“Enough!” I said. Enlisting the help of my Wiccan guide, Cerridwen Fallingstar, I asked her to lead me into a trance to explore this submerged, shadowy life that beckoned and beguiled. Cerridwen had used many shamanic techniques, such as drumming and chanting, to journey and encounter allies in the Year and a Day apprenticeship I had taken with her. A year and a day is a traditional Celtic timeframe for learning a new skill, such as marriage or witchcraft. In this case, it was the latter. I had graduated from my Wiccan apprenticeship six months earlier. Cerridwen and I used some of the same journeying techniques, allies, and places of power in this new quest that we’d discovered and used in the apprenticeship.
The trance began. I lay blindfolded on a blanket, tape recorder spooling silently as Cerridwen knelt by my side.
“See yourself descending deeply into the inner world, the other world, as you drift down on a series of clouds,” she murmured comfortingly. The clouds corresponded to the chakras and bore their colors as well. By the time I floated on the lavender cumulus, I had fallen into a deep trance state.
“The lavender cloud is now landing,” she
continued. “When it touches down, rise and notice where you are.”
Stepping off the cloud, I found myself at my coven’s place of power: a pearlescent sphere, about four feet in diameter, resting on misty ground fog. My group had envisioned this place during trance, and used it as a portal for our journeying.
“Enter your place of power now,” said Cerridwen’s voice from far, far away. I shapeshifted into a salamander and slithered under and into the pearl. The pearl’s interior was hazy and white. I could see through the pearl’s edges, glimpsing a rainforest with a running stream in the distance.
I cast a protective circle around me. It lingered in midair: hazy, blue, and comforting. It was time to call the directions, and enlist the help of allies for my journey. Facing and envisioning each direction to greet it, I met East who took the form of the rising sun. Warming me gently with a pink radiance, East breezed softly over my skin.
I faced South, and the ground grew shaky. I glimpsed the volcanic goddess Pele peering at me from behind a tree, which glowed, backlit by the tropical sun. When I greeted the West, I was transported to a cliff above a stormy, crashing ocean. Finally, I greeted the North, where I was surrounded by pine and redwood trees and snow-capped mountains.
In previous journeying, I had met an animal ally: a brown bear named Aku. He now appeared by my side. Through the misted rainforest, the figure of a woman became clear in the distance. She appeared to be Asian and sat harnessed to a nearby tree by a backstrap loom. She wove the figure of a woman into the fabric she was laboring over, rather like Ixchel, the Mexican goddess of weaving, creativity, and fertility. Noticing me watching her, she released herself from her tree tether and rose. As she advanced toward me, armor materialized on her body. By the time she reached me she was fully plated.
“My name is Neesha,” she said. “The old ones told me you needed my help. I will join you.”
Aku and Neesha now stood with me in the center of the pearl. Fully accompanied, I was now ready for my journey. I was in human form again, clad in a homespun tunic, leggings, and moccasins. My hair was short, like a boy’s.
The fog around us swirled faster and faster. I could see nothing of the rainforest anymore. We stood in the murky vortex until a blue door appeared to the northeast. This was the portal I needed to pass through for my quest. Neesha reached into her breastplate and handed me a skeleton key, which opened the door. We stepped through the portal.
We stood on a desert plain with hills in the distance. Sand whipped harshly around us. Aku bumped me softly with a grunt, and offered me transport on what apparently would be a long trek. I gladly accepted the help of my ally, climbing onto Aku’s coarsely furred back.
A tent appeared in the distance. We approached the sizable, billowing structure to find ourselves face-to-face with a scowling, bony man who stood by the entrance. Aku and Neesha telepathically suggested we go in. I told the man we’d traveled far and would like respite from the scouring sand. He did not respond. With sudden insight, I produced a goatskin of water from my tunic for him as a gift. He accepted it as his leathery face lost its scowl for a moment, and placated, let us into the tent.
Inside the incense-hung darkness, men
reclined on silken cushions on one side of the large structure facing a harem
of women. As my eyes adjusted to the lamplit interior, I found myself
irresistibly pulled toward one of the women. She looked at me searchingly. The
girl had a tiny, heart-shaped birthmark just below her collarbone. I began
merging with her, but, frightened, looked to Aku for reassurance. Aku indicated
that this was the past life I was searching for. Reassured, I allowed myself to
become the woman with whom I felt my essence blending. In a moment I was
sharing the graceful body of a slender, caramel-brown girl. I bore many gold
bracelets on my wrists and ankles. A richly beaded thong-like object encircled
each second toe and spanned up over my instep to hook behind my heel. I wore a
magnificent, diaphanous, jewel-encrusted gown, and felt precious, frightened,
and wise for my years.
