I had a nightmare last night. As I have been sitting with the feelings, I keep returning to the fact that what was nightmare for me is reality for so many people today. There will be a reckoning in the after, and people will be called to account for their cruelty, whether dutiful or gleeful. There will be a reckoning.
ICE Dream by Beth Weaver-Kreider
They grabbed her, my oh-so-fierce and oh-so-fragile mother, and threw her to the ground.
Even in the light of day through the sheeting rain, beyond the simple sounds of the day, I hear her cry out.
I cannot stop feeling it, cannot stop hearing the cry, the crunch, cannot stop feeling the helplessness engulf me.
All these traumas we witness daily, the grandfather tackled, the mother taken away, the terrified and weeping children,
they’re all our family, all fierce, all fragile, all endangered by masked and violent men, bent on power and domination.
The cries echo everywhere. The yell, the crunch, the quick abduction. Our elders. Our children, our neighbors.
Perhaps I have not listened keenly enough to the cries, have not held with reverence the line that ties me to the disappeared.
I thought I was paying attention. All I know is that today my heart is shattered, pieces scattered to the winds.
This is the second of my three posts for Way of the Rose for this novena, the walk through the Sorrowful Mysteries, which I call: The Agony in the Garden, The House of Pain, the Village of Shaming, the Grove of Shadows, and the Gates of Life and Death:
In her book Lost Goddesses of Ancient Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths, Colleen Spretnak tells an older version of the Persephone story, one before the northern Zeus worshippers swept south into Greece, before it became a story of abduction and assault, This earlier telling gives the young Persephone (the Kore maiden) agency. Demeter, goddess of the Earth and all things living, is responsible, too, for Death. Her intuitive daughter feels the lost souls of the dead surrounding them, seeking solace, but Demeter knows that her own work is to instruct the mortals to store seed in the Earth that the dead may fertilize the seeds for new growth, and that to do more for the dead will keep her from her other important work. Essentially, she tells her daughter, “tending to the solace of the dead is not my job.”
In this story, Persephone knows in her bones that this will be her work, to tend to the wandering souls of the dead, to offer them comfort and belonging. Although Demeter tries to forbid her, Persephone knows her work, and enters a crevice in the Earth to go deep into the Underworld to care for the souls of the dead. I can see her, full of curiosity, full of adventure, full of the knowledge of her purpose, entering the crevice, traveling the winding passageways to the underworld, perhaps following the Torch-bearer Hecate, Finder of Ways, Keeper of the Keys.
Today we overlay the Sorrowful Mysteries on this Mystery of the Scourging (the House of Pain), and I listen not only for the purposeful footfall of the young woman who takes her destiny upon herself, but for the wild keening of the mother, lost in her own shadowy labyrinth of grieving. And I watch my own children embark on their young adulthood, and I wonder if I am strong enough to let them go on their own underworld journeys, to seek their purpose away from me and my influence. Of course I want them to find their own way, to succeed, to be their own people, but the letting go demands that I grieve, too, like Demeter. And it is a comfort to know that Persephone (who is known as both death-bringer and light-bringer) is single-minded, purposeful in her pursuit of her life’s work. I know that when eventually she brings death for me and my beloveds, she will come trailing light, with an invitation to adventure.
Practice (this is a version of my Heart’s Desire Prayer for this novena). I have assigned each of the five stages of this journey to an animal or bird that has made itself known to me in recent weeks. You can, of course, choose your own:
Lady, take me Deep, Let me tumble through the cave-mouth into your realm of shadow and transformation.
Follow Kore into the cave, seeking the Land of the Dead (I see her as a young deer) I enter the cavern in wonder, full of curiosity, full of adventure.
Follow Demeter, Queen of the Earth and her harvests, on her search for her disappeared child (mother raven) I listen for the flutter of my longings, for the distant song of my deepest desire.
Follow Hecate, Torchbearer, Way-Finder, Keeper of the Keys, through the labyrinthine caverns (grandmother owl) I step onto the winding pathway, holding my torch and my keys.
Enter the Realm of the Dead, the Circle of Ancestors (I think of serpents) I sit in the firelit circle of Ancestors, and receive their Sapient Council.
Receive the blessing of Persephone, Queen of the Dead (I see a crocodile) I follow the Bringer of Death, Bringer of Light with open heart, quiet mind, dancing feet, and willing hands.
