Pissed off and discouraged, I came home from running errands yesterday with one furious spouse and two whining , crying children. The boys were sent to their room for a nap; my husband settled down with the computer to update my phone and I put my earbuds in and listened to some shamanic drumming.
At some point, I took a journey into the Otherworld. This isn't an unfamiliar sensation, but the expereince I was met with yesterday was extremely interesting. I found my self climbing a steep moutainside, that was riddled with narrow, yonic caves. At one, I was compelled to enter. I met my inner crone. Dancing nude with clawed hands and wild, grey hair. Her eyes, though faded, were distinctly mine- blue with a green patch. She was as comical as she was frightening. Being in a bit of a mood myself, I rather defiantly leaned against the wall, arms crossed and sullen as the bratty teenager I once was, I watched. Sagging breasts and thighs bounced to the sound of drums. Claws and teeth scratched and rattled in counterpoint. She noticed that i was not properly respectful, or horrified.
She got my attention by scartching her long claws down my face. From forehead to jawline, she left deep, bleeding furrows. It hurt, through my stinging, damaged eyes, I saw the cauldron over the fire. A moment later, I was inside it, as she stirred the glowing liquid and me. She was cooking me, but it was not out of malice or a desire to cause me pain. Since I refused to learn the lessons she would impart in a grown up and respecful fashion, she delivered them in a fashion I could understand.
The cauldron was an agent of change. She was merely coaxing me along on my journey. In her eyes, I could see sorrow at the pain she had caused, pride that I finally figured out what was happening and joy that I was finally emabracing change. The anger and frustration I had enetered with washed away. Smiling at her, I sank into the waters of change and found myself travelling through the stars.
In each of us, all of womankind is whole. As we live out our lives, so similar and so different from each other and from our fore mothers, we are carrying on traditional and blazing trails. We are not he end or the beginning. We are, and that matters. Embracing the changes of life is liberating and creative. Fighting to hold onto the past negates the joys of the future; it stops the natural flow of time, creating stagnant pools, rather than cauldrons and crucibles of change. When faced with your inner crone, learn form my lesson: respect her, listen and allow her to impart or her wisdom, or she'll find another way to be heard.
