Autumn is the
wildest season in the timber. Winds rise. Leaves and dust and pollen take to
the air. Black raspberry canes root wherever gravity leads them. Paths that
were clear become thickets. Fallen logs bar trails. Leaves land in my hair, and
burrs cling to my socks. Barred owls call in the afternoon; great horned owls
hoot before dawn. Geese go over, honking. This is the flying moon, when
branches are stripped bare and witches sweep the sky.
Italian legends
tell of a witch who walks in the woods and along the roadsides, muttering to
herself. Sometimes she stops a stranger to hitch a ride or bum a cigarette. You
might meet her in the market, mumbling as she glares at the produce. If you are
rude to her you will be cheated, but if you are kind you might return home to
find a basket of apples by your door.
She was once a
goddess or a nymph. Her name is Feronia, from the Latin word for wild, savage,
feral. In Rome she accepted the thank-offerings of freed slaves. Outside the
city, in her temple at Terracina, fleeing slaves could find sanctuary. She
lives in the woods and gives shelter to wild things. She rewards generosity and
punishes cruelty. When autumn briars tangle the forest paths, Feronia is
guarding the wilderness.
A friend of mine is
a lifelong fan of Marvel comics and graphic novels. He prefers myths that are
inked in broad, clear strokes, expressing plain, universal truths. I’m more of
a poetry fan; I like peeling back layers of the onion to reveal more layers of
ambiguity and maybe even meaning. I like my myths gnarled and leafy and
branching out in unexpected directions. He prefers statuary: unambiguous,
beautiful and stately. We’ve often looked at each other with great curiosity
and slight understanding, but really, we’re aware that we are not at odds. If
he had not asked me to research the Roman Goddess Libertas, I would never have
discovered Feronia.
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| from www.sacred-texts.com |
Libertas and
Feronia back each other on the same coin, like spirit and matter, each only a
breath, an idea, away from the other. Like Castor and Polydeuces, the brothers
of Helen and Clytemnestra, one is immortal and pure, the other mortal and holy.
Like Romulus, who founded a city, and Remus, son of a she-wolf running free on
the mountainsides, they are twins in immortality and sacred mortality.
My woods are not
pristine. My wilderness has been violated many times. The feral landscape has
reclaimed that violation. The timber is full of ticks and mosquitoes, burrs,
poison ivy and devil’s darning needles. Feronia walks here, muttering to
herself, cursing and blessing as she wills. Her footsteps rustle the leaves at
my back. I thank her for my freedom when I meet her. More often, I mutter to
myself and shuffle on my way. Sometimes I almost glimpse my own shadow.
