This temple is my church
These trees are my cathedrals
This ground is my alter
These walls are my skin
Oh women, sitting before me, cloaked in Mystery, I hear the quake at your centre.
I will not silence it!
I see you, oh woman. The One, unafraid of her sacred rage. She roars. She seethes. Salivating from the truth infused in the marrow of her bones. Eruption deep inside her molten womb, she spits the fire of loving destruction into the Centre, giving permission to light the Holy flames inside myself.
Oh woman, I see you. The Priestess, married to the moon. Hair, grey and silver, cascading lifetimes of stories and wisdom from the stars above and the dirt beneath her feet. Her eyes glowing like fire flies, arms reaching out beyond time and place, catching The Call of my hearts longing in her hands, and releasing it, to be kissed by the wind.
Oh woman, I hear you. The Elder, her mouth parched, and her voice so thirsty for the time to share what has remained unnamed, untouched for so long. Sitting in the ache of her heart, she speaks, and I feel the world crack open and the dormant primordial pulse of the Old Earth beats again. More. She speaks, more. And more. The lines on her face like rivers, curving and flowing with tears, flooding my soul with a love long lost. Her crooked hands cupped gently in her lap, so humble, so powerful. I bow down, in reverence. You are my Queen.
Oh woman, I see you. The Young One, yearning to be seen, and to meet the eyes of the women. Letting go of the weighty grip of hesitation, and the hot mess in her chest, she leaps, for what seems like the first time. But her tongue, her tongue is like Scripture, laid buried in the desert, in hiding. Words of heaven and earth, mud and sky, of dusky shadows and divine light. She is a thousand years old. She is the rising current of the Deep Feminine, embodying the ancient mysteries born out of the Great Mother from the bottom of time. We return again together, oh blessed Sister, pillars of this sacred place. I stand with you, in service.
Oh woman, I hear you. The Truth Teller, so free. She sits still and calm in the belly of the sacred groves, waiting, waiting for that moment, to wield her holy sword of divine severance, cutting to the heart of all things. Slicing it all wide open, leaving a bottomless canyon of spacious love. I will no longer swallow my truth, because of you. I can breathe again and walk in love.
Oh woman, I see you. The Wild Woman, eyes wide she dives. No-one can stop her. No-one can contain the vastness of her wild heart. Wet and messy and naked, she wakes with her face towards the sun, and wades with the arc of the moon. She dances to the rhythm of the clay between her toes and sings a constellation of stars. I am beside her, hip against hip, howling at the magic around us.
Oh women! I see you. All of you. Every magnificent piece.
Because of you, I can see the fullness of myself
The quiver in my voice
The rage in your eyes
The grief in my shoulders
The joy in our smiles
The longing in our hearts
The craving in your voice
The tightness in my throat
The ache between my thighs
The tears in your eyes
You are my mirrors
The echoes
reverberating down the red thread
that binds our warm womanly blood
I am the young
I am the old
I am the tamed
And the wild
I am the rage
And tenderness
I am the misguided
And I am the truth
I am the known
I am infinite Mystery
And once again
I am back here
on this hallowed ground
encircled by these trees
breathing in the magic and power of you all
the women I’ve sat within these temple walls
I thank you.
Dreamt and forged on the night of the New Moon, July 2021. Beside the warm, purring hearth of our home, the winter wind howling outside, this poem would not let me sleep until it was spoken through my tongue.