For thousands of years we have been gathered around the fire chanting and singing and whispering to all the women that come after us. A love letter from our grandmothers:
Be rooted, you are the keeper of what is human. Remember that you tend to the fire, to life, to death. That you are yoked to beginnings and endings. Pay no mind to the posturing of our leaders and their hunger, you are not prey. Focus on your surefootedness. Plant your feet firmly in what you have always known to be true and once you are grounded wrap your warm and loving arms around their bewilderment for they have forgotten who they came from.
They are afraid because they do not know where true power lives. So they kneel to false gods and see success as more. They seek only power, use babies as shields and walk paths made of their own mothers broken bones. They cannot imagine that life is not theirs for the giving and for the taking.
So they take up arms to define and defend what is fair and right. Oh, may the goddess be kind to them as this is the only way they know. For they have been shielded from truth for so very long. They have been forever surrounded by women that have forgotten who they are. By mothers who want what is best for their sons, by those that just want to be seen, by women who kneel to save the children they are “saving”.
So my sweet child, rise from your knees and tell me what will you do with your great knowing?
We will howl and dance and cry and fight. We will remind them that death is life. That an abundant, fruitful, rich and sensual life can only exist when we fully accept that something has died for it to exist. That this beautiful, nourishing life was birthed and will die in the hands of women...always...women. For some, it must be too soon for others it must be too late. That honouring all life whether it be too long lived or not lived long enough is what we hold on to. That true power exists in what we choose to honour. Please child, go to them and ask those that choose to honour power, posture and words to sip from the poison well and feel how easily life can slip away. Ask them what they would do if given another chance?
Would they hold hands of their lovers in back alley procedures?
Would they wipe tears of their sisters and remind them they good girls for not crying out?
Would they tell their broken daughters that they will never be as important as power and posture and words?
Or maybe they could kneel on this ground and show gratitude for what was birthed from death coming too soon and have them sit bedside of those that die too late? These choices are not for making, they are for carrying.
Conceived in sorrow, held in reverence....