My name was Amat. At the age of 15 I’d been abducted from, or sold by my parents into a harem. A year later, I lived lonely and desperate in this seemingly pleasurable place. The other women pretended to be happy for the sake of their lives, but weren’t.
A performance was about to begin. I had just arrived at the entertainment tent with the other women. In my year at the harem, I’d learned to dance, draped in veils, breasts revealed enticingly by the tight wrap of a shimmering gold gown, fine jingling chains at my waist and ankles. I’d learned how to channel my gazelle-like teenage energy into something smoldering, snakelike and seductive. I’d painted my eyes with kohl—far more than my mother had ever dared allow—and my lips with henna, to arouse and promise.
I stand now at the entrance of the entertainment tent with the other dancers, as I do most nights: nervous and self-conscious. I have the worst stage fright of all the girls and can’t seem to get over it. Will I remember all I’ve learned? Will anybody laugh at me?
“Relax,” whispers Pasha beside me, sensing my nervousness. “Just keep smiling and let your body follow the music. You’ll be fine. Besides, you can’t dance worse than Nezreth,” she giggles. Overhearing this last comment, Nezreth turns from the front of the line and glares at Pasha. Nezreth walked out with the dancers, but because she couldn’t dance, poured wine for the men and walked around with trays of sweets while engaging them in conversation.
“At least I know how to talk with men,” she sneers. “All you know is how to dance and throw your legs up in the air!” This final remark hovers like a wasp between the two women for several heartbeats.
The menace is broken by Esmet, leader of our troupe. She claps her hands. “All right, ladies, let’s dance,” she chirps brightly as she ushers our group out into the expectant circle for another night’s performance.
The golden lamplight illuminates the cinnamon curls of a newcomer tonight. I decide he will be the one. He reclines on his elbows in the center of a group of five men. All visitors. They gaze with awe, with lust, with curiosity, and wonder at the beautiful show before them of curves and swells and jingling hips. Of unveiled black hair snaking down the architecture of a back. Of ripe breasts presented as Inanna would—here by an exquisitely jeweled and transparent gown. Flat bellies, round bellies, gleaming arms, promising lips, and long-lashed eyes.
The men break the women down into their body parts and point and whisper as they attach value to a pair of breasts or a face or a backside. This is what I hear them remark to each other as we dance among them. I appreciate my sisters as the sum total of their bodies and spirits and personalities, and I fall in love with them each time we dance together. I am in awe of the artistry and diversity of the female form. Yes, this camp has great wealth! Kamal (my “adopted” brother and fellow slave) and Esmet smile encouragement at me. Kamal is drumming as Esmet dances, shaking her sistrum.
The young man with the cinnamon curls is staring at me. I slink over and dance for him. His friends’ eyes all lick my undulating body, but I have decided that only he will feast on it tonight. I always get the consent of the one I pick. That makes it slightly more bearable. I feel sorry for poor Mekresh—she misses her husband who was killed when she was kidnapped and enslaved. She loathes the touch of other men. And she is stunning, except for her nose. Some men that she chooses just can’t get past the unfortunate beak.
Tonight it’s the cinnamon one—I always try to pick the ones who don’t look cruel. It is only when the Sheik doles me out like sweetmeats to some random visitor that I get beaten or abused by their strange sexual tastes until I bleed.
Esmet’s sistrum shakes a final rattle. The djembes drum a loud and final roll. The last note of the sitar hangs in the air. The nasal reedy flutes, which remind me of geese, die away. The dance has ended. I reach down to the cinnamon man and smiling, he takes my hand and rises.
As his hand touches mine, blackness engulfs me and I feel myself separating from Amat’s consciousness. Floating in a void, I hear Cerridwen’s voice calling me softly from far, far away. “What did you believe as this young woman, that you still believe now? Which of Amat’s beliefs are hurting you?”
Clarity pierces the darkness, as I realize I carry with me some views that were learned during Amat’s limited existence, that sabotage me now.
