Sigyn came to me during a dark time in my life, and brought comfort and strength, more than I could have expected. My first child was born prematurely, and was terribly ill. Even when I could bring her home from the hospital, she still needed a great deal of extra care, and she cried constantly and was always miserable. The pregnancy had been difficult for me as well, with a great many medical problems, and I was weak, ill, hypoglycemic from too much nursing, suffering from a terrible case of post-partum depression to the point of near-psychosis, and then forced through months of sleep-deprivation while caring for my child. My husband of the time commuted hours to his job, and was almost never home, and I was estranged from my blood family over their poor treatment of me, so I was all alone with my predicament. We had very little money, and no sitter in their right mind would have stayed with my sick infant anyway.

Night after night, I walked the floor with my sleepless, screaming child. Day after day, I fed her at my breast, only to watch her vomit up much of my milk from her underdeveloped gastro-intestinal tract that had been rushed too soon into digesting food. She could not digest formula at all, of any kind, so I was her only nourishment. Keeping her fed was a struggle. Keeping her happy seemed impossible. Some nights, when I could finally rock her, half-singing and half-weeping, into a state of restless sleep for a few hours, I would lie on the floor of her nursery, too exhausted to stagger into the bedroom and collapse, waiting with one ear open even in my sleep for her to begin crying again.

One night, I dreamed that I went into a house in the dark. It was a cheap prefab house, dusty and dirty as if no one had cleaned it in a long time, and I remember seeing empty cupboards open with no food in them. I placed my hands on my breasts, which were normally overflowing with milk, as the immense amount of often-wasted milk that I needed to produce to feed her was at least forthcoming as long as I ate constantly, desperately, often with her attached to my teat sucking out the nutrients as fast as I could put them in. In my dream, my breasts were flat and empty, and although I tried to tell myself that this was a dream, I had trouble believing it. I feared that when I woke up, there would be no more milk for my daughter, and she would die, even after all that I had fought to keep her alive.

In the middle of the dusty kitchen, sitting on the floor, was a thin, worn woman in an old shift. Her hair was dry and tangled, hanging to her shoulders, and her face was lined with despair, her eyes glazed over. She rocked back and forth, murmuring to herself. I knelt on the floor next to her and reached out to her, slowly. She looked up, suddenly, and seized my hands. Her eyes met mine, locked onto me, took me with her.

For that moment I was transported into a hideous place. Screams echoed off the stone walls of the underground cavern, screams so harrowing that I wanted to cover my ears. The sight of a rough wooden bowl, burnt in the middle and worn away at the edges, filled with a clear liquid that smoked, gave off fumes that stung my eyes. Sharp stones under my feet as I stumbled to the far side of the cave, blurred vision from fumes and tears, throwing the contents of the bowl against the wall with the eaten-away stone. Then a stumble to the other side of the dark space - must not lose that bowl! - to rinse it in the trickling water, fill it with the brackish stream, then back to the bound figure, to rinse off the poison, dodge the bites of the swinging snake, soothe and comfort and heal the wounds with my tears. Again and again and again, without ending. I would have called it hellish, that place, except that I know that Hel had nothing to do with this place of torment.

I wept with her. I spilled out my pain to her, wordlessly, through choking sobs. I was empty, except for that pain. How could this happen to me? I did everything that I was supposed to do. I was a good wife. I got pregnant, like I was told that I ought to. All I wanted was the happy mother-child experience, like they write about in all the earthy-crunchy magazines - the mother in the long peasant skirt, smiling, nursing her babe and feeling right with the world, healthy and fulfilled and becoming one with the essence of the Earth Mother. All I wanted was that peaceful home and family, and here I am in a place of torment, through no fault of my own! I have no family now, no kin to aid me. I do not deserve this! I have done nothing wrong!

I understand, she said to me. I understand. I understand. She rocked me, and I rocked her; we rocked together on that hard, dirty floor. There will be enough, she said. You can see it through, and believe that there will be an ending. I believe. I believe that I am strong enough to come to that end.

"But you did this for love," I whispered, my voice hollow and echoing in the too-silent room. "I don't know if I love her. All I feel is empty. I look at my child and I feel empty. I don't know if I can do this without love."

"There is not only love in this," she said. "There is also Right Doing. The Gods may create a place of torment for you, out of spite or merely indifference, but there is comfort in the Right Doing. Once you have started, you must go on, for who would you be if you abandoned it, after having begun?"

"I don't know if I can take it," I said in a low voice. My arms crossed over my empty breasts. "I don't know how much more I can give."