Meeting the Dark Crone

Exploring the dark waters of the soul that long for decomposition. The journey of becoming compost for new growth.

This tale ties in to my musing about the medicine of winter that comes through for us to receive. Read that piece for a richer context of the energy I touch upon here and that is embodied within these frigid descending nights.

Here we meet Analowin 

~Analowin is a name that was given to me by the crone herself, embodied in her ravenous reaper aspect. She is who I speak to/through now~

Hear the ancient rumblings of Madam Crone, unwinding from her nest. She has laid to rest thousands of times before and unravelles herself again and again to shriek the calls of chaos. Shaking off bark and stone that have carved into her wrinkles. Wrinkles as deep as the rivers of the world are abundant. Her eyes as fearsome red as the ember that burns in the center of the sacred fire. The all-seeing eye of creation. Her laughter caws like a crow calling upon a corpse, in celebration of a tasty meal. She is an old one, you can tell by the way her back is hunched over, holding soaring mountains upon her shoulders. Her bones crumble in a way that resembles stardust. Forever on the journey of returning to the stars. That is her path. To be one held in the in-between. She is the ravenous death-dealing crone that poses the true test of FAITH. That invites full surrender into the unfolding of the spiral. She says, “It is easy to trust when life is beautiful and bright. Yet how does your faith persist when it is shaken by destruction?” She is the intensity of crumbling down, back into soil. She says, “Make me soil so I may grow”. She is comfortable within this unravelling. She knows it well, for she is the keeper of this sacred death. The tender of its burning flames. A being amidst an unwinding, right before the thread strikes a new stitch. How do you stand in the face of fearsome disentanglement? Analowin appears in front of you, blood-drenched, eyes crazed, holding your very own severed head in her hands. The dark waters of the soul stir, to reveal the other side of light. The dark. 

Are you afraid?

Gruesome, indeed. Yet that is her medicine. It is fucking brutal. Or it can be anyway. If that is what is needed. See, her medicine is not aimless destruction and death with no end. Her dealings serve. And they serve love. The severed head in her hands is all of you that was not meant to be any longer. The parts of you that were not really you. In this way, she reveals you to your true self, and cuts away all falsehoods. She is the great lifter of the veil of illusion. Through her flames of chaos emerges the light of truth. Of all that you are meant to become. Her destruction is the medicine of recalibration. Pushing you off a path marked for another and steering you back to your own. She says "Do not be afraid, there is nothing to fear". She is the great love of creation itself, born in the flames of chaotic assemblage. Sometimes the work is messy, ugly, disgusting, when one has so deeply stitched themselves into the web of their own illusions. She steps through the doorway of the underworld, wearing her cloak woven with the threads of the night sky, holding the torch of faith, and shows one the light in the endless darkness. She is in service to the alignment with truth, and she meets you at that end through any means necessary. 

In another aspect, her form is that of the great mother, eternally compassionate, gentle and nurturing. Yet her energy is all-encompassing, which means that her counterpart is the goddess of the underworld. The nourishing giver of life and the ferocious dealer of death are two faces of the same energy of creation, the essence always being that of loving guidance. Depending on what is needed for the soul's journey. These are the ways of the spiral. The dance of creation. The unfolding of the soul. These expressions exist outside of our arbitrary concepts of good and evil. They simply just are. Where there is one there must be the other. Divine counterparts that show what is through what is not. All are deeply important to the whole. Living beyond the threshold of our own judgements of them. They are much older than us and our ideologies. Analowin is the necessary destruction that nourishes rich soils of evolution. 

There is a prevalent detestment of all things uncomfortable in this day and age. Make everything as smooth and clean as possible. While it is a blessing that many aspects of life have become more easeful and abundant, this desire for control has risen so much that people have grown up their whole lives never seeing a night in total darkness, never seeing a sky light up with stars, never hearing the coyotes howl on a cold winters night. They light up the night in the name of safety and generations grow up not knowing the nourishing hands of the darkness. They grow scared of it. The darkness becomes something dangerous to escape, to keep at a distance. This is a physical imprint of an energetic expression. The lack of acceptance of the night is a refusal of all that she holds. The nourishing night that quiets the mind and sharpens the senses. The winter winds that blows newness and rejuvenation. The life that crumbles down to bring forth a wild dream of the heart. To be illuminated with the light of truth when the truth ain’t pretty. 

Uneasiness with these aspects may also be glimpsed perhaps in the sun chasing mentality. Sure, there is something to say about people desiring to “escape the winter”, yet I wonder how many are also trying to escape the medicine and challenge that winter invokes. Yes, it can be and is uncomfortable. AND so deeply nourishing in such vital ways. This is also seen even within….hmm what to call it…. "woke”, or “spiritual” communities. Okay, let's go with that. Within those communities that preach all light and love and positivity. And not only bypasses the real lived experience of simply being a human on earth, but also tricks the communities influenced by it into thinking that's wrong, that they need to ascend into a pure being of light that feels nothing but love. Oh dear. That is not what the HUMAN experience is about babe. 

Sometimes the real work actually looks like descending. When you don’t evade that truth, what is needed is a decomposing back down into compost. Spreading out upon the soils of your soul to nourish the new growth. Being taken by the earth, in the good ol' ways of being taken, rough and dirty. Roots wrap around flesh as one is buried in the earth, held in a womb of darkness. Like the unravelling of a mushroom trip or the wild birth of a baby. Like sitting in the belly of the beast, being annihilated by stomach acids and shat out something more true. Because that is the journey of the decent. To be disentangled of all that is not you. And gathering up all those pieces that are, restitching them bit by bit to weave again something whole. It is the process of Remembering. Coming back home. Down the staircase you go, deeper still into the heart of the underworld, one meets the goddess of decomposition herself. She gives you your own severed head to show you all that you have overcome to find your way back to your self. You overcame the beast of doubt. You met the angel of faith. You have been reminded of where your truth lies, and how firmly your faith persists. That is a gift delivered and kept safe deep inside you. Her garments are stained with the blood of untruth. Without this journey of descent, the wedge of duality deepens. I am good and you are bad. I am worthy and you are not. Blah blah. All working of an illusory force of deception. The dark waters stir even more wildly to be seen. 

The Crone meets us here, as the night awakens. The north winds blow, bringing a chill to the air that is her very breath. The icy fires of deliverance. Through her, we learn to embrace the full spectrum of the human experience. As we sit with the goddess of death we see more sharply the expanding light within us. That is her gift and guidance. Leading us to ourselves through the journey of the decent. Sometimes the journey is sitting with the goddess upon the prye and watching your life burn. From those ashes, you are rooted deeper and spiral higher. The Phoenix rising from the ashes of its own dismantling. 

These are the teachings of the spiral, the goddess, the wheel of creation. That honours WHOLENESS, not perfection. That celebrates TRUTH, not beauty. That embraces the DESCENT. That embodies LOVE. And this love is as bitter sometimes as it can be sweet. Here we are met with our spirit in true unity. 

An ode to the liminal days of the in-between 

Interested in some of my other pieces? Check them out here.

Pain as Catalyst for the Soul

Guidance as a Pillar for Wholeness

Stories of the Ancestors

An Ode to the Soul