This story brings together two divergent legends — Cannibal Woman, the gruesome bogey-woman of the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest, and the Bodhisattva Kwan Yin.
This is a story of Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion. Kwan Yin is the one who hears the cries of the world, the very heart beat of loving-kindness. She is known for her willingness to appear in any guise, whatever will help someone toward love, openness, and awareness. I am sure you have seen her yourself—looking out at you from a friend’s face, or smiling at you in the bus. I have seen her many times, often in this room of women writing.
One day, yesterday or long ago, as the sun began to rise, a woman paced in a clearing in the forest, crying aloud, raising her arms to the sky—if you were close by, you would have heard her wailing, “What will become of me, I am all alone, no one’s plans depend on me, my future will be dark and cold, I am lost, what will become of me?” She walked back and forth, too numb to notice the way the dawn lit the pine trees, too cold with fear to be warmed by the sun.
As she paced, her attention was caught by a movement in the pines. An old woman walked out into the grove, whistling like a thrush, whistling like a catbird. The wailing woman stopped to listen, and the old woman came near, holding out one hand filled with mountain blueberries, her other hand behind her back. The fearful woman felt her own hunger, and reached for the berries. Immediately the old woman dropped the berries and swept her other hand across the weeping woman’s eyes, sealing them with melted wax fresh from the honeycomb.
Blinded and terrified, the woman fell to the ground. She scrabbled her hands around, and grasped at the legs of the old woman, which had grown as big a tree trunks—her sandals were like tabletops and her naked legs were ropy with muscles. The fearful woman cried, “Oh, why did I forget the warnings from my childhood, Cannibal Woman always whistles—now I am caught!”
And Cannibal Woman shouted down at her from high above, “Yes, you have forgotten many things, but I have not forgotten my taste for crispy flesh. You are mine, and soon you will meet my fire.” Cannibal Woman wrapped a willow branch twice around the fearful woman’s arms, pinning them to her body, saying, “Now you are a perfect bundle for the spit.”
She tossed the bound woman into a big burlap sack that she slung over her shoulder. As Cannibal Woman ran through the forest, the woman in the sack wept and screamed. The burlap scratched her as she bounced against Cannibal Woman’s bony rump, as she was tossed from side to side. Her wits left her, all she felt was fear and speed, speed toward the inevitable—her mind was a whirling cyclone as Cannibal Woman ran on and on, singing a song about sating her hunger, droning and whooping through the woods.
At last, Cannibal Woman slowed to a walk, and the fearful woman, bound and blind, found herself tumbled out of the sack onto cold rocky ground. She lay still, paralyzed with fear. The grisly giant woman kicked her to the side, and began snapping wood, thumping logs down with hollow thuds, one upon the other.
Cannibal Woman built her fire and muttered, “I will truss her to the spit and I will baste her ‘til she’s done, baste her and taste her ‘til she’s done, done, done.”
She struck a match, and as the sulfur flavored the air, the wood took flame and started to crackle. The fearful woman turned on her side, and the wax sealing her eyes was just translucent enough for her to make out the roaring stack of wood. As she rolled over, the willow withy rolled too, and loosened just enough that she could begin to feel her hands.
The terrified woman realized that these were her last moments—soon she would be dead. She breathed in and thought, if this is my fate, I will know it, at least.
And she began to inch toward the fire. As she did, she felt its warmth, like sunlight, like the furnace in winter, like the first hot summer day. Her shoulders relaxed as the fire bathed her, and she let her heart open toward it. She remembered wading in the river as a girl, moving from shaded cool water into warm spots where the sun dappled and minnows darted.
She moved closer and closer to the fire, her last and worst fear. She lifted her face to it. She felt as if she were falling in love, she felt her blood flowing from her toes to her fingers, she felt tears warming her cheeks—ahhh, the wax sealing her eyes was melting down. She realized that the willow had almost released her, and she wiped the wax away. She saw the gold and red flames—she looked around for the giant Cannibal Woman.
But she saw no huge devourer, only a beautiful woman sitting on a bench, holding a cup of water toward her. The once fearful woman, not bound, not blind, recognized Kwan Yin, who had appeared in the guise of Cannibal Woman to help her find her soul.
Kwan Yin said, “Edge close to fear, and you will learn its empty nature—edge close, and wait and see.”
And the woman walked out of the forest, feeling her very life coursing through her, feeling the arms of her own life embracing her.
