Chapter 3

When I lie in bed waiting for sleep, I remember when great grandmother gave me the first spirit vessel, and I was afraid.  The small pounded metal statue fit in my hand even as a young girl.  Embarrassingly voluptuous, the ancient artifact had always stood on the orange and blue painted shelf at the back of her small apartment.   Just a few weeks later I would stand at her coffin and secretly, while everyone else was crying, take the large metal necklace she always wore carefully off her neck, placing it in my bag with the statue.  “Don’t worry, Grandmother.  I’ve got you.”

 Grandmother was there when the dreams jumbled into daytime, when my feet lost ground and flew in darkness then light, when I was still unknowing about, well, about everything.   Now I understand the call, the journey, the flight, the dreams of steel swords, bloody ground, horses and fire.   Most importantly, I understand that now is more of a here, a place, than a time.  All remains in the many realms.  I let the dreams come and relish in their power.  I have fought many times and can do it again.  I doubt not my prowess in battle, but my heart's ability to say goodbye to the one thing, only thing I have left to love.

Rosy fingered dawn-- I always loved that image.  Homer, the bard of war, captured the beginning so well, didn't he?  Today the frost is thick and magical, the cold air burning my hands and cheeks as I feed the horses.  Back inside, I log in to check Qing’s twitter feed.  All this nonsense about tweets and followers and status updates seems so ridiculous to me.  Just another way to interfere, make the simple complicated.  

Instead of her usual random esoteric comments about ancient Chinese practices, Qing has been posting numbers.

  5

 17

12

58

2

No. 

  On the TV, the CNBC ticker tape continues in its endless cycle of disturbing updates:

•  Oil execs deny correlation between fracking and ground water pollution-- refuse to pay court-ordered settlement
• 17 leaders of Singapore financial institutions believed dead after chartered fishing boat disappears
• 12  male students killed in Mexico City elite high school after drug bust goes bad
• Protect America citizen group marches on Washington to protest ban on automatic military-grade weapons in schools
• 58 die when Chinese bus plunges off cliff.  All believed to be men traveling to..

I stop reading.  It’s too soon.  She is acting too soon. 

 Today, the spirit of my ancestors was trembling with fear and rage.  Men killed.  Qing was starting her rampage.  It was too soon. 

 Oh she had always had a temper but there was something more to it.   A distance.  A smirk.  A slight shift; balance disrupted.  She fought all the boys but didn’t stop even when they were lying still on the ground.   She fought the factories polluting her beloved rivers, the three gorges dam flooding the valleys where she grew up.  She fought and she kept kicking while the fish died and the rivers grew dark and oily.  She fought and fought thinking herself alone.   She was alone—too violent for the women, too passionate for the men.  In between.   And so her anger grew. 

 If she would just be patient and let the plan unfold everything would change in time.  Instead, she took up arms again against our oppressors.  I’m no fan of fundamentalists of any stripe, especially those who use religion as a way to gain and keep power.   Do all these men deserve to die?  Perhaps.  Have they inflicted pain and suffering on young girls and middle-aged mothers of their children?  Yes.  Have they polluted and in their greed taken so much more than was needed?  Yes.   But it is not time. 

 I send her an IM (I refuse to tweet since sparrows or cartoon baby chickens tweet, not me)-- Stop.   You promised, made a deal. 

Qing:  Can’t wait one more year

I quickly type back-- Give me 1 month and you can do whatever you want

A pause.  Was she just ignoring me? 

Qing:  No. 

 And then,  a minute delayed Qing writes:  Get ready now.  I’ll give you 1 week.

I check her twitter feed again:

109

4

0

Zero.  Okay.  No more killing from Qing and her crazy pissed off Amazon-wanna-be-warrior women.

The CNBC ticker tape is back to reporting the usual:  Woman dies in New York after being set ablaze by jealous boyfriend; Women in France march for equal pay…..    Maybe Qing is right.