by Rev. Jean “Drum” Pagano
Diancecht: “Be gone!”
<Miach falls dead under his father’s fatal blow to the head.>
Airmid: “I bury you, brother. You, who were the greatest healer; sadly, there is no one to heal you. Is there anyone to mourn? Who will ever know? Our father, great but cruel; proud, but jealous, could not tolerate the thought that not only were you his equal, but you were his better as well.”
Airmid: “Into my arms, brother. No cure can heal you now. I will carry you to the edge of the world which is where you will be safe. There you will be free; free from a father’s jealousy; free from a father’s threat; free from a wound thrice inflicted and twice recovered. I know that while you will be gone from this mortal plane, you are a God after all and will continue to help heal from the land of the Ancestors and from the land of the Shining Ones, though those here among the living and vital nature spirits will need you most and will call to you today, yea, and call to you tomorrow, yea, and call to you every day until Lir reclaims the land and submerges all in his primordial and infinite waters. Waters that flow on the land and you will be there; water that flows underground, and you will be there, water that flows into the stars at night and you will go there.”
Airmid: “For surgery was you strength, my brother, and none could surpass you, not even our father. At the end, you healed yourself, not once, but twice, until his wretched sword did cut short a life that should still be here and vital. But how can it be that a God can die? Do we attain, sustain, and ordain ourselves to a world fraught with material pitfalls and fatality than even we Gods cannot escape? We live forever; it is true, but perhaps not in this form and not in this place. How can this be? Will all our powers, great and true, how is it that this has come to pass? That father strike son, three times wrong, and thus change vitality to mortality and then to leave his torn and lifeless body like a husk upon the ground? Does thus the healer fail in their appointed task and cause more pain in stark reversal of one’s calling and creed? The world changes too much on this day.”
Airmid: “I walk, wearily, almost lifelessly, holding my brother, my mentor, my friend, he in my arms, light, lifeless, broken into halves where a whole once lived and breathed and flourished. I hold him up to you, Belenos Bright, and I ask that you warm what remains of his mortal shell and he diffuses into the three realms and surrounds us all who care to feel, to call, and to recollect. Grant, O the Many Gods, that from this senseless death that some good may arrive, arise, and sustain for all the great works that he did. Let spring forth from this tragedy some semblance of gift or miracle that some balance may be restored. To one who healed all give the rest of us something with which to heal ourselves at his physical absence.”
Airmid: “Here, here beside the ocean where all life began, I put you to rest my brother. Let this red cloth hold your body and let me wrap it tight so that it may hold your body together as one. Red, like the blood of the Mother; red, like the blood of your patients; and finally red, like your own blood. I bind you in the cloth of this world as we prepare you, in essence, for our appreciation of you in the next world.”
<Airmid places stones around the place where Miach is laid to rest.>
Airmid: “Now, brother, I surround your body with these stones, selected by my hand, to encircle you, to protect you, to mark you off. Lir will watch over you for all time to come. I will cover you with my cloak so that you will be warm, though I doubt that warmth preoccupies you in any way now. Yet, to ease my soul, I will cover your body with this cloak. It is a magical cloak and may it bring blessings your way.”
<Airmid places the cloak over the body.>
<A breeze arises from the Ocean and whirls around the grave of Miach. From this breeze, Miach’s voice is heard.>
Miach: “Worry not, my sister, my Healing Goddess, for while I cannot stand next to you in the flesh, I can still be next to you – always – in the spirit. What does location matter if one can be anywhere? We are fooled as Gods sometimes, fooled into thinking that we have powers and abilities in the corporeal world when in fact we have powers in whatever world we find ourselves. Do not grieve for me because I have greater things to bring into being and I also will continue my work, whether I am on this plane of existence or not. I am not so easily dismissed or destroyed.”
Airmid: “I have heard your words and I will look for those greater things that you have promised. I will hold vigil over your resting place this night and will keep you company, although as I see now, it is my company that you have kept. I will light a bright fire under the fires of the skies, bright lights that punctuate the sky and give us pause to think and dream and wonder. Countless are the Shining Ones that watch us from above and guide us in our days.”
Airmid: “The fire now lit, the flames cast long shadows against the stones of Miach’s grave. As I watch the movement, I recall so many scenes, acted out by shadow and light against the backdrop of this place, this grave, this time. It is one of the ironies, one of the mysteries of life that we Gods may come to some end, some finality, and some cessation on this plane. I do believe Miach when he says that he will continue his work, wherever he may be. One does not need to see a God to pray to him, for it is rarely so that people see the very divinities to which they address their needs.”
