Beltane is just an eyelash away.
One Beltane 21 years ago, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl with rosebud lips.
This Beltane will be the first time that I no longer share a roof with my baby girl (and her sister too). The boat of the Crone has come through the mist to stop on my once comfy shore, where my old home is now too big for me, thus niggles me with daily discomfort. The Crone asks me to embark. I get in the boat, and she pushes it away from the shore. I cry for a long time. She silently guides the boat onward.
We land, and somehow there is only one of us in the boat. She is me, I am her, the Crone. But I am still the Mother that I once was too. And I am still the Maiden I was once as well. I am a triple goddess now, and it is jarring: I don’t know what to do, what to think, even how to be. The first page of this new chapter throws my off balance. My mind lays fallow and I just breathe.
The three of me ascend up to a small loft with a crimson wall. A wooden Buddha sits quietly, bathed in the crimson. He looks up at me, and smiles. The loft feels like a red tent temple, nested in a canopy of maple trees. The salt lamp in the corner casts a warm glow, as does the wood stove over by the small couch. A fancy stainless steel electric tea kettle hums on the kitchenette counter, its electric blue “on” switch twinkling at me like one shiny blue eye. Through a French door awaits a tiny white bedroom with sheer white curtains that barely diffuse the southern sun. An inviting puddle of sunlight spills across the white down comforter on the small bed. An egg-shaped moonstone rests on the nightstand. I hear it whisper to me “Welcome home.”
Outside in the driveway, there sits the little silver car of the man that owns this property. The license plate reads “Zeus.”
So this is where the next chapter begins. I like it!
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Quick -Beltane 2012 is an eyelash away: it is time to make the Triple Goddess Elixir of Beltane! Attached is herbalist Susun Weed’s recipe for a spring vinegar for women. I am going to use it on my salads this summer. (It is actually an ancient Chinese recipe that calls for maiden/chickweed, mother-wort, and crone-wort, and apple cider vinegar – see attached recipe sheet, or go to http://www.susunweed.com ) I find the maiden and the crone outside my door at work, the mother I find out by Zeus’ compost pile.
The three of me are all here, and always have been. Wisdom might be setting in…