Dare

photo taken by Kelli Lynn from a hill in the cemetery behind Queens' Chapel in Kingston, GA, USA

I took a dare tonight, the eve before Halloween, and walked alone to a local cemetery after dark. I had been there about 12 years ago in the light. It was just before I decided to marry my husband. I had watched the movie The Hours for an upper level English class, and for some reason that film left me wanting to release a lot of energy surrounding the relationship I'd just behind left in Athens. I laid down among the graves and wept. My palms pressed into the ground beside me, I gave the Earth all it would take. I wanted to bury a part of me.

Tonight, I took that back--transmuted, transformed. Lying down among the unknown confederate dead, beside a memorial to other soldiers native to my town, I asked the Earth to give me back the medicine distilled from my pain. I laid down holding a lit stick of Palo Santo and slipped into the deeply comforting dark. I took several breaths with my eyes closed and then opened them upon a bright country sky. Directly above me, I saw a perfectly inverted triangle. It seemed to hold me.

I remained still and steady, breathing in the medicine distilled from my pain, speaking gratitude to the Earth, when I felt a shift: It was time for me to bury something else after all. I asked what I most needed to release. The answer clear inside my mind's eye was love. I was surprised. I needed to release love into death, to let the one concept embrace the other and create mutual change. Maybe I've done this intellectually, but the physical act feels new tonight.

I stood up and walked back to my shop feeling grateful. I heard people shouting across the cemetery, on the side where the bodies are not quite so ancient and fake flowers poke up out of the ground. I kept walking. I saw a cop pull into his station. I kept walking. I went round the familiar park in the middle of town, straight through the crossroads and into my shop from behind. I felt a touch of panic. Then peace.