The Grandmother Shawl

 

For a while now I have been a little anxious about the idea that I will become “a little old lady”, eventually.   I lacked a clear vision of my role in my own life going forward into the future.    

I bought a shawl, because I liked it and it called to me.  A friend (who is a generation older than I) said it looked like a hug from a grandmother.  I agreed, but my mind responded, “and that would be me.”

I began to think about the image that I hold of the “little old lady,” the grandmother.  Not my grandmothers, nor my own mother but, the archetype, the Goddess as Grandmother.

I was surprised to discover that the image I hold is one that I find beautiful.  Yes, she is soft and round, yes, she is gray and pale, yes, she is not as strong or limber as a young woman but, she is also resilient, and steadfast.  She is comforting and loving and fierce. 

She knows herself, and how to hold space for those she loves.  She has wisdom born from personal experience and can offer sound guidance and support.  She knows how to listen and how to teach others to stand in their own power.  And she knows how to stand in hers.

She is not overtly sexual in the way that our society thinks of the sexual woman but, she has sexual power that arises from her understanding of her own desires and her lack of shame in enjoying the sensual, physical pleasure that she can offer to her lovers.  I had worried a little that my lovers might no longer feel sexual desire for me when I indeed become this “grandmother” but, I find this image to be intriguing and mysterious, and yes, desirable.  If I find this image desirable, I trust that they will as well.  the need for love is not exclusive to the young.  The gifts of love, sex, pleasure and healing are not only to be found in the young either.

So this shawl holds the vision, of the woman I am becoming, the woman I look forward to becoming, the woman I already am.  And I wrap it around myself when I need a hug from the Grandmother, or to embrace this vision of my future.  And I find it very comforting. 

Blessed Be. 

Changes...

I am 50 years old.  From my perspective, this is only the beginning of a stage in my life that I would like to look forward to with excitement and a sense of adventure.  But while I choose to be optimistic about the future, there are things about which I feel some trepidation.

 My body has changed a lot in the past year.  It no longer feels like the same body I have been living with my entire life.  It no longer feels like the body I had a year ago.  My bones have changed, my muscles have changed.  I see slight differences when I look in the mirror. I no longer have a sense of strength and confidence in my body’s ability to handle accidents, injury, illness, or digging out from snow storms.  And sometimes I wonder how and when my body will lose its desire for sexual expression, and when my lovers will lose their desire for me.  There are moments when I am afraid of getting older, and times when I am afraid that I will not have the time or the energy I need to do the things I desire to do in this lifetime.

I want to go forward into the next 43 years strong and fearless, but I will admit to moments of fear and I will admit to moments of feeling week and vulnerable.  Perhaps these moments exist to give me the opportunity to understand a point of view I have never had before…

Who is left standing?...

I was asked today “Who is left standing when everyone else has been taken away?”  I have been sitting with this question, through the snowfall, with my Pwca curled up beside me.  (When considering total isolation it is good to have your cat by your side.)

Like many human beings, I have some fear of abandonment.  I am blessed with the knowledge that some of my beloveds would stay beside me no matter what.  But the terror that children have in the years after they become aware of mortality, maintains a hold upon many of us well into adulthood. 

The question of abandonment remains in the shadows, an obstacle to intimacy, and to emotional availability with others and with ourselves.  So the question was posed to me, “Who is left standing when everyone else is taken away?” 

The question seems to have three distinct contexts.  First, who am I if I am completely isolated?  What happens then?  My answer to that question is that I am still here, invisible or not.  But I would lose my purpose in this life. 

My purpose in this lifetime is to leave a mark, to communicate and engage with others.  Without others, I would lose that purpose and I do not enjoy that idea.  That idea would lead me to consider the point of continuing, and for the record, I not only expect to live well into my 90’s, I intend to as well. 

Another context goes to the question of what happens if I cease to exist?  What happens if I actually become invisible because I no longer exist with this mind, heart, body and soul?  The only place I can find to answer this question is in my faith. 

I believe that the soul (along with the heart and mind or consciousness of the person that is me), once the body ends returns to its source in the underworld (and my Patron) and joins with the ancestors to be recycled within the bloodline with others in the same soul-group to assist each other in the process of working out our wyrd. 

The Spirit freed of the individual self, goes on to the Summerland to process the lessons learned in this life and eventually to the Lady of Fate (my Patroness) to choose its next incarnation.  I do not fear this process, I have been through it before and I will embrace it, when the time has come to do so again.

The third context concerns the members of the committee and their purpose.  If each of them were to be taken away, who would be left standing?  Who am I? 

