Into the Woods
© 1995 by Valerie Walker
originally published in The Aurora magazine
"In the midst of life, I found myself lost in a dark wood", said Dante
in the first lines of his Divine Comedy . As I approach my 57th
birthday I find myself wandering in that same wood.
Where did it all go, my youthful drive toward the spiritual, my firm
convincement, my loyal allegiance to the Church-of-my-Choice? No
matter that the choice changed almost yearly, there was still room
enough within the Quaker meeting to hold my slippery beliefs as I
evolved from Fundamentalist Christian at eighteen to Goddess-
worshipper at thirty-eight. And what happened to the renewed
enthusiasm for ritual I underwent then, my dedication to the
practice of Wicca, my initiation vow (taken kneeling with one hand
beneath my foot and the other on my head) that "all between my
two hands belongs to the Goddess"?
What have I kept of those old ways? How much of a Quaker am I
still, how much a High Priestess and Witch? And what is the next
phase? Here I am, not even knowing what phase the moon is in,
getting my inspiration from Northern Exposure and Loren Eiseley's
Lives of a Cell .... have I turned into a materialist? Or was I just
fooling myself all those years?
My work: the current Church-of-my-Choice. I am a personal fitness
trainer. I'm the one members of the health club go to for advice on
how to exercise, eat, take care of their health. It's the modern-day
equivalent of being the village wisewoman: I listen to people's
problems, encourage them, try to motivate them, serve as a role
model, rejoice and grieve with them, and offer my technical expertise
in the process of bodily empowerment. No small task.
The role-model aspect, for example: I counsel women in midlife
about going through the Change, even as I go through the Change
myself. I work out daily not merely to keep my body healthy but
also to show that it is still possible to transform oneself even in
middle and old age. In fact, the obligation to be a role model is
sometimes the only thing that keeps me at it. And self-doubt gnaws.
How in hell can I tell people about keeping an even keel through the
menopausal storms when I'm barely hanging on myself?
So I express my uncertainties.to my clients, to let them know I feel
as vulnerable as they do. It is an essential part of my practice, and
necessary to my survival, to take (and give) comfort in the flash of
recognition between fellow travelers lost in the same dark wood.
No, I don't think my journey so far was foolishness. All between my
two hands still belongs to the Goddess. Northern Exposure and Loren
Eiseley take their place with my other teachers and mentors: Walt
Whitman, Joseph Campbell, Robert Graves, Carl Jung, and every
human being I have dealings with, either virtually or in the flesh.
The Gods are in eclipse for me now. But that doesn't mean they are
gone from the world: they'll be back, in the next fascinating and
compelling incarnation.
Avatars? The woods are full of'em.
[Valerie Walker lives in San Francisco. She is a former
member of the Society of Friends, an initiated Witch and former High
Priestess, and has every episode of Northern Exposure on videotape. She no longer works as a personal fitness trainer; she is now a graphic artist (who still works out).
Valerie believes in continuing revelation.]
In full ritual drag and feeling my oats.