In the dreaming.
When I meet people they can trigger memories within me. My husband and I remembered each other. It has happened on and off since I was 16. They do not always remember me. One of the first I had was being heavily pregnant and in a room that is on fire. I could not get out. I could not breathe. Other dribs and drabs would come back. At that age it is quite unsettling to remember such things.
Having been reacquainted with the person who triggered this memory I guided myself back to find more out about this life before bed last night. I expected this person to feature heavily or emotionally in this remembering but I remembered most a place, a low island in Scotland with a village made of stone. It had only one purpose which was to be a birth center for Kings, queens and other royal children. My mother ran this place. She was thin but wiry. Her hair was wrapped in blue clothe and she had piercing but twinkly eyes. I was the second of 4 of her daughters and while my sister married a King she resented me because I would inherit this place, and my mother's title. The jobs was not only getting the baby out but then taking the women to the sea. We would wash them and let the blood and first milk flow into the ocean. We would read the "Life map" or placenta and give that up to the ocean too. I remember the special wooden peg for the cord. I remember the silver axe and the gristly texture of it cutting. I remember the great fires in the "hot rooms" that newly washed mothers and they babies were placed. I remember long births. Slow births. Still births, where the child was give straight back to the sea wrapped in the "life map", some of it's mother's blanket and a lock of her hair.
All the time I remember my mother talking almost to herself as she lead me through all that needed to be done. I feel this closeness. Connected without expectation. Her unwavering belief in what we did and my ability to do it. There was such a strength to her, a power that radiated in her presence. Yet she was softly spoken. Sweet of voice. She had a metal rod that denoted her office. She would take it out into each storm. She would place it within a pit of wet sand. When lightening hit it she was the most radiant I have ever seen her. Her hair unbound and rain wet face. I remember seeing it and knowing that it would be my rod and it frightened me. Yet within the warm stone walls she told me I should be frightened. That all power can kill. That I must remember everything we are are borrowed except for our names and the children we bear. Then she would sing her lullaby to me the same way she would to every new babe and it made me laugh. I remember the smell of sheep fat used to rub on her sore knuckles, raw and red from water and cold and salt. I remember the blanket room, with boxes stacked from floor to curved ceiling. I remember the pregnant mother's room where the women would spin and some would weave. I do not remember any men. Not a father or brother. I do not know who the father of my child is anymore than before the dreaming. Or why I die within a fire. Yet I remember walking into the ocean to let my own blood and milk flow. Ah what makes sense in the dreaming does not make sense in the morning.
I do not know how much more or less I will remember as the day wear into it's silver winter noon colours but maybe there will be more. At least now there will be no less.