(New York, Bantam, 1993)
In the dry time of year, the dangerous time, the risk time, an old woman climbed a hill. Like most people in the southern part of the city, she called the season El Tiempo de la Segadora, the Time of the Reaper. The hills were dry, the gardens dependent on the dwindling waters of cisterns, the rains still weeks away. A time of ripening, but not yet of harvesting, when nothing was certain.
She climbed the hill as she had once climbed mountains, one step at a time, planting her stick firmly in front of her and letting it bear her weight as she hoisted herself up. She was ninety-eight years old, born at the midpoint of the twentieth century. Two more years, and she would see the midpoint of the twenty-first. In her day she had climbed many things: Sierran peaks, pyramids, chain-link fences, the way back from despair to hope. And this hill, looming up above the southern corner of the city, rising like a pregnant belly above the green patchwork of houses and gardens and paths and the blue waters of San Francisco Bay. By Goddess, she could still make it up this hill!
Maya stopped to catch her breath. Around her was a moving throng of people, dressed in the greens and golds of the season, gossiping happily or chanting solemnly according to temperament. They carried baskets of offerings: bread and fruit and cheese, fresh vegetables from the gardens.
Below stretched a panorama of sculpted hills crowned by toy houses, cradling the aging skyscrapers that rose from the low ground beside the bay. The city was a mosaic of jewel-like colors set in green, veined by streams and dotted with gleaming ponds and pools. Seen from above, block of old row houses defined streets that no longer existed. Instead bicycles and electric carts and the occasional horse moved through a labyrinth of narrow walkways that snaked and twined through the green. Above the rooftops, gondolas like gaily painted buckets swung from cables, skimming from hilltop to hilltop, moving between high towers where windspinners turned. To the northeast, Maya could see a long train moving across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, bringing early grain to the central market. Beyond, the blades of the wind generators atop the Golden Gate Bridge seemed suspended in midair, the supports invisible under a gray shroud of fog.
Beautiful, Maya thought. She had adored the city ever since her first glimpse of it in the Summer of Love, more than eighty years before. She had been seventeen then, enchanted by the fog concealing and revealing mysteries like the veils of an exotic dancer, delighted by the crowded streets where people seemed to be perpetually in costume: gypsies, pirates, Indians, sorceresses skipping down the sidewalks to the strains of the Beatles singing "Love, Love, Love."
You have been my most constant love, she told the city silently. Not monogamous but never unfaithful, sometimes a bit tawdry but never boring. And you haven't gone and died on me yet, like the others.
"Love is all you need." The song played in her mind. But the Beatles misled us, she said to the air, thick with the ghosts of her own dead lovers. It wasn't all we needed. We wanted to love, freely and without barriers. We had to remake the world in order to do it.
Sighing, she continued up the steep incline. The truth is, she admitted, this is a hell of a climb for an old hag like me. I could have spared my strength, let Madrone visit the shrines.
The shrines to the Four Sacred Things encircled the base of the hill at the cardinal directions. Maya had made a laborious circuit. She left seeds of rare herbs at the earth shrine, feathers of seabirds and roosters at the air shrine. At the fire shrine she gave white sage and black sage and cedar, and at the water shrine, she'd left a jar of rainwater saved from the first storms of the previous autumn.
But Madrone probably wouldn't have time. I know how it goes, Maya grumbled. She's probably up to her elbows in blood and vernix, lucky if she can dash up the hill at the last minute. I'm fussy in my old age. An Orthodox Pagan, I like these rituals done right: a leisurely visit to each shrine, a walk up the processional way, time to meditate, contemplate, trance out a bit....
The path wound its way above the small reservoir dug into the side of the hill. Now she could hear the little stream that tumbled down a sculpted watercourse to feed the gardens along her own street. There were so many more gardens, these days. By necessity, now that the Central Valley farmlands were baked to rock by the heat and the fires.
Look at it! Maya paused again, breathing heavily. The city was a place of riotous flowers and clambering vines and trees, whose boughs were heavy with ripening fruit.