Airmid: “Flicker, flicker, flame; what is the nature of the Gods in this world, in any world? One day we are and then we will be, never thinking of an end, never thinking that an end is even in the remotest of possibilities. How odd is it for a God to die? How impossible is it for a deity to come to some death. I cannot understand it in the depths of my being. Yet these battles we have seen of late, in an around Mag Tuired, have bent the fabric of the very reality that we have come to understand and enjoy. How can one explain that Gods are falling in battle by the hand of their enemies? How can one explain that Gods are falling to the sword by the hand of their own family? How has it come to be that we are so inured in this world that we can be injured at all even fatally? This I cannot comprehend.”
<A raven lands on one of the stones of the cairn.>
Raven: “I thought it might be time for my appearance, as with a passage so recently noted. While it is my usual practice, or so it is said, to come to claim the dead and to clean their bones, this one is different. This one did not live or die in the usual manner of mortals and his job is far from over. My appearance is not really premature as it is unexpected. I come not for your brother, my dear, as much as I come to you. I can see that these events weigh heavily upon you and that you have many questions which remain unanswered, unsettled, and unspoken. They are powerful questions precisely because they have no answers, no place in this world.”
Airmid: “Morrigu, Mother, you come to me, dark as night, when I am feeling dark as the night that surrounds me, dark as they night that engulfs Miach, dark as the night that I cannot see past. I know that we live in many dimensions and on many planes, but I always thought that we would continue here on this plane. Yet now I see it is not so and that this continuity is somehow twisted or flawed and I cannot comprehend that my brother – a God – could be here, vital one moment and bereft of life, cold, still, unmoving, the next. I know he exists in other planes – he has visited me here, speaking from the wind blowing from the west across Lir, the great ocean. So I know that it is not merely voices that I hear, it is HIS voice. He is there, yet I cannot extricate myself from here.”
<The Morrigu’s long, black cape encircles the cairn and Airmid, like black wings unfolding.>
Morrigu: “Some Gods have existed here since the beginning, such as Lir and me, to name a few. Others have come into being at a later time and while we, as Gods, can speak their lineage, we know that there was a time when they were not here but existed only as potential as “that which will come to be”. In this preliminary stage, we cannot speak of them and at that time before they walked with us here we could not speak of them because they were not here yet.”
Morrigu: “So, there then comes a time when they are no longer here yet we have the added advantage of being able to speak about them, of remembering them, and of celebrating not only what they were, but looking forward in anticipation to what they will be. When a God leaves this mortal plane, they do not vanish into nothingness and vapour, but instead reform, renew, and redirect all that which was into something new, something unexpected, and something rarified. I suggest that this is the case with Miach as well. This one is not dark and cold; this one is not scattered and disembodied; this one is in fact on his way to something more. This much I can tell you and it applies to more than just your brother: when a God leaves this material plane, they may yet manifest again on this plane as themselves, as something new, or as a combination of the two. The energy that permeates the Gods is multiversal in its nature and is capable of many things. See yourself, my child, not as one entity in one place, but one entity in many places, extending in many directions, with the ability to not only see through your own eyes, but to see and experience yourself in a detached yet vibrant manner. This cairn is not the end, no, never. It is a place of rebirth and everlasting. Who knows what wonders await us next from Miach? Wait and see, child.”
<The wings retract and the raven takes to the air and heads west, over the great ocean.>
Airmid: “Let me look deep into this place, deep into myself, deep into the words that the Mother has given to me. I cannot see past this moment, but if she promises me transformation, then I will look to that moment, that day, that time when such an event will come to pass.”
<The sun breaks over the horizons until the rays of the sun reach Miach’s cairn.>
Airmid: “What magic is this? What can this possibly be? What is happening to Miach’s body? As the sun’s rays reach across the land to caress this sacred cairn, filaments of herbs and grasses are growing up through my cloak. Small heads peek through the material and as the sun rises, they push forward more and more and raise themselves up to the very sun that has given them life. Dare I look under my cloak that covers my brother’s body? Dare I look to see what can be possibly happening? Do I? Something altogether unusual must be occurring for herbs and grasses grow quickly but surely they cannot grow so quickly through earth, through a body, and through a cloak, all in the matter of a few short hours. For I just lay his body to rest here yesterday and today this is happening.”
