The Walk Up the Mountain

Now that she was alone, the tears that had been waiting for release longer than Psyche knew sprang from her eyes and poured down her face.

Tears had been accumulating since Psyche had been in her mother's womb and heard her father whisper that she was going to be his little princess. Each of us has tears from the moment we are conceived. We need tears so we can express those sorrows for which there will never be words. But tears can speak the language that is unique to them only if we tell them they can. When Psyche's tears heard that she was going to be a princess, they knew it would be hard for them to be part of Psyche's life. There were so many things a princess could not do, like eat with her fingers, laugh too loudly, or speak above a quiet and measured tone. Last but by no means least, a princess could not cry. Woe be to those who do not care for their tears.

When Psyche fell and skinned a knee, her nurse would say, "You must not cry. You are a princess and the people of the kingdom need you to be strong."

If one of her sisters said something that hurt her feelings, and then with tears in her eyes, she told her parents, they would say, "If mere words bring tears to your eyes, what will you do when something truly awful happens? You are a princess, Psyche, and princesses don't cry."

On this particular night, as Psyche made her way slowly up the path to the mountaintop, no one was there to remind her that she was a princess. The only beings who saw her were the trees and the stones, and they saw a lonely and frightened young woman who was crying so hard they feared her grief would break their hearts.

Stones and trees have been the silent witnesses of grieving people and creatures since before Time started counting itself. They knew how to tend sorrow, but only if the person sat with his back against the trunk of a tree, or carried a Tear Keeper stone—but those were hard to find. Not able to relieve Psyche's sorrow, the trees and stones did what they could to ease her way; the trees raised low-hanging branches that stretched across the path, so they would not strike her in the face, while stones moved to the side if it seemed she was going to trip over one of them.

The release of tears was like cleansing a wound with a healing unguent, and the heaviness that had draped Psyche's life with Sorrow's cloak softly fell away.

Chapter end