On the stage it is always now; the personages are standing on that razor edge, between the past and the future, which is the essential character of conscious being; the words are rising to their lips in immediate spontaneity The theater is supremely fitted to say; “Behold! These things are.”
The Razors Edge by W. Somerset M.
This got me thinking about the continuity of an image. An image can fly around through many cultures and not really be understood, even though it sometimes carries great meaning, wisdom and insight.
Hudley Watercolor
As an older woman I find nothing in my current culture to affirm what I am going through, which is menopause. I look at the celebrities and they all practice yoga and get plastic surgery. Most of them all look the same. When I look at ancient or archaic cultures, I see women statues of big bosoms and round behinds. Some are smiling like Sheela-na-gig while holding their vulva’s open for all to see. I get confused.
I cannot talk to my mom because she is dead. My sister raced through menopause due to chemotherapy, so she does not really have to play the waiting game; something a woman goes through, wondering, what in the hell is going on?
(I must say in retrospection that both my mom and sister had their own suffering and were waiting to attend to with what they went through. It is different. I don’t know if either of them wondered about menopause like I do now?) All my grandmothers are pretty much dead or beyond reproach. I do not have a real tradition passed down to me. No old women sitting around the campfire telling me their wisdom women stories. So, I went looking.
My education is rich, and I have studied many cultures. Mostly it is the great erect patriarchs, histories, and mythologies, which are floating around in my brain. Occasionally a matriarch pushes a couple of men out-of-the-way like Cleopatra or Inanna the Sumerians Goddess; but this is rare. The Thirteen Grandmothers of the ancient Native American culture are extremely helpful, yet not really something that has overwhelmingly screamed to my ovaries.
I have found that it is a bird that has come to initiate me into my lost women mysteries. The owl has been with me all of my life, even when I was growing up on a wild hill in Woodland Hills. I remember hearing the hooting of the owl at night. I recall seeing a white owl in my twenties in Whittier while taking a walk on Easter day.
I remember the two owls perched on a tree at the medicine wheel gathering in Santa Rosa. The medicine man told me not to look at them.
“I would not look up at them very long, they are very powerful beings.”
Their eyes were like molten lava. Their image burned in my brain.
At home I have a plastic owl on the tallest metal racks in the kitchen. The kind of owl you see in gardens or on tall buildings to keep the others birds from pooping on someone’s property. The owl is looking outside. At night I can see it’s reflection on the widow looking inside at me.
I have been studying the Eleusinian mysteries for many years trying to understand them. Yes, this mythology is a good one. The archaeology is fab and it is as old and ancient as women. It isn’t telling its real mysteries to a patriarchal culture. I am only finding out now that the owl does have a story to tell by these mysteries.
I have learned that in part of the Eleusinian mysteries women would wear large coins on their heads. They would tie them on their heads and drink fermented drinks as part of the initiation. The image on some of these coins is the owl. I studied this ancient image and then I rendered this image on paper with my own hand.
This got me thinking about the continuity of an image. An image can fly around through many cultures and not really be understood, even though it sometimes carries great meaning, wisdom, and insight.
Who first saw this owl? They saw it, drew it from their imagination, and then a coin was created by casting the metal into a mold. This is the process of seeing, imagining, and creating.
Is it by chance that this image has flown from antiquity onto my wrists as tattoos?
Is there a place where the old women still meet around an ancient fire?
Is the continuity of an image as an owl, the ancient symbol of female initiation, my participation in this waiting game known as menopause? Is an ember of the fire still warm and are the ancient women telling me now their stories …if I take the time to listen? Or am I only melting into goo on the floor, that will soon petrify and with time fly away into dust?
My favorite post from the past fourteen years. I dedicate it to Saturn, the song below highlighting a classic song about love and life. It explores our strengths, limitations, and Saturn’s softer side, which I am learning to appreciate. At times we must be determined, vibrant, and set boundaries for ourselves. At other times we realize that love has its own boundaries too. Somehow there are songs and poems that explain this so well, at least to me. My life lived is a witness to these things.
“Do you know the land where citrons bloom,
Golden oranges glow among dark leaves,
A gentle wind blows from the blue sky,
The myrtle is still, and the laurel stands tall?
Do you know it well?
It is there! – there
That I would go with you, my beloved.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It was a strange time of learning. Unfamiliar faces as if I were in a dream. English, statistics and singing all blended within my brain and heart; expanding me from the inside out. A certain composer found me and expanded my heart even more.
