I have felt the deep stillness upon me of late, the urge to be silent, and watch, and wait. Submerged in the Other essence that laps around me, flowing out Deathwards and circling my frame. The currents speak of cycles reborn, of blood washing clean of generational wounding, or Prophecy in the water. I lay here like an unborn thing, brazen in my innocence, open to a chasm of secrets; knowing the gulf of nothingness that is the curve of the Ravens’ inner eyes peeking inward, piercing flesh and bone-made gateways. Mother is cawing from the inside.
I stepped into this moment willingly, feeling the nip of rage around my heels, a poorly diluted blood wine with a smacking aftertaste. Half of it was not mine to carry, I tipped it to the ground, and spoke of libations to the angry dead; those that howl for the tending of the Cairns and the overt dismissal of life force. Dishonour, and rituals unattended. The peeling skin off their nose. I fed them then and bade them welcome, and spoke of them aloud. I wove stories into prophecy, as She had taught me to long ago, well before I was born into this skin, lessons like an itch at the corner of memory. Blood seeped back into the Earth like a thousand warriors felled at the tip of a spear, as the Raven chews at innards divining all their fates beyond this one. I chewed at my own digestion, questioning where I had sunk my teeth into my own flesh for someone else’s benefit, time and again. Tearing off my own skin for someone else’s benefit; slipping the knife under my jaw to silence my phantom call.
The water runs red with it all, pooling tears that meander across my cheeks, a suffering that was unremarked upon for so long. Another whispers to me of truth; of the belittling of the battles fought, the tarnishing of sacred roles, of numbness setting into the bones and wondering why the spark is faded, and only rage simmers at the sinew. Reasons enough, some fair, some steeped in shadow, bubble underneath, and the water flows.
I have entered world-bought solitude, and met the Hermit residing in the water, the lady with her bloody rags scrubbing off the innards, leaving the insides raw and prostrated. What holy prayer is this, I wonder, gory and unflinching. A thousand tales to tell, all bloody and bare, humanity floating around in pieces. A storyteller who doesn’t balk at the details; the edges of the page all singed in fear and dread, the staining droplets from a hesitant pen that continues on anyway. We write how it is to feel the chasm opening within as we drop off the map, and discover all of our monsters. A tragedy of how we are human.
For myself, I stole away to the sanctuary of a well-worn cave, where shadows dwell with fungi, and the spiritual ecosystem unfurls across the floor in its bioluminescence. My mind carved out the peaks and falls, and filled the base with black sand. The cedar brushes at the entranceway, bowing down to gale winds and torrents of storm frenzied rain, lashing outwardly in all its fervour. The Banshee on the wind, howling hoarse into the night, wrenching nightmares from sprouting roots. There is a Crow at the window, half in-between the two worlds, yet another shrill warning. I am never ill-advised.
“I came, as You requested,” I speak in low pitched growls. “You called, I came,” She corrects me, battle-scarred and beauteous, a twinkling in her grey eyes betraying her stern lines, “But it is time to listen and call back to your soul.”
How long had it been since I sat with myself, truly, utterly, with myself, and listened to the churning, the gnashing and the pain? My soul had been fluttering and finding itself tattered and run ragged trying to serve, instead serving itself up as a three-course meal for incisors large and small. I have been so lost, for so long, wanting to belong. Another Daughter speaks and says that I attract damaged fireflies who have no light of their own. I cry at the simplicity of it, the truth dripping into my skull. I sink into the sand. The rage is beginning to ground away, reclaimed by an Earth Mother who knows her knife work, where to cut each thread loose and pull. The curved blade flashes in the glimmer, splattering poison against the walls, unyielding precision, deft and swift, until every cord is snapped and shrivelling.
My stomach begins to concave, now that it is empty, and only the hurt remains. I can see it for what it is. Folding in on myself, I wrap layer upon layer inwards, shifting inwards until I can fly again on Raven wings.
Joey, The Starry Eyed Witch
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In