Sometimes Winter takes over and it’s difficult to see even the possibility of the coming Spring. I have been on my Underworld journey for a while now. My eyes grew accustomed to darkness, yet I’m still blinded to the truth held within me. I’m still searching – starved for knowledge, hungry to find myself. I feel like an Orpheus in mid-turn – I’ve almost found what I was looking for, I’ve almost retrieved it; yet it is still out of my reach. I can feel the vibrations of the world within me, the awakening. Does this Enchantress still have a chance to enchant her inner-world and the world without?
I can feel the weave of the world intermingling with my weave. Lately, I have been weaving a lot of grief. Rusty threads flowing and intermingling with the smooth ones. The pattern surprises me with its beauty. Who would think that grief is beautiful. Sometimes you must step out and look at everything from a different perspective. The colours of my grief are the multiverse of ideas, feelings, fears, and tears. I am grieving for my past and all the loved ones left behind, all the loved ones who passed on, who transitioned and changed. I’m grieving Maiden, Mother and Lover, my body changed by each passing year; my breasts emptied of the nurture of life; fertility passing into forgotten realms. I’m grieving all the lovers who left their seed within me, the touch that hurt, and the one that brought pleasure. I’m grieving the smell of death, and the scent of life. I’m grieving all the possibilities, all the ‘I’s that never had the opportunity or the reason to become, and all the ‘I’s that have been and passed. I’m grieving the broken friendships, and all the tears that I allowed to flow fertilizing my past and preparing me for the future. I’m grieving Me that I could have been, and one that I could have become. My grief is filled with colours and each colour is a thread that I am weaving through the tapestry of my life. And the richness of all this is the hope for my future. This tapestry shows me where I’ve been and where I am going next. I don’t regret anything – the pain, pleasure, tears – all of it is the vibration of me. The vibration I am leaving in the world and in Spirit. And all of this is necessary and important, as all of this is who I am today.
Although, at the moment it doesn’t feel like it to me, I know that the Winter will end and Spring will come, even though my eyelids are still heavy with sadness. Grief is an irritant, it hurts. But just like certain mollusks produce pearls as a way of protecting themselves from irritants that enter their shells, so the places within me that are now in such great pain with time will birth a pearl within me. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, but something sacred is being created by me. Through this mysterious process I can alchemise this hardship into healing, and through this alchemy I can root myself deeply, so I can truly rise.
I will remember this all, as the tapestry of my weave will be my remembrance. I will re-member, and through the membership of embodiment I will re-inhabit my body anew, and the wisdom of all these experiences will be not only remembered, but also alive and weaved through my bones. The song of my bones will be heard through centuries, dimensions, and lives. The song of my bones is the song of my ancestors and my descendants, and through my weave I will become the shroud for the generations past, and the birth cloth for those yet to come. Through my feminine, the grief weaving, I will create space for the future filled with possibility and hope – and then the Spring will arrive, and I will awaken to my truth. New consciousness will be written into matter, and with each colour, with each thread I will stitch my soul deeper within. And when I look at this weave, I will be able to see that once upon the time I was; that today I am; that one day I will be; and my weave will continue to the day I die, and my death will bring a new meaning and a new weave to my daughters and to my sons.
This beautiful Medicine Shawl that you can see on the photo was weaved for me by beautiful Tor Purrett of Tor Woven https://www.torwoven.co.uk/