A man who experienced joy and suffering, and like me, did not try to shy away from either one. I still to this day turn to his music, for it is only he who understands the darkness of the soul. This is how we met.
One day while in the university library I was deep in study. Sitting cross-legged I pulled my leg out and knocked a book shelve. A book fell to my lap. I looked at the book. It was a biography of Hugo Wolf.
“What a strange name?”
For a month I was overtaken by his life. His music and lyrics opened a strange long-ago world for me. His crazy passion for life thrilled me.
He adored the composer Richard Wagner and wrote music for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s lyrics. I did not really have to know what the music was about because my heart already knew.
One story I remember reading about him is when he was living on the street. He was extremely poor. He was sick and starving, yet he carried a large object around with him. It was wrapped up in cloth. One day a dear friend saw Hugo on the street. He asked his friend to his home for food and a place to sleep.
The friend asked what he was carrying. He told him that he had lost everything, and this is all he had left. He carried it around with him and never left it unattended to. Hugo unwrapped the object. His friend saw that it was a large breast of a man. It was of the great composer Richard Wagner.
And to the one song by Hugo Wolf that escapes me….
Holly said to Bear,
“Did you ever notice when you close your eyes and look up at the sun that you can see a mandala? Red and orange colors flashing out in bursts of color. It reminds me of a Mosque. A vast ceiling in my eyes. This is what I am thankful for.”
The sushi restaurant was not open on Turkey Day. My son called earlier, and no one answered the phone so we thought we would drive by and just see,
“Maybe they will be open?”
We planned to do this a couple of weeks ago.
“Na, it is dark. No one is there.”
My son continued to drive on while we decided what else to do.
“Well, I cooked up a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and yummy pan gravy at home. How about just going back home?”
“How about Coco’s or Niko’s restaurant?”
“Ya lets go to Niko’s!”
Niko’s is a coffee shop that we have eaten at many times over the years. We know most of the workers there; it is down and homey to us.
On the way there I was having the holiday blues. It was nice to get out of the house for a drive.
The streets were easy except for one slicer, which is a car that races in and out of the other cars without signaling.
I looked up and over and saw a bus with only one passenger at a bus-stop getting out.
“Hey, look at that guy on the bus all alone.”
“Don’t forget the bus driver!”
“Ya…, I see him too.”
Kentucky Chicken’s was open on Topanga Blvd. with a few people eating there. I also saw a few older people walking the streets. I felt a lonely freedom in my heart.
We drove past Coco’s, and it looked open and packed.
“Should we stop?”
“No let’s go to Niko’s.”
We drove up, parked, and walked up to the restaurant. I saw the host getting menus ready for us.
“Good evening.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” we all said. Then we sat at a booth.
Our friend the waiter greeted us. We gave out smiles and said our greetings. We really like this guy because we have known him for years and he makes the best smoothies.
“I’ll have a third eye.”
“What is that?”
“It is mango, carrot and banana…”
We all gave the drink a try, and then the youngest son said,
“That is what I love about Niko’s they make the best smoothies and they put all sorts of things in them that I would never eat. They make it taste so good.”
I smiled at my son as I ordered the chief’s salad. He ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich. He powered down his hot coco already. I knew this meant trouble due to lactose intolerance, but hey it is Thanksgiving. My oldest son got his usual gyro sandwich.
We talked about friends, astronomy, and family. I left as the oldest son began to finish the youngster’s sandwich off.
“Sometimes you just got to let it go.”
“Why? I am hungry and it is Thanksgiving…everyone eats too much on thanksgiving.”
It was a world of mostly boys. It was a time of the real Mad Men. I was born in the 1950s. All Thanksgivings, until I was in my thirties, were celebrated at the same place every year. Uncle Royal and Aunt Louise lived on a beautiful farm in Orange County California. Acres housed pomegranates, tangerine, and avocado trees.
As kids we ate all of them until our hearts content. Knots Berry Farm was only a few miles away, being a small amusement park, where we would chase chickens around before they were caught, butchered, and fried up. It was a country fair more than the multi-media corporation it has become today.
Turkey was put into the oven early and mom did most of the cooking. Louise always baked up her famous mini-pumpkin pies. She put in all the pie ingredients together so whimsically fast before you knew it a warm pie tin was in our hands.
The most delicious pie I ever had. It was because her crust was perfect; I think this pissed off mom because she never could get a good pie crust down like my aunt did. Louise talked while she baked until your head felt like it would explode.
