I am walking along a forest path. It is dusk, and the light through the trees is turning purple and blue. My steps are steady, unhurried, as the earthy smells of moss and decaying leaves fill my lungs.
The path leads me to a cave shaped like a yoni. This is the womb of an ancient mother mountain.
I step inside and the air is warmer, moist, and the walls are soft. I follow the spiral path to the center and sit down, waiting.
Breathing deeply, slowly, my heart beating in rhythm with earth mother’s.
Out of the misty forest, a being emerges.
Wise Woman approaches me, silver hair in a long braid down her back, her staff supporting her steps. Her black eyes are vibrant with life energy.
“Are you Hecate?” I ask.
She cackles and says, “That’s one of my names.”
She kneels down and starts a fire instantly, warming her hands, and then runs her left over her hair and the silver turns to black.
“Some call me Morrigan.” She adds, looking back at me, her face less aged and features sharpened, hawk like.
Night has fallen. We sit in silence, simply being with the fire, the cave, the night.
Wise Woman stands up and tells me, without words, that she has some gifts for me. She holds out an ornate box, then opens the lids to reveal three glowing spheres, swirling with different colours.
The first, on the left, is pink, white and gold, and as I reach toward it with my left hand it bursts into a white feather that floats into my palm. Once holding it, I see the metal nib, and realize that I’ve been gifted a quill.
“To express yourself fully, from your heart,” is the message.
The middle seed is tinted green, and as I reach for it with my right hand, it transforms into a green snake that slithers up my arm and coils around my bicep. I love snakes, their movement and medicine. I remember wearing snake arm bands as a priestess lifetimes ago. This gift affirms my past-life memories yet I feel trepidation of its meaning.
I’m aware of the connection with snakes and the Priestess temples of Crete in ancient Greece, and even earlier with the Isis cults in Egypt. What is being asked of me if I commit wholeheartedly to this initiation?, I wonder.
Once again, Wise Woman “speaks” to me without words:
“Feminine power“ is this gift. Embody it. Honour it. Lead with it.
The last sphere, on the right in the box, swirls with blue and purple. It does not immediately take form. I see a larger crystal, a small gem, then something the size of my fist. I keep looking and holding it as it shape-shifts, and it finally settles into a ring, set with a sapphire blue gemstone. It wants to be worn on my right middle finger.
When I ask to reveal the meaning of the gift, I receive the word “nobility.”
Nobility? Not like the oppressive monarchy, but to live with integrity, to have noble qualities and ideals. I feel myself sit up taller while also bowing my head in humility at receiving this.
After holding my three gifts for a time, I am guided to fully take them IN me. The ring and snake are already where they are meant to be. I ask where the quill belongs, and of course, it is my heart.
Intuitively, I raise my left hand, bare my chest, and pierce it open with the nib to absorb the quill. It is exquisite to be penetrated like that – seeing both white light and black ink spilling from the quill into my heart, and feeling both joy and sorrow. I feel the Light and the Shadow, love and fear, as well as remorse at my procrastination in writing.
In that moment I vow to honour my gifts for the highest good of all. To not let myself slip into fear and resistance.
I sit by the fire with the wise woman and thank her deeply. She touches my heart, my arm, my hand, looks at me tenderly and brushes a tendril of hair away from my face. Then she throws a pinch of dust into the fire which extinguishes it and she too disappears into smoke. I am left in Great Mother’s womb cave, in the dark velvety night.
If you'd like to go on a guided journey like this, I have a 30 minute meditation with Great Mother Goddess on my YouTube channel.
Blessed be!