Kali Durga. Lilith. Medusa.
We call upon you now.
Let us be creators amidst the destruction.
Guide us in the Birthing of Your Arising.
Hekate. Isis. Freja. Inanna and Ereshkigal.
We pray to expand our circles of care and compassion
As we hold our boundaries.
May we not be misled by the appearance of things
And once again abandon our spells.
This past week has felt like we are careening into the underworld…again. How many times will the storm gods come and how is it that they are still worshipped more than the Mother?
It is winter here in this land where the facade of democracy is in its final stages of crumbling, on display for all to see. It is a moment when it is difficult yet necessary to trust in the dance of the Destructive Mother. We cannot stop the towers from falling but we can seed what we want to grow from the rubble.
Still, the grief and horror of these times cannot be bypassed by conceptualizing divine meaning. We will bear witness and we will suffer. And we will love and create and protect and mourn and sing. We will be the balance.
As we approach Imbolc in the northern hemisphere, the midpoint between winter and spring, may we honor the grief and desolation of this historical moment while we simultaneously dream of spring and Her arising. Let us honor the Hag of Winter, the Wise One who watches over us as we navigate the cold and storms within and around us. The words of this song were adapted from a poem written by WeMoon poet Sherri Rose-Walker.
Hag of night let me not
Die in the ice here alone
Hag of winter let me not
Die in the night here alone
I am the ragged thorn
Clutching the steel blue sky
Struggling in the iron earth
Sending filaments deep
That they might reach
With tiny searching threads
The living water and the warmth
Let me cohere with stone
The pulse of life slows to their gait
Let me still the beating of my heart
And listen to the windwolves race
Across the sky, moon on their fur
Until somewhere in the dormancy of winter
I come to cherish the alchemy of decay
And the white owl, no friend of the day
Creature of the night soaring high
Open this gnarled heart hidden deep within
Where the blossoms bud, swell and bloom
Harbingers of light from winter days of old
Distilled in the clarity of cold
Hag of night let me not
Die in the winter of my soul
Hag of winter let me not
Die in the night and be gone