I have been journeying a great deal lately and I have discovered that, at least for the time being, when I arrive on the other side of the threshold, I am myself but, I am the child that I was  with the knowledge that I now possess., and without the “armor” that I have created over the past 4 decades.  And that seems to be the answer.  I am the child that I was.  She is the woman, witch, mother, priestess, switch, adventurer, romantic and poet that I have always been.    

The child is the one “who is left standing” when everyone else is taken away.  She is the truth and the best of me.

The Dress

This past weekend my friend took me on an adventure into the city and we visited some of his favorite shops. At one of the shops, among many wonderful things, I found a dress.

The dress is a magickal thing.  It is enchanting and enchanted.   When I put it on, I cried. 

The dress is beautiful and romantic and it makes me feel like I am twenty years old.  It makes me feel like the young woman that I was before I gave up the last vestige of hope of being a mother, of falling in love. Of finding someone who would love me, all of me, who would allow me to feel safe.

I bought the dress because I could not bear to leave it.  But when we left the shop and continued on our way, he asked me when I was going to wear it and by instinct I answered,”Never”.  And that was my intention…never to where it.  Because the part of me that loves it, that it belongs to, is a part of me I am afraid to show to anyone.

That part of me has lived in a locked box for decades until only a few weeks ago.  The box was finally broken into and the person inside has been the most difficult part of me to reconcile.  

Because she is not angry nor strong nor aggressive nor courageous.

She is weak and soft and, against all of the evidence, she still hopes for the chance to be loved, that she can be, that someone will see past the weakness and decide that she is not more trouble than she is worth. 

She still hopes to be seen as beautiful and valuable and to be wanted, for all of her softness and her weakness and her capacity to give absolutely everything that she is to someone simply because they want her and she loves them.

My friend, as he would, argued the point. And the next day, when I showed the dress to my son, who was the last great thing that the twenty-year-old me ever did, he too made the argument that I should wear the dress and that I should not be afraid to show my “weakness” or my softness, that there is no part of me that he will not love.

I wore the dress today for someone I love, who loves me.  I will wear the dress again for others whom I love and trust.  I will choose hope and love.  May my Gods be pleased with my weakness. 

So mote it be.

time travel and the laws of physics...

Photo by Helen Jarvis-Reynolds

In the sunlight, 

the tail occasionally strikes, 

kissing my arm, my leg, my belly, 

the side of my neck once.  

We are just playing  but,

the bite of the tail, slight as it is, 

brings a flush to my skin, a rise in my heart-rate 

and a slight release of neuro-transmitters in my brain, 

I still understand the science, for now.

Later, we sit in the summer evening.  

I recall moments from long ago; 

the sound of rain on the roof of a car, 

the smell of South Carolina soil, 

the taste of strawberry wine,

another face, another name,

and the structure of time begins to shift.  

My memories from a lifetime ago are closer than they appear.  

the day to day, of life as it is now, fades to a distant past.

Later still, I sit on my bed in soft cotton, 

drinking wine and listening to music from that life long gone; 

you say my voice changed somewhere during the third song... 

The occasional touch of your claws playing lightly on my arm 

causes another release of the magick potion in my brain, 

I am less conscious of the science now.

I got up to get something, 

from the kitchen I think, more wine maybe? 

I am not sure now, 

you were standing behind me, 

your claws tracing symbols across my skin.

“You may turn around now…” 

your voice, a whisper from a half-remembered dream.

Moments skip forward; 

Minutes? Seconds? Days? Hours? Years?

The structure of time has lost cohesion.

bent over the bed, my hands behind my back,

"Do not move"...

the universe collapses into my skin... 

there is no spoon, no room, no clock on the wall, no walls…

only your claws on my back, your growl in my ears, 

your hand gripping my hair, 

pulling my head back, exposing my throat.

The magick in my brain has taken effect; your spell has cast me into power...

The laws of physics have been replaced by a warm russet fog 

that smells like sex and tastes of your skin; 

gravity no longer applies. 

Your forearm pressing against my neck makes it difficult to breathe, 

your grip on my hair tightens, 

both pull me back against you, 

“Don’t make a sound” 

and when you have finished fucking me again... 

“That, was for me."

Your voice penetrates the fog that fills my body and my brain, 

causing the temperature to increase by a magnitude...

Later, after you have restored the clock 

along with the walls and spoons and things, 

and I am once again a woman of my age 

and not a time-traveler, containing the entire universe within my skin, 

you ask me about the things I said when you asked me "why?"…

There are no bruises this time, but for a shadow on my belly from your teeth, 

and answers that I do not remember giving...