Oh Best Beloved, let me tell you a story about Morgaine, how she got lost and then found her way home.   This story is not in the book – you will not find it there.  

Do not look to your book.  

Instead it is written in the hearts of awakening women everywhere.

Tell me, My Peach, does this remind you of anyone you know?

Once upon a time and only yesterday, in a place just around the corner from tomorrow there sits a woman, Morgaine, at her home office desk.  The morning sun shines in through the window and makes her squint at her computer screen.  A dull throb in her head keeps beat with her heart.  She feels the tightness of her pants button around her waist and the bright warmth starting in her belly.  “Hot flash,” she thinks, and then corrects herself.  “No, Power Surge.”  In the back of her head the lizard brain flicks its tongue, says “PFFFFFFT.”  She sees her wry smile reflected in her computer screen, thinks of ducktaping the lizard’s mouth together to see if it will just. shut. up.

To her right is a bookcase full of old journals and well-worn books on art, writing and keeping-on-keeping-on.  To her left are books “for Dummies” that she is using to build her business – the one she is passionate about, the one that she has waited to start for decades while she was a Mom to her kids, a daughter to her parents, and a wife to her husband.  The one she promised herself as she trudged to the corporate job she thought she would love and then hated for years.

On the computer screen are numbers and charts and goals with features and benefits.  She wonders about SEO.  From her heart she hears:  “Isn’t this just more of the same?  Haven’t we already done this?  Is this all there is?”  Then she hears a kind of keening.  And she realizes that she is the one making the noise.

If there were a clock in the room, My Wylde Woman, My Beautiful Plum Blossom, it would tick loudly.  But, Dear One, I am a modern story teller and so on the computer screen the minutes slide silently away.

Morgaine takes her hands from the keys.  She reaches for the round white stone with flecks of shiny silica that she keeps on her desk or in her pocket or, sometimes, under her pillow at night (but not that often because her Pugs like it too and will off with it and hide it away).  She breathes in and thinks of the sun-warmed river bank where she found it – a day outing with her daughter and grandkids – the eagle sighted overhead, the blue heron they surprised, how they were in turn surprised that it’s voice was such an ugly croak, the smell of hot seaweed drying on the shore.  She breathes out.  And puts her head in her hands.  “Just for a minute,” she thinks.  “I will take just this one minute.”  On the computer screen the minutes slide silently forward.

The woman in front of her has grey hair, a crow on her shoulder and fortune cookies in her hair. Morgaine is taken aback, recognizing her namesake, the triple goddess Morrigan in her crone guise.  “There weren’t any fortune cookies when you ruled,” she says to the figure.  And thinks, “Wow, she is dressed totally Boho.  How cool is that?!  I want those boots!”  

The Crone holds an intricately ornate box with gold hinges and a clasp adorned with diamonds and rubies. It is perfectly square.  In fact, it appears perfectly perfect, constructed with great care, tight as a drum – impervious to light – made safely securing the contents from any outside disruption.  She lifts the clasp and opens the box without a sound to reveal  a thick red leather book with gilt edging. On the cover, burned into the leather is the title: “By the Book:  All the Rules You’ll Ever Need”.

Grinning, and with a wink of her eye, the Morrigan blows gently on the box.  It splays open like some Magician’s toy, made to fall apart at the tap of a wand.  To Morgaine it even looks as if the outside was made to deceive the eye, the actual construction made to be responsive to the gentlest touch.

While Morgaine is occupied studying the realities of the box, the Crone opens the book and starts tearing out the pages one-by-one.  She tosses them into the air until she is engulfed in a blizzard of paper and print.

 Catching Morgaine’s attention, she speaks in a voice of tree rustle and brook song:  “Do you understand?”  

White light falls down on the woman like rain, red light like fog rises from the ground – where they meet they spiral.

The Morrigan reaches into her hair, pulls out a cookie and hands it to Morgaine.  The cookie begins to crack open, and …..

Morgaine stirs, sees an angry swarm of mosquitos rise up in front of her then jerks awake, reaching for her phone alarm to turn it off.  She is groggy, looks by habit at her calendar to see what the alarm was for, sees her afternoon full of running here and there.

Outside, the sun is hiding behind rain clouds as she tries to grasp the dream that is floating away.

She thinks, “Wait!  WAIT!”

She thinks of the White Rabbit and being late, late, late.

She thinks Year of the Water Snake and how snakes shed their skin time and time again and doesn’t know why she thinks of that.

She thinks that she is really mixing her metaphors and her Master’s facilitator would take off points.

She thinks, “I am tired of points.  I am tired of numbers.  I am tired of never catching up. I am tired of no time. I am tired of never taking care of me. “

Fumbling for a marker, she finds the red one with the wide wide nib, and crosses out her afternoon schedule.

She finds herself waking up.

Across a flower-shaped blue post-it pad she pens:  Write your own book.  Then tear it up. The answer is not in the book.  Live outside the box. Follow your passion – your heart will lead the way.  Thinks “Change”, thinks “Fierce“.  Thinks, “There are others like me.  I will find my tribe.” Notices the silence of the lizard brain.  Feels smug.

Placing the post-it in the middle of her afternoon calendar, she grabs her old journal, the one she never finished, some colored pens and broken crayon stubs, and goes out to meet the coming storm.

Ah, My Goddess, my Dragon Woman, My Awakened Daughter, what if I tell you there are no rules, would you make your own?

Want to find your own white rock with sparkly chips?  Want to see eagles, hear the Great Blue Heron’s voice and maybe even play with some broken crayons?  Want to make space for your own fairytale?  Join me on my upcoming retreat and let me prepare a space for you to do just that!  Discover the power of community, shared creativity and time to be.

See you there?