It looks so lush. She took a long, deep breath, then another. You'd think we had plenty of everything, plenty of land, plenty of water. Whereas we've simply learned how not to waste, how to use and reuse every drop, how to feed chickens on weeds and ducks on snails and let worms eat the garbage. We've become such artists of unwaste we can almost compensate for the damage. Almost. If we don't think about the bodies mummifying in mass graves over the East Bay hills. If we ignore the Stewards' armies that may be gathering, for all we know, just over the border.
Well, we made our choice. She started uphill again. We chose food over weapons, and so here we sit, lovely but as unarmed as the Venus de Milo.
As she neared the crest, the path wound across the west side of the hill. In the distance, she could see Twin Peaks, poking above a patch of fog like two brown breasts sticking out of a milk bath. They reminded her of Johanna.
"You hear that, Johanna? Twin Peaks remind me of your breasts."
Johanna, dead, did not answer, but thinking of her breasts made Maya think again of Johanna's granddaughter. Madrone works too hard, Maya thought. All the healers do. But since Sandy's death, she's hardly stopped. She'll be sick herself if she doesn't get more rest. I wish she'd taken the day off, like she said she would, but then something always comes up... Goddess, I hope we're not in for another epidemic! Please, Mama, you wouldn't do that to us again? We're on your team, remember? We're the good guys.
Where was Madrone?
...
The sun was hot on the nape of Madrone's
neck as she headed back to the gathering
place. To the east, shimmering waves of
heat rose from the sun-scorched valleys,
and ribbons of dust twisted in the air.
West of the hill, blue fog lay in bands
along the slopes of Twin Peaks.
At the summit, a bowl-shaped amphitheater
was hollowed out. It was filled with onlookers,
but Madrone saw Maya down below, in the
innermost ring where those who had a part
in the ceremony assembled. Sam stood beside
her, and Madrone sighed softly. He'd want
to know how the birth went, and she'd have
to talk about it again. She left the food
from her basket at the feasting site, and
joined the other two. They exchanged greetings
as the four concheros, bearing
their shells aloft, walked proudly to the
center of the circle. With eerie, dissonant
harmonies, they saluted the four directions
and then earth, sky, and center.
The musicians began to play, and everyone
sang together, as the ritual fire was lit
by four masked figures, bird, fish, coyote,
and deer, who symbolized the four directions
and the Four Sacred Things.
Next came dances and songs and invocations,
to the Four Sacred Things, to the ancestors,
to Goddesses and Gods of all the different
people assembled. Madrone loved to watch
the dancers, especially the Miwok and Ohlone
troupes in their feather capes, but she
found her eyes closing and her head drooping
during a lengthy poem in praise of communal
spirit declaimed by a very earnest young
woman from the Teachers' Guild.
"They were supposed to have a five-minute
limit on speeches," Maya whispered to Sam.
"If they don't get on with it, my ass is
going to atrophy."
Finally the last speaker finished and beckoned
to Maya. She stepped forward. A young girl,
very solemn with the weight of her responsibility,
handed her the Talking Stick, an oak staff
beautifully carved, beaded, and feathered,
carrying in its tip a small microphone.
Powerful speakers were hidden in the branches
of the four sacred trees that stood at the
four quarters around the outskirts of the
bowl. On the Signers' platform, a man stood
waiting to interpret as she spoke. All was
ready.
She paused and looked at the crowd, letting
her eyes roam over the brilliantly colored
festival clothes and the faces of every
hue and shade, eyes uplifted, heads set
high and proud. This is good, Maya thought,
this is what I worked for all my life, and
you too, Johanna, you too, Rio. But how
many more must we lose, like Consuelo, like
Sandy? Like Brigid, and Marley, and Jamie,
and yes, maybe Bird? What is this worth
if we can't preserve it, protect it?
The drums began to beat, a trance rhythm,
steady but just slightly syncopated, to
lead the mind and then shift it in unexpected
directions. Maya spoke, her voice rhythmic,
musical, crooning an incantation.
"Este es El Tiempo de la Segadora,
the Time of the Reaper, she who is the end
inherent in the beginning, scythe to the
grain. The Crone, Goddess of Harvest. In
this her season we celebrate the ancient
feast of the Celtic sun god Lugh, his wake
as he ages and descends into autumn. It
is a time of sweet corn, ripening tomatoes,
the bean drying on the vine. The harvest
begins. We reap what we have sown."
