These words resulted form a Neurodivergent led Writing Workshop ran by Magical Women. I had however been thinking about the three stages of feminine wisdom(Maiden/Mother/Crone)and how the current journey I have been taking relates to them.
It took me a long time to realise
But
I don’t think she has to be old.
She can stand there
With high pale cheeks and
A knowing gaze
Like Mrs Addams
The Cutwives and Cunning Folk
Of the old times yawning back before us all
Often it was hard to tell their years…
I have been carrying the weight of so much earth
like Atlas since I was small
And I see it
So very clearly now
My journey
I look in the mirror at my bleached
Bone white hair
And at 20 I became mother
And at 36 I am breaking down
I was devastated and decimated and desiccated before I realised
I am just transforming again
And will rise much wiser if I listen
To the sinews twisting and my new skeleton cracking into place
I can see her there
A knowing glint in my eye
The crone I am becoming
And I am ready
She is so beautiful
Calm just sitting in
Her earned wisdom
I follow after her
I beckon her in from the cold
I was thinking about it on the train a couple of weeks ago
I suddenly caught my reflection
My own face in the window
And she threw back her head
Laughing in delight
‘I always knew you would get here early, my love.
36…It’s a fine age…
And my darling, you have earnt every year’
…………………………………………………………………………..
This breakdown
Has been brewing
For a year and a day
I took a sip
And it was bitter
So BITTER
It made my mouth so small
It was hard to push the words out.
But I swallowed it down
And there
They started to trickle
Slow
Unsure
At first
Another sip
And then I started to hear them too as they fell dripping form my lips
Falling like sharp little daggers of ice
They lodge in the tops of my feet and I howl in pain
Running
Running from the things
Spilling out into reality
I was only now just allowing myself to see
But we can only run for so long before we must quench our thirst.
A glug this time
Bitter Dark Chocolate
Deep and heavy in my stomach laced with nutmeg and a hint of forest honey
It makes my eyelids flutter to sleep
I was so tired from all of the fear and the running
I curl up into the roots of an old oak tree
Pull leaves over me like a blanket
And the world turns beneath my back as I sleep
Until the next years acorns started to drop and
Their little shiny bodies stir me from rest
I blinked back to waking
Dry mouth like defrosted wind blown leaf litter
I take another sip
This time all bitterness is gone
I breakfast on sweet warm milk with the springs meadow honey
A pinch of cinnamon
To invigorate my insides
Spreading its warmth
In the reflection on the skin of the potion in my cup
I saw my hair had turned completely white
I sat and watched
Everything
For a while
And processed
Took some time
The first winters snow began softly falling
Another sip
And the words bubbled up
From the darkness deep inside again
This time
Sharpened with stardust
Like the void I had worried was nestled in my innards
Had turned in on itself
A singularity pulling in everything
Good and bad
The whole universe
Weightless in its infinance
To be housed within my skin
And I’d sing
I would stand here and sing
A powerful swig from Cerridwen
To amplify my voice
And I raised it right up
I raised it up with my arms
And went back to dancing and singing and laughing.
I saw my daughter smile again and the sun broke through the bone coloured winter sky. We huddled together and talked,
and talked for hours.
But all of the hours will never seem enough.
The time comes for every one of us.
My hand in hers and all of the kindnesses and things that I know to be true
They had flowed freely from my tongue
To be taken by her
Woven into her own life now
However she sees fit.
And she gently braids my hair as
I gasp from the cup
The last
Sweet
Precious sip.
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