OFFERINGS

For several years I have been having dreams about making offerings: In the dreams, I see huge, conical mounds of bright yellow corn. Oversize platters piled high with slabs of cake. Tropical fruit cut into delicate squares and tenderly arranged in tiny, clear glass bowls, then set on an outdoor shelf for runners in a race. Sometimes I dream of ways I am to offer myself: I am to dance a dance of reconciliation for arguing guests followed by gifts of olive oil. I hold out my outstretched arms as a perch for birds of prey. I prepare a speech for angry, expectant African Americans gathered as far as I can see on a wide, sandy beach. A frightened, angry man is about to kill a snake. I stop him and argue on the snake’s behalf. In one dream, a friend and I are to meet where the railroad track ends to witness a duel and then carry away the dead. I am collecting plastic water bottles half full of water. I must put them in the freezer to make ice. The more I collect, the more I find.

What are the dreams asking? What do they instruct? In the act of offering I cannot do harm, only nourish. I cannot take, only give. My friend says that to make an offering is to create a tangible edge, a threshold across which one can enter into dialogue with the spirit world.

I pour milk into the ocean: may this milk feed all the life in the sea. For that moment I am the primal mother releasing primal nourishment to herself. As the liquid arc flows from my hand, it becomes a tiny bridge of protection and for that instant all creatures are safe and loved.

As I place an egg in a stream I am entrusting the possibility of new life into the tumbling flow that dances fresh and cool over the mossy stones. It is a sunny day in January. I remove my shoes and roll up my jeans. I step barefoot into the icy water. I can barely keep my balance. My feet are numb and the stones are so slippery. But I cannot hold onto an overhanging branch or reach into the stream to steady myself on a stone because I have an egg in each hand that must be protected at all costs.

On the sacred mountain I come upon a cache of plastic water bottles. The elephants have told me they are thirsty. I pour water on parched ground and become rain. Later that afternoon the cloudless sky darkens and rain comes in person.

I awake before dawn and sleepily look for the first shapes to emerge at the far end of the garden. I see the silhouette of the giant Eucalyptus tree. I turn on the heat. I fill the kettle and hear its first drowsy hiss. I put on my slippers and call the dog. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders. No lights on yet, that would break the spell. I watch for the suggestion of pink above the horizon. The water boils. I catch myself thinking there might be time to make tea. But don’t get distracted. I might miss it. The light before the light arrives on a palette of beiges and grays.

I am excited. Like a puppy. Like a birthday girl. Like a woman acquitted of yesterday’s sadness for the breaking world. For this moment, before the tea, before the headlines, the light is fresh and will soon arrive. When it suddenly blooms, so golden against the tree trunk, I gasp. It takes me by surprise every time, as it should. The chilled air curls around my neck and wraps around my ankles as the dark ground releases its last shadows. And then suddenly there is warmth on my eyelids as I squint towards the East. A faint warmth on my chest as I gratefully inhale. Warmth on my lips as I smile and say, “Thank you for this day!” and mean it. The I Ching says: Make an offering and you will succeed. Imagine! A chance to feed the sun! What an outrageous honor! I reach my hand into the sack of cornmeal and pull out a fistful. It feels powdery and cool in my tingling hand. I stand with my outstretched arm suspended between earth and sky. The gray-blue grains sift through my fingers into the light and are gone.