It’s coming…wait for it

In a few short days, Winter arrives!  This is my season.  This is my time.

As a child of Southern California, I never knew anything about winter until one year when the boy I loved at that time drove us up Mt. Palomar and into the heart of winter.  Cars were stalled and stuck all along the highway, and the chains my boyfriend had in the back of his Ford Pinto Wagon were too large for the vehicle’s small wheels.  Still, we stopped and helped push several stranded travelers out of the drifts, then descended the mountain to have hot chocolate at a tiny local cafe.  I’ll never forget that evening.  People stared at me.  People always stare at me because, frankly, six foot women aren’t all that common even in Southern California.  But I knew they were staring at me that night for a reason that had nothing to do with my height.  They felt – as I did – my oneness with the season.  Surround me with snow and ice, and I’m in my element.  My inner fire glows.

There’s a blizzard warning on part of the Southern Plains tonight and, oh, how I wish it was headed my way.

Come Winter!  Come snow and ice and chilling winds!  I embrace thee, as you embrace me.

This is MY time.

The Season of the Witch

It’s a good time of year to be a witch.  This is our time to shine, especially if you fall, as I do, into the category of “Crone”.

Most of our era’s religions and their resulting cultures discount women once we’re past the age of bearing children.  Youth is everything.  Youth is sexy and desirable, and women over 40 submit themselves to surgery, poisonous injections, cancer-causing tanning rays, and a hundred other devices in order to maintain the appearance of youth.  Why?  Seriously…WHY?

In Paganism, women reach their full potential and power when they step into the role of Crone.  Childbearing is behind us.  We no longer have small children wandering into our private times at night when we’re engaged in personal acts of sexuality or ceremony.  Our rituals – sexual or otherwise – have the richness of experience and the serenity of confidence attached to them.  We stand bold and full of our wisdom as women.

Winter celebrates this time for us.  It is the Fallow Time.  It is the time when our strength is at its apex, when we stand in our robes of silver, touched by frost and embracing the stillness of the season with perfect beauty, perfect wisdom.  We know the Spring will come again.  We still the restless hearts of the young and assure them that their time will come again.  Buds will burst forth.  Foals and calves will take their first stumbling steps upon new grass.  Eggs will hatch and the sun will break forth in what is now a sky of solid gray. 

But before that happens, before Spring comes to place us in the role of grandmother, midwife and healer, let the Crone enjoy her reign.  We have the wisdom the world aches for.  We embody serenity and patience.  We have passion under our hand and can unleash it at will.  We are the goddesses of old.

I embrace the streaks of silver in my hair.  My son is a warrior on the field of life, no longer wanting or needing my worried fussing.  The young come to me for advice and I’m confident in giving it.  The man beside me has winter hair and the settled, puckered scars of a youth well-spent.  I’ve never loved life more.

I have arrived.  I am the best of Woman.