The Tale of a Woman with a Stone in her Womb

THE WOMAN WITH A STONE IN HER WOMB

But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself – that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then?  

Carl Jung

This is a tale from long, long ago that was also told just yesterday…There once was a young woman named Tara, with skin so perfect, that her face looked like it was made of fine stone. Her mother also had this appearance, as did her older sister. In fact, the mothers and grandmothers and even the great-great grandmothers of her lineage had always been known for the porcelain quality of their skin.

Tara’s family lived in a small house, on the edge of a great town. The town had a strange quality that was known only to those with special sight. With each passing year, the buildings in the town grew taller and the trees grew smaller. It was so imperceptible, these changes, that hardly anyone noticed that the maple trees that lined the great lake in town shrunk each year by an inch or so. One day, there would be no trees, only skyscrapers, but the townspeople didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, that this day would come.

When Tara was born, in a big hospital in the center of town, something happened that passed the notice of the nurses and even the doctor who delivered Tara into her mother’s waiting arms. There was a magical stone—a flagstone—that had lived inside Tara’s mother, from the time of her birth. It lived in a deep part of her womb and pulled inconvenient feelings into it. The more feelings Tara’s mother ignored, the more space they needed deep inside. So the stones split, much like human cells undergo mitosis, in order to hold all of the unpleasant or overwhelming feelings. A grown woman might have thousands of these stones lodged inside her, holding all the pain and ecstasy that she might have felt over a lifetime.  Further, these stones were not loosely constructed. Oh no. Think of an old stone wall erected between two farmers’ fields. That wall, with each stone pushed into exactly the right spot, would stand for generations, and could withstand even the most powerful storms. A loose stone might fall out here and there, but the wall was not built to fall. Ever. 

Each time a new girl-child was born into the lineage, the magical stone divided in two and the new child was gifted the stone. True, it pulled down strong feelings and locked them inside its crystalline core. But it didn’t stop there. The more feelings it pulled, the woman’s appearance came to resemble stone. Tara’s beautiful complexion was more a result of unfelt feelings than a genetic disposition for smooth skin. 

And so it was with Tara. The stones accumulated inside her, they twisted and turned, creating a spiral, stone staircase of unfelt emotion. Each time Tara began to feel grief and anguish, or bliss and rapture, the feelings were magically pulled down and locked into stone. The stone staircase grew, coiling like a corkscrew inside Tara. And in turn, her skin became even more fine and unyielding.

And then, one day, a great storm struck the town and Tara was caught outside. She ducked under a giant maple tree, and feeling protected, witnessed the bolts of lightning raining down from the sky and felt the deep rumble of thunder echoing in her bones. Perhaps there was not time for the stones to block the feelings. Or perhaps a mischievous spirit intervened on Tara’s behalf. But as Tara witnessed the storm, she felt the thrill of feelings rippling through her body. She felt fear when it started; but then she felt awe with each lightning bolt. She felt the mystery of thunder. When the storm finally passed, it was as though it moved through her body, not over her head. Now, Tara longed to feel more. 

In spring, she met a man named Adar, whose skin was finely polished. His curse was different; Adar easily felt pain, envy and rage but couldn’t find his way into the sweet feelings of the heart. Together, they wished for two things: To feel everything and to have a child. The Witch of Senti overheard their wishes and swooped down to make a deal. She was ruthless. She ticked off 5 names, while raising one of her bony fingers for each: Tara, Tara’s sister Divula, Adar, Tara’s mother and an as yet unborn child. “Two shall feel,” she announced, “and three shall not.”  They gasped. Could they trade off the feelings of Tara’s mother and sister, along with some unfortunate unborn child, in order to secure their feelings, and their fate together. They reluctantly agreed.

In exchange for a child, the Witch of Senti asked for the permanent gift of their childhood feelings. Youthful feelings were the strongest of all and kept her alive. They were the lifeblood of a witch like her. Adar and Tara agreed. And now neither would remember any feelings that arose before they turned 10 years old. They would have to give up feelings that they scarcely remembered? This seemed an easy deal. They agreed. 

Soon afterwards, Adira was conceived and born. No girl-child in the lineage had ever refused the gift of the magical stone.  How could one refuse something that passed invisibly and unknowingly from mother to daughter? But the Witch was powerful. Not only did she enable Adira to refuse the magical stone, and to be the first girl-child with full possession of her feelings at birth, but she spent nine months in the womb plucking out all of her mother’s stones. She yanked out stones within reach of her tiny legs and dismantled that encircled her with her tiny fingers. 

