Calling the Barge–Poetic Reflection

by Laura Violet Rimola

(translated from Italian by Alessandro Zabini)

A tinkle rustles through the gloaming mists and comes to the farthest shores,

calling the Barge of the deep Journey.

Silently comes the Barge, gliding over the waters, coming close to the shingle, calling us aboard it, and we sit down inside it… It’s empty.

No one can row in our stead.

Our Journey proceeds from us alone, and sitting down aboard the barge is not enough to begin to voyage, because we can’t let ourselves be led without leading our walk.

If you don’t act, nothing can happen, and you keep still.

Two oars are inside the barge, and we know it is up to us to ship the oars and to begin the Walk through the Waters, the magic Immram.

The Barge moves away from the shore, gliding slowly away, and so the Journey begins.

It is a Journey which takes up the whole of life and it has already started a long time ago, before the birth in this life, though we do not Remember.

However it is taken up again each time,

and if we do not remember the Journeys of yore, the lore dwells inside us, though often we are not aware of it and only when it arises by itself we realize it has taken root inside us, when we are in need of it.

So, if we never did row in this life, and we think we do not know how to row, we have only to ship the oars and try to row, to find out we are quite able to do it from forgetful time.

And along the Way it is up to us to Remember, Remember, Remember…

At every stroke of oars we must Remember, and at every stroke of oars we must pursue what has already begun, to Find and Find Again ourselves at every instant, Remembering that the purpose of this life, as of all other lives, is to reach the thin and intangible Destination, divine and bright.

And the Journey takes place inside ourselves, not elsewhere.

«Towards the Source… the Center… the Goddess…»

Each one of us has her way to row, her times to row, and her Secret Way traced over waters, a Way which will stay engraved in the Memory of the Water, as the bright wake of the Barge…

There will be many hindrances,

and often you will stay entangled in seaweeds and dry branches, roots and rocks, and so you will be prevented from carry on the Journey… Then you will be able to choose to fight and free yourself as soon as possible, or to wait to be slowly freed from the hindrances by the changing of the flow… You will be able to choose to Act or Not to Act, to fight or to wait for the right Time.

And every hindrance has its way to be overcome… Sometime you will need to Act, sometime you will need only to Wait.

There will be many illusions by which we shall believe to have reached our Destination… The Barge will touch the shores of many an Island, and so we shall believe to have reached our journey’s end, in vain.

And yet each Island will have something to show us, some teaching to bestow us, and if what we really Look For will not be shown to us, then what we do Not Look For, and what we do not desire, will be shown to us… And enriched, we shall go away.

There will be at last many bright Traces, which under the dark surface of the waters will shed silver gleams, and if these Traces will be Gathered and Kept, they will point to the right Way to carry on the Journey, they will bestow Memories and new Lore, and they will dissolve Fear.

The Journey will last a long time,

so much time that again we shall forget and again we shall need to Remember.

However we shall never cease to row

and we shall never cease to learn what we have not yet known.

And there will come the day in which all the veils of Mist will be lifted, the day in which the Spirit of the Mist will have ceased to test us… And then, in a Vision of Light, all will be Unveiled and Revealed.

And Recalled in silence.

***

Laura Violet follows an Avalonian path, inspired especially by the Pre-Christian female religions of North Italy. She writes articles, short essays, fairytales and poems about the sacred feminine and its mysteries and is the founder of a non-profit Italian Avalonian circle – I Meli di Avalon (The Avalon’s Apple Orchard) – since 2005.