“My brother has already
gone to them to dig the graves. You will find him there on the hill with the
donkey cart.”
I follow the road to
the village of Saumur with the bag of remedies and a particular whisper goading
my imagination.
Why would she
mention her brother? Does she think I would know him? Now
I am letting my idle wishes stir a dream of hopeful sillies. How would I know
any person here? It was nineteen years ago and I was the last to leave that
place alive.
Dear God, help me
keep my thoughts on purpose for this mission and not to wonder the wishes and
dreams that should be kept tucked-in under my tears hiding deep in my grief.
Amen.
The bag I have flung
over my shoulder is filled with whatever we may call remedies. But it seems too
light for the need. What is there
that can answer plague after these two decades of knowing? The doctors of the
ancient sciences, Hippocrates and Galen — they knew nothing of this plague.
They would have had an answer for us had it happened in the older times for
knowing all things of science. Yet now it comes on us like raiding hordes
landing in their monster-eyed ships sneaking into our homes in the night to
steal not just the children and the weak but even the strongest of us.
Outbreaks are here and there and they just keep on snatching up whole families
moaning and raving in fits of fever then into death. One reaches to help and
she too is ravaged. What use can there be in these fragrant salves and herbs
but to nurture empty hopes?
I arrive in Saumur with the precious sack of possible “amens” all handed on to the priest.
[Note: The quotation used in this artwork is from Storl, W.D. (2017) The Untold History of Healing: Plant lore and medicinal magic from the stone age to present. Berkley: North Atlantic Books.]
It’s the full morning light when I wake and my mission to take remedies to the sick in Saumur is no less urgent.
The woman working in
this garden sees me briefly then scurries into the cottage. I knock at the
closed door and call after her that I need to gather some remedies for plague.
“Wait in the garden.
I will get what is needed in a bit.”
“Very well. But
there is an urgency and I have already spent a night.”
She is probably
afraid of me because she saw me and knows I’m shorn as a monk or a Christian
mourner on these days while my work has me at the scriptorium at Poitiers and likely
she is not a Christian. In these times when Barbarian Pagans and Roman
Christians are barely touching toes with one another starring into same faces
to assess differences, each is accusing the other of false faith and
superstition though both are so much alike. A hag is called upon when Christian
prayers seem too ethereal for earthy things like plague. Concoctions of herbs
and egg and feathery creature seem to be of earth. But then so was Jesus of
earth. Christians and Pagans alike are earthbound creatures as surely plague
reminds us. Like all the beauty of this garden and like all the people of earth
we are also of the Holy Creation.
Thank you God for
beauty.
In silence she walks
in the garden passing by me as though I’m invisible. She is wearing a broad hat
and covered head to toe in bee netting. There are skeps for hives here. I’m
sure she keeps bees. But I also think she chooses to hide herself.
She is not what I
would expect of one called a “hag.” Lean and straight, agile in the form of a
younger woman who has neither birthed nor suckled children. In veils and
silence she bears the mystery of a virgin and none of a hag’s wear of age.
She gathers bundles
of herbs filling a large sack. Then with the same intention she applies to
rosemary stems she comes close to me, face-to-netting, to deliver the bag with
instructions. Her voice is gentle, clear with purpose and I understand the
instructions for the remedies.
“Do you know the
direction to the village?” she offers.
“I know this road as
well.”
“My brother has already gone to them to dig the graves. You will find him there on the hill with the donkey cart.”
561 C.E. Gaul — October Chapter — “Scars” (10-15-19 post 1.1)
“…because
it was not the season for figs…” The nib is dry; the ink is
spent. The sharp edges of afternoon shadows steal the light. There is longer
darkness reaching into each day and now in dimming light the abbot brings news
from the village of Saumur. The priest of them sent word so many deaths there
are of plague. Someone must go now to the hag of healing to collect what
remedies there may be to take to them. If I leave now a good part of my ride
will be in the dark but I’m familiar with the way and I can reach the garden of
remedies by dawn.
I know this road well. Nineteen years ago in the time when Justinian was Emperor and these shadows were muffed in optimism and glittering hopes for Rome to endure, the first plague came up with the soldiers and visited this valley. So many died. I had to leave my own children untended in their sickbed when I could do nothing more because I myself had become ill. I spent my waning breath walking the road from our farm to Civitas Turonorum to find help for them. When I was healing from the death and plague I went back hoping for a sign of them. There was nothing and no one. The graves I dug were not marked. The house was gone and the place was covered over in grass.
Still when I am nearby
I place flowers where I buried my wife even though unkempt grasses try to
smother memory of it.
Blessing or curse this strange variety of healing once bestowed on me by my dear friend Jesus allows my times of healing to continue always — even after death. So it is that from that death of plague my earthen self has healed. My spiritual self just is as it is always and forever in love with the invisible Creator God and always and forever collecting so many griefs for each earthen person I love with touch and senses. So many are gone.
These directions put
this garden of remedies on the very land as once was mine. Here is a new clay
cottage with a shed attached at one end, and a garden with lots of varieties of
herbs.
These hours of
darkness left before the sun and after the moon would be best spent in sleep. I
nap in the mow of the shed before I wake the hag to gather remedies to take to
the sick.
Premise of these tales told by Lazarus the Bible Guy
Was it blessing or curse that Jesus bestowed onto me, his Bethany best friend? Either way I was intended as a sign. I am the poetry on parchment, the physical metaphor of the spiritual resurrection. (John 11) So take me now as myth or message, I am simply an ever thirty-something-year-old man born into a first century Jewish family then bestowed with an odd physical condition of always healing into life even from death, into the perfection of earthbound human form.
My memory is the fullness of these 561 years of griefs and creative whims, of loves and wives and children, of prayers and joys and friendships, songs and always new dances —- and I am still showing up for the wedding party where the water turns to wine. Come with me my new friend, clogging, slogging, blogging in your own joyful mornings.
These days I’m in Gaul mostly occupied by Rome. And the faith of my friend and teacher is also, mostly occupied by Rome in these days; but I know I am not alone in knowing Jesus and the teachings despite the order and organization of religion. Please come along with me into an on-going story.
Lazarus Ink 