This and That

I am at odds with myself. All the time, it seems. I want to write. I don’t write. I want to love, I don’t love. I want to meditate. I don’t meditate. I want to spend the day in my garden. I wander for a few minutes and sometimes work a few hours. I want to walk Phoebe and most often I walk Phoebe.
I am caught between two worlds. My outer world and my inner world.
I tell myself my greater reality is my inner world.
My mind doesn’t believe that.
I waste time on the computer.
On the internet.
I think wasting time is good.
Wasting time is also meandering. It is reflective.
Doing nothing is good.
Doing nothing is everything.
My mind is a slave driver.
Meditate.
Quiet. No shut up the mind.
Write.
Am writing now.
Yes, of course I am.
It is not fiction writing.
Does that make it not writing?
Of course not.
Peace.
Peace from myself. From mind.
Badgering mind. Relentless mind.
Release me into the realm of pure song.
The song of my soul desires so little to be heard.

Calling Forth the Crone

This is an invocation for a teleWorkshop on the Crone that I recently gave. I asked Crone, she who is an archetype as well as active energy within our bodies and our psyches, to speak. Ths is what she said:

My lessons are two fold.

I come to teach about death and life, about letting go and opening up.
I come to teach patience and the knowing that letting go and moving on happen on their own time table.
I come to awaken the energy of Crone within you.
I come to give you yourself in me.

Never think that Crone self is passive or unreceptive. Rather I am a place of deep mystery, which is fertile beyond imaginings.

I am proactive by nature and not without judgment. But my judgment is righteous and built on my depth of experience, faith and compassion. I am a fierce fighter for life and beauty and love and I will not be denied. Denied I can create sickness, fear, rage and insanity. I destroy that which no longer serves and I do so swiftly and fearlessly. And although this may frighten you, know that my will is always driven by compassion.

To me death is not a punishment but a natural place on the endless cycle of life, death and rebirth. To honor Crone is to honor all aspects of life.

I am warrior. I am healer. I am mystic. I am death. I am Silence that is terrifying and soothing. I am rage that frees and rage that destroys. I am a force within all women. And it took thousands of years for the patriarchy to transform me and my sisters into the wretched hags and feared witches, stealers of newborns and the nightly ejaculations of men. But in my great mystery and indestructible mercy, I refused to leave your psyches. And I am returning.

Many are my Names: Hecate, Cerridwen, Morrigan, Kali, Spider Woman. I am Dark Demeter. I am the Unchanging Shape-Changer. Look now, look at me and see me all at once. I am Warrior, Siren, Midwife, Weaver, Dancer and Devourer.

I, your blood mother of death and rebirth, live within you. I was hounded, beaten, burned. I, who once tended to the dying with gentle caresses and soothing words, cannot be found in sterile hospitals where death is feared. Doctors would kill me, I who come with soft, open arms of welcome and lift out the pain, the anger, so it can be seen for what it is:
The balance-wheel for your vulnerable, aching love* that fears living even more than death.

Wounded, motherless children, you wander, not able to hear life’s song.

Now guide one another to empty your cups willingly, never fearing they will not be filled again.

They will be filled, they must, it is the law of love.

Day must follow night. Spring must follow Winter.

Maiden Mother Crone. The Dark of the Moon lures you to your deepest self, to your soul longings and brings you Home.

Like the seed in winter, trust in Spring.

Trust, on a daily basis, that your empty cups will fill and empty once more… and fill again.

And so it goes, not relentlessly, but in the sweet comfort of Crone, She who holds the Wisdom, the Blood, the Beauty and the Mystery of Life.

* The phrase vulnerable, aching love is taken from May Sarton's Poem, Invocation to Kali, which was used in the TeleWorkshop on Crone.