magenta was sitting cross legged, on the warm red desert earth.
around her in a circle sat the women of the desert - wrinkled faces, big smiles, deep dark eyes. Magentas long black hair was draped about her, she was being painted in white ochre and feathers - the fluffy feathers of the old white Owl, (Tyto alba deliculata), or "the delicate white owl". One old mama was was nodding, talking, and in front of her was a pile of very dry grass and crackly dead leaves. Beside her was a woman with a mane of long black hair, skinny as a rake, with long, long legs like beanpoles. This woman was rubbing sticks back and forth, over the dried leaves, until the day sky flushed with red and then grew dark.

all the women were clapping and chanting, and Magenta was so hypnotised by the sound, she was in a trance. the night sky was black, and above her circling in the sky were 13 beautiful white owls, gliding in their ghostly and silent flight.

The woman with long legs finally stood up and said, "Auntie Jean, we aint gettin nowhere". Then she took a cigarette lighter out of her pocket, and wOOOsh! lit the dry grasses in a crackle and leap of yellow flame. as the flame danced, the grasses smoked, and through the low singing, and the occasional wild screech of an owl overhead, flowed and drifted, thicker and thicker, swirls of grey smoke, winding themselves in, around and about Magenta.

And for hours under the stars, Magenta rocked, swayed and struggled as her women, the women of the Oldest way, the most ancient women of the earth, smoked Magenta, smoking her with the oldest cleanser, smoking the bad spirit out of her.