“You will find the gate that’s open, even though your spirit’s broken”

There is a legend about a song that travels in the air that has circled Earth for generations.  It was here before Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, and the Terracotta Army, and has endured the most brutal storms, and the rise of man. Despite its journeys, few have ever hummed this song.  Men cannot hear it; they are tone deaf to the notes.  And only the most powerful women, the witches among us, can decipher the chords.

When I was a boy, my grandmother told me this story while watching a lunar eclipse.  I had several question, but asked first,  “Who wrote the song?”

My grandmother smirked and replied, “a great soldier with a poet’s heart.  He composed the song for the Queen he had sworn to protect.  The song a chronicle of the 7 apocalyptic days that followed her murder…   God was so moved by the soldier’s chords, the song was spared.  Today, the song is all that remains of Eden.”

“Eden,” I questioned?  “Like in the bible?”

“Like the bible,” my grandmother confirmed.

I flipped through the memories of my Sunday school lessons. “I don’t remember Eve being murdered,” I said.

“The bible has been rewritten many times, by many men,” my grandmother schooled. “Many verses have been misplaced and misconstrued along the way.”

“But who would murder Eve,” I asked? “I bet it was Able.”

“That riddle has yet to be solved,” she replied. “But the song is key, only Eve can hear it.”

“But she’s dead,” I questioned.  “How can Eve hear it?”

Standing there with my grandmother, basking in the lunar eclipse, I though of Mr. Willard, a custodian at my school who was a photographer by hobby.  Mother Superior allowed Mr. Willard to convert a cellar closet into a dark room.  I loved watching stills develop.  There was something magical about a landscape or smile coming to life under Mr. Willard’s red light.

When the lunar eclipse peaked that night, it was as though the world had been transformed into Mr. Willard’s dark room.  The eclipsing moon ignited the horizon, casting a thousand shades of red that seemed to bring my young life into perspective.

“We keep coming back.  Each of having a lesson to learn,” my grandmother said.  “Eve is alive living amongst men.”

“But how do you know,” I asked.

My grandmother gave my hand a squeeze, smiled and said, “You are the song, the witch’s muse – the soldier of Eve.”

I didn’t questioned what my grandmother any further, but I though about Eve.  I wondered, what would Eve be like today?  What would she say…?