I had a huge family of realities that came to dinner. The adults played poker after the meal was over. It was not family poker it was nasty ruthless cards. Dad was not the only one to get rip-snorting drunk, but he was most likely the loudest.
I remember once he danced like a Native American in the kitchen, as Royal made up his famous hot-buttered Rum cocktails. We would follow dad around mimicking his moves to the irritation of my mother who knew he was plastered; at the time I thought he was just having fun. Maybe it was a little of both.
Royal always had a glint in his eyes while smoking his cigar. The night held sounds of quiet, then yelling depending on the hand of the game. The kids outside played kick-the-can, or sometimes we threw tangerines at passing cars, while hidden in the large branches of avocado trees; hearing knocking at the door while panting with older cousins but never confessing to the accusations of these strangers whose cars showed the damage.
Mom always made time to play poker with the men. Sometimes I rested against her warmth while she silently played the game.
Thanksgivings are much smaller now and Turkey is not always invited. This year my two kids and I are going to go out for sushi. It is hard to believe that the freedom I feel now is based on the control of a family long ago, but it is true.
It was nice to be part of such a big family then, but I like it much better now. I think I will smoke a cigar this year in memory of Uncle Royal and Aunt Louise.
As I smoke the cigar I will watch the smoke whirling up to them, imagining where they are with the great mystery of death, and similar to the inspiration of a Native American Indian prayer I will evoke their spirits in gratitude by saying,
“Thank you Louise and Royal for the memories, and for the old farm-house with the steep slanted stairs that led up to the room where Grandmother haunted us kids! Thank You for the delicious Turkey skin, mashed potatoes and stuffing galore. “
Happy Thanksgiving to family and friends….
The contraies of life …
Yesterday my husband and I went to Sports Chalet. We were looking for birthday and Christmas presents for our kids; stuff like shirts, pants and boxing equipment was on our list. Our youngest needed a rolling backpack. The books he carries are killer heavy. With all the fucking back problems I have now, making it easy for him makes me a good mom with foresight. Goddess knows I have too much foresight and often I keep it to myself. Occasionally it is good to help others with this gift but too often they don’t want to hear it, as in the other day.
While we were looking through the rolling backpacks, we noticed one that had a warning sign on it.
“The material used in this particular backpack are known to cause cancer.”
Though this particular roller backpack was cool, we put it aside and found another. As we were checking out from Sports Chalet, which was a relief for me cause the music on the PA and my thoroughly shopping husband were both about to push me over the edge, I noticed a man and his son buying the warning cancer roller backpack,
“Well should I tell them, do you think they looked at the tag?”
“Don’t waste your time.”
I felt that foresight thing come up into my heart. I just had to say something to this man.
“Sir did you know that product has a warning tag on it?”
He looked at me as though if he had a gun he would have killed me.
“I am quite aware of this, and I think we will be OK, we have a bigger chance of getting cancer from the air we breathe.”
“But the material is what causes cancer?”
“We have a better chance of dying at the next Holocaust then dying from this product!”
“Let’s hope so!”
He seemed very agitated that I even spoke to him, but his child listened, and I feel I might have gotten through to him.
“What a jerk, you were right John! Why did I waste my time.”
I was feeling hurt and angry. My husband’s foresight is better than mine in some cases.
This experience was as painful as the other night at our local pub. It was punk rock night. We strolled in to get a couple of brews, listened to music, and saw some friends. I sat through three bands. I turned my back on them; I threw coasters at them. When they asked for a beer I said,
“I’ll pee in a cup for you!”
He heard me because he responded with,
“Well at least that is recycled beer.”
This was the only thing all three bands said that night that was worth life itself for them. Yes, I hated their music and for what they stood. I love punk but when you have youngsters saying, “Darby Crash” and “Minor Threat” in a few minutes and then hear,
“All women are bitches, whores, cows…”
“You realize that they are not punk rock. This is not even funny,
“It is sick!” I affirmed loudly to the air!
They may be stupid rock, moron rock or even mimic wannabe-punk fucking dumbass rock, but not good old’ punk rock. All three bands came together and the crowd in the pub were their lost friends in space only. This time I was not nice.
I threw my delicious Newcastle bottle at them and hit one of the band’s drums. No one was hurt it was a throw if you are a stupid asshole throw. To wake up the nowhere marbles it their heads.
Then I stood up and gave the finger. I looked over at our friendly toxicologists and he was putting two hands up in the air. Out of respect for him we left.
In conclusion, being nice can turn out to be the wrong thing to do, especially when what you do… doesn’t mean a thing.