Airmid: “What was it that Miach said? ‘Because I have greater things to bring into being and I also will continue my work, whether I am on this plane of existence or not’, well this assuredly must be so! I cannot bear to look under the cloak, but I know, in the core of my existence, that these plants are growing from Miach’s body himself! Are these the greater things of which he spoke? Is this continuing his work, from wherever that might be? What could this work be?”
Airmid: “As I look upon his body, I see that these plants are herbs, every one of them and that they are growing from various parts of his body and I wonder if this has some significance. These particular herbs are only growing from where his head would be and – mysteriously enough – I recognize some of them as being herbs that affect the head like feverfew, valerian, and lavender. How very odd! I must take a closer inventory once the herbs have stopped growing. I pray they grow to full maturity and perhaps maybe to seed.”
Airmid: “I marvel at this miracle of growth and of magic – for the plants keep sprouting, one after another, after another. Not just everywhere, but in very selected places. I will note all of these plants and each one of their locations because in this magical and sacred act, nothing is random and nothing is left to happenstance. As the rays of the sun increase, the growth and density of these herbs continues to proliferate. With the passage of time and the ticking of seconds, I begin to see that more and more of the herbs begin to take the shape of this man, this brother, this God. I am enchanted by the diversity and great number of these herbs. A veritable herbarium has grown from where he once lay. No, this is no longer a funereal cairn; it is the living embodiment of this God, the next step in his evolution wherein he has gone from the direct instrument of healing to the very means to heal others and to heal oneself. He has surpassed us all, once again, and gone one step further in his healing journey.”
Airmid: “The sun no overhead, the growth seems to have attained it fullest magical height and it truly is a man-form made of herbs. But how many herbs are there? It is difficult to say. Let me take the time to examine them all and count them as well. There are one, two, and three…thirty…ninety…one-hundred eighty and more…two-hundred seventy…three-hundred sixty-five. By the mighty Gods! There is one herb for each day of the year, this is magic indeed! Oh my brother, the miracles that came from your hands, O Great Surgeon and Leech, have now manifested themselves in ways we could never have guessed! Perhaps, just perhaps, your untimely end at the hands of a jealous father was not as inopportune as perhaps it was destiny. Oh my goodness, such as bounty as the likes that healers have never seen. This great harvest – and the knowledge imparted thereof by the precise positioning of these herbs on the very spot where they will do the most good – will take time to catalogue and time to disseminate, like seeds. Three-hundred sixty-five days of discovery will be the cycle of learning for all healers. These new healers, armed with a body of knowledge like never before assembled will be like Gods in the miracles that they may present to their people, all made possible by the greatest healers and leech that the world has ever known, my dear brother, Miach.”
Airmid: “So, dear brother, let me be the one to gather your great harvest, as this has always been my calling as the Goddess of Herb craft. Let me gather them all and put the neatly in mounds where they grew to best recall what the benefit most. Then, for those that are new and have no name, I will give them a name, based upon their qualities and their locations. This will be one harvest that will go down in the annals of this green earth as one greater than them all. Let me spread my own cloak on the ground, next to you, dear brother, so that I may arrange them all.”
<The cloak is now neatly arranged with three-hundred and sixty-five different herbs.>
Airmid: “Now that they are all separated and placed near where they benefit most, let me thank you once again, Miach, for this bounty of earth, magic, and healing. You always gave throughout your life on this plane and you continue to give as you always did. Let me not put down to memory all that is here and then I will tell all healers everywhere so that the knowledge will carry forward forever. Your name will be known on this plain forever!”
Diancecht: “What madness is this? What are these things here gathered and what is this density of herbs growing out of that cairn? How do these herbs grown in this form, in the form of a man, in the form of your brother who dare challenged ME, the greatest of all healers, first healer of the Gods and first healer of this people?”
Airmid: “Father, you were the cause of this great healer’s demise, yet he has surpassed you once again by bringing forth from his broken form a magic far greater than you could ever hope to present. Three-hundred sixty-five herbs, one for each day of the year, all the herbs needed to heal the creatures of this world from this day hence are now assembled and properly arranged on this, my cape. With this knowledge, healers of our rank and of this world alike will be able to cure any malady that arises. It is truly the greatest magic!”
Diancecht: “Never! I will never allow these seeds to be the seeds of my undoing. People and creatures need me, need Diancecht, the Greatest of Healers, not some common grasses that have been sprouted and sprung, gathered and organized by trickery or some lesser ways. They shall never surpass me!”
<With this, Diancecht grabs Airmid’s cloak and scatters all of the herbs to the arising winds.>
Diancecht: “Be gone!”
