Etched in Stone

Barry Lopez writes in an article about artist Rick Bartow, "It is legitimate to call the artist a carrier, a runner. He or she brings forward a story known from an earlier time. He changes nothing, adds nothing, but by the medicine he has been given, by his gift, he inflects the story."

She struggles with what to write on the sympathy card to the parents of dying twins. No Hallmark sentiment could possibly suffice. She waits for words, maybe too long, until one morning the tiny infant poem comes to her:
"Too rare
for anywhere
but their
ancient Celtic home."
She knows these girls from an earlier time, knows their Irish heritage, and knows this is all she should say. They aren't her words, really, but her responsibility to relay, her medicine, her simple gift to give. On April 12th, 2006 Eleanor Peck Hamilton and Rowan Quinn Hamilton return home (as their father writes). The memorial service is held on April 15th, the day between Good (God) Friday and Easter. Her friend brings her the program for the service. Those words, that just came to her so clearly, were on the front of the program. She is told that these will be the words that will go on the twins' grave marker; etched in stone. She's told by another friend that it isn't called a head stone or tombstone anymore (some aren't even stone anymore). What is she to understand of this? She is stunned.

"He (the artist) ensures that in his time it (the medicine) will lodge unforgettably in the memory of the listener."

Later, the mother writes a thank you note, "When I first read your beautiful poem I wept and thought how agonizingly apt it was for my beautiful elfin children...my changelings, my babies. You have given us the most beautiful fitting and romantic epitaph and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart." The medicine worked, so simply, with only the effort of listening to the spirit and passing it on.

"An artist arranges his life to take care of his medicine. He seeks out the medicine people, the doctors who can help him see (a bear, a tree, his father's brother)."

She has sought to arrange her life to honor the gift she was given, leaving her secure day job, committing to daily meditation and an open heart. Practice, practice, practice. But when the money ran out, she got scared, took another day job, and has little energy left to listen and record. She sees a fox on a spring ski adventure and knows the fox has something to tell her: feminine magic of camouflage, shapeshifting mistress of the between times, the thin places as they call it in Celtic Christianity. She knows the fox could jolt her awake into a "flash of pure epiphany...a diamond light," and yet she puts on her sunglasses and goes back to her job until tragedy strikes and she has no choice but to be still and listen. What is she to understand of this? The importance of her medicine, the need, the purity and aptness of it all. Does she say? Thank you? You're welcome? Does she tell anyone else about these words etched in stone? What does she feel? Pride? Humility? Embarrassment? Gratitude? Loving relief? Shock and awe, and all? She doesn't know. Does she just get on with her life until the next time? Perhaps she learns more from the twins' death then from their living. Perhaps her fear and need for security is a wicked distraction.

"He reminds himself it is not the medicine person who is great. It's that he or she knows how to participate more stongly in the mystery to which the artist has devoted himself. The artist needs guidance to reveal what happens when, for that brief period, he goes inside, when he steps further into life than most of us can manage. He wants to make as few mistakes as possible with his medicine."

The lesson in death, there really isn't that much time. Don't waste it on what she thinks others expect of her. Risk. Go deep. Abide in the 'tween spaces where so few wish to go alone. Walk the thin places, every time she is called, with a humble heart, grateful she has been given this gift~a gift no lesser or greater than anyone else's, but belonging uniquely to her. Let the words be etched in stone, words the twins gave her to comfort their grieving family. If she lives the good medicine, devoted, she will have lived well.