A Fragile Cup of Witch's Brew

"I'm sorry Sybil, I shouldn't have asked."

"It's okay Sax."

We paddled on.

"Strange isn't it Sax? I was the first person to know that my sister died."

"Indeed." I paddled on and then added, "Couldn't you foresee your sister's death?"

She took a couple of strokes before she answered, "I hadn't seen it." She took another stroke, "In truth my skills weren't as sharp then as they are now, but the other reality is that there are some things that a seer doesn't want to see, such as their own child's death, or parent or sister. You have to push those visions, those thoughts away. You have to actively avoid them, and that's what I had done with my sister."

I still didn't have the nerve to ask about my own death. I was good with the head's up about, how did she put it exactly...there's a good indication that I'd be old? I wondered what she saw. Still, I didn't dare ask.

I had to push that thought away.

I thought about the cabin.

"How did you manage to build that cabin all by yourself?"

"One rock at a time. One log at a time."

"How long did it take you?"

"I'm still building it. I've got a new window to put in."

"But you had to use tools."

"Of course. An axe, an adze, a saw, a few files. Hammer and some nails, rope and a pulley, cement, that's about it. A sturdy shovel. Oh and two windows, one being replaced. Door hinges, the still and the metal stove pipe, some glue. I made pretty well everything else. I scrounged up furniture, made some too. Do you like it?"

"I do. I'm really impressed. That's a lot of work."

"I've a lot of time."

"So you had to drag all of that stuff through the grassy lake?"

"You can paddle it in the spring."

Amazing was this woman sitting in front of me in the canoe with her cute ass luring me.

"I didn't tell you..."

"Tell me what?" she asked.

"That I thought your flute playing yesterday was some of the sweetest music I've ever heard."

She stopped paddling and turned around to look at me. "Why that is a lovely thing to say. Thank you Sax."

"I mean it. I was profoundly moved. I think Berlioz was too."

"Thank you. I must admit, I love that flute."

"Did you make it?"

"No," she turned back around and dipped the paddle in the water, "a guy named Eric in Florida. It's based on a Native design though. He calls it a Kiowa Love flute."

"It's has a lovely sound."

"It certainly does," she said, "it has a melodic pentatonic scale."

"What does that mean?"

"There are just five holes in the flute, it's easy to play."

"Well you made it sound effortless to play. It was as if your soul was pouring out."

"Ha ha...well...I suppose, in a sense it was. I play the flute when I really need to ground myself. And that's what I did yesterday."

"You ground yourself."

"Yes. I had to look deep inside myself."

"Is that what the community advised you?"

"Yes. Exactly. They sent me away and made me decide."

"I'm missing something here Sybil."

"What's that?"

"If your own death is set in stone, what was the decision that you had to make?"

"Sax. All of our deaths are set in stone. We're living creatures, we cannot avoid it."

"Okay, that I get."

"Sax. I'm going to die of kidney failure. I don't know if it's going to be in the next twenty minutes or if I'll be a hundred and seven when it happens. What I didn't know until you came, was that it will be as a result of donating a kidney. I'm still not absolutely certain of that."

"So you're saying that in reality you didn't have a decision to make. You donating a kidney was always going to happen. You're saying that we don't have free will?"

"We do have free will Sax. I could have jumped away like a frog, but I'd still die of kidney failure."

"But this donation is going to hasten the inevitable?"

"Not necessarily, but most probably. Who knows I may still live to a hundred and seven."

"A seer would know."

"Well this seer can't see that."

"And your community wouldn't let you know?"

"They sent me away and made me exercise my free will. I had to make a decision."

"So you had to decide what was the inevitable?"

"Sax, don't try to over think this. You can't change the future any more than you can change the past. What happened in the past was the result of our free willed decisions. What will happen in the future will be the result of our free willed decisions."

"So it's all pre-ordained?"

"No! That's the point."

"But how can you know it? How can you see it if it's not pre-determined? That's absurd."

"Mind, our human mind," she said emphatically, "through experience, character and moral inclination is constantly asked to make decisions, that is, spiritual choices. Either we follow the true path of nature, of what is good and dare I say, what the intent of God and the universe is, or, by choice, we buck all of that and choose to fulfill our base desires, our conceits or our greed or our moral miscalculations and self deceptions."

"So we get to choose our fate?" I asked.

