Honourable companions,

In my dream, footsteps in the rain washed mud spoke to me, telling of a troupe of people who had gone this way before me, not so long ago. I asked the footsteps for a sign of where the people were going, but they spoke only of directions, not of destinations.

I followed the footprints to a bridge over a river, and the river carved a deep gorge through the limestone of the earth. I asked the bridge where the people who made the footsteps were going, but the bridge spoke of many people going to many places, and the great strain it bore to carry them. The bridge said, "I was made so that people need not think of the river, when they pass this way. I was made so that people need think only of their destination. And every year my burden becomes heavier, for ever greater swells the ranks of people who care not for rivers, but only for the things they can carry across rivers. But I care for rivers," said the bridge. "The river is my benefactor, for without the river I would not be".

And then I knew that the people I was following are not the people who move over bridges, but who pass under them. I began to go under, and my footsteps followed me.

Under the bridge, I followed a path between a wood. One does not walk through woods, as most of us are accustomed to say, but between woods, because the trees that populate woods are around, before, and behind the walker. And to say, as is common to do, that you are in a wood, is akin to saying that the wood is in you. Is this ridiculous, or profound? I asked the trees if I am in the wood or if the wood is in me. But the trees told me that the soil is rich here, a thin flesh over limestone bones, and that the sky is blue, and changing into darkness as the sun goes to the west to die. "And go down to the river now", said the trees. "The river is our benefactor, without her we would not be. Go under the rock and you will find the river's edge, and you will find footsteps there".

I followed the footsteps to the hole in the rock. The slope was steep and trecherous, and the stones were sharp. I could see to the bottom of the hole, where the path through the hole emerged at the bottom of the gorge at the end of a grand river. I stood at the edge of the hole, not daring to descend, for I feared for my life, but marvelled at the bravery of those who had passed under the rock before me, and marvelled at the beauty of the river on the other side. In my indecision I cried out to the hole: "Of all whom I have passed on this journey, only you have threatened me with sharp stones and dangerous cliffs. Why this animosity?" And the rock said, "Dear traveller, I do not mean to threaten you with sharp stones and dangerous cliffs, but the river has cut me in this shape as it has washed over me year after year. My corners are sharp and quick to cut, but not so painful in the end as the slow and unstoppable course of the river, which sweeps away all in time." And when the rock spoke to me, I knew the danger was in my mind and not in the rock, and so I went under, to the edge of the water. And the tunnel was not long at all.

I emerged at the bottom of the gorge, with the towering cliffs on either side of the river between them. I stood on a narrow precepice, with the rock to my right and the edge to my left. I could not balance without one foot on land and the other in the water. I asked the river where the people had gone, and I asked why does the river feed some but cut others. But the river spoke first of the shape of the land, and the laughter of the salmon, and the great wide sea that would embrase the water at the end of the land, which was the end of the world. "And I do not know about feeding and cutting", said the river, "but I know that my streams flow into everything, and my tributaries come from everything. And many are the great heroes and wise ones who have sailed along my length, but few have sailed with me to the end. And tell me your story now," said the river, "so that I can know you as one among those who have walked this way before."

This is what I told the river. When the work of my day was done, and I was fed and sheltered, and all the needs of survival and comfort were met, the old Druid came to me again and asked me the same question that he asked me in the morning: "What will you do now?" And I thought to answer, I should make some happiness for that is why I live, and I thought to answer, i should work again for my work is never done, and I thought to answer, I should seek knowledge for knowledge is food and drink for the soul. Then the Druid said, "But what is this talk of soul? Is talk of the soul substance, or smoke?" Then I saw footsteps in the earth. Footsteps are not made by idle feet. They are made by people who hunger, in their body or in their soul. And so I began to hunger, and to go under, for footsteps that go under are made by people who seek knowledge for their food. And so I know that there exists such a thing as a soul. And so I began to make footsteps of my own. I am no longer a follower of footsteps, but a maker of them.

And when I finished my story, I saw the sun rise in the east, and cast shafts of light like the bright spears of a god along the passage of the gorge, illuminating the bridge, and the trees, and the hole in the rock, and a house across the river that I did not see before, where camped the Druids who h ad followed the river before me. And the river said "Go to them now, and see if you can join their circle. Tell them that you have come from me, and do not be forgetting what you have learned, or you will never be welcome in the house where dwells the wise".

Cathbad
Writing from the Grove,
and in the season of Samhain, 1999.