Love And Consciousness

My femininity

Is not a gift he gives to me.

It exists in the dance

Between Love and Consciousness

As I make my body softer, make my breaths slower

As I listen and move to my inner song.

There is a man who is as silent as a sunset

And I thought I needed all the words from him

Like so many men before-

"Can't live without you, can't bear the thought

Of not getting to touch you"

So desperate for sweet nothings

In place of a real something

(The truth, I am indescribable)

When what I needed was to be witnessed

So I could sink further into tenderness.

I am a tornado of wanting

I am a well of love

That will draw you into the deep

From which you drink and taste life.

- Jenny Wren

The First Frost

"Can't let no outside world touch Mary's ground." - Marie Babineau, The Birth House

Devotion has been my word of this last year, I recently realised.

What are you devoted to? What do you serve outside yourself? What keeps your feet walking straight along the crooked path? When things get difficult, what steers your ship?

In the story of the Holy Grail the magic question is asked - whom does the Grail serve?

My devotion to Our Lady has me standing in the cold grass, has me excavating my heart for what it is I truly want, digging through the soil to find what is old and real and true, has me weaving spells of prayer and pausing mindfully throughout the day. I bear my swords with a humble pride and I always want to do better, to see with more love, to remember that it is all that is real.

I am devoted to initiation, so much so that I am holding myself back. I believe in the wisdom of the body over what can be learned in a book. I believe in this wisdom helping others cross over being irreplaceable. Like The Chariot in the Tarot, I want to charge forth and speak about what I know. Just as my freebirth gave me the fulfilment of my heart's deepest truth and calling for me to carry out into the world, I have not yet been cracked open in the way I need to be, to lead in the way that I want to. This frustration fills my body and encourages a surrender and a patience.

And yet - I have a lover I am devoted to because he carried me across the battlefield of one of my worst creations and has earned it a hundred times over.

My friends who have taught me so much about unconditional love, I am devoted to them. How we navigate sharing our thoughts and feelings in a world that is increasingly polarised never fails to blow me away, how we grow each other's patience and acceptance daily. How we show up with love and humour whenever possible. And a deep acceptance.

- the first frost

Animal All

My womb opens with a cry and a shriek

This dark November night.

I felt the labour pains wracking my body and gripped my own hips this evening

Like I would do for a mama.

Doula to myself

As I drank tea and ate birthday cake.

Pip said,

I didn't look in pain, I looked strong

"With you sat like that, hands on hips

You look like a woman

Ready to be the boss."

I am ready.

My womb today

Is the Morrigan thundering across the battlefields of Ireland

My womb today

Is Kali Ma crowning Shiva.

We of the old ways know this is no gentle birth

She is his death bridging into life.

I have felt not of this world for days now

Wandering in the darkness of the moon

And as the pains grip my body

It suddenly hits me

A freezing cold night

Exactly eight years ago now, the pain portal

Through which I journeyed to meet God.

To the boy and to the blood,

Who pass through my body like holy storms

Eight years apart, though time itself loses meaning

In a cycle within a cycle so deep

Oh I longed for you

I longed for you.

My womanhood flows through fertile soil

In rivers of red, dark, damp, death

And through you I am reborn.

I said to my lover I thought I was more than half animal

Now this body reminds me I am animal all.

- Jenny Wren