This time I traveled without my family, taking in their place a friend who did not yet know the land. There comes a point in one’s journey when the comfort of the familiar gives way without fear to the unknown. I was to play the role of Bratha, the “Feathered Seer,” without knowing what would await me. When I left the comfortable place of the hearth to fly across the Atlantic, I did not know the role I was to play at the Silent Eye’s annual workshop would become me as the land gave way her secrets.

The journey began long before I boarded the plane. Such is the nature of all journeys, whether we are aware of it or not. They do not abide by the rules of the mind, or the laws of life as we are accustomed to living it. The truth is, the rocks had been whispering to me inside of my dreams; the land calling out to me with my first breath, as it calls out to all birthed inside the womb of Earth. We listen when we are ready. We follow the lead when it becomes the only path that pulls.

Bratha lived at a time long ago, when the land was still considered sacred, but its people were turning away from the Mother, toward ego’s fear and greed. As the threads of light were torn by the hands of mankind, the stones became the keepers of memories, holding the secrets of the light inside their seemingly inert bodies as they waited for those who wanted to remember. They became the guardians of the secrets, marking the nodes of the web of light waiting to be re-ignited. They guard them still.

The story of Bratha tells of a guide, who lent strength to the light of hope she carried through the land and spread to her people. It speaks of a seerer who refused to give up, even though the brutal violence of man raped and killed her people, and  burned and ravaged the land she held sacred. Bratha saw Truth inside of the shadows, and spoke it to those who would hear her words. Her journey was that of the greatest horror imaginable, but in the midst of the darkness, there was always the light. She died in peace, held by the hands of love. Her body, carried by the liquid water of Earth’s womb, found home once again in the Mother. Now she is a memory, dividing the lands of the living, from the lands of the dead.

Yet she is not gone. I have felt her presence, as others before me have. As they do still. She speaks to me of longing. Of hope. Her grasp is urgent and intense. Once felt, you cannot turn away.

Walk with me, and we will travel her path together…

In the posts that follow this one, I will take you on a journey through Bratha’s beloved land as I experienced it during my recent trip to England.