A Journey

She had succumbed to the Minotaur’s deadly blows, falling unconscience. When she awoke, groggy and disoriented, she found that she was in a strange new place. Her ragged clothes had been replaced with a comfortable new dress and her wounds had been tended to. A red robin with a blue beak surprised her by speaking to her:

“You have been asleep for a long time, weak from the deadly hits of the Minotaur. When I found you, you were almost dead.”

“Who sent you?”, she asked, with a quiver in her voice. She had learned early on not to trust anyone or anything. “Why were you in the grove? The Minotaur destroyed my garden, there was nothing for you.”

“I was sent to find you”, he replied.

“Who sent you?” she demanded.

The robin began to clean his feathers, gobbling up any mites he found.

“Well, then, how did I get here?”, she asked, exasperated.

“I had some help”, and that’s all that he would say. He flew up to a higher perch, turned his back to her, and continued cleaning his feathers.

Later that afternoon, after she had eaten and napped, he called to her from his perch:

“In two days time, you will leave this place, to begin a journey, to head back to your garden, your home.”

“NOOOO!”, she cried, and tears began streaming down her face. “I like it here, it’s warm and dry and safe. I will die if I have to face the Minotaur again. It will kill me.”

“Yes, dear, but this is not your home. You will have to face the Minotaur at some point. But not for a long time, I think. I will send with you a guide, a light to help you navigate the darkness, with a bit of strong magic to boot. And you will meet friends along your journey. It’s a long, long journey, with many challenges. But I will send you with this. It’s a pendant of courage. It will come in handy, when you least expect it.”

She dried her tears. She really did miss her beautiful garden, her place to call her own. She had just begun to plant and cultivate it, when the Minotaur destroyed it. She had planned to fix up the shabby shack, to make it a nice, cozy cottage. At first, she was frightened by what she might find there, but the words that the robin spoke had a soothing effect on her, and she found that she did want to go back.

Two days later, with a sturdy hazelwood walking stick, a new pair of green suede boots, her new pendant of courage, and her fairy guide, she set out on the road, a road that had never been mapped before.

This beginning of a story was written on September 13, 2000. I was in the midst of a horrible, life-sucking depression, and had just begun group therapy and counseling, as well as medication. This story was my attempt at trying to conceptualize the depression, give it a name, The Minotaur, and find something to look forward to, a journey. I found the story this morning, when I was looking through an old sketchbook that I've had for years. When I read it, I was amazed at the correlation between the journey I expected to go on then, and the journey I am about to go on now. I think I left her there, at the beginning of that road that had never been mapped, but now, 6 years later, she really is ready to get going. Oh, and I did make a pendant of courage at the time...a piece of St. John's Wort root, in the shape of a triangle, wrapped round and round in thin silver wire, with the triangle pointing up, dangling from a plain silver chain.