POEM: A Woman Unto Herself

Part 1 of a 6 part poem about the Divine Feminine and becoming a woman

photo by Ari Kuschnir

A Woman Unto Herself 
2020-2021
Schuyler Brown

I. Invocation

Gather. 
Gather yourself and your loved ones. 
Gather your friends, especially the witchy ones. 
And the old lovers, too, you know the ones. 
Gather the fragments of memory 
and your long lost selves, 
(Don’t forget the ancestors with their secret lives.) 
Gather in the carpeted stand of firs or around the fire, 
In moonlit meadows under the stars, 
In the pergola by the pond where the willow sways. 
And gather the hems of that heavy skirt you no longer wear, 
but can still recall. 

Look.
Look around you right now.
This is the new temple. 
This view, this room, this body. 
Whatever it is. 
However tired you feel of it. 
However lost you may be. 
However far from home it may feel. 
This is the temple, the mosque, the church, the sacred grove. 
All of this scorched earth is calling to be consecrated. 
Not by the priest or the bishop. 
(Nice men, but wholly unprepared for the task.)
What is rising is beyond 
their permission or jurisdiction.
Yes. We are the ones to consecrate now.
We will sprinkle the holy water from glacial lakes and puddles of rain, 
From our own blood, sweat, and tears. 
We are the ones to call every bit of this place holy and mean it. 
Once all the world was sacred. Now again it must be so. 
We will start right here.

Wake.
Wake from the slumber that shuts off experience.
Wake from that sleep of death.
Wake from the trance of industry that burns your fuel.
Wake from the trance of unworthiness.
Wake now. 
You will be busy sleeping
when the lightning shatters the dome of your mind.
A rude awakening to be sure, 
but straight to the point.
She comes for you.
In the dark you will try to orient, 
but nothing will be in its place...
Not even you.
No eyes, no nose, no ears, 
no tongue, no body, no mind.
Gone. Gone beyond. Gone way beyond. 
In the distance, wild cackling...
With some effort you find your feet.
When they hit the stone floor, 
you find yourself running
through the castle, to the tower.
Not running away this time, 
but towards Her lair.
When you find Her, 
she is more hideous than you feared,
but also smaller and more human.
Not knowing what to do 
but acting from the heart,
you embrace her wretched form.
You pass this test. 
She dissolves into you,
granting you all the power in her possession: 
primordial womb, void moon, and the depths of winter.
That darkness is full of surprises!
At dawn you rise
twice the woman you were the night before.
This is what integration feels like.

Listen.
Listen to the call of the Goddess in her myriad forms…
A housewife in the suburbs begins to sing 
to the music of the Sirens.
A struggling actress masters her emotions 
with The Empress in the front row.
A mother recovers her sensuality 
drunk on the perfume of Venus.
A female executive stops selling all she values
by claiming the power of The Priestess.
In a cab headed to the airport
A woman watches downtown fade away;
marveling at the mighty skyscrapers.
She is lost in thoughts about power
when the Goddess appears 
as a reflection in the window
Kali Ma, Durga Ma, Isis, Ishtar, Inanna...
Their face is fierce, fearless, and open.
The woman watches light
overwhelm the structures of Wall Street,
like a giant moon.
Her own features transposed in the image
until she can no longer tell who is the goddess
who is the woman and who is the moon.
A promise enters her mind stream then,
Compassionate and determined:
I will help you become That.