"Yes, we have free choice, fueled by a myriad of motivations."

"I still don't get it."

She swung around to face me and stared into my face with a blank expression for a long moment. "Sax, let me sing to you a song lyric by Robert Hunter."

"Okay."

She sang sweetly, "There is a road, no simple highway

Between the dawn and the dark of night

And if you go, no one may follow

That path is for your steps alone."

I'd heard the song and lyric before.

"Don't you see Sax. It's not predetermined. Each step you take is your own. Your own free will. I understand that it's seemingly a paradox."

"So you can see the entire future, even though I've not decided what I'm going to do in the next five minutes."

"No I can't see the entire future, I can only get a glimpse of the future of individual human activity. I cannot see the future of spirit activity. I cannot know God's mind. Because the future lies in the continued interaction of the spirits, of man and of God, I cannot fully divine the future, only personal fate."

We paddled silently for a moment before I asked, "And you believe that you are trading your life for Dee's, but you can't be certain."

"That is correct."

"And you still feel that is the correct decision."

"Yes, I believe it to be."

"You're a very brave woman Sybil Varro."

"I'm not sure about brave, crazy maybe, but not brave. Scared."

"Scared of dying?"

"No."

"Scared of what's going to happen?"

"Scared of what might not happen," she answered.

"What do you mean?"

"What frightens me and I'm not able to see this through right now, let's say this kidney donation shortens my life by say, ten years. I can accept that if it means that Dee will live a long and fruitful life and have children and be happy and then hopefully become a doting grandmother. I would love that. My life didn't turn out that way. I have no children. How could I not wish that for her?"

I didn't say anything.

"But what if my donation only prolongs Dee's life by a month? Will I have traded ten years of seeing work, of helping others...of my life...for thirty more days of her agony in the hospital?"

I didn't know what to say.

She continued, "If I could see her fate clearly, it would be a no-brainer. It wouldn't even be a decision. But I can't see that right now. I have to go on faith alone. You see Sax, in spite of the gifts that I have, I'm only human."

"So maybe your decision to donate is just going to make her suffer more."

"That's right. At this point Sax, I've got to go on faith alone that it won't happen.

"Are you actively trying to push the vision of Dee's death out of your mind?"

"No I'm not. It's just that it's too tied up with my judgment. With the human me."

"You are an extraordinary woman."

"I'm glad that you think so."

"And you have an extraordinarily fine ass."

"For an old woman."

"For an old witch."

"Ahh ha haa!"

We paddled on silently for a few minutes.

"Sax?"

"Yes?"

"Shakespeare, in that same play Macbeth, uses an allegory which I find apt."

"Oh?"

"There are a couple of lines, one of which is about looking at the seeds of time."

"Oh?"

"And being able to say which will grow and which will not."

"Oh?"

"I've always liked that description. I've always found it poignant."

"How so?"

"Because that's how seeing works, at least for me. I can usually identify the seeds and describe the growth that follows. In my particular case, I see the result; my kidney failure, but I cannot identify the seed that it grew from. Does that make any more sense to you?"

"I don't know, maybe."

"It's a big continuum from everybody's normal everyday experience to my, let's call it, refined gift."

"Oh?"

"Absolutely. If you use your free will to shoot a police officer in broad daylight in downtown Toronto, it doesn't take a lot to see how your life will transpire. In a concrete box, with a metal door."

"Okay, but that's not really seeing the future."

"Miss the nail and smack your thumb with a hammer. You know you will have a sore thumb."

"But that's experience, not seeing the future."

"Exactly. My gift is to be able to read that seed, that potential choice that is just one of many life decisions that a person has to make and to connect it to the fruit that is borne. You see Sax, there is a part of us in that other world, the spirit world. We are conscious beings, we are aware of having a soul. But a soul can't be isolated and weighed. It dwells on the other side, where time has very little meaning. As long as there is not too much noise I simply see that soul and use my experience as a human being to connect that persons seed options and the resultant fruit potentials. I see what is happening now and what will happen as a consequence. I don't know the future per se, just an array of possiblities."

"Sybil, I don't get it."

"Sax, I can't expect you to."

We continued paddling.

She turned to me and said, "Olive's daughter should not marry that idiot that she is going out with. He's going to land up in jail. She's going to end up as a single mom, with virtually no education. She'll have a hard life."

"What the hell are you talking about? And who the hell is Olive?"

