At midnight, snowflakes and the scent of hyacinth cascade through the air.
Propped up onto pillows, my supernatural suspenseful read stretched across my chest, I watch the descending dance of the snowstorm in between my cracked blinds. And here -- as the snow coats the sheets of ice outside and I attempt to stay above a deep-water sadness by thinking about a fantastical plot about a witch dating a vampire -- the perfume of spring envelopes me.
I gasp, and flicker a smile to the gifted Valentine’s bouquet cozied on the corner of my desk.
There’s hope, here, the flowers seem to say.
There’s hope here in the dark of winter, hope here in the uncertainty of an internal winter, hope here in the cyclic phase of the crone.
I drink a long breath in, receiving the blooming fragrance, letting it circle around the heaviness of my heart.
I take comfort in the hyacinth-laced night, in the cradling wisdom of winter, in the ancient bone-knowing of the Crone.
I seek the Crone.
She’s the woman older than time, her spirit lively and humorous, her ways mischievous and mysterious, her eyes all-seeing and clearly focused.
Her medicine exists outside the confined illusions of the modern age, outside the caged logic of the rational mind. Temporary society banishes her –warty and weathered skin, gnarled hands and stormy hair loose and free, she’s who women are instructed not to look at, not to be. But to embrace her, to follow her into the woods and stay curious and attentive to her cackling cosmic teachings, may unlock the subconscious and ignite the star-knowledge written in your soul.
She’s lived, and continues to live and thrive despite being cast to the far-reaching memory of the collective, to the distant outside. She’s gathered her life and integrated her experiences, knows the life-saving importance in laughing and crying, rumors spin that she can fly, and she can hold infinite heart space for all your secrets, shames, stories. She’ll already see them on the first-sight, it’s just up to you if you wish to tell her forthright.
And tonight, I spill my truths to the Crone. She arrives like she did before. She’s come to me during many a dark of the soul, and the first time we met I was trapped in lizard brain, a trauma kept me hovering from occupying my body, and she appeared sitting cross-legged, draped in dress fashioned in dazzling stars. She wore the night exquisitely and exuded a calm that helped me breathe steady and slow.
And at a midnight hinted with hyacinth, I curl into her company. I show up tear-stained, heart-panged, confused and angry. She welcomes me and doesn’t preach or push away my current felt reality. And in her meditative presence, I listen without searching. Anchored into my seat, my spirit sliding down my spine, I do as she teaches and create the embodied space to hear the answers long-whispered now ready to be received.
I do not need to fix my sadness. I do not need to problem-solve, plan, and busy myself in trying to predict the next stage of my life. I can be in winter, be in the snowy cocoon, be with the sorrow and replenish my wise-reaching roots.
I soften my heart to include compassion for my emotional resistance, compassion for my non-compassion, acceptance for my non-acceptance, and I grant myself full permission to cry, and voice my emotions to people who honor them as sacred.
Because winter, the season of the Crone, the death that empties us back into the starlit womb of the abyss, beckons to turn inward, to dig deep and huddle near the quiet and persistent flames of our truths. When I grow still, when I allow myself to feel, and even allow myself to feel the resistance to feeling them, I find emotions eager to elucidate insights that nurture seeds of intention for what life will be after this winter.
For there is the trace of hyacinth mingling with the wonderland whimsy, and the Crone teaches that I can hold them both simultaneously: the dark night and the promise of spring, to laugh and to grieve, to be in stillness and dance with the blossoming snowflakes.