Spell to Tumble the Tower of Patriarchy by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Say: We take back our agency Say: The daughters will be avenged Say: The predators have become prey Say: We predate the predators and we will rise again Say: We stand with the ancestors, the women who died on your fires the women who drowned in your waters the women you thought you had buried deep in the mouth of the Earth the same Earth who loves us the Earth who holds the dead dearly the women you set swinging in air
Say: Our mouths are filling with fire and we will burn it down Say: The water within us is rising and we will flood and we will flood and we will flood Say: We are a tremor, we are an earthquake, and we will shake down the tower of power and domination
Say: We will blow and blow and blow We are hurricane We are tornado We are the wind that they call “The Witches are Passing”
Say: The rosy fingers of Dawn rise above the new horizon Say: The ancient Goddess is returning Say: The new story is beginning
Gratitude List: 1. russet ocher burnt sienna yellow gold orange chestnut walnut 2. How sunlight in autumn opens a door to another world 3. When the poem just comes 4. ReGenAll’s Climate Summit today, knowing that people are doing the good work 5. Finding time to write May we walk in Beauty!
My online Rosary Group, The Way of the Rose, is currently contemplating the Sorrowful Mystery of the Scourging, which I call The House of Pain, for our 54-day novena, which will take us to Solstice. Today was my turn to meditate on the Joyful Mysteries in this context:
The rosary unsettles me, jars me, and shakes me up. Even as it provides a thread to follow, consistently, carefully, into the narrative of my life, like Ariadne’s Red Thread that guides the seeker through the labyrinth, step by step, bead by bead, it leads me into Rooms of Mystery where I am not always sure I am prepared to go. I balk in the doorways.
Joyful Mysteries? How can I dare to enter those rooms when children are still dying in Gaza, when innocent, hard-working people are being abducted from our streets by masked men, when a friend dies of cancer? And yet I walk into the room of the Garden of Yes, and then I Visit the House of my Beloved, and on into the following rooms, and I learn something about joy, how joy is woven into the cloth of my rages and sorrows and fears, how choosing joy is truly an act of resistance in the face of death-dealing and war-mongering, greed and tyranny.
And Sorrow? How can I enter those rooms again, feel the dread of a dead-weight in the pit of my stomach, to relive the traumas I hold in my bones? Yet each time I walk through the caverns of sorrow, I am healed yet again, brought through to the rooms of Glory, the resurrecting, the re-awakening, the re-imagining of life on the other side.
And here, in these days, we have the extra layer of unease, discomfiture and disorientation, walking through the rooms of the Joyous Mysteries even as we meditate on the Scourging, on the pain. It can feel like a cracking and dissolving of the psyche, stepping into two rooms at once, yet the work of Joy as Resistance, the holding of Sorrow even as I allow Joy to infuse my spirit, is not a brokenness and a fracturing, but a healing of the disparate pieces of my psyche, allowing me to be more fully human. There is teaching in this paradox, a chance to learn to live in the liminal spaces, in the betweens, where the possibilities merge and mingle.
In this novena, we sit in the House of Pain (my phrase for the mystery of the Scourging), yet even in this place is a joyful Garden of Yes, a House of my Beloved, a village of my Birth, a place of Blessing by the elders, and a Finding my feet on the temple floor. Finding joy in moments of pain is not toxic positivity, a refusal to experience the pain. Instead, it’s an acknowledgement of the complexity of life, not just that we go through cycles of joy and pain and resurrection, but that these cycles are overlaid upon each other, that our humanity equips us to live with such complexity.
I rework my Hail Marys each novena to reflect my heart’s desire prayer, each decade a slightly different version of the prayer. During this novena, one of my prayers is to Persephone: “Holy Persephone, help me to reclaim and heal and integrate the pieces of myself within your cycles of transformation.”
May we reclaim, heal, and integrate our lamenting and our celebrating selves, our longing and our satisfied selves, our despairing and our hopeful selves, as we walk through these caverns and rooms into the Solstice.
Practice: Sit quietly and settle into your breath. Feel your roots anchoring you to Mother Earth. In your mind’s eye, follow the torch-bearer through the twisting underground passages to a wooden doorway. You know this door. You have entered it before, the door to the House of Pain. Take a good deep breath, knowing that when you enter, you will only need to face the pain you are ready to face, knowing that you carry within you the mysteries of joy. Picture Joy as a shining stone you carry in your hand. Feel its weight and its heft. The torch-bearer hands you the keys and you open the door. Keep breathing deeply as you enter, and straighten your shoulders. Speak to yourself: I am resilient and strong. I have the tools within me to face the pain. Find rest within yourself here. Listen for the messages the pain has to tell you, even as you hold fiercely to joy. Stay only as long as you feel able. Breathe. Square your shoulders. Walk into the new day.
I will not be in timidated by the pat riarchal posers
I will not be des pairing over the lies dis persed by wannabe
dictators and syc ophants groveling in ab ject obsequious
ness I will be dis orderly and ungovern able as the moon
Gratitude List: 1. The sleeping giant is awakening (and she is seeking justice) 2. The moon the moon the moon the moon 3. Four-part harmony 4. Crocheting with a friend 5. Weekends! May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 