Unexpected Tension At A Blood Moon In Germany

I am jumping over an ancient chain, clearing it, my feet landing hard on the cobble stones. I look up at the medieval church in front of me. I am no closer now than I was on the other side of the chain. Now there is another chain. I crouch and jump again. I am still no closer. I jump another chain, and another, and another. Usually I clear the chain, but sometimes my leather boots catch on one of the links and I tumble and smack into the cobble stones, moss and dirt smearing my arms as I brace my fall.

The chains keep coming. They are all very heavy, made of rusty metals, the kind that is common around old wells or alongside pedestrian zones. Every once in awhile the metal is freshly painted red and white. Once the chain disappears altogether and I find myself jumping over the red and white caution tape used here in Germany. The chains are neither long nor high. I don’t know why I keep jumping over them, I could just as easily step across or even walk around. But I jump, jump and make it, jump and fall, jump, jump, jump. I never get any closer to the church.

I realize then that I am stuck in a loop and I ponder how to get out. I am tired and want to keep sleeping, but this dream is frustrating, so I decide to wake up. One more jump, I tell myself, and then I will wake up. But instead I jump, and then jump again, and the dream continues. I look for ways to shift the dream. I try to lower the chains. I attempt to walk around. I try to think myself into the church, to simply enter without traveling the short distance.

But it isn’t working and I feel trapped. I know that I am asleep and dreaming, but I don’t understand why I am less lucid and powerful than I usually am in the dreamworld. I encourage my dream body to take a deep breath and stay calm. Feet land on cobble stones, again and again, while my mind is working. Last night, I remember, I also had a disturbing dream.

I was in a post-apocalyptic world with a group of refugees from the devastated cities. I adopted one of the children and organized us all into a group, trying to build a community of survivors. But then I realized that the world was too destroyed, too toxic to rebuild, so I worked magic. Knowing the rules of the dreamworld, I dug my fingers into the fabric of time and space and carefully wove an opening, a split which I widened and pulled apart like a curtain. The world on the other side was similar, a single probability apart, but not quite as polluted as this one. I led our band of refugees through the portal into the parallel world where we joined other survivors and began the work of rebuilding.

Meanwhile, in tonight’s dream, I separate my body from my mind, and while my body continues to jump the chains, I allow my mind to step into yesterday’s post-apocalyptic dream. I watch my past self weave the portal between dimensions before stepping back and returning to my current dream body. I take the knowledge I have gained and begin to weave a portal in this dream world.

Suddenly, before I can finish my weave, I am awake and jumping out of bed. My phone is vibrating next to the sink. It is dark in my room and the dream clings to me as I make my waking body turn off the alarm. The display reads 3:45am.

Someone knocks and enters my room and says hello. I grunt in response, then remember that I made arrangements with my friend to do a ritual together during the lunar eclipse. My friend realizes I am not willing or able to speak and decides to wait for me outside. When I step out of the house, into the cold night, they* point at the last sliver of the moon. I growl and mumble something about dream and not awake and they fall silent as I unlock the car and crank up the heater.  

Half an hour later we arrive at Wilder Stein, the Wild Stone, a rock formation near Büdingen which was a ritual site in pre-Christian times. I claim to be awake now, but my friend isn’t fooled. I am holding down a conversation, but my responses are automatic; am not fully present.

I find the path to the top of the rocks, but half way up we come upon a barrier. It is red and white, just like some of the chains in my dream and it makes me angry. I will not be stopped by this barrier. I want to jump it, but it is too dark and the ground too rugged, so we climb around it, careful not to slip on the muddy stones.

After a dozen meters there is another barrier, cutting us off from the main stone. I am ready to climb across it, but thankfully my friend shines a flashlight past the barrier first and I see a chasm where the concrete bridge used to be. The stone on the other side is out of our reach. I want to fly across the chasm, but I know I am now in the waking world. I ask my friend to shine the light into the chasm again, but it is no use. There is no way to get across.

We decide to stay here, on top of this stone. Oak trees are moaning in the wind to our left, the city lights of Büdingen dance below us on our right. In front of us are the lit windows of a home for seniors. The facility must have been built as closely to the Wilder Stein as architecturally possible. Here and there a bright flash catches my eyes, a car coming straight toward us on the Autobahn before the road curves to the right again.

Above the Autobahn I see the blood moon. Lights all around us flicker like a sea of dancers below a silent moon. I wish the headlights would stop coming around the corner, that the senior center would turn off its lights, and the city would grow dark, but this is Germany. Civilization is everywhere, around every corner, at the edge of every nature preserve. I lower myself unto the rock. The ground is cold and moist and a protruding rock digs into my right thigh.

Then my friend begins to speak, reminding us of the intention for the ritual and calling upon the ancestors. I hear the intention, I mumble agreement, but I can’t seem to remember any of the words. I listen to the greeting of the ancestors and I feel them, but the words float away as soon as they are spoken. I feel a weight pulling me down and I sit still upon the ground, the cold and piercing rock reminding me that I am in my body.

I want to sit and sink lower, but suddenly my friend stands up. I hear them say something about north but I don’t understand and then they turn in a circle and say words at each turn. A part of me knows that my friend is casting a circle, but I don’t understand why. This place is sacred space. It is between the worlds. Now I see my friend connecting the circle to things that are present and I call on the spring as we face west, but the words sound weird to me. The spring?

Something is off, a wrongness, as if something has arrived that is out of place. I feel tension. I hear words being spoken, but it is becoming harder to make sense of words. I hear the name of a goddess being invoked, but I can’t remember who that is supposed to be. I know I am not a part of this ritual anymore. I think my friend is trying to reach me, wanting to understand what is happening for me, maybe needing support? I don’t know. I am sinking.

