Sirasta

N.B. - SÎRASTO means longing or yearning in Proto-Celtic. Please find out more about Proto-Celtic and those that have been working to recover this language here.

Once there was a woman named Sirasta. She lived in a camp at the edge of the great Arctic forest and during the summer the sun never set and during the winter it never rose; and nor did the crystalline snow melt. The spirit lights shivered overhead in the long night, the honoured ancestors dancing in celestial light for all eternity. It was a good and wild land that tested its people and made them strong.

Sirasta was a good woman and a good mother. She tended her tribe with herbs, dispensing advice, magic and support. She raised her children as best she could, teaching them of the wonders and the dangers of the world they lived in. But something called her, from her heart, her guts, her womb. Something called from the darkness and the silence and Sirasta longed to follow the call, to see where it may lead. 

Her children grew up, strong and wise. Sirasta felt the years blow past, carried away by the icy wind, swallowed by the blanketing snow. Years spent with joy and sorrow, birth and death, home and the wild. Finally all her children had left her home, gone out into the world and she was alone again. 

The nights grew longer and longer and the camp moved to its winter grounds where food was abundant and the tall stalwart trees protected them from the storms and scouring winds. They settled into their winter life, short days of fire and  food, long nights of sweet sleep. The winter darkness was a time of silence and rest, a time of retreat and renewal.

One night, as Sirasta slept, her heart beat in time with a call that came out of the darkness; follow-me, follow-me. She knew the time had come to go. 

The endless nights did strange things to people’s time, so there were usually always a few people awake in the camp, but not tonight. Just one boy tending the fire, his back to Sirasta and eyes enchanted by the flicker of the flames. She moved silently across the snow, sacred coat wrapped around her shoulders, salmon-skin pouch at her belt. The spirit lights were vibrant tonight, greens, blues, yellows and even reds weaving their way across the starry sky. Their cold distant beauty never failed to move Sirasta, but tonight the insistent call drew her away quickly and to the edge of the vast Taiga forest. 

The spirits here were ancient, blood, bone and bark. As Sirasta stood at the threshold she offered a prayer, singing into the call, and left a small piece of amber which had travelled up from the south, nestled in the roots of a great pine. She sang out, and as she sang the calling, the calling sang her, and sang her into the forest. 

The trunks of the trees stretched away in all directions, closing in behind her. It was dark and silent, the snow muffling the sound of her voice. Sirasta felt a panic rise in her, all ways looked the same, each step forward could have been a step in the wrong direction, just a way to get lost. Her heartbeat lost the rhythm of the call and her voice faltered, falling silent. Where was she? Lost, alone, in the dark, far from her children, her tribe. 

Tears fell down her cold cheeks and she sat. She listened but her heartbeat drowned out the voice that called and she wept for all that she had lost. After some time she grew quiet and still, laying with her back on the frozen earth. She caught peeks of stars between the dark boughs of the trees and she let herself drift. Suddenly she heard it, the voice that called in the darkness and the silence. She stood up and tentatively sung back. 

She heard it, louder now, and took a step towards it. The voice sang her gently onwards, slowly picking up pace and tempo until Sirasta was dancing between the ancient trees, eyes barely open. She gave herself over completely and sang and danced through the endless night. The calling grew louder and louder until the air thrummed, vibrating her body. 

She opened her eyes to see that she was no longer surrounded by trees, but was out in the open. The brilliant white of the snow reflected the Milky Way above, sparkling its elegant beauty. Sirasta gazed around, drinking in the luminousness of this place, stepping forward all the while. Her feet stopped and she looked down. Before her was a great dark pool, and she saw herself reflected in it. No stars, nothing else, just herself. Every line in her face, every joy, every sorrow, every birth, every death, every song, dance, story, every tear and every laugh was reflected back at her. Woman. Mother. Lover. Healer. Human. 

She reached into her reflection, arms deep in the dark water, and felt her hands close gently around the voice that called. She pulled it out of the water and gazed at a giant pearl, lustrous and shining in the starlight. The voice that called sang in her hand and she joined her voice to its own, threading harmony and resonance. Their voices together wove with the ringing stars and whispering wind, carrying far and wide from that place. 

She tucked the pearl into her salmon-skin bag and headed back to the forest, following the gossamer strands of song that had led her here, winding them back in and folding them away in her pouch. Back through the ancient silent trees, through the long, long night. The darkness started to shade slightly to grey, lighter and lighter, until she stood at the edge of the forest and gazed out at her camp, caressed by the rosy fingers of dawn. 

The whole tribe was awake, waiting for the return. Sirasta walked slowly out from between the trees and towards her children, waiting with hope on their faces. She reached into her pouch and pulled out the pearl. It glowed in the dawn light and the elders clustered and nodded in approval. One by one, her children, her family, her tribe welcomed her back home. Now, whenever someone felt the call of the dark and the silence, Sirasta would take them the pearl and let them sit and sing with the voice.

© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2022