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Eves of Transformation - Meeting my Crone

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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