Suddenly my heart jumps. There are sounds on the other stone, the one we cannot reach. A figure appears, climbing the stone, ascending from the other side. It is a man, now standing at the top of the rock, checking his cell phone, lighting a cigarette. He notices us and says Moin, the local slang for Good Morning. I want to say Moin back, but I remember we are in a circle and I feel choked and say nothing.

There is silence here. A silence that is dense, heavy, crowded. It is like a room full of people, all talking at the same time, in silences that scream and silences that are barely a whisper. I can’t make out any voices, I can’t tell one silence from another. They blend in a deafening cacophony of soundlessness.

I stare at the moon. The moon stares back. I think of my ancestors. Those who worshiped here. Those who were killed here. Those who did the killing. The church bells ring at random intervals. A part of me remembers that they are ringing out the quarters of each hour, but to me the times in between stretch and contract into meaninglessness.

Then there is tapping which annoys me, and I realize it is coming from my friend. We left the drum at home, too many houses nearby, so they is tapping out a rhythm gently on their body. Then there is humming and I recognize the tune just before my friend starts singing the words.

Forget your perfect offering
Ring the bells that still can ring
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

Suddenly I am overcome with hatred for the song. I can’t remember ever hating it before, but in this moment I can’t stand it. I want it to stop. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. I am no longer cold, I am hot from rage. I want it to stop. I want to scream that it is wrong, the words are all wrong, the language is wrong. RUHE! I scream in my mind. STOP, STOP, STOP!

But no words come out of my mouth. I want to cry; I am so angry. The language is wrong, the meaning is wrong, this singing should not be here in this place. It is offensive, an insult, a violation. So much rage runs through my body and I want to jump at my friend and make them stop, but I cannot move.

Then I get angry at the rage. Whoever it is coming from, I want to yell at them and tell them to stop complaining. The song is coming from the heart, can’t you see? I want to say. So what if it’s in English? So what if it’s new? So what if the offering isn’t perfect? Can’t you see that your stubborn clinging to tradition, to conformity, to refusing change didn’t get you anywhere? Your traditionalism can’t stop the freeway lights from shining upon this place, the senior home being built on your sacred ground, the church bells ringing. Look at the heart and allow some individualism, some diversity!

Nein, my head screams. Ich hasse das Lied. Ich hasse es! Ruhe! I glance over at the man on the other rock. He is fiddling with his cell phone again and flicking his lighter on and off. Does he even notice all of the powers in this place? What does he think of the song? Does it annoy him, too?

Was sollen denn da die Leute denken? What are people supposed to think.

A phrase that is so familiar, so infuriating. You know,I think at the voice in my head, maybe you could just accept individuals for who they are, for a change? That’s why I left, you know? That’s why I had to leave Germany!

Falsch, falsch, falsch, my head screams back at me. Ruhe, Ruhe, hör auf mit dem Lied, mit dieser Sprache.

I look at the chasm between the rocks. That’s where I should be. I’m not the American casting a circle, singing in English, making a beautifully sincere imperfect offering of a ritual. I’m not the German smoking a cigarette and playing on a cell phone. I should be standing between the rocks, the space where the bridge collapsed.

I can’t stand the tension anymore. I start walking away, toward the oak trees. Behind me the city is waking up, more and more lights. Ahead of me, the oak trees sway in the wind, acorns falling, and I remember the boy I met last week. His parents were jogging in the forest when a branch fell and hit them on the head. His father is still in a coma today, two years later. Even in this country where all nature is managed, where cities encroach upon sacred sites, there is wildness, unpredictable and dangerous.

The singing stops. I realize that there is nowhere for me to go, I am trapped between the two barriers. I return to my friend who looks eager to talk, to understand what is happening, to give and receive support, but I am non-verbal. They ask if it is time to end the ritual. I nod eagerly. After the devocation the circle is closed, and immediately my tension eases.

Earth’s shadow has moved and a sliver of the moon is now visible. I stare, enjoying the growing moonlight on my face. After a while my friend tells me they are ready to leave whenever and I nod and continue to stand there, feeling the rock beneath me, looking at the moon.

The church bells ring five times, and still I stand. Then they ring again, and I stare at the moon. The bells ring twice and the moon is nearly half full again. Three times the bells ring, the moon is growing brighter, and I feel stiff and cold. And yet I want to wait, wait until the bells ring again, ring the sixth hour, announcing the coming fullness of the moon.

The predawn sky is continuously pierced by freeway headlights, people driving to work. I tear myself away from the moon, the rocks, the town, and the oak trees, and let my friend know I am ready to leave just as the bells ring 6am. We try to have a conversation, but I can’t find any words, so we drive home in silence.

I am haunted by the tension that lifted with the opening of the circle, but continues to live inside of me, always. When we are back at my parents’ house, I lower the shutters on the windows to block the coming dawn and return into the world of dreams.

When I wake again, it is midday. I open the shutters and stare at the roses, bright in the noonday sun. Birds are singing, bumble bees buzzing, and leaves are fluttering in a gentle breeze. I try to remember my dreams but all that remains are images of castles and a peaceful feeling, telling me that the tension lifted in the dreamworld.

Later I learn that my friend had felt the tension, too. They wished I had communicated, supported them with information, participated somehow in the ritual. We feel into the confusion of our experiences and try to weave them into stories. This weekend, we know, we have to go back to Wilder Stein. We will call to the ancestors again, but we will not cast a circle, nor will we invoke deities, sing or bring imperfect offerings. I will stay anchored this time and together we will be present in that place, offering apologies and spending a long time just listening.

* I prefer the use of the gender neutral pronoun “they” to refer to unnamed individuals.