We womyn are wired in a very different way than society would have us believe. When the convictions of witches led to public burning in a time that burned a deep scar onto Salem's name, a fear in men was to blame. A fear that there might be more to life's fabric than was available to the touch; more stitched into It than what the Bible, and Man's God, were able to decipher. A fear that womyn, that woMEN (creatures that were so rigidly held to a standard of subservience because, after all, we were created of man's rib, just a singular and simple bone located in his digestive cavity) might hold deep knowledge of the why, the sort of why that wisdom whispers to us ... and that that whisper might have a gender preference as to whom it reveals itself.
And it's true: this why weaves its tales of the sacrament that is us: it tells stories of secrets, ones of creation and its cycles, and this was too much for a man to bear. Embarrassing, even. It needed to not be, said men, who were raised by their fathers, and them by their fathers, to believe that they held all knowledge, that they would bring home what would sustain a family: Food apprehended through control and strategy; knowledge of nearby danger, and protection when it drew close.
So to the fire with the witches it was, literally speaking.
If womyn escaped the fury of men's fire, they were left to tend to it, at home, and to raise the children. Perhaps some men and boys, those of our brothers who drew close to their own inner Divine Feminine, saw more deeply into this implication: perhaps they saw that it was because of the fire that children were created. That children were raised from the fire, by the fire, kept warm by this fire while in the womb of womyn and later, around the fire next to womyn.
In many early matriarchal cultures, womyn were seen as connected to the Sun and men to the Moon, rather than the reverse. Womyn were seen as solar goddesses; we were seen as the creators, we were held in exaltation because, like the Sun, it was womyn who gave life to life.
We hold all knowledge, still, deep within our bodies, deep within these sacred temples that echo with the cries of joy when we fill them with dance, with craft, with movement, with creation, with life -- they echo with the cries of a child. There is a reason that that cry, when heard by a mother, can awaken something in her soul that pushes her to an edge not journeyed to until that time. It is the primordial cry of creation, and it screams of cycles -- within those cycles can resonate for a womyn a manifestation of deep joy or deep pain. A mama acts on that burning instinct, and the child is formed from that fire.
The child's cry is within us all: it is echoing, and begging us to return to our own Divine Feminine.
It is not only through the physical creation and birth of a child that a child may be born. Through our deep listening, through the activation of our own healing, we can re-create our inner child. That child has never left us. We hold within us a choice to heal that child, to protect the child that we once were. How we nurture and nourish that child that is each of us is the beginning and the end. It is what creates our lives -- it is true that we are burned by the fire or we are created from it. There is a reason, they say, that before one dies, that person's whole life flashes before their eyes. From the womb we came, and to the womb we will return. This sort of primal and unconscious magic, this cycle in reverse, takes us on a return journey to our first mother, to the mother of all beings, to the Creatix of Alchemy, our Mama Gaia.
And Gaia, our Earth Mother, provides us with tools to implement this practice, this practice of returning to the earth, to healing her and to healing all mothers, including the one within each of us. We have the resources, here and now, to come home to ourselves: Activate your knowing, the knowing that you hold deep magic, and that this magic lives within you. Live from the knowledge of your womb and less from the knowledge of your mind. If you don't know where to start, seek your sisters. Reach out to them. They are all around you. Listen for them in the forest, in school, in shops and stores, when you are out -- and listen to the voice within yourself when you are in. Turn towards that voice; answer it. And when you can't find that voice, because there will be times when the fire is blazing around you and you cannot hear the voice of others, know that this voice is your own, and make it heard ... make it heard for yourself. You are here for a reason, right here and right now, and it is to own this sacred wisdom. You are here, and this is no mistake, for fire is perfect, and unique, and we all know the trick to stoking a fire. It is through your breath that your fire will grow.
We are intuitive beings. All beings are, for held within all of us is the Divine Feminine. And as physical manifestations of the Divine Feminine, we womyn have a special sort of access. When we open to our power, we see into that chasm that we've allowed to form before us. We feel deeper. We see images, visions, dreams that can touch the soft and tender and seemingly invisible core at the center of our existence. We are Goddess, and it is no wonder that fearful cries of "Witch, Witch!," that sacred synonym, held such impact. Witches were once burned -- returned by force to the alchemical fire from which we all came and to which we will return. It can be our choice to return to that fire now, to the fire of our wombs, to our secret and expansive, all-pervading knowledge. Listen, whisper, then let your voice grow louder so that it matches the resounding accusation.
Witch! Wear this emblem and know it is a sacrament with a purpose. Let this truth -- its aliveness, its breath -- to grow the fire within you every day of your precious life until it returns to embers, to the dust of bone, to the remnants of smoke from exhale.
Then, inhale it again.
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