St Anne, grandmother of miracles

I prayed the St Anne Novena many years ago - the traditional entreatment of a woman yearning for a man. Yearning for the right man.

I've written before about grandmothers as the wisdom keepers of the village, knowing the character and heart of every young man they had watched grow from a baby. Maybe they had even been at his birth. Surely if you want a good man, you ask a grandmother?

My own grandmother, who managed to break the legacy of violence and choose the kindest of men, became an incredible judge of character, took one look at my daughter's father who was lavishing me with attention and said dryly "that won't last".

I made the chaplet and at the end placed a daisy bead a friend had sent me through the post. A year later I had a daisy engagement ring and matching earrings. St Anne was letting me know she had answered my prayer, in the language of flowers, of symbols.

Who is St Anne?

Mother of Mary, grandmother of Jesus.

Like many old women, seemingly forgotten, but the capacious lap from which all life springs and returns.

I discovered there was a St Anne's well near to where I live. I decided on St Anne's feast day this year, I would go to honour her, give thanks, let her know I hadn't forgotten her miracle and I was trying to nurture it.

My husband isn't a believer but is always happy to facilitate any pilgrimage of mine. The church and surrounding wildlife was breathtaking, like stepping into a dream. I found the well - locked away, but not difficult to climb. There was no water. But there was something. Beneath my feet I could feel the chasm under my feet, like at any moment the ground could give way and plunge me into the underworld womb.

I made my small altar and squatted down. I could feel the spiral energy of my womb and the spiral vortex of the well synchronising with each other. All I want, all I want... is a happy home and family. A prayer fell spontaneous from my lips-

Hail Anna full of grace

thy daughter is with thee

blessed art thou amongst grandmothers

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb

holy Anna, mother of the goddess

pray for us now and at the hour of our death

amen.

What she replied to me remains secret and tucked inside my heart.

It is because of that family that I couldn't stay there forever, and I emerged to find my husband and two children at the church. A poster outside said that the well was buried beneath years of neglect and used to depict St Anne with water pouring from her breasts.

I began to cry. Because I had felt her there and longed more than anything to see her.

Because I knew. The crone isn't a dry well, she is the original abundance. Years of neglect cannot cover her power, although they have tried to bury her. I longed to dig with my hands through the years of mud and uncover her.

We had been driving less than five minutes when we spotted a used books stall by the side of the road. My husband urged me to get out and look, that he was happy to keep driving to settle the toddler to sleep. He would come back for me in five minutes.

I couldn't see much that interested me and was about to turn away when I suddenly heard... look again. I saw then a biography of Bernadette of Lourdes and I opened it to the words "I am the immaculate conception", the message of the apparition of the Virgin Mary.

I have a statue of St Anne with Mary. Anne is holding her womb and Mary is holding her heart. Together they make the heart-womb river, the triple goddess, the Motherline. It settled in me deeply then. The immaculate conception is the womb connection that is passed from mother to daughter and on and on and on.

It took me a few days to read the biography of St Bernadette and I got nearly to the end when I laughed at the answer to my prayer to St Anne. Seems what the saint struggled with the most was a short temper and quick tongue. Trust a grandmother to shine a revealing and unflattering light on what could be the answer to your prayer! It's nearly always changing yourself.