Madrone sat up straighter, listening attentively.
She always enjoyed hearing Maya work a crowd.
"The Crone, the Reaper, is not an easy Goddess
to love. She's not the nurturing Mother.
She's not the Maiden, light and free, not
pretty, not shiny like the full or crescent
moon. She is the Dark Moon, what you don't
see coming at you, what you don't get away
with, the wind that whips the spark across
the fire line. Chance, you could say, or,
what's scarier still: the intersection of
chance with choices and actions made before.
The brush that is tinder dry from decades
of drought, the warming of the earth's climate
that sends the storms away north, the hole
in the ozone layer. Not punishment, not
even justice, but consequence."
A deep hush fell over the crowd. Maya went
on.
"This moon brings a time of hope and danger:
fire season. We watch the dry hills anxiously,
knowing that the rains are weeks or months
away. Those of us who are old have seen
fire destroy our drought-baked cities and
smoke eclipse the sun. We've seen rich croplands
shrivel into glass-hard deserts, and the
earth itself collapse on its emptied water
table. We have seen diseases claim our children
and our lovers and our neighbors. We know
it can happen again.
"We hope for a harvest, we pray for rain,
but nothing is certain. We say that the
harvest will only be abundant if the crops
are shared, that the rains will not come
unless water is conserved and shared and
respected. We believe we can continue to
live and thrive only if we care for one
another. This is the age of the Reaper,
when we inherit five thousand years of postponed
results, the fruits of our callousness toward
the earth and toward other human beings.
But at last we have come to understand that
we are part of the earth, the air, the fire,
and the water, as we are part of one another."
She paused for a moment. Her voice dropped,
becoming lighter, almost conversational.
"We have had two blessed decades to remake
our corner of the world, to live by what
we believe. Today is the twentieth anniversary
of the Uprising. I've been asked to tell
you the story of Las Cuatro Viejas,
the Four Old Women who sparked the rebellion
in '28 when the Stewards canceled the elections
and declared martial law.
"On Shotwell Street, down below the slopes
of this hill, which in that time was called
Bernal Heights, lived a woman, Maria Elena
Gomez Garcia, whose grandmother grew fruit
trees in the back yard from peach pits and
avocado pits, and she saved her tomato seeds.
While the Stewards' troops were massing
down on the peninsula, commandeering all
stockpiles of food, and the rest of us were
debating what to do and trying to work up
courage to do it, Maria gathered together
with her neighbors, Alice Black, Lily Fong,
and Greta Jeanne Margolis, four old women
with nothing to lose. On the morning of
the first of August, they marched out in
the dawn with pickaxes over their shoulders,
straight out into the middle of Army Street,
and all the traffic stopped, such cars as
a few people could still afford to drive.
"Some of them were honking their horns,
some were shouting threats, but when Maria
raised the pickax above her head, there
came a silence like a great, shared, indrawn
breath. Then she let it fall, with a thud
that shuddered through the street, and the
four old women began to dig.
"They tore up the pavement, blow by blow,
and filled the holes with compost from a
sack Greta carried, and planted them with
seeds. By then a crowd had gathered, the
word was carried through the streets, and
we rushed from our houses to join them,
bringing tools or only our bare hands, eager
to build something new. And many of us were
crying, with joy or with fear, tears streaming
enough to water the seeds.
"But Alice raised her hand, and she called
out in a loud voice. 'Don't you cry,' she
told us. 'This is not a time to cry. This
is a time to rejoice and praise the earth,
because today we have planted our freedom!'
"Then we joined them, tearing up the streets
as the cars backed away from us, piling
up barricades on the freeways, smashing
the doors of the locked warehouses. And
those who supported the Stewards fled south
with all the good they could steal. And
we who remained planted seeds, and we guarded
the sources of our water in the valleys
and the mountains, and the Stewards withdrew
to starve us out.
"We were hungry, so very hungry, for a long
time while we waited for the seeds to grow,
and prayed for rain, and danced for rain.
It was a long dry season. But we had pledged
to feed one another's children first, with
what food we had, and to share what we had.