She turned back, "You'll see," and continued paddling.

After a few moments I said, "Okay, what's Olive's daughter's choice?"

"There's another boy interested in her. He has a good heart and a good mind. I see happiness for her and for both of them."

"Free choice?"

"Yes, just two of many seeds."

"But yet, Olive's daughter's death is set in stone?"

Sybil paddled silently for a few strokes and then piped up, "Lung cancer I think. If she doesn't stop smoking."

We paddled on.

She put her paddle down across the two gunwales in front of her and then lifted her hands to the side of her head, palms out, "I'm seeing something, something big."

"What is it?" She startled me.

"A beaver dam, right around the corner!"

Sure enough, with just a few more paddles we turned a corner and there was a beaver dam.

"Stick to your day job Sybil. Oooo...I'm seeing something too...there's a big lake ahead of us."

"Lake Wasa-what's it's name. Ahh ha haa!"

The woman was nuts.

We lifted the two canoes over the beaver dam and plopped them back into the water on the other side. Before we climbed in she turned towards me and said, "In just a hundred yards or so we're going to come across a stretch of rapids. Maybe it's a better idea if I steered and you got in the front. Are you okay with that? The rapids are only a hundred yards or so. There is a path if you'd rather portage."

"Hey, I'll do whatever you and Smokie recommend."

"Well Smokie recommends that I steer and keep us on the left for the first part, on the right for the next and then straight down the middle for the last."

"We'll go with Smokie's recommendations then."

And off we went and about a hundred yards later...

"Woo-hoo!" Rapids! Down hill! White water! "Ahhhh!"

"Smokie says paddle on the right side!" She yelled.

I did. Like a roller coaster down we went with water splashing all around us.

"Okay switch to the left side now!"

I did.

"Woo-hoo!" Up and down, with big rocks passing by us.

"Okay stop paddling now."

I did and Sybil steered us through until everything was calm again.

"Sax?"

"Yes?"

"You've got a pretty fine ass too."

"Well after that I'm pretty lucky that it's still intact."

"I knew you'd be fine."

"That's right a man destined to hang is not afraid of water."

"Exactly Sax. You are starting to understand exactly."

We paddled on for a while with me in front. I was fine with that arrangement. Especially if we came across more fast water.

"Sybil?"

"Yes?"

"Is there really nobody else living anywhere nearby? No Shining Tree-billies?"

"Nope. Very, very rarely a prospector or hunter or fisherman or canoer will pass by. Why?"

"I thought for a sec I could hear banjo music."

"Ahh ha hhaa! Better paddle faster then!"

We paddled on silently.

"You know Sax, one of the things my community was able to confirm yesterday..."

"What's that?"

"I knew it intrinsically, but I just wanted to have it confirmed..."

"What's that?"

"Just the same as the frog's lives were absorbed by ours, when I donate a kidney to Dee, a small part of me will live on in her."

"That's a bit weird."

"Hmmm, not really." she replied.

"So, let me get this straight. While you are both alive, you'll be in two places at once?"

"No not consciously. It will be no different than your mother and father living on in you."

"Weird. Creepy almost."

We paddled on.

"Is that another beaver dam up ahead?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I have an idea Sybil."

"What's that?"

"Why don't you catch and eat the beavers?"

"I only did that once. The tail was...almost okay."

"That bad?"

"Let me put it this way. Beavers have a role in our community. Being a readily available food source for me is not one of them."

"So what do you eat?"

"A lot of fish. Bird..."

"How do you catch a bird?"

"Bow and arrow."

"What about fish?"

"Hook and line usually."

"But not Meyer?"

"No, nothing from my pond. They all have names. They're like family."

Weird. "What else do you eat?"

"Frog obviously. Crawfish. Mink, marten, fisher, rabbit, squirrel all very tasty, chipmunks are okay but too small, all the other mammals are either too big or too gamey. Turtles, they're all fantastic. Water snakes are surprisingly good. Snails are a bit fiddly but tasty. Freshwater clams in a pinch but they're tough and they'll give you a belly ache if you have too many."

"Mice and rats. Do you eat those too?"

"Not by choice."

"How did you learn what's good and what's not? I mean - tamarack bark?"

"Well I have field guides. But mainly through trial and error." Then she added, "Inner bark of tamarack."

"And left eye of newt," I added.

