Sustainable Magic

Last year I stepped away from community and leadership. The reasons are many – some are of this world and some are of the other. I’ve done community work for so long that I really couldn’t envision who I would be without it. An assignment in a Rites of Passage class asked that I write my life story as a myth, and in doing that I found what sustains me in this new phase of my life and my work.

The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by sisal

Once upon a time, in the land of the living, there was a blacksmith and his wife who had three daughters and a son. The family’s oldest daughter was clever; she could see into people’s hearts and shift her shape to become what they most desired.

But she resented her brother and sisters terribly. Her jealousy took her to dark places, and she became a shaper of shadows. One night her resentment overcame her and she killed her sisters and her brother, and ate them to hide what she’d done. Afterward she threw their bones into the fire of her father’s forge to turn the bones into ash.

The couple mourned, and searched for their children in vain. And the grandmother came to the shapeshifting girl and said, “I know what you’ve done, and there’s no undoing it. But you have pulled the world out of balance with your shadows and your lies, and that balance must be restored. So you will give birth to a child of fire, with a tongue that cannot lie. And mind you – if she dies, your life will be forfeit.”

In time a daughter was born to the shapeshifter, and the grandmother came to tend her, and she named the child El.

Most believe what hides in the shadows is there for a reason, and best left unseen. But El was always shining light into the shadows in spite of her best intentions, and speaking truth to what she found there. “It makes my mother angry,” she told her grandmother, and the old woman nodded.

“It’s who you are,” the grandmother said, “and there’s no help for it. Asking you to hide what you are would be like asking the fire to wear a scarf.”

So El took to wandering to escape her mother’s wrath, for she knew well what her mother was capable of. But she was lonely, until one day as she walked through the woods she found herself joined by three companions – two girls, and a boy.

“Help us, El,” the oldest girl said, “for we cannot rest.”

El knew she should be afraid, but somehow she was not. And she was so lonely, and found herself glad of their company. The three gathered around her, and held out their hands to her as though to warm them. “What is it you need of me?” El asked.

“Remember me,” said the oldest girl. 

“Forgive me,” said the boy.

“Love me,” said the youngest girl.

And so El did. After that, the children joined her often, and El did not feel so alone.

One day El angered her mother terribly, and her mother drew her hand back to strike El. But El had grown old enough to know anger herself, and before her mother could strike her, El’s anger flamed and lit up the room, corner to corner. There in one corner were the shadows of her mother’s brother and sisters, and El recognized them as the children in the woods.

Her mother shrieked in fury and El ran, ran into the woods, but she knew she wasn’t fast enough, and she felt her mother’s breath on her neck, cold and musty. Suddenly the ground opened at El’s feet, and without a thought she threw herself into the darkness. She tumbled, but then regained her feet and began running, down and down, until she could no longer feel her mother behind her. Down into the earth she walked for hours or days, until she came to the fields of the dead. Then the three children walked toward her, and as they did, a thousand spirits materialized around them.

“Warm us, El,” said her Aunt.

So El built a fire big enough to chase the shadows away and warm all who came. She set out tea, and cakes that were stamped with the rune of fire. And the dead came and found comfort, and they said: Remember us. Forgive us. Love us.

And El did.