The Goddess and the King
There is a faraway valley with many stone cairns. They are tombs, and wombs. They are both. They are earthen paradoxes, incarnate. Birth, death, rebirth, all under one stone umbrella, a mystical metaphor.
The Valley is so sacred each breath feels intoxicating, entering deeply into my cells, penetrating me in a way I’ve forgotten. The air itself is thick with water, the waters held within the moss of the bog, 10,000 years old, water from a long ago Ice Age. It holds millennia of memories of this valley. I inhale the mossy dew and exhale, offering my breath to intermingle like a communion.
The valley is called Carrowkeel, meaning a ‘narrow section of land’. Standing high on a mossy ledge, overlooking the valley, there are at least seven cairns concentrated within this one Carrowkeel.
We walk through the purple heather, off the dirt path, to the remains of these cairns. They are overgrown, fallen in, nearly forgotten it feels. In the recess of a valley, we come across a portal tomb/womb. A pile of stones like a dolmen.
Drum here my daughter, the land whispers. I crawl in, curl up against the stones like a cocoon, and begin drumming. I see the sky opening above me, the constellations connecting to these portals. Theres no coincidence they are called portal tombs. They are portals indeed, bones of ancient shamans buried below.
