heart that kept her away for so many years; though she's home now, there's still an empty space. I didn't know what to do...when I tried to return to the space of my childhood, it was over fences, gates and wire, I was breaking in... he found me there once, I stood my ground, while shaking in my boots...but I never ventured down alone again.

When creeping in cover of darkness, my cousin and I went to drum; we heard the returning cry of our ancestors across the water, rolling, pounding, beating...faster... faster, their thundering call echoed through the night. We'd just begun a healing, when a rush of energy assaulted us, it enveloped and surrounded us, howling in it's fury, there was evil in it's presence and madness on its breath...The black wolf at our heels drove us screaming from the forest, in fear for both our sanity and our lives.

When we passed beyond the gateway it was gone...