The Cave

Editor’s Note: Rainbow Medicine-Walker is one of the three winners of the RCWMS 2024 Essay Contest, selected for her awe-inspiring reflection on the theme of darkness and night, inspired by the photography of our 2024 Artist-in-Residence, MJ Sharp.

The large hole in the farmer’s field was daunting. As I stood at the edge staring down into inky blackness, I was definitely having second thoughts. I was young and this was my first ever caving adventure. We were in the Ozark mountains, in an area known for its many caverns. I was with two young women from college who were bat researchers, supposedly experienced in this sort of thing. They invited me along spur of the moment and I agreed to go, thinking we were headed for a nice big cave. This dank pit at my feet was not at all what I had envisioned. It was kinda late to back out now though and really, how bad could it be?

            I was handed a seriously battered, battery powered headlamp and put it on. The other women fussed about with recently purchased, and totally mysterious to me, carbide drip headlamps they were excited to try out. One of the women took the lead and slid down inside the hole and the other encouraged me to follow. With more than a little trepidation, I carefully scrunched myself along the slick muddy shute. When I reached the bottom and looked back up to the opening high above, I wondered what the heck I had gotten myself into. Then I turned around and everything changed. 

            We had landed inside a large cavern, the walls of which were embedded with refracted crystalline sparkles of glittering brilliance everywhere I looked. It was as though all the stars of the galaxy had manifested right there underground with us. I was awestruck, entombed by silence and darkness, yet within the enclosed circle of my own light, felt I had discovered a secret entrance to the universe.

            The upper portion of the cavern was covered with little brown bats whose coats glistened from accumulated moisture. It was winter and they were huddled together in hibernation, so they appeared to be growing into and out of the irregular limestone walls to which they clung. Myriad reflections of mica and quartz danced in the spaces around them.  

            Reluctantly I exited the first cavern and followed the women forward through several additional chambers, coming eventually to a shallow underground river. I was fascinated by the translucent, pinkish white, sightless salamanders crawling along the sandy bottom. Scattered broken crystals winked up at me from under the rippling water. The passage narrowed dramatically after that, forcing us to walk single file along a skimpy ledge. High water marks were visible on the walls above my head, and the ladies joked it was a good thing it wasn’t flood season. I pretended to laugh with them, but was feeling increasingly claustrophobic and uneasy.

            A short while later, one of the new carbide drip headlamps sputtered and died and soon thereafter the second one also failed. That meant the only remaining light we had between us was from the old battery operated headlamp I was wearing. We stopped and the ladies had me focus my light, while they tried to repair their own malfunctioning lamps. They had no success and decided that one of them would take my single functioning headlamp, find her way back to the car and grab the flashlights. Which meant the other woman and myself would be left behind in the dark with no light at all. I didn’t say anything out loud, but wondered acerbically to myself why in tarnation they had not brought flashlights with them in the first place! I was pretty scared and as we sat together, tense and uncomfortable, in complete and utter darkness, I prayed to maintain my composure. 

            Conversation quickly waned, until all that could be heard was the rustling of the invisible water and our own breathing. Nothing whatsoever could be seen, not even the faintest hint of shadow or shape. Usually in the dark there is at least a sliver of some kind of reflected light. There was none of that here. I thought I knew what ‘stygian darkness’ meant, but I didn’t, not really. Not until I sat there helpless, with total blackness in every direction and a veil of absolute nothingness covering my own two eyes. I can testify that sensory deprivation has a profound effect on how the brain interprets information. Lacking any visual input, I could literally feel my ears expand, seeking out additional sounds to make up for my blindness. 

            I began to hear singing underneath the tinkle of the water. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t real, but the singing persisted inside my own head. Tribal songs I hadn’t heard since childhood replayed themselves, and I saw the faces of long dead elders who had told stories about the sacred caves of our old homelands in the southeast. I could sense the ancestors gathering in close, with a thick tangible presence. I suppose it should have felt spooky, but instead it was warm and comforting.

            Years later I was to work with a Caddo elder from one of the tribes native to the Ozarks. She taught me alot about her own traditions around those caves. I believe it was my time spent there in physical darkness, communing with the spirits under the earth, that created a bridge for my future connections with her. It would take a whole roomful of Einsteins I think, to sort out the physics of cause and effect of just one life, but perhaps entanglement theory comes closest to explaining what I mean. 

            Many traditions have taught that everything and everybody, past, present and future is interconnected in some way. We take in molecules of the same air our own ancestors did and their DNA is encoded into our cells at conception. It would be strange indeed, if we could not at times reach out and feel those who have gone before, reaching back to help us.

            At a gut level I understood some of this inside that cave, even if I could not articulate it at the time. I felt I was breathing in sync with the ancestors and I sensed there were numerous unseen forces which could be called on in moments of need. I let that knowledge wash over and fill me and soon a light appeared as the other woman came back for us. 

            We faced some challenges on our way out, not least of which was clawing ourselves back up that slippery slope to the farmer’s field. When we reached the car, I discovered that a bat had crawled up underneath my hat and was nestled in my hair. I walked over and placed it inside the hole with great gratitude for the precious gift of survival. 

            Looking back, I realize how incredibly blessed we were. It could easily have ended badly as I heard later that no one knew where we had gone. This all happened over forty years ago, but I still clearly remember the day I saw the stars revealed inside the earth. I also learned a valuable lesson; if you are going to set off into the dark, it is best to carry an extra back up light or even two or three!