"Ahh ha haaa! And toe of frog. Wool of bat and tongue of dog. Ha ha."

We took a couple of paddle strokes.

"I saw a string of poison mushrooms hanging in your cabin."

"I don't have poison mushrooms."

"Yeah, the red and white ones."

"Ahh...amanita muscaria, or fly agaric. Those mushrooms are very special, but they're not poisonous. They can make you very ill, but you won't die from it."

"Why do you even have them, if they're going to make you ill? What's so special about them then? "

"They're entheogenic."

"What does that mean?"

"God generating."

"So you eat that mushroom and you see God?"

"Yup, pretty well. With the right dose of course."

"So you get high with it?"

"Oh no. You wouldn't get high."

"So it's a psychedelic trip type thing? Like LSD or something."

"Nope. But then I've never taken LSD. It's a gift from our forest. From...God."

"A gift?"

"That mushroom has a long history with mankind."

"Really? As a toadstool maybe."

"Well that too. But that mushroom's importance is still evident and remains as distant echoes in our culture today, or I should say, in the culture that you live in. Not mine."

"What are you talking about?"

"Let me just give you a small example."

"Okay fine."

"The use of those mushrooms is well known deep in Russia. In a boreal forest just like here. I'm talking thousands of years ago. The soma referred to in the Rg Veda, this planet's earliest recorded religious texts, may very well be amanita muscaria mushroom. Ditto the manna sent by God to sustain the Jews for forty years as they wandered the desert."

"Come on, Sybil. You don't believe that."

"Well the manna appeared from nowhere overnight and it had to be eaten that day because it would be worm infested the next. Tell me, does that not sound like a mushroom to you?"

"But you can't live on mushrooms alone for forty years."

"Sustain their faith. It is a God generating mushroom."

"Oh."

"Let me go on. Let me get to my point."

"Okay."

"In Russia, especially in what is now referred to as Siberia, probably still to this day the Natives collect that red and white mushroom. The houses that they lived in, hundreds and thousands of years ago, were basically earthen yurts, each with a low door and a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. Picture a large earthen igloo with a hole in the top."

"Okay."

"The Amanita muscaria mushrooms only grow under pine, fir and spruce trees."

"So? I don't see the connection."

"The shaman would bring the mushrooms, carried in a sack to his people. A gift so that they could communicate with God."

"Okay."

"When the snow was high, the shaman would have to go into the yurt through the hole in the roof."

"Fine." In truth, I was getting a little lost.

"And naturally like all other early peoples, they celebrated winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Doesn't add up?"

"Not yet."

"When the mushrooms grew, they had to compete with a certain animal that absolutely loved to eat them. What animal do you think that would be?"

"No clue."

"Reindeer."

"What?"

"That's right. Christmas gifts are found under what kind of trees?"

"Christmas trees...ahh...pine?"

"And spruce and fir. Santa Claus comes down a...?"

"A chimney?"

"That's right a smoke hole in the roof. He's carrying a bag of gifts and you get one if you're good. But if you've been bad you're stuck with?"

"A lump of coal?"

"Excellent. Who's pulling his sleigh Sax?"

"Reindeer," I answered assertively.

"And those reindeer have consumed so many of red and white mushrooms that they must be?"

"I don't know!"

"Flying high Sax. Flying high. After all, if you have just a piece of one, you'll see God. If you have a hundred like a reindeer would do...whew...they'd be in a place that I would never dare to go."

"Amazing."

"Oh and when does all this take place?"

"Winter solstice."

"That's right, the end of December. Oh and what colour is Santa's suit?"

"Red and white."

"Bingo. It all lives on. Even if the modern Santa Claus image came from Macy's, this stuff simply won't go away. To this day a common Christmas tree decoration is the Amanita muscaria mushroom. For many eastern European peoples, even though they may be Catholic, Lutheran or Russian Orthodox, the first course of Christmas Eve dinner is mushroom soup. Tell me Sax, where does one traditionally hang their Christmas stocking and where did you see my string of drying mushrooms?"

"The fireplace mantel."

"That's right, but there's more, aside from the Christmas connection."

"Really?"

"If I wanted you to see God, to have a true bonding experience, why I'd cut you a thin wafer of that dry red and white mushroom and give you something to wash it down with, like say, some fresh water or a bit of witch's brew or, picture this, if I had some, a sip of wine. Ring a bell?"