Cronewort

Dear Phoenix on the WEb, It has been a long time since I have come to you to write: over a month, I think. Currently on The Wheel, we are on the brink of The Deep Time, marked specifically by the holy day of Samhain. Two days ago was Lunar Samhain, the time when the moon is already in that energy that occurs solarly on November 1st. This particular Lunar Samhain was also a new moon in Scorpio and the sun moved into that same sign last Sunday. Scorpio, Phoenix, is 'your sign' because the energy is about transformation, deep transformation, death/loss, rebirth/reconfiguration. And this week, I feel I have been in that current beginning on Sunday with a Trance Dance. But/And I come to you now not because of Sunday (though at some point I may bring that to you too), but because I felt you came to me last night. I woke suddenly to what sounded like Beetle heaving, like she was needing to throw up. I leapt out of bed and let her outside. I was in such a liminal state of sleep and wake that I became a bit disoriented when I headed back to bed. This is very unusual as I am often able to move around in my dark bedroom in the middle of the night, no matter how I wake up. I usually feel my way successfully through the dark and corners and furniture. So, last night was different in that I was disoriented. I bumped into the t.v. which knocked the photograph of you and I off onto the floor, shattering the glass. This woke me up more, but didn't snap me out of the disorientation. I reached, groped in the dark for the lamp I knew was there. My hand waved like a blindly into space, back and forth, finding my bed, finding your chair, but unable to find the lamp in between. I was perplexed, kind of like that moment last Winter Solstice in the labyrinth when I couldn't find the way, remember? I knew it had to be there, but all I saw were rocks that closed off the path I thought was there! Last night, like then, I persisted and I kept waving and reaching; in the process I knocked the wooden wolf sculpture and the paper phoenix off the stand where the lamp was. Finally, I got the light on and saw the evidence of you there, Phoenix. Our photograph, the sculptures of wolf and phoenix all reactivated. Samhain is the time when the veils between the worlds are thinnest, when the ancestors are close and accessible, as well as losses. Part of this week, Phoenix, I returned to my losses of the last years. You, J., losses of parts of myself, relational beliefs about myself, things I thought I wanted exclusively...on and on. And, then I watched a documentary that threw me more deeply into my Deep time. I woke up this morning with it again, haunting me. The movie is called The Cove and I rented it because on the front there were dolphins leaping out of the water. I've been seeking out movies about the ocean recently. Watching water move calms my nervous system like nothing else. This movie was not that, though. This movie was about the deliberate and systematic slaughter of dolphins in a town called Taiji, Japan. When the movie began and I realized it wasn't what I was expecting, I decided to just watch a bit and see. I was feeling sleepy anyway and thought I'd probably sleep through it; would let it lull me to sleep with the monotones etc. And I did drift off to sleep at one point. Then...I woke up, Phoenix. It was to the sound of screaming dolphins and the color of red ocean water! I was disoriented and frozen there in my bed watching these creatures writhe through the red waters after being repeatedly stabbed by Japanese men in boats. I can hardly stand remembering this. And, yet, how can I forget it? The inhumanity...there aren't even words for it. Our language does not have words for these kinds of things that don't sound legal (i.e. injustice), theoretical (i.e inhumane), racist (i.e. barbaric)...nothing reflects this feeling I have inside in response to that!! I cannot shake this. And..I don't think that would be the right response either. Yesterday a resident where I work told me that there is a current of trash/debris from Japan's tsunami that stretches 2000 miles long and 1000 miles wide that is moving through the ocean now, will reach Hawaii sometime next year etc etc. I can only imagine what kinds of things that includes: appliances, pipes, furniture, lamps, mattresses, toilets, sewage, chemicals, trash, things of people's lives and deaths. I shudder trying to imagine and know all i would need to do is Google for the information and images would be provided for me! Later this morning, Phoenix, though, I woke up in tears. How can the ocean hold all of this trauma??? Not just from these two things, but from lifetimes of similar atrocities, 'natural' or not. Where does it all go??? How does she contain it and still have life????? I am not looking for pat answers about this about how strong She is, how big She is, how miraculous She is! NO! That may be true. And DAMN IT! It's got to STOP!!!!! I hate it when women are praised for that kind of thing. Oh, look how much women have endured: rape, incest, murder of loved ones, betrayals etc etc etc etc ad infinitum. Yes, that is true and DAMN IT! It's got to STOP! It's like somehow there is some justification for all this shit just because we have survived! I cannot stand it! I cannot stand for it anymore. And...what does not begin able to stand for it mean? I went to a book I have by Judith Berger, an herbologist. She writes about Artemisia Vulgaris, Mugwort, also known as Cronewort, the hag of the plant world. She says one time after something really hard happened to her/her garden, she went to this plant and asked what to do and She, the plant, very simply said "there is no killing me." Judith writes in response, "And I learned that for myself, rather than diminish the injustice of inhumane acts, I want to become like the crone, who represents the mature force within us that is willing to see things as they are, and determine what medicine needs to be applied. Regular ingestion of cronewort builds this fierceness within us and allows us to bear unpopularity in order to remain close to what we know to be true" (Herbal Rituals, p. 22). Last night, in the energy of the Scorpionic new moon and Lunar Samhain, I sent this fierceness to Her, the Ocean and her life. I sent it internally to myself. I said, NO to further slaughtering. and I said YES to my fierce willingness to continue to see things as they are and determine what medicine needs to be applied. Do I feel better? Not really. And/but I feel occasionally less "possessed." That's the only word that seems to fit. Since waking up that night to the horrific images and sounds, it possessed me in a freeze state. Finding Judith's words and her teaching of Cronewort I could feel something loosen, thaw in me a bit. It's not a fix. No. There is no fix, right now anyway. Phoenix, thank you for waking me last night and reactivating our connection...calling me here to write/record/reflect. You do that for me so sweetly. Finally, last thing: "In Japan, cronewort's fierce protective quality is well known by household women, who hang wands of it over the door to keep out evil influences" (Herbal Rituals, p. 14). May these wands be energetically hung over the waters of Taiji, Japan. So it is. In and for Her Love, Me