Throwing a bottle may be the wrong thing to do but if it means everything… for Goddess’s sake throw it…!!!!!!! For me it was the right thing to do.
“The more unnatural any thing is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration… But if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes?
Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we were born-a world furnished to our hands that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance?
Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are this thing, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to us?
Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator?”
Mom’s Rose Watercolor by Hudley Flipside
The above quote is written by Thomas Paine taken from his pamphlet The Age Of Reason. It is in reference to his ideas of Christianity as a mythology. In this time of “prepping” for the end of the world, I find myself comforted by the words of Thomas Paine.
What a brilliant and honest mind. His unique innocence is clothed as an adult with a knowing that prevails in his writing, as he writes,
“My own mind is my own church.”
If anything is to come in the days ahead , I hope like Paine, that we as human beings will let go of our religious mythologies.
If not forever, maybe for a while. See the real world around us as the continuity of nature. That feelings of love and acts of integrity and honesty are the best that we have to share with each other. To be grateful for a drink of water or a smile from a friend or child.
We are our own church and we hold our own truths; it can be a beautiful childlike innocence-a purity of our childhood that is ever-growing with us into our adulthood as something honorable. We are our visions and our inspirations.
In Jr High I had a certain kind of power that I never really accessed. Call me stupid or that I had a common unconscious decency, I never used it like some women did and do. Purple bell bottom hip huggers and waffle-stomper boots with a pretty elastic top gave a clear view to my exercised midriff. We were innocent and happy adolescents. One day while walking through the school yard towards the auditorium this song by Argent played on the school radio before a dance. I looked around and Brad Hodges was laying back looking at me. His mouth was open. He was in a trance. I walked by and felt the power I had to arouse a man. Even with all the complications of peer pressure, low self-esteem, and pre-teenage confusion, I will never forget this song or the power that Brad awoke in me that night.
Living in Van Nuys in the 1990s was difficult because we endured isolation, discrimination, and frustration, but we were a family and had each other and a college community that supported our goals. In those challenging times, the struggles we faced seemed overwhelming; however, it was our unwavering bond that kept us strong.
While navigating the complexities of life in a less-than-welcoming environment, we found solace and hope in the connections we formed with others who understood our plight.
One call from Los Angeles Valley College’s daycare center changed our lives forever, opening doors to new opportunities and pathways to success that we had previously thought were out of reach. The support from the college community became a lifeline, empowering us to dream bigger and work harder toward a brighter future, filled with possibilities we never imagined.
Los Angeles Valley College
Van Nuys California is the place for mothers and their children. Driving through this city you will see lots of mothers pushing their strollers around. It is a busy city and a dirty city. Restaurants, laundromats, and discount stores line the streets. When I was seventeen, I used to cruise Van Nuys Boulevard with my friends. We listened to music and looked for boys and had lots of fun doing it. It was a teenager ritual that started back in the 1950s.
I never would have believed then that I would end up living in Van Nuys for seven years on the second floor of a tree fort apartment. We lived in a Latino community, and we felt isolated. Yet, when our son JF started to go to school we made friends and soon blended into the community.
I loved going to the Russian produce store near our apartment where we could buy fresh herbs and vegetables. They had giant buckets of fermented coleslaw, tomatoes, and pickles for sale. Each Christmas the owner gave my son a Russian bunt fruit cake covered in dry fruit and as hard as a rock. Next to them was the Italian deli where we purchased feta cheese and olive oil.
We lived off of sixty dollars a week for food which was doable in the mid-1990s. Occasionally when my son and I saved our pennies we would go to Jack in the Box for some hamburgers and French fries. The toy from the kid’s meal brought so much joy to my child that life was extremely sweet.
Our tree fort apartment only faced another apartment on one side, otherwise we had windows all around us. We could look out and over the world below which was mostly asphalt, noisy children and gangsters often rooming around. My son told me that there was a tree he could see from his bedroom window. (We all sleep together in one bedroom)
He enjoyed watching the seasons change while watching the tree over a year’s time. On sweltering summer days, we went on walks through nearby residential neighborhoods. We went looking for sprinklers watering the lawns and ran and danced through them. Magical as it was for my son and I to share, I dreamed of having a home of our own someday. There were many pockets of people with different identities and communities that lived around us that at times seemed foreign and odd to us.
John, my husband, had a dead-end job working for a furniture restoration business down in Los Angeles. We only had a large old green monster van to get around with. Most of the time my son and I took the bus, or I pushed him around in a shopping cart.