And so the food we shared became sacred
to us, and the water and the air and the
earth became sacred.
"When something is sacred, it can't be bought
or sold. It is beyond price, and nothing
that might harm it is worth doing. What
is sacred becomes the measure by which everything
is judged. And this is our measure, and
our vow to the life-renewing rain: we will
not be wasters but healers.
"Remember this story. Remember that one
act can change the world. When you turn
the moist earth over, and return your wastes
to the cycles of decay, and place the seed
in the furrow, remember that you are planting
your freedom with your own hands. May we
never hunger. ¡Que nunca tengamos hambre!"
"May we never thirst! ¡Que nunca tengamos
sed!" the united voices of the listeners
chorused.
"One act, and about a thousand hours of
meetings," Sam whispered.
"Cynic," Madrone said. "Don't you know
a good story when you hear one?"
"It's a great story. It's just that it bears
so little resemblance to the actual history
I remember."
"Quiet. It's my turn now."
Madrone and several others, representatives
of various guilds and councils and work
groups, stepped forward into the center
of the circle. The same solemn child held
the Talking Stick for each of them.
"We have come here to give an accounting
of ourselves, calling on the Four Sacred
Things to witness what we have made of this
city in twenty years," said Salal from the
Central Council. "This is how we have kept
our pledges. This is what we have harvested."
As the stick passed around the circle, each
person spoke, in turn, from the Gardeners'
Guild, and the Water Council, and the Healers,
and the Teachers, and all the interlocking
circles that provided for the needs of the
City.
"No one in this city goes hungry."
"No one lacks shelter."
"No child lacks a home."
When the stick came to Madrone, she hesitated
for a long moment. "There is sickness here,"
she said finally, "but no one lacks care."
The stick moved on.
"See, the fruit hangs heavy on the bough,
ready to feed the stranger."
"We have guarded our waters well, our cisterns
will not run dry, no one thirsts, and our
streams run clear."
"All the gifts of the earth are shared,"
they said in unison.
"May we never hunger!" the people responded.
"¡Que nunca tengamos hambre! ¡Que nunca
tengamos sed!"
The drums beat a hypnotic, insistent rhythm.
The music rose and the drums pounded, and
suddenly everyone was dancing, in the central
space, up in the ringed tiers that climbed
the hill, on the ridges. The sky gleamed
indigo with streaks of pink and gold in
the west, and against its glowing light
loomed giant figures, La Segadora herself,
fifteen feet high, with serpent head and
serpent skirt and a basket strapped to her
back in which she carried a machete. And
Lugh, the gleaming paint of his solar disc
set on fire by the dying rays of the sun,
and others: ancestors, spirits, visions.
Maya knew, looking up, that they were only
cloth or paper, but in the twilight they
came alive. The musicians were playing one
of Bird's tunes, and Maya was suddenly shot
through with pain like a ringing bell, the
pain of missing him. The people sang:
Free the heart, let it go,The chant rose to a roar, subsided to a single harmonic tone, and ended abruptly, as if sung by a single voice. Everyone touched the earth. Silence swelled to consume all the echoes and the overtones.
What we reap is what we sow.
"May we never hunger!" the people cried again.
Offerings of fruit and grain and cooked foods were piled in the central circle. A young child was blessing the food and drink, while others thanked the ancestors and spirits and the Four Sacred Things to end the formal part of the ritual. But the feasting would go on for a long time.
"Are you staying?" Sam asked Madrone, coming over to them. "I can walk Maya home." In his voice was a hopeful note.
Maya could feel the spark stretching like a thread between her and Sam. He was hoping for something, an invitation, a sign from her. She could feel his loneliness as she could feel her own. It was too much. She was too old, too tired, to take on the burden of it.
"I've got to get some sleep," Madrone said. "I was up all night."
"Good night, Sam," Maya said firmly, taking Madrone's arm. "It was good seeing you. Que nunca tengas and all that."
"Kay noonka," Sam said. "Get some rest, Madrone."
In the dark, spirits fluttered like memories, like birds. Fog lay on the city like the silver fingers of a gloved hand, as the moon lit their way down the hill.
Copyright © 1993 by Starhawk. The foregoing is excerpted from The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission from the publishers: Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
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