Each stone that Adira removed from Tara’s body dissolved into thin air but not without making its presence felt. First, there was a sound—like the popping of a cork from a bottle of champagne—and Tara felt a tiny spasm erupt from her pregnant womb. Next, she felt a patch of skin come alive, with heat and sensation. Finally, the hardest part of all, was that Tara would feel the inconvenient feeling that had been locked inside the stone. Oh the pain! Oh the joy!

Onlookers thought that the baby was a fierce kicker, because Tara paused so often during pregnancy to hold onto a handrail or lean against a wall. She needed support to allow the feelings to whirl upwards, and then fall away, like sharp but impermanent gusts of wind. She would find herself gritting her teeth with rage or wiping away tears of melancholy, before the force of the feeling died away. Tara’s skin began to take on a new appearance. It was often red, hot to the touch, and pulsing with life. 

After Adira’s birth, Tara was transformed. She was a richly feeling woman who spent every moment with an intensely feeling child. Tara and Adira laughed uncontrollably, often until they cried. They tickled and teased each other, rolling together in the grass, and allowing their bodies to fill with warm rays and sweet breezes of the summer sky. All of life frothed and sloshed inside them and could be seen in the fullness of their radiant smiles.  Even the trees seemed to grow taller in their presence, and the buildings seemed to shrink. 

On one such day, Adar found them having a Giggle Picnic, a feast of laughter and food. He stood still, towering above them, taking in the unholiness of the scene. He had assumed that the witch had given him his feelings back. But in bearing witness to his wife and child, he realized that he didn’t know how to join in. 

Feeling uncomfortably excluded, he paused. He recalled the agreement with the Witch of Senti.  She said, “I will give feelings to two, but take them away from three.” Was it possible? That he was one of the unlucky three? The proof seemed to be giggling right in front of him. Tara and Adira had feelings, while he did not. 

Now, blazing with rage, he called on an even more powerful witch—the Witch of Walls—and begged her to cast a spell on the mother and child. The witch appeared that night, understanding why she had been summoned. Adar needed power—the power to restrain what had been unleashed in his child, and now taking control of his wife. He offered her all of his possessions in exchange for a wall: A wall powerful enough to separate mother and child,

The Witch of Walls set to work. First, she unleashed a frightening storm, that brought mother and child into the same bed, sleeping with their noses touching and their mouths open. Then she cast two obsidian pebbles down the throats of Tara and Adira, cut from the same glassy black stone. When it reached their bellies, it created twin ripples of fear, much like a stone disturbs the still surface of a lake before sinking to its depths. Mother and child began to live with an imprecise fear, not knowing exactly who or what they were afraid of. 

That same night, Tara’s older sister Divula swallowed the second pebble sent down by the Witch of Walls. This one, larger and more jagged, produced intense judgment in Divula and the other members of the family quickly caught on. Suddenly mother and child could do no right. “The child isn’t being raised properly,” they squawked. “She is too wild and spirited,” they, cawed in unison, like an angry pack of crows.  Now mother and child felt guilty, and deeply ashamed, of days spent rolling in the grass. Tara began to stay up late, worrying that some unseen enemy was about to strike.

And strike it did. This was the Witch of Walls’ greatest feat. This time, she sent down a rain of black stones that cast a painful mark on the great town. A High Court justice was raised up on a dais and from there he ordered all mothers and children who were not doing as their fathers proclaimed, to be separated. Tara and Adira were frightened. They would do anything not to be separated. Adar, joined by Divula, declared that it was time for Tara and Adira to get serious. He ordered Tara to work longer hours to help pay for the child’s expenses; and Adira was to rise to the top of her class, or be sent far away, to live with an evil grandmother.

From that day forth, the Giggle Picnics happened in secret, late at night, if they happened at all. Tara and Adira lived in fear of being caught having fun. Adar found a new wife, but lived close by to continue his oversight. Mother and Child followed the new rules and tried behave as Adar, and the courts, thought they should. Tara found herself wondering what had happened to all of the rich, sweet joy that she used to feast upon each day. More and more, hatred and fear ricocheted through her body and settled into her bones.    

The town grew increasingly somber. Mother and Child applied great effort to living in denial of pleasure and play. The raw, pulsing skin that Tara had sprouted during pregnancy now hardened back into a shell that resembled polished stone. Tara and Adira were admired greatly. But not for their loving countenance. In this new world, women and children were admired their cold beauty and powerful restraint.  Adar built himself a tower of stone and continued his surveillance of Mother and Child from his perch at the top. Days blended into nights, and the years passed quickly. The serious people of the town moved into skyscrapers that rose ever higher into the sky. The trees shrunk, and with them, the townspeople lost their spaces to gather and play. In time, everyone fell into a deep sleep, forgetting that they ever felt anything at all.