“Release these old beliefs to the scouring
desert wind,” she continues. I see these thoughts as a handful of white doves,
which I toss to the breeze, and watch as they scatter with the blowing sand.
“What ritual could you perform later to honor this past life of yours?” Cerridwen asks. With that suggestion, an idea forms in my mind of a tribute to honor this incarnation: an altar, burning with three red candles to honor the blood Amat shed so many times in her brief life. I would work a spell, binding the candles with knotted black cord, to represent the void into which she passed, and emerged from, to inspire me. My spell would bind me to Amat’s valuable lessons—so I would never forget them—while releasing me from thought forms that worked for Amat, but do not work for me. This past life had just shed some healing light on my present one, and it needed honoring, processing, and ultimately, releasing.
I rise up through the series of chakra clouds, finally floating on a crimson nimbus. Each cloud that Cerridwen leads me through is connected with a healing, a message, and a path to integrate this journey with my current life. I emerge from my trance, eager to start writing all I’d learned of Amat. While only given a glimpse, I felt filled with the rhythms of the drumming, intoxicated by the harem dancers’ perfume, and longing for more of the story.
A frenzy of journaling brought back prodigious, yet spotty memories. I retrieved a great deal—much more than just the dance scene—yet I knew some important pieces of this life were still missing. Three months later, I found one of the pieces. I was hired for a new technical writer contract at a software company in San Francisco (it was the seventh year I’d had this particular “day job”). For three weeks I had no supervisor as I began the first-ever documentation of the company’s products. I was their hero. My work was appreciated, and I enjoyed my new job. By the fourth week, a manager was hired to run the department that I had started. On his first day he called me into his office and verbally tore apart the manual I had created. “Tech manuals don’t need an Introduction. Why did you put one in there?” he snarled, as my fight or flight reflex kicked in.
I argued, futilely, that an Introduction was a standard component of most publications, tech manuals included. He had other bones to pick with my writing as well, many of which were as illogical as the Introduction example. Something felt odd. The more I tried to defend my work, the angrier he got, until he delivered his final statement to me, “I was going to fire you on the spot, before we even had this meeting, but I was urged to give you another chance. You have a week to shape up, or you’re out of here!”
I was amazed at the hostility of the man, but set about implementing the changes he wanted over the course of the next week, contrary to my better judgement. Whenever we encountered each other in the hallway, I suppressed my strong dislike for him, and attempted to be the cheerful, compliant employee. I got the distinct impression he was putting on a false smile for me too, as we played the office game. A week later he called me into his office again and said I just wasn’t measuring up. I was fired. Confused and seething with anger, I went home. It was a mercifully sunny day and the deck of my house beckoned me to the blissful forgetfulness of a nap. I was emotionally exhausted, so I indulged in the escape.
Just as I dozed off, a sharp realization took hold of me. I suddenly knew who this now-former manager was, and why we both hated each other so much right from the start. I had never felt so sure of something before. This man—who had so pushed my buttons and so puzzlingly and illogically criticized my work, while all others had praised it—was the Sheik of Shiraz: the person who had the most influence on me in my former life as Amat!
As I absorbed this realization, I began to hear a story telling itself in my head. It felt as if someone was reading a book to me. The archaic words and manner were entirely different from my usual storytelling style. The life of a 15-year-old Persian girl began unspooling like the whisper of an angel in my ear. Amat’s story. This time the tale included her connection with the Sheik and her ultimate lessons and struggles. It was a beautiful story. A sad and violent story. My story. Realizing the miracle of what was occurring, I stumbled up in a haze, grabbed pen and notebook, and began to write. I wrote and wrote until the voice was finally silent, filling page after page with Amat’s tale. When, at last, I set my pen down, I was certain of one thing. I needed another trance!
My next session with Cerridwen retrieved the more difficult aspects of my life as Amat, and I was able to outline my book and write the ending. Later, I spent two weeks at a phone-free cottage on the East Coast by which my pacarina flowed (Peruvian Quechua for sacred river closest to one’s place of birth). Over the course of those two weeks, I examined the passage of events in between the “easy” narrative flow of the first chapter, which had been a gift from the Goddess, and the ending, which I knew all too well. Embodying a different character each day, I wrote with their voice, and behaved as they would. Alternating between heady greed, expansive wisdom, and cringing cowardice, I wrote the chapters of my life as Amat.
