A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

We emerged into a clearing, and Margot stopped. She held the lantern up high, looking for something in the trees at the edges. Then she moved toward a large oak with a hollow in its center. The lantern light revealed the deep ridges in its bark, the greenish moss growing over it. She put her hand on the edge of the hollow, where the wood formed a kind of ledge.

“Our altar,” she said. The women spread out around her and began to set up, pulling offerings from their bags. Vy assembled wood for a bonfire inside of a ring of small stones. Tara placed a gourd on the altar’s ledge, along with some dried flowers. Iris handed us each a wreath she’d made, woven with berries and leaves, and we put them on our heads, our hair loose and flowing beneath them, like we were going to a Renaissance fair or a trendy wedding in a barn. We all kicked off our shoes and left them at the edge of the clearing.

“Anyone thirsty?” Vy asked. As some of the women began to murmur in the affirmative, she pulled a bottle of wine out from her bag.

“Oh. We shouldn’t, should we?” Iris asked. “We should wait until we’re finished, I mean. Caroline wouldn’t want—”

“It’s hardly anything, split between all of us,” Vy said. She twisted off the screw top with one jerk of her hand, then tipped her head back and took a large swallow.

“Are you sure?” one of the other women—Gabby—asked.

“Yes, it’s so little, it won’t interfere,” Margot said. “If anything, it will only enhance. Besides, it’s a special occasion. It’s Samhain.” She took her own swallow, then passed it on. The women sent the bottle down the line as we continued to set up, although I noticed that Iris didn’t take a sip herself. When it came to me, I held the wine in my mouth for a moment before swallowing. It was spicy and warming, but still my teeth chattered in the autumn night.

“You cold?” Vy asked. She took out a thermos and unscrewed the top. Steam rose from it. “I brewed some tea,” she said, and held it out to me. “Here.” I took a swallow of that too, then recoiled at its bitterness. Vy noticed the look on my face. “It’s good for you,” she said. “All natural.”

“Mm,” I said, and took another sip, then handed it back to her.

Vy lit the fire, and the kindling began to catch. As the larger logs caught too and the women finished setting up, we all gathered in our circle. Again, we linked hands, and again, we began to breathe in long, slow inhales all at the same time. It reminded me of warm-ups we did in an acting class I took freshman year of college. Pretty soon, if we kept following that theater class trajectory, we’d be reciting tongue twisters for diction, and making out with each other.

“Sisters,” Margot said. Or maybe “intoned” was the right word for the way she spoke, her husky voice resonant. “Summer is over. The harvest has been gathered and it is time to plant new seeds. Let us plant them now and pledge to care for one another’s.” Margot walked around the circle, handing each of us an herb that Caroline had selected for us, an herb that was supposed to represent what we were hoping to have success with. Caroline had assigned me rosemary, for creativity.

One by one, we played our starring role in the ritual. Iris held up her handful of mint. “I plant the seeds for my book’s success.”

“Let them grow tall and full,” we chanted as she knelt to the ground and buried the herb in the dirt in front of her.

When it came to me, I said my piece about planting the seeds for my writing. The women gazed at me, their faces shining and supportive, and I knew that my true success would mean their downfall. For a moment, it was the strangest thing, but I almost wanted to cry. The smoke from the fire was clouding my head. My stomach rumbled again. The dirt under my feet had been cold and scratchy ever since I’d kicked my shoes off, but as I pushed the herb into the ground, the earth was soft, comforting even, against my fingers, and I was sad to take my hand out.

Margot’s smile, when it came time for her, was hooded, faraway. “I plant the seeds to make real change again,” she said.

“Let them grow tall and full.”

Together, we each took a small sprig of basil and planted it for Caroline in absentia, chanting for the success of Women Who Lead.

“Now, we seal our spell,” Margot said. “And toast to the future.” Vy took out another bottle—more red wine—and passed it around the circle. This time, everyone was less hesitant with their swallows, though Iris held the bottle to her lips for only a second. She disapproved of it, still.

When we’d drained the bottle, some of the women began to pull at their robes, as if ready to move on to the dancing and the celebration. But Margot stopped them. “One more ritual,” she said. She knelt down and took something out of her bag: a round, red fruit that she held in the firelight. “A pomegranate,” she said.

Everyone besides Margot and Vy looked confused. Caroline’s agenda hadn’t included anything about a pomegranate.

“In Greek mythology,” Margot continued, still locked into her ceremonial focus, her shadow tall as the trees, “Persephone ate its seeds in the Underworld, the land where the spirits lived after death. Tonight, when the veil between worlds is thin, we eat its seeds to connect with the spirits of those we’ve lost.”

“Hold on,” Iris said. “We’re not going to summon them, are we?”

Margot hesitated, then shook her head. “We’ll just send them a message. Ask them for protection, if you want. Remind them of your love.” She held the pomegranate up, then