I’ve been sober for 16 years today and tomorrow is the sixth birthday of my firstborn child, the magical synchronicity of the timing of that birth never leave me, as each year for the past six now the focus has shifted from self to her.. I feel ridiculously blessed to have a family who have only known me as a sober wife and mother. The woman I have grown into is one that I am proud to be, my priestessing path is serious and real and a precious practice has grown around all that I offer the world as priestess. Being a wife is a challenging and fulfilling spiritual path and one that I longed for for many moons before meeting my Beloved. Motherhood has knocked my socks off, finally I found a space to put the depth of passion, devotion, loyalty and I'll-die-for-you offering that this scorpio soul always searched for. Life is sweet, it is content, it is peaceful for the most part, it is a warm little dream. And so, at 16 years sober, spiritually fit with a loving and full home I took notice when I felt a stirring within the pit of my stomach, a hungry, growling, dangerous, enlivening stir.
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I call to the wild
The soft
The brutal
The power within.
I move with grace
And strength
My blade readied
To pierce the veils
Of the unjust.
I speak my words
I create and I destroy
Each an expression
Of my true nature.
I run in the woods
I fly in the stormy skies
I dive into inescapable waters
I stalk my prey in the stone
Constructs of the civilized.
I am relentless
I am beauty
I am the reflection
Of all that is of the light
And all that coalesces in the darkness.
I am the Divine Feminine
You cannot turn away
You cannot hide from my Truth
Because I am all that you
Aspire to be.
I always feel renewed and empowered at this time of the year. I am a daughter of the cold and wintry world and this is when I come alive and awaken all of my senses to the world around me. This is also the time when I renew my commitment to the Divine Feminine and exploration of HER wild nature. This year, in particular has been difficult for many women given the political agendas and the fear of losing precious legal ground that has seen the sacrifice of many women’s privacy and power in gaining.
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I had an email this morning from a reader thanking me for my book, The Awen Alone: Walking the Path of the Solitary Druid, which is always a lovely thing to hear - do write to authors you like and support them! - and who also had some very good questions, apprehensions and fears about walking the wilds of Maryland, USA, safely and as a Druid, in cougar and bear country.
I used to live in North Vancouver, and took precautions every time I went out into the wild. I always had a hunting knife, not only for defence, but also in case I got lost, needed to make a fire, etc. What sort of Pagan goes into cougar and bear-infested woods armed? A smart one! Not that we would want to use any weapons, but that we know that nature is not necessarily always working for the sole purpose of being kind to humanity. Nature has its own modus operandi, as we know, for we too are a part of that nature.
The Wild Gods I love the word wilderness. It conjures up images of windswept moors and heathland, dark tangling forests and craggy mountaintops. That spirit of the untamed, the uncivilised, that spark that humanity cannot touch, much in the same way as deity is traditionally viewed. For many Druids, that wilderness is deity – it has the power to give or sustain life or the power to kill. It has not and, in many places, cannot be touched by human hands, existing without any human interference. I like to think that same dark spark exists within our own human souls as well, offering us the sanctity of the wilderness within.
The concept of the “untouched” wilderness is an interesting one. I rather wonder if it has anything to do with secular religious views that have crept into our culture predominantly for the last thousand years or so. The concept of the virgin forest, the virgin wilderness – I have to say, I really dislike the term. It is nice to think that there are places in the world where humans have never been – but still, it’s the terminology that is rather uncomfortable. I have been to places where humans have lived with the landscape, and who live there no more – the wilderness has returned. Where stone buildings once stood, nature has reclaimed it, slowly destroying it until nothing remains but the songs on the wind. Virginity cannot ever be reclaimed – and in this regard, I find the term does not work within the context of the natural world. As it works in cycles, what happened once can be undone.
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