Back then in my desperation to find a job or go back to school, I put my son’s name on a long waiting list for daycare at Los Angeles Valley College’s Day care center. It was only a few miles from where we lived. Unexpectedly they called me, and it changed our lives forever. Within a day’s time I had my son sign up for daycare. I also was signed up for twelve units.
I had all the financial aid I needed to attend school. Within a year I talked my husband into going back to school. He majored in science and then earned a degree in Respiratory Therapy It was a dream come true for us, and due to the government financial aid programs offered to us, John went on to find excellent work, and I went on to continue my education at Cal State University Northridge.
When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them. All is made new everything becomes sacred.
~Sun Bear
Betty MaCusic’s husband was a nuclear physicist involved in the top-secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which he revealed to her only after it was used in war, profoundly affecting her perspective and psyche. They later divorced, leaving her life irrevocably changed.
The Orange Warriors / Painting By Hudley/ Holly D Cornell
1990 Betty and I met at a little coffee shop in Rochester New York. She was drawn to my stick figure tattoos on my left arm which looked like Native American Kachinas.
“Are those Kachinas on your arm?”
“No, but they do look like them. They are actually a design I created.”
I was having a cup of coffee and some apple pie. I asked Betty to join me. We talked for a few hours about life. I was new to the east coast, and she had lived there for years. I just turned thirty and she just turned seventy. It seemed like a friendship that was predestined to happen. We had many common interests. Two of them them being an interest in Native American spirituality and art.
Betty talked about politics, spirituality, and architecture. As her life unfolded before me, I was amazed to find out how beautiful and emancipated she was, and how tragic her life had become. She was a teacher, mother and grandmother but was now unemployed, divorced, and distant from her grandchildren. She had lived on the street when she did not take her lithium.
Yet, during the short time I lived in New York our friendship grew and continued years later even after I moved back to California. Writing letters was still an art form then and we wrote to each other for many years. She would send me index cards with special quotes on them to inspire me.
While living in Rochester my white ford sedan took us on rides along the Erie Canal and into local wine country. My car was purchased on the east coast, so I had snow-tracker radial tires and windshield wipers that sprayed a special solution to stop freeze build up.
One trip that I especially enjoyed with Betty was to the New York wine country of Naples. It was very cold during November and the farmland and vineyards were bare. The hills seemed to roll on forever. Some of the farmland and hills went through forests and over rivers.
I remember one hill being very steep with an amazing view that looked over a frozen lake covered with snow, but even with my snow-tracker tires we almost went over this hill. I was new to driving in the snow. As I was making a turn, I put on the brakes too fast, and the car did a 360 and then slid to the end of the hill …very slowly. We almost went over a 30-foot cliff.
After surviving this trauma, we drove silently for some time on our way back to the city of Rochester. We stopped off at an apple farm on State Victor Route 444. In the middle of this large apple farm was a friendly barn converted into a store where products of all kinds were available for purchase. Anything and everything pertaining to apples that is, even bee-apple honey. A big barrel was set up on a country table that served the most devious apple cider I ever tasted; perfect to take off the cold chill of the autumn day and near-death experience.
I wrote this poem on 8/8/88. The mythology and symbolism define a change, a pull that moved me onto another path. In that moment, I felt the weight of transformation bearing down on me, a force urging me to embrace the unknown.
From music and wild ways to a new life. It did happen. Those wild days filled with spontaneous adventures and unbridled creativity laid the foundation for where I stand today. The rhythm of life shifted, bringing forth a desire for something deeper, something more meaningful. Through the chaos, I discovered clarity.
Now when I look back, I am amazed at the internal movement this poem captures. The words echo the sentiments of my journey, embodying the struggles and triumphs that accompanied my growth. Today, it holds immense value, reflecting a pivotal chapter in my existence, and this is why I am sharing it. It serves as a reminder of the paths we traverse and the resilience we cultivate as we evolve.
Athena holds me to her bosom, dear, a sullen tear, I reply in fear.
Alas her Owl comes from the west! Calling me to take me from my nest!
Stir me up, shake me, I stand naked, as nothing.
And her tear drops, I saw it, to the book here, I am reading.
Alas she cries for all imprisoned women! Pregnant and within her presence.
Now, I want to die, where could I go?
Death would not hide me from her! Inspire me, Aphrodite with love tonight.
I love her, in myself be true! Please say it is alright, lie with me this night.
My tent is up, my lantern lit, all upon a hill.
I have my medicine staff, as snake crawls up, my mythology dream stick self.
In all my dreams, I never knew, A woman would bear-up my child.
Yes, that tear that fell, will be my watering growth.
The Owl, my wings, shall fly the west, the east, the south and north.
The snake on staff will crawl up, coiled then straight and fire blown.
Athena and Aphrodite the two stars, Together, moon beam shine upon me.
This time I will not shy away, this time I bring you birth, I know you know,
“Mine Krater” be filled this night.
And Persephone smiles in the morning East saying,
“Ah look, there flies the Eagle!”
Poem by Hudley Flipside 8/8/88
The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics …to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indications of taboo.
~ Ursula K. Guin
Halloween and Day of the Dead, the next six months are all about autumn and winter, which is the dying and the silence of nature. This is symbolic in some places of the world more than others. I know that while living on the east coast in Rochester New York I distinctly experienced this pulling in and introspection of the seasons, this brings me to Persephone.
In Greek mythology she is the daughter of Demeter who is raped by Hades king of the dead. A godly deal is made between Demeter and Hades. For 6 months of the year Persephone lives with her mother above the earth during spring and summer, and for 6 months during autumn and winter she lives with Hades.
Even though she was raped this is what the Gods agreed too.
Stencil by Hudley Flipside
“She held the keys to heaven and hell.”
~ Elysium, Tartarus
Before Persephone was raped by a patriarchal culture that created this Greek story, she was queen of the underworld, destroyer and a great crone. My favorite image is of her wearing a black robe while stirring a cauldron. She has many names and Hecate is one of them.
Persephone is part of the turning triangle also known as the triple goddess Demeter: virgin, mother, and crone. If we break down the meaning of the word Demeter, we have meter “mother” and “delta” also known as “the letter of the vulva.”
Orphic mystics worshiped Persephone as Goddess of the blessed Dead.
“And now I come a suppliant to the Holy Persephone, that of her grace she received me to the seats of the Hallowed” Persephone answered” Happy and blessed one, thou shalt be god instead of mortal.”
Much of this information is passed on historically through the study of the Eleusinian mysteries. They are focused on the Homeric hymn to Demeter where Persephone plays her part especially at this time of the year. She is the older woman or crone.
This above introduction to Persephone is a way into my personal relationship with her. I am now walking towards the way of the crone. This particular autumn and winter are special to me because I am starting the walk of “Eleusis” or the advent towards the mysterious feminine where a doorway is opened to me. This winter is a full year since my womb became silent. Symbolically I see myself as a multi-colored-darkened flower that once bloomed, but now faces downward ready to fall towards the earth. It is a sad time but also a time of great change and power. I can feel it.
What I am experiencing parallels, as a synchronicity, with the current autumn and winter of 2012. I am sure that there are many other women walking this path now as well.
I do not find many stories about what I am experiencing which is why I am sharing my story. To find and nurture another or inspire and affirm with another… is my hope.
I am not ashamed of the subtle calling that pulls me on; it is an ancient one that I share closely with other women and my dear Persephone.
On my blog I have put up an image of an Owl. The image is taken from an ancient Greek coin used in the Eleusinian mysteries. Women involved in this ritualistic mystery wore these large coins on their heads. I am using my rendering of the image in a different way.
I am creating my own personal ritual by having the image tattooed on the top of both of my wrists. I will do this in the next two weeks as an action that symbolizes my personal journey in becoming a crone.
Since our culture ignores this part of a woman’s life, I found I needed to create this ritual and to bring forth my knowledge of Persephone and the owl as a cumulative experience.
March 2016
Five years have passed. Life is feeling normal again. I lost both parents and went through the worst of the worst. I visited the underworld and received help from a Jungian therapist to walk with me on my dark journey. ‘Art, writing and poetry’ is the healing force that pulled me into a new world. I embrace the triple Goddess within myself.
My libido is different. I see the world with new eyes. Life, pain, fear, love, desire all are different as new friends. I need less. I am close to nature and the elements. It is beyond words. Life is still challenging at times especially growing older. I do not feel alone and continue to work with such mysteries.
I am another woman who is initiated
bless all the women as well
before me and after me.
For this is the advent of the Eleusinian mysteries!!
Hudley’s Tattoos.
Sources: *The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara G. Walker: *The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols by Adele Nozedar: *Eleusis, Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter by Carl Kerenyl.
A. Sachs,
When I pass, speak freely of my shortcomings and my flaws. Learn from them, for I’ll have no ego to injure.
Aaron McGruder